> Well, in Throne of Blood Kurosawa did MacBeth with
> Shakespeare's words, and it's the best MacBeth ever
> filmed by a long mile. He also did King Lear (Ran),
> probably the best Lear filmed
I haven't seen these, but aren't these thorough re-workings of the legends, with settings in different times and places? This shlocky film Tristan goes straight back to the medieval legend as if there has not been a giant artistic leap since then.
> walked out of Parsival, thinking that Nietzsche was
> right about it
Nietzsche was wrong about "Parsifal," because he didn't take the time to even learn much about it because of his personal spat with Wagner. Nietzsche wrote something to the effect of Wagner falling back on Christianity, sitting weeping at the foot of the cross. But this is nonsense, because "Parsifal" is only superficially Christian (there's talk of a "redeemer," but Christ is never even mentioned), and its Schopenhauer-derived philosophy of renunciation (this time sexual renunciation -- in marked contrast to "Tristan & Isolde" which affirms the ecstasy of sexual love as a way for the lovers to renounce the world) is actually closer to Buddhism more than anything else.
Wagner was in many ways Nietzsche's mentor and probably had real influence on Nietzsche's views of ancient Greek drama (Appollonian and Dionysian, etc.); Wagner in turn liked Nietzche because the younger man was an educated classicist and professor who gave Wagner credit for his philosophical insights and understanding (which were pretty good, even though he was an amateur). But RW by this point had a lot of other acolytes as well, and did not often think of other people's feelings; he had a falling out with Nietzsche when he wrote to Nietzsche's doctor that he thought Nietzsche's medical condition was a result of the younger man's "onanism" (which I am told could have been interpreted as either excessive masturbation or homosexuality in 19th-century Germany, and I'm not expert enough to say which). So FN's later ferocious attacks on RW were the result of an intense personal feud and not any real deep thinking -- or at least no deep thinking that could be explained without reference to the personal feud. I have read that FN actually reacted positively to "Parsifal" when he finally did hear the overture, but he let the personal feud color his public writings on the subject.
Note that I am in no way saying that this episode reflects well on Wagner, who was such a supreme narcissist that he no doubt had no idea that he had hurt Nietzsche's feelings. By all accounts RW could be immensely charming (e.g., his dramatic gifts extended to performance as well as writing and music) as well as nasty and vindictive -- I think that this (in addition to the musical invention, which is unsurpassed) may be what makes his work so attractive, namely that he poured so much of himself into it, quite shamelessly and unselfconsciously, too.
"Parsifal" is often misunderstood, in my view. There are "racial" readings as well, which -- despite RW's notorious anti-Semitism -- seem anachronistic to me, colored as they are by the later actions of his repulsive descendants (Houston Stuart Chamberlain was one of his posthumous in-laws, and his posthumous daughter-in-law Winifred literally provided the stationery on which Hitler wrote Mein Kampf). "Parsifal" was actually banned in the Third Reich.
Doug Henwood writes:
> Can't stand that Italian stuff - too melodic
You should give them more credit -- or at least more credit to Verdi, who was a real master. "Otello" (another re-working of Shakespeare! -- but it's consciously based on Shakespeare and not on earlier Othello stories, of course) is quite unlike most Italian bel canto.
> I love Wagner for the odd harmonies and proto-
> atonal melodies.
I am not a musicologist, but there are debates about whether Wagner can really be termed "proto-atonal." Most musical analysts argue that even "Tristan" is fully within the tonal realm. Wagner could only be called "proto-atonal" in the sense that Hegel could be called a "proto-Marxist." But no one would do that; I don't think it fits.
- - - - - - - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
Tell no lies, claim no easy victories