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It's had a very dramatic effect.
It has greatly improved classroom discussion, for one thing.
That's probably been the most wonderful thing that's happened for me.
Especially in a large G.U.R. class where students want to hide out in the back and be silent.
The film clips have really drawn them out and involved them in critical debate, in critical thinking going on.
Especially as they think about issues of context.
About how one scene in a Shakespeare play is related to another scene in a Shakespeare play.
How things are interconnected.
Sometimes I pick scenes to show them which I know are contrasting and that will evenly split the students,
and it's really interesting to see them line up supporting one clip versus another clip.
For example, in "Midsummer Night's Dream", Theseus who's the Duke of Athens,
he starts the play by wishing that time would go by more quickly until he can get married to Hippolyta.
Hippolyta was the queen of the Amazons who he's just defeated in war.
And he wants to marry her after having defeated all of her followers and her people.
He says, "Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword."
"And now, won thy love doing thee injuries."
The BBC version of this production is really interesting because it shows Hippolyta while Theseus is saying these words,
it shows Hippolyta as moving around the stage like a caged animal.
She's prancing back and forth.
She looks like she wants to do anything but get married at this moment.
And she's shooting Theseus looks of contempt.
And so students like to notice that, right away that,
she is not responding to this language, but in fact, very much rejecting it.
And that's really important.
How is it that a character is reacting who's being spoken to.
Students as readers, they have to get used to imagining not just what a particular character is saying
but what are the other characters on the stage doing while one character is speaking.
On the other hand though, I showed them a Royal Shakespeare production, directed by Peter Hall,
and in this production, Hippolyta is dressed in leather, very 60's,
and she is sitting in a garden surrounded by grass and by flowers,
and she is in a very natural scene and she is very much moving her lips in response to everything Theseus says.
And she's puckering her lips, in fact.
And she is drinking every word that he says.
So is Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons, who has just been overthrown by Theseus in war?
Is she happy about the situation? Is she not happy about the situation?
How do students feel that Hippolyta should be represented?
And students tend to line up evenly for one scene, one film clip, or the other.
And that produces really good debate.
Other times I like to show two clips that are contrasting where I know students,
the majority of students, will hate one clip and really love another clip.
For example, in "King Lear", when King Lear says,
in response to Cordelia, his third daughter who is rejected,
his desire for her to state her extreme love for him.
When he says, "Nothing will come of nothing."
In Paul Scofield's production, King Lear is very still, very old.
He looks like he's about to expire at any moment.
You think that the scene is so static and there's so little movement that,
you would think that King Lear is barely going to make it through this very scene.
On the other hand, in Laurence Olivier's version, his really great version,
King Lear is both tired but also very, very much alive.
And Olivier brilliantly shows forth the life in King Lear's face when he says, "Nothing will come of nothing."
You get the sense of real regret that Lear has about the situation as it's developing.
The students really like the second production, as I do myself.
But what's interesting is for me, in the role of the instructor, to come back and say,
"What's positive about Paul Scofield's?"
Also, a very accomplished production.
What does it bring out about the scene that students will not have noticed?
And what it does, for me first and foremost,
is students tend to identify with the young Cordelia and they tend to be very critical of the older Lear.
And what I have to do is try to get them to question their assumption that whoever is older, is necessarily negative.
And to get them to think about the fact that Shakespeare is actually trying to get us to be....