Aaron, not such a "bad guy?"

After class on Wednesday, I was thinking about a lot of things we talked about in class. (It’s sometimes a long drive from Stritch to Oak Creek, giving me time to reflect.) I always like coming to class and hearing everyone’s ideas about what we have just read/watched, and best of all I love how people’s opinions vary so much, mostly on the ideas of Aaron. When I watched the same scene that we watched in class at home, I really didn’t feel sorry for him at all. The entire time I watched it I was thinking, “Good, he is getting what he deserves,” but than in class my mind changed a little bit and I was having a hard time deciding whether or not I sympathized with Aaron. As I watched the scene in class, having Mike and Jay’s opinions in my head, I started thinking that Taymor wanted us to somewhat feel bad for him. Like many of my classmates said, Aaron is the only character we see that is true to his self and is “real.” I started feeling sorry that all these men were around him ganging up on him, I was thinking about the point Jenny made in class, we don’t know what was done to him it could have been just as bad or worse. So I thought that everything that he did might and could be justified, if we saw the other side of the story, and since we never will, I think I’ll agree with Mike, you, and Jay and stick to being on Aaron’s side.

I can already tell that reading Titus is going to be interesting. I am glad that we are taking this approach towards it because it makes it that much more interesting. The only thing is though I was having problems in class trying to decide if it is a parody, if it is pastiche, or campy. I was on the campy side of the room and I agreed with the pick that Jenny shared (Titus killing his son right off the bat) was somewhat campy. I thought that because, when I read it, even though it is a serious part, I still laughed. It just seemed so random and over the top that’s the only reaction I could have. But I also think that it could be parody, because I think William Shakespeare would do something like to make fun of the other revenge tragedies. I also think it could be pastiche because maybe he really enjoys the revenge tragedies and wants to “celebrate” them. I think right now it’s to hard for me to tell, and maybe it will be this way through the entire play. I do hope though that I get a sense what Shakespeare was really trying to do. (I doubt it though.)

While working on the acting Thursday in class, I realized how much work has to go into the acting and performance. Before Thursday I had never heard of blocking before, but it makes sense. While watching the other groups go I saw how big of a difference it makes when a person is standing in a certain spot or what kind of facial expression they are making. If a person had their back to me while they were talking it was harder for me to pay attention, and if a person wasn’t making any facial expressions it was hard to know what they were feeling. Now that I am aware of this I will definitely keep it in mind if I end up acting or helping my group members with their acting because, I know the difference it makes.

There is a scene in the Romeo and Juliet movie that I kept thinking about in class when we were discussing the film adaptation of Leonardo and Claire. The scene, with Leonardo, showed all three things we talked about, facial expression, body language, and voice, very well. The scene was when Romeo finds out Juliet is dead. (I think in the book it is act 5 scene 1.) Balthasar tells Romeo that Juliet is dead and first his facial expression is the look of shock, and then his face scrunches up and he begins to cry. As he begins to cry he falls to his knees in a very dramatic way. Finally, when he first finds this news out his voice begins quietly and when he falls to the ground he faces the sky and screams his lines in anger. This scene is a great example of film adaptation for me. (At least after I got past the fact that Leonardo looked like his character in the movie What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.)