Monday, November 21, 2011

Withnail and I

Hamlet has been really influential on Western culture. I saw Withnail and I last week and it's one of my new favorite movies; it's about a failed actor his roomie, a struggling actor, and it's hilarious. It's an English comedy and George Harrison produced it (Harrison also produced Monty Python; he took a mortgage on his house to do it, and without him Monty Python would never have existed.) This is the final scene in the movie where Withnail, finally realizing he's never going to be a lead actor, drunkenly delivers one of Hamlet's Soliloquies to caged wolves. In some ways this is kind of a crazy movie; watching this scene wont ruin the ending or anything.

Anyway it's interesting to me that Hamlet references are still popping up in modern culture.

Don't know if anybody's ever seen this movie/cares but this is the trailer:

3 comments:

mere said...

That's honestly pretty funny. I love how the wolf kind of just walks away. I looked up some other pop culture references. Supposedly the Lion King's plots and themes are inspired by Hamlet. I can see it...

ParkerC said...

Shakespeare is pretty popular and it doesn't surprise me that their are movie references. In Billy Madison, he recites the to be or not be speech. I didn't know that was a famous quote, but I remembered that part of the movie very well.

Shaina Lu said...

I really like how the song Mrs. Quinet sung was in Billy Madison!