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This programme contains
some strong language.

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Language is one of the most amazing
things we humans do.

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It separates us from the animals,

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gives us theatre, poetry and song.

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It shapes our identity

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and allows us to express emotion.

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It makes us laugh, it makes us cry,

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and it inspires us.

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To be or not to be...

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Sync and corrections
www.addic7ed.com.

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Fry's Planet Word. Episode 5
The Power and the Glory.

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When language
reaches its highest state,

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we give it a name that's terrifying
and irritating to some -

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literature.

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In this form, it gives us voice,
personality and history.

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All literature does, really,
is tell our story

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and how to do it justice
in one hour?

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This programme isn't about
literary criticism,

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or deciding who makes it or who is
left out of the great pantheon,

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nor is it about history.

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So it's just going to be
a very personal journey

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and probably you'll disagree
with my taste, which is fine,

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because there's really
no right or wrong here.

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What I'm going to try
and explain to you

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is why certain writing
makes me shiver with excitement

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and why some makes me want
to bury my head in my hands.

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But more of them later.

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First, let's just step back
and see how it all began.

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<i>This is Turkanaland
in north-east Kenya,</i>

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<i>not far from where it's believed
homo sapiens originated.</i>

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<i>The Turkana are a fiercely
independent tribe of pastoral nomads</i>

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<i>whose existence is dependent
on their livestock.</i>

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<i>The menfolk spend much of their
spare time and energy</i>

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<i>planning and then raiding cattle</i>

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<i>from their neighbouring tribe,
the Toposa.</i>

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<i>Understandable, as cattle
are the currency to buy a wife</i>

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<i>and then keep her in beads</i>

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<i>that are both decorative</i>

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<i>and a measure of her wealth
and status.</i>

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♪

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♪

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♪

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♪

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This is where it all began.

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Under the shade of trees,
around fires the world over,

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people telling stories
of derring-do,

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love and disappointment,
of being and becoming.

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Here, I'm listening to
an extraordinary tale

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of how the people went on a raid

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against their wily, wily opponents,
the Toposa,

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and stole off their cattle.

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♪

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♪

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♪

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♪

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It may not be the Trojan Wars
but it has its elements of heroism.

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Of course, they could just as easily
be telling stories like...

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how the stars got their shine,
or why camels have bad breath.

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There are many, many stories, but
supposedly only seven real plots.

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<i>At a most basic level, a good story
needs plot and character.</i>

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<i>So let's deal with plot first.</i>

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<i>According to some, they boil down
to just these - the quest,</i>

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<i>rags to riches, comedy,</i>

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<i>tragedy, rebirth, overcoming
the monster, voyage and return.</i>

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<i>So Hamlet, or its Disney
incarnation The Lion King,</i>

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<i>is an archetypal
voyage-and-return plot</i>

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<i>wrapped in a revenge tragedy.</i>

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<i>But does such thinking even help us
navigate our way through literature?</i>

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William Goldman,

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regarded by many as the pre-eminent
Hollywood screenwriter of his time,

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double Oscar winner,
he should know a thing or two.

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Or maybe not, because perhaps
his most famous remark

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about the Hollywood story mill
was that "Nobody knows anything".

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The story itself, I suppose,
depends on something human.

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It depends on caring about
one or a group of characters,

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or about some sort of principle
like revenge or a quest?

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I mean, is there any truth in this idea
that here are basically only seven plots?

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No, I don't think so. I think,
basically, some, I mean, I just...

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for my sins, I looked at a movie
that I wrote, Marathon Man,

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many, many years ago
and that was based on two ideas.

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One of them was, what would happen
if someone in your family

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wasn't what you thought they were?

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And the other one was,
I was walking on 47th Street,

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- which is still there... - Yes, the
Diamond District. - The Diamond District.

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And it was a hot day
about 40 years ago

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and all the people that worked
in the Diamond District

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were wearing short-sleeved shirts

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and you could see all the terrible
marks from the concentration camps.

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- Cos they're all Jewish. - They were
all Jewish and they were...

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- Had their tattoos.
- Had their tattoos on.

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And I got the notion,

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what if the world's most-wanted Nazi
was walking along this street?

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And then I realised
I couldn't figure out why he came.

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And then I...
cos I'm very good on story,

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I realised he was coming
because he needed heart surgery.

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And then I thought,

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asshole, what kind of a villain
needs heart surgery?

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Yes! So I came up with the notion
of the diamonds years later

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and thank God for Laurence Olivier.

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I know that man.

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It can't be...

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Szell?

103
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Szell?

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Szell!

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Szell! Szell!

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My God, stop him!

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Szell! Stop, Szell!

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It's Szell!
Szell! Der Weisse Engel!

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Der Weisse Engel is here.
Oh, my God. Stop him.

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Stop him!

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Der Weisse Engel!

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And that scene still works.

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Oh, it does. "Der Weisse Engel.
Der Weisse Engel."

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So is the secret,
if I can squeeze the secret out,

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is don't try and second guess
the genre

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that's most popular at the time,
don't try and conform

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to some apparent rule
of storytelling,

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go with your gut about...

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Yes. You've got to try and find
something that you can make play.

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For example, in all the years
I've been doing this,

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I've never done
a special effects movie, you know?

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People say,
"They're on a spaceship and..."

123
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I can't write that shit.

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Other people can but I can't
and what you have to try and do

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is you have to try and
figure out some way

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to make something work that you have
confidence in when you're writing it.

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I was reading about the man
who wrote The King's Speech.

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He had a stammer when he was a kid.

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I mean, who in the name of God

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thinks there's going to be
a successful worldwide movie,

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that wins every honour,

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about a king who has a stammer?!

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It's the worst idea I've ever heard,

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- but guess what? It was
a fascinating story. - Yeah.

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- Yeah.
- It really was and it works.

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I suppose you can trace
storytelling, in our culture,

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all the way back to that blind hero,
supposedly blind, Homer.

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One wonders from what
you've said about Hollywood,

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if you went with the story of
the Odyssey, or the siege of Troy,

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having said which, they made
a movie about Troy,

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so maybe Homer still plays.

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Well, I remember I was young
when I read those two...

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And they just destroyed me
and I remember,

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I had no idea what I was getting into
and I just couldn't stop reading it.

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I think those fabulous people...

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are fabulous for a reason.

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- Yeah. - There's something,
I'm going to say something stupid.

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They were great at story.

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- Yeah. - I mean, Homer really
had fabulous stories to tell.

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Do you see, you gods of sea and sky?

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I conquered Troy!

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Me, Odysseus,
a mortal man of flesh and blood

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and bone and mind!

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The Mediterranean is the landscape
of Western literature's first,

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and some would say
most influential works,

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Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

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They have a magnificent plot.

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It features sexual obsession,
kidnapping, loyalty, man love,

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jealousy, war,
heroism and deception,

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all wrapped up in the greatest
road movie of all time.

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Well, a road movie on the sea.

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<i>The Odyssey recounts
the exploits and adventures</i>

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<i>of the Greek general Odysseus -</i>

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<i>Ulysses in the Roman version
of the story -</i>

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<i>as he tries to get home
after the Trojan Wars.</i>

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<i>It is filled with
fabulous encounters -</i>

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<i>whether with the Cyclops,
Circe the archetypal femme fatale,</i>

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<i>or adrift on drug-induced
happiness with the Lotus Eaters.</i>

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<i>Homer's genius was to create vivid,
archetypal scenes</i>

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<i>that transcended time and place.</i>

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<i>The Sirens' episode
is only a few paragraphs long,</i>

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<i>yet it has become embedded
in our collective memory.</i>

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<i>On his way home, Odysseus must pass
the rocks where the Sirens live.</i>

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<i>No-one has ever lived
to tell the tale</i>

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<i>of what it is the Sirens sing,</i>

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<i>as their song is so powerful,
it lures men to their death.</i>

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<i>But Odysseus is intent on hearing it
and surviving.</i>

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"I took a large round of wax,

179
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"cut it up small with my sword

180
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"and kneaded the pieces
with all the strength of my fingers.

181
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"I took each of my men in turn
and plugged their ears with it.

182
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"They then made me a prisoner
on my ship,

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"by binding me hand and foot,

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"standing me up
by the step of the mast

185
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"and tying the rope's ends
to the mast itself.

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"We made good progress and had just
come within call of the shore,

187
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"when the Sirens became aware
that a ship was swiftly

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"bearing down upon them
and broke into their liquid song."

189
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" 'Draw near', they sang,

190
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" 'illustrious Odysseus,
flower of Achaean chivalry,

191
00:10:51,520 --> 00:10:55,240
" 'and bring your ship to rest
so that you may hear our voices.' "

192
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"The lovely voices came to me
across the water

193
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"and my heart was filled with such
a longing to listen that,

194
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"with nod and frown,
I signed to my men to set me free.

195
00:11:09,936 --> 00:11:12,755
"But they swung forward
to their oars and rowed ahead."

196
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"However, when they had rowed past
the Sirens and we could no longer

197
00:11:19,583 --> 00:11:22,885
"hear their voices and
the burden of their song,

198
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"my good companions were quick
to clear their ears of the wax

199
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"I'd used to stop them and
to free me from my shackles."

200
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<i>And of course we never learn
from Odysseus</i>

201
00:11:41,395 --> 00:11:43,880
<i>what that Siren call sounds like</i>

202
00:11:43,915 --> 00:11:46,000
<i>but we know what it means.</i>

203
00:11:47,360 --> 00:11:48,925
<i>Two millennia later,</i>

204
00:11:48,960 --> 00:11:51,565
<i>James Joyce reinvented that scene</i>

205
00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:56,360
<i>and, indeed, the whole plot of Homer
in his masterpiece, Ulysses.</i>

206
00:11:58,520 --> 00:12:00,240
Look at that pair acting up!

207
00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:09,160
<i>Homer's Odysseus is reincarnated
as a Jewish Dubliner, Leopold Bloom,</i>

208
00:12:09,195 --> 00:12:12,497
<i>whose contemporary encounter
with the Sirens</i>

209
00:12:12,532 --> 00:12:15,800
<i>was considered in its day
deeply shocking.</i>

210
00:13:00,920 --> 00:13:03,485
<i>David Norris is not only a Senator</i>

211
00:13:03,520 --> 00:13:07,280
<i>but also an acclaimed
and inspiring Joycean scholar.</i>

212
00:13:09,200 --> 00:13:11,380
I suppose the genius of the book
is that he managed to find,

213
00:13:11,415 --> 00:13:13,665
in a single day in Dublin, Joyce,

214
00:13:13,755 --> 00:13:18,117
examples of Odysseus's adventures
in the Homeric epic,

215
00:13:18,152 --> 00:13:22,480
like the Sirens, the escape
from Polyphemus, Circe.

216
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He found a modern equivalent.

217
00:13:24,972 --> 00:13:27,325
It's a tour de force of writing

218
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that has since never been matched,
I don't think, has it?

219
00:13:30,835 --> 00:13:32,680
I can't think of anything
to match it.

220
00:13:32,715 --> 00:13:34,365
Nobody's tried it in the same way.

221
00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:37,320
No. But I think Joyce
had that extraordinary genius.

222
00:13:37,355 --> 00:13:40,490
I mean, chapter four,
you hit the kidneys. Yes.

223
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"Mr Leopold Bloom
ate with relish the inner organs..."

224
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Read this, cos this is where
we're introduced to our great hero.

225
00:13:46,615 --> 00:13:49,800
Here we go. Do you want to read this
for us, just this opening?

226
00:13:49,835 --> 00:13:52,525
Cos it's such a wonderful
introduction to a character.

227
00:13:52,560 --> 00:13:56,980
"Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish
the inner organs of beasts and fowls.

228
00:13:57,015 --> 00:14:01,400
"He liked thick giblet soup, nutty
gizzards, a stuffed roast heart,

229
00:14:01,435 --> 00:14:06,640
"liver slices fried with crustcrumbs,
fried hencods' roes.

230
00:14:06,675 --> 00:14:10,125
"Most of all,
he liked grilled mutton kidneys,

231
00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:14,920
"which gave to his palate a fine tang
of faintly scented urine."

232
00:14:14,955 --> 00:14:18,377
- Isn't that mouth-watering?
- It is! And at first you think,

233
00:14:18,412 --> 00:14:21,765
"A fine tang of faintly scented
urine" is a good thing?

234
00:14:21,800 --> 00:14:24,270
And yet, anybody who eats kidney,
there is that and it is...

235
00:14:24,305 --> 00:14:26,413
Yes, there is.
..faintly scented is so right.

236
00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:30,400
But as you said it brings us
straight into having met characters

237
00:14:30,435 --> 00:14:32,725
who are very intellectual,
you think,

238
00:14:32,760 --> 00:14:34,852
this is about very smart people
who quote Shakespeare all the time.

239
00:14:34,887 --> 00:14:39,680
And suddenly you hit this man Bloom,
with his love of his...

240
00:14:39,715 --> 00:14:42,800
and he's going about
making breakfast for his wife,

241
00:14:42,835 --> 00:14:44,285
setting things on the tray.

242
00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:46,225
- The cat's running, you know,
stalking him... - And the cat

243
00:14:46,260 --> 00:14:48,753
is the most wonderful
detail because,

244
00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:51,800
when he looks at the cat first,
the cat looks at him back and says,

245
00:14:54,520 --> 00:14:56,605
And then when he says
"Milk for the puss."

246
00:14:56,640 --> 00:14:59,920
And then he leans down
to pour milk for the puss

247
00:14:59,955 --> 00:15:03,200
and the cat says almost the same...
But not quite.

248
00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:07,605
There's an R and that is the cat.
Indicates satisfaction.

249
00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:11,200
There's a communication and the
whole book is about communication.

250
00:15:11,235 --> 00:15:14,520
Now, a lot of people
have picked up Ulysses

251
00:15:14,555 --> 00:15:17,165
and been baffled by it or thought,

252
00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:21,120
"Oh, I might dip in
and slowly get the odd sentence

253
00:15:21,155 --> 00:15:23,165
"but I'm never going to
understand it".

254
00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:25,920
How would you suggest
they go about reading it?

255
00:15:25,955 --> 00:15:28,829
Jump in.
Don't expect to understand everything

256
00:15:28,864 --> 00:15:31,885
because the beautiful thing
about Joyce is you don't

257
00:15:31,920 --> 00:15:35,800
and you never come to the end of it.
It's an inexhaustible treasure.

258
00:15:35,835 --> 00:15:38,062
- And read it aloud.
- Yes.

259
00:15:38,097 --> 00:15:40,254
It doesn't matter what accent.

260
00:15:40,289 --> 00:15:43,125
The moment on the Strand,
for example,

261
00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:46,604
where Stephen has been trying to make
a note of the sound of a wave.

262
00:15:47,015 --> 00:15:51,780
- Oh, yes. - It looks like the
typewriter letting a sneeze,

263
00:15:51,815 --> 00:15:55,087
but it's exactly the sound,
if you say it.

264
00:15:55,122 --> 00:15:58,360
Most people would
be put off looking at:

265
00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:01,725
And they say,
"Well, hump that for a lark"

266
00:16:01,760 --> 00:16:06,800
But if you hear it, listen,
a four-worded wave speech:

267
00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:15,480
- It's exactly the sound of a wave.
- Fantastic. Yeah.

268
00:16:15,515 --> 00:16:18,925
- And Joyce does that all
the way through. - Yeah.

269
00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:22,120
And, you know, Budgen tells a story
of meeting Joyce in Zurich

270
00:16:22,155 --> 00:16:25,697
and Joyce was looking pleased
with himself and he said,

271
00:16:25,732 --> 00:16:29,240
"Good day's work, Joyce?"
And Joyce said, "Oh, yes".

272
00:16:29,275 --> 00:16:30,760
"Write a chapter?"

273
00:16:30,795 --> 00:16:31,925
"No".

274
00:16:31,960 --> 00:16:33,440
"Couple of pages?"

275
00:16:33,475 --> 00:16:34,957
"Paragraph?"

276
00:16:34,992 --> 00:16:36,405
"A sentence?"

277
00:16:36,440 --> 00:16:39,600
And Joyce said, "I had the words
in the sentence yesterday

278
00:16:39,635 --> 00:16:42,280
"but I got the order right today."

279
00:16:42,315 --> 00:16:44,445
I mean, he's a mosaic artist.

280
00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:50,676
Yeah. Every tiny little coloured
stone is in exactly the right place

281
00:16:50,711 --> 00:16:52,880
- to give the effect Joyce wanted.
- Yeah.

282
00:16:56,840 --> 00:17:01,725
<i>The right word in the right order,
as Joyce said,</i>

283
00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:04,560
<i>is as good a definition
of good writing as I can think of.</i>

284
00:17:04,595 --> 00:17:07,397
<i>"Le mot juste"
as Flaubert would have it.</i>

285
00:17:07,432 --> 00:17:10,200
<i>It's that precision in creating
a whole world</i>

286
00:17:10,235 --> 00:17:12,777
<i>through the inventiveness
of language</i>

287
00:17:12,812 --> 00:17:15,285
<i>that provokes and delights the mind</i>

288
00:17:15,320 --> 00:17:18,600
<i>and makes great literature
so memorable.</i>

289
00:17:18,635 --> 00:17:21,885
Joyce had this extraordinary ear

290
00:17:21,920 --> 00:17:25,845
for the musicality of
the Dublin language.

291
00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:30,080
I mean, if you think, a word like
howanever. "So howanever".

292
00:17:30,115 --> 00:17:34,205
I mean, just see the way the body
fits into that.

293
00:17:34,240 --> 00:17:37,920
Or when Bloom was being attacked
in the citizen episode.

294
00:17:37,955 --> 00:17:44,823
And, "Eh, mister!
Your fly is open, mister!"

295
00:17:44,858 --> 00:17:46,125
And that second "Mister"

296
00:17:46,160 --> 00:17:50,445
is the perfect pointing and
resolution of the line melodically.

297
00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:54,800
- Yeah. - And Joyce could hear that.
- He had that kind of ear, didn't he?

298
00:17:54,835 --> 00:17:57,325
Yes, and every kind of Dublin saying,

299
00:17:57,360 --> 00:18:00,760
like "suck whiskey off a sore leg"
is one of these.

300
00:18:00,795 --> 00:18:03,217
Joyce kind of almost collected
these things

301
00:18:03,252 --> 00:18:05,605
and I often think that
subsequent writers

302
00:18:05,640 --> 00:18:08,320
must have thought it
terribly unfair competition,

303
00:18:08,355 --> 00:18:10,097
cos Joyce was so terribly greedy.

304
00:18:10,132 --> 00:18:11,805
Yes. He was, he was a hoarder.

305
00:18:11,840 --> 00:18:14,120
Left almost nothing behind
for other people.

306
00:18:14,155 --> 00:18:15,520
A hoarder of linguistic treasure.

307
00:18:15,555 --> 00:18:17,485
Yeah. Oh, look, here we are!

308
00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:19,965
- Some kidneys. Is this...
- Lamb's kidneys?

309
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:22,840
It is indeed. Fantastic!
And a nice bit of Gorgonzola.

310
00:18:22,875 --> 00:18:24,791
- And are they faintly scented
with urine? - And would you like

311
00:18:24,826 --> 00:18:27,495
- a glass of Burgundy with that? - A glass
of Burgundy would be lovely, thank you.

312
00:18:27,568 --> 00:18:32,407
So we're going to have a Bloom feast
cos that's what he has - gorgonzola.

313
00:18:32,442 --> 00:18:35,206
Yes, it is. Gorgonzola
and good red Burgundy wine.

314
00:18:35,241 --> 00:18:41,920
I think he calls it, "the feety
savour of green cheese". "Feety".

315
00:18:41,955 --> 00:18:46,280
- Shall we see if there's a faint
scent of urine? - I think so, yeah.

316
00:18:46,315 --> 00:18:49,440
And I wasn't going to,
but the smell is so delicious.

317
00:18:49,475 --> 00:18:52,680
It is, it is good, isn't it?
There we are.

318
00:18:53,800 --> 00:18:55,940
Mmm! Lovely.

319
00:18:57,464 --> 00:18:58,080
Delicious!

320
00:18:58,115 --> 00:19:00,485
Mmm.

321
00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:02,880
- And tender.
- Very tender. Mmm!

322
00:19:04,880 --> 00:19:08,800
<i>Ulysses was the book I chose
as my Desert Island Disc.</i>

323
00:19:08,835 --> 00:19:11,125
<i>It's one I can go back to
again and again</i>

324
00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:13,644
<i>and not only for the sheer joy
of his language,</i>

325
00:19:13,679 --> 00:19:18,760
<i>but also the humanity of his flawed
and un-heroic characters.</i>

326
00:19:18,795 --> 00:19:21,805
<i>Joyce's books only sell thousands,</i>

327
00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:26,080
<i>but one of his contemporaries
sells hundreds of millions.</i>

328
00:19:26,115 --> 00:19:28,925
<i>The Hobbit and
The Lord Of The Rings trilogy</i>

329
00:19:28,960 --> 00:19:32,148
<i>are the second and third
best-selling novels of all time,</i>

330
00:19:32,183 --> 00:19:35,114
<i>just after Dickens'
Tale Of Two Cities.</i>

331
00:19:35,149 --> 00:19:38,045
<i>New Zealand-based director
Peter Jackson</i>

332
00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:42,840
<i>has devoted many years to bringing
JRR Tolkien's books to the screen</i>

333
00:19:42,875 --> 00:19:46,640
<i>And, for him, Tolkien's admixture
of Norse, Middle English</i>

334
00:19:46,675 --> 00:19:48,285
<i>and Anglo Saxon is one key</i>

335
00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:52,820
<i>to the enduring success of both
the books and the films.</i>

336
00:19:52,855 --> 00:19:57,285
<i>"Roads go ever, ever on,
under cloud and under star,</i>

337
00:19:57,320 --> 00:20:02,340
<i>"yet feet that wandering have gone
return at last to home afar.</i>

338
00:20:02,375 --> 00:20:07,360
<i>"Eyes that fire and sword have seen
and horror in halls of stone</i>

339
00:20:07,395 --> 00:20:09,965
<i>"look at last on meadows green</i>

340
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:14,965
<i>"and trees and hills
they long have known."</i>

341
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:17,762
I wondered how much you felt,
because you adapt these,

342
00:20:17,797 --> 00:20:19,152
how much the language
matters to Tolkien,

343
00:20:19,187 --> 00:20:22,507
- I think he's an extremely good
writer of English. - Fantastic.

344
00:20:22,542 --> 00:20:24,282
I mean, just at the level
of the sentence,

345
00:20:24,463 --> 00:20:27,405
that you really can't
improve much, can you?

346
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:31,320
It was one of the decisions we made
when adapting Lord of the Rings, was that

347
00:20:31,355 --> 00:20:34,512
we tried to work as much of his language
into the script as we could.

348
00:20:34,547 --> 00:20:36,405
I just think that one of the
beauties of the book

349
00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:39,900
of the Lord of the Rings, and I think
it ultimately worked in the movie,

350
00:20:39,935 --> 00:20:43,360
is that they're talking in a language
that is beautiful and poetic and,

351
00:20:43,395 --> 00:20:46,045
even though it's not one that
we're used to hearing...

352
00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:49,221
- It's so good. -... on the street,
you understand it. It becomes

353
00:20:49,256 --> 00:20:51,165
accessible in a funny way.

354
00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:54,780
But what Tolkien did great
with his stories and especially

355
00:20:54,815 --> 00:20:58,507
his use of language is that he
treated them as historical.

356
00:20:58,542 --> 00:21:02,165
- Yeah. - And I think that's the way
that we found, you know,

357
00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:04,792
that was the door that we entered
when we went into the movies,

358
00:21:05,051 --> 00:21:07,248
is that this isn't made up, it's not a

359
00:21:07,939 --> 00:21:11,400
piece of gobbledygook, you know,
set on the planet Zog or...

360
00:21:11,435 --> 00:21:13,445
- Yes.
- So such a thing.

361
00:21:13,480 --> 00:21:15,925
I mean, every name,
every place name,

362
00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:20,440
every plant name that Tolkien
wrote about, he based in some form

363
00:21:20,475 --> 00:21:23,852
of a language, it was a language
sometimes that he created himself.

364
00:21:23,887 --> 00:21:27,725
It was an archaic old
Middle English form of language.

365
00:21:27,760 --> 00:21:31,765
- Like Oakenshield or something. - Yeah.
Wonderfully... - Everything meant something.

366
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:33,725
Everything actually had
a reality, and it was

367
00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:37,435
it was almost like he did
literally create a history.

368
00:21:37,470 --> 00:21:41,165
<i>What I also admire about
Tolkien is, like Joyce,</i>

369
00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:45,480
<i>his protagonists are reluctant
heroes, grounded in a reality,</i>

370
00:21:45,515 --> 00:21:47,965
<i>no matter how fantastical
the world they inhabit.</i>

371
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:51,870
But for Tolkien, the real heroes,
the true heroes, were the simple

372
00:21:52,169 --> 00:21:53,249
- folk. - Yes.
- The decent folk.

373
00:21:53,825 --> 00:21:59,000
There's, I think, you know, what Tolkien's
saying ultimately is to be a real hero

374
00:21:59,035 --> 00:22:04,640
if you're good, if you're decent, if
you are prepared to offer yourself

375
00:22:04,675 --> 00:22:07,977
up to protect your fellow friend.
And you have to wonder how much

376
00:22:08,012 --> 00:22:11,245
of that came from his experiences
in the trenches and World War I.

377
00:22:12,648 --> 00:22:17,365
<i>Jackson is also known as a schlock
horror director, where plot is all,</i>

378
00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:20,654
<i>and I wonder if, like me,
he shares my love</i>

379
00:22:20,689 --> 00:22:23,908
<i>for the master
of the genre, Stephen King.</i>

380
00:22:23,995 --> 00:22:26,885
As you say I think he's one of
the great storytellers of our time,

381
00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:31,605
of any time, really, partly because
he is so obsessed with storytelling.

382
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:34,189
That's right. The other thing about
Stephen King which I think is

383
00:22:34,224 --> 00:22:35,671
is fantastic is that I don't think

384
00:22:35,706 --> 00:22:42,837
he ever invents a character, every
single character he writes about,

385
00:22:42,872 --> 00:22:46,960
- and these are good and bad, they're
sane and they're insane... - Yeah.

386
00:22:46,995 --> 00:22:50,165
..are an element of him,
that he's not afraid to,

387
00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:55,484
- you know, to dig into the dark
depths of his... - Absolutely.

388
00:22:55,519 --> 00:22:58,887
... worst imagination and create
a character out of that,

389
00:22:58,922 --> 00:23:03,114
so he literally mines
what he considers

390
00:23:03,149 --> 00:23:06,711
the most evil part of himself and he
creates and absolute psychopath.

391
00:23:06,746 --> 00:23:08,480
- Absolutely. - But you know
it's coming from a real place.

392
00:23:08,515 --> 00:23:10,405
Whereas you get somebody who says,

393
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:12,381
"I'm gonna write the most evil
psychopath in the world"

394
00:23:12,416 --> 00:23:14,226
- and they kind make stuff up...
- Yes.

395
00:23:14,261 --> 00:23:17,683
... you read it and it might be horrifying,
but you're not connecting with it

396
00:23:17,718 --> 00:23:20,601
- because you don't recognise any of it.
- Yeah, I agree.

397
00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:29,805
<i>Now, there's another
of my favourite writers who,

398
00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:34,960
<i>in his day was as popular as King,
is as brilliant with words as Joyce

399
00:23:34,995 --> 00:23:40,080
<i>and, like Tolkien and Homer, created
fantastical imaginary worlds.

400
00:23:40,115 --> 00:23:41,725
<i>Well, who could that be?

401
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:46,840
You know, if I could time travel,
this is where I would come to,

402
00:23:46,875 --> 00:23:49,125
410 years ago,

403
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:52,285
and I would pop into one of the
taverns that line the Thames here

404
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:54,912
and I would listen to the language
of the street and I would

405
00:23:54,947 --> 00:23:56,822
see if I could bump into Shakespeare,

406
00:23:56,857 --> 00:24:02,117
Marlowe, Turner, Kyd, Middleton,
Webster, Johnson.

407
00:24:02,152 --> 00:24:05,076
This period, the 1590s to 1600,
saw the greatest

408
00:24:05,111 --> 00:24:08,047
flowering of theatre that
the world has ever seen.

409
00:24:08,082 --> 00:24:10,983
Poets and playwrights seemed to
bubble from this town.

410
00:24:11,105 --> 00:24:15,560
Shakespeare alone had a vocabulary
more than six times

411
00:24:15,595 --> 00:24:19,343
the average of 10,000
that you and I might have.

412
00:24:19,378 --> 00:24:23,091
He introduced 3,000 words
into the English language.

413
00:24:24,888 --> 00:24:27,841
What distinguishes Shakespeare
from all his colleagues,

414
00:24:27,876 --> 00:24:32,206
aside from his prodigious output,
was his concentration on character,

415
00:24:32,241 --> 00:24:36,536
often at the expense of plot, which
he was content to lift from others,

416
00:24:36,759 --> 00:24:39,508
Hamlet a case in point,
which was a re-working

417
00:24:39,543 --> 00:24:42,403
of the Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd.

418
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:48,160
Oh, that this too,
too solid flesh would melt...

419
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:54,000
thaw and resolve
itself into a dew.

420
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:59,480
Or that the everlasting had not fixed
his cannon against self-slaughter.

421
00:24:59,515 --> 00:25:00,840
Oh, God, God...

422
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:06,322
- It was a radical exploration
of a single human soul. - Yeah.

423
00:25:06,357 --> 00:25:10,325
In a way that hadn't been done
before either, but there hadn't

424
00:25:10,360 --> 00:25:14,600
been that type of sort of navel
gazing, soul searching type of hero,

425
00:25:14,635 --> 00:25:17,657
- it was much more objective,
as he called it... - Yeah.

426
00:25:17,692 --> 00:25:20,947
whereas Hamlet does something which
nobody had ever seen before,

427
00:25:20,982 --> 00:25:23,443
I don't think,
to quite such an extent.

428
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:30,720
Am I a coward?

429
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:35,474
Who calls me villain?

430
00:25:36,371 --> 00:25:38,337
Breaks my pate across?

431
00:25:39,260 --> 00:25:42,125
Plucks off my beard
and blows it in my face?

432
00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:46,120
<i>Shakespeare's genius was to turn
a pretty standard revenge tragedy,

433
00:25:46,155 --> 00:25:49,960
<i>about the prince who has to
avenge his father's murder,

434
00:25:49,995 --> 00:25:53,765
<i>into a deeply thoughtful meditation
about... everything.

435
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:59,400
Pigeon liver'd and lack gall. To
make oppression bitter, or ere this!

436
00:25:59,435 --> 00:26:02,405
I should have fatted all
the region kites.

437
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:06,760
Did you have a view of it, sort of
growing up, when you started acting?

438
00:26:06,795 --> 00:26:10,205
- Did you always think, "That One day"?
- I suppose,

439
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:13,586
but only in that sense that it's
seen as one of those kind of

440
00:26:14,860 --> 00:26:16,671
- Olympic events for an actor.
- Yeah.

441
00:26:16,706 --> 00:26:18,456
- One of those... - I was about to say
opening the bowling for England,

442
00:26:18,491 --> 00:26:21,440
- but that's rather inappropriate.
- Quite, yes. - Keeping goal for Scotland.

443
00:26:21,475 --> 00:26:23,347
Keeping goal for Scotland, yes,
it's one of those...

444
00:26:23,382 --> 00:26:26,480
- it's one of the sort of marker
points, isn't it? - Yeah.

445
00:26:26,515 --> 00:26:30,245
Bloody, bawdy villain!

446
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:33,800
Remorseless, treacherous,
lecherous, kindless villain!

447
00:26:33,835 --> 00:26:35,245
O, vengeance!

448
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:38,720
Everything is contained,
particularly in Hamlet, isn't it?

449
00:26:38,755 --> 00:26:41,200
- He's kind of the sex, life, death...
- Yeah.

450
00:26:41,300 --> 00:26:45,529
- Hope, revenge, despair...
- Yes, and utterly contemporary.

451
00:26:45,564 --> 00:26:48,091
- Yes.
- Which is sort of a magic trick,

452
00:26:48,126 --> 00:26:50,717
because it remains 400 years old

453
00:26:50,752 --> 00:26:55,426
and yet it seems to keep
being reborn and rediscovered.

454
00:26:55,461 --> 00:26:58,800
I think Dorothy Parker said,
"I go and see Hamlet every ten years

455
00:26:58,835 --> 00:27:01,047
"and I find Shakespeare's
re-written it in my absence".

456
00:27:01,082 --> 00:27:03,881
That's absolutely it,
and every time you see it

457
00:27:03,916 --> 00:27:06,646
every actor who does it
and the thing about Hamlet,

458
00:27:06,681 --> 00:27:10,525
whenever you come to, and whoever
comes to it, it doesn't resist.

459
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:13,445
Because there's so much in it
and so much scope in it,

460
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:17,285
- so everyone can throw something at it
and reveal something new. - Yeah.

461
00:27:18,416 --> 00:27:23,681
<i>And what Shakespeare then does
is something no other revenge
play dared to do.

462
00:27:23,716 --> 00:27:26,605
<i>Ask the really big question,

463
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:30,360
<i>which has become the most famous
line in the English language.

464
00:27:31,855 --> 00:27:33,748
To be or not to be?

465
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:36,821
That is the question.

466
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:43,069
I wondered how, you know, when you
first sat in the rehearsal room

467
00:27:43,104 --> 00:27:44,526
for a read-through or whatever

468
00:27:44,561 --> 00:27:47,920
- and had to say "To be or not to be".
- That is the cliche.

469
00:27:47,955 --> 00:27:49,325
- Yeah, quite.
- Yes.

470
00:27:49,360 --> 00:27:52,325
Did you rush through it
and think... Or...

471
00:27:52,360 --> 00:27:54,950
I think our director was savvy
enough that we didn't sit down

472
00:27:54,985 --> 00:27:55,990
and do a read-through straight away,

473
00:27:56,025 --> 00:28:00,955
so we sort of circled round it and
took the curse off it.

474
00:28:00,990 --> 00:28:05,885
But, yeah, I mean, so many lines
are... so well worn.

475
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:09,400
- "Cruel to be kind"... - Yeah. - " Method
in his madness". All that sort of thing.

476
00:28:09,435 --> 00:28:11,600
- "To the manor born".
- They just keep coming...

477
00:28:11,635 --> 00:28:14,045
Yeah.
And you think, "How do I begin?"

478
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:16,240
And of course, you just begin by...

479
00:28:16,275 --> 00:28:18,600
by not worrying about it is all
you can, which,

480
00:28:18,635 --> 00:28:20,925
- it sounds terribly simple and
isn't... - Yeah.

481
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,205
There's sort of no way round it
other than going,

482
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:25,089
"This character happens
to say these lines here

483
00:28:25,124 --> 00:28:27,589
- and they're the first time they'v
ever been said." - Yes. That's right.

484
00:28:27,624 --> 00:28:32,840
Exactly. So that's why I think we
should trim some of the dead wood.

485
00:28:33,313 --> 00:28:34,650
Dead wood?

486
00:28:34,685 --> 00:28:37,839
You know, some of that stand-up
stuff in the middle of the action.

487
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:40,101
- You mean the soliloquies?
- Yeah.

488
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:43,400
And I think we both know
which is the dodgy one.

489
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:47,805
Oh? Oh? Which is the dodgy one?

490
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:52,120
Um..."To be..." "nobler in the
mind," "mortal coil", that one.

491
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:54,581
It's boring, Bill.

492
00:28:56,026 --> 00:28:57,800
The crowd hates it.

493
00:28:57,835 --> 00:28:58,974
Yawnsville.

494
00:28:59,960 --> 00:29:02,600
Well that one happens
to be my favourite, actually.

495
00:29:02,635 --> 00:29:04,357
I was in front of university students
the other day.

496
00:29:04,392 --> 00:29:06,605
- Wonderful. lovely.
- Yeah.

497
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,005
And I said,
"Let's take what is now most...

498
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:12,765
"you'll be bored as I say it,
to be or not to be". Oh, yes.

499
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:17,160
"You'll be bored, bored, you're bored
shitless now as I say it, right?"
Yeah.

500
00:29:17,195 --> 00:29:20,085
And I took out a Magnum gun.

501
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:24,200
And I fired it at the ceiling
and half the bloody ceiling fell down

502
00:29:24,235 --> 00:29:29,880
and I went, 'Click, click, click'
to blow my head off, "To be...

503
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,920
"..or not to be".
They were, "Fucking hell!

504
00:29:34,955 --> 00:29:37,960
"Ah..." Yeah.
"This is what it's about".

505
00:29:37,995 --> 00:29:39,205
Yeah.

506
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:43,565
And I put this Magnum, of course I got
the plaster up there and it was a blank.

507
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:45,771
- But my God, you got their attention.
- Got their attention and so...

508
00:29:45,806 --> 00:29:49,084
And that's what, and it is a speech,
'To be or not to be' that,

509
00:29:49,119 --> 00:29:52,363
as you say, is so worn down and
eroded by familiarity that in fact

510
00:29:52,398 --> 00:29:55,466
- it is about exactly that. It is,
"Do I do this?". - Yes.

511
00:29:55,501 --> 00:29:58,222
- "Do I pull the trigger?".
- That's right.

512
00:29:58,257 --> 00:30:00,800
How's it begin, that speech?

513
00:30:00,835 --> 00:30:02,365
To be.

514
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:04,245
Come on, come on, Bill.

515
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:08,320
"To be a victim of all life's
earthly woes or not to be a coward

516
00:30:08,355 --> 00:30:10,857
"and take death by
his proffered hand."

517
00:30:10,892 --> 00:30:13,360
There, now,
I'm sure we can get that down.

518
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,325
No, absolutely not. It's perfect.

519
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:25,325
How about, 'To be a victim
or not to be a coward'?

520
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:27,721
It doesn't make sense, does it?

521
00:30:27,756 --> 00:30:30,715
To be a victim of what?
To be a coward about what?

522
00:30:30,750 --> 00:30:33,880
OK, OK. Take out victim,
take out coward.

523
00:30:33,915 --> 00:30:35,920
Just start, 'To be or not to be'.

524
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:41,120
You can't say that, it's gibberish.

525
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,125
But it's short, William,
it's short. Listen, it flows...

526
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:50,360
'To be or not to be? That is the question'.
Da-da da-da da da da da da da da.

527
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:54,365
No?

528
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:55,503
You're damn right it's the question,

529
00:30:55,538 --> 00:30:58,101
you don't have any bloody idea
what he's talking about.

530
00:30:59,235 --> 00:31:01,748
What is it about it?
Is it simply because it is

531
00:31:01,783 --> 00:31:07,760
the question that a lot of human
beings face, whether to end life?

532
00:31:07,795 --> 00:31:10,005
- It's such a simple question.
- Yeah.

533
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:12,520
So I was sort of thinking,
"Well, what's all the fuss about?"

534
00:31:12,555 --> 00:31:13,725
- I mean, you know...
- Yeah.

535
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:17,445
I mean, do I kill myself
or not? And...

536
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:21,410
it didn't sort of hit home until
well through the run,

537
00:31:21,445 --> 00:31:25,306
when I suddenly thought
the calmness of that soliloquy,

538
00:31:25,341 --> 00:31:29,313
the self control of that soliloquy,
which is unlike the other ones,

539
00:31:29,348 --> 00:31:33,285
is part of that concentration of
energy and if you get it right,

540
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:37,516
you can feel it, feel the energy
of the theatre concentrating to a point...

541
00:31:37,551 --> 00:31:39,797
You can feel that they're hearing it
for the first time.

542
00:31:39,832 --> 00:31:42,525
- Which would be the real achievement.
- That's the prize.

543
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:47,000
He doesn't know what to say.
'To be or not to be?' and, you see,

544
00:31:47,035 --> 00:31:49,800
he has to find it right
at that moment.

545
00:31:49,835 --> 00:31:51,880
Yeah. That might be all he'd say...

546
00:31:51,915 --> 00:31:54,045
- Yes.
- That's the question.

547
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:58,194
If you pause too long, as I did
once, and there was a person sitting,

548
00:31:58,229 --> 00:31:59,462
- a little old lady and her...
- No!

549
00:31:59,497 --> 00:32:02,288
-..father, her husband sitting right...
- Did he prompt you?

550
00:32:02,323 --> 00:32:05,080
I came up right next to him in my
pyjamas, tearful and crying.

551
00:32:05,115 --> 00:32:06,405
I said, "To be or not to be?"

552
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,871
And then I thought for a moment,
you know, what does that mean?

553
00:32:09,906 --> 00:32:13,303
And she's turned to her husband
and said, "That is the question!"

554
00:32:14,325 --> 00:32:17,305
- That's very touching.
- And he woke up, I think, and...

555
00:32:18,144 --> 00:32:20,926
- so everyone heard it
and laughed a bit. - Yeah.

556
00:32:20,961 --> 00:32:23,709
But I was able to say,
"That IS the question".

557
00:32:23,970 --> 00:32:26,982
- Oh, right, you... sort of joined in
her thing, yeah. - Yeah.

558
00:32:27,017 --> 00:32:29,369
- You affirmed her...
- That IS the question.

559
00:32:29,404 --> 00:32:34,170
You're right. It was a wonderful moment,
actually. "That IS the question".

560
00:32:34,635 --> 00:32:38,617
Bloody constraint,
for if you hide the crown,

561
00:32:38,652 --> 00:32:42,600
even in your hearts,
there will he rake for it.

562
00:32:42,635 --> 00:32:44,805
Therefore in fierce...

563
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:48,340
<i>Of course, most of Shakespeare's
language is not as simple as

564
00:32:48,375 --> 00:32:51,840
<i>"To be or not to be" and many
people are, alas, put off for good.

565
00:32:51,875 --> 00:32:54,725
..that, if requiring fail,
he will compel.

566
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:59,020
This is his claim,
his threatening and my message.

567
00:32:59,055 --> 00:33:02,504
What is your feeling
about Shakespearian language?

568
00:33:02,539 --> 00:33:06,565
Have you always found it a simple
matter to engage with the verse?

569
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,320
Sometimes it's difficult,
it does take a bit of unpicking

570
00:33:09,355 --> 00:33:11,337
in terms of just meaning sometimes.

571
00:33:11,372 --> 00:33:13,845
Well, I get sometimes very upset,
the way he's caned

572
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:18,080
and then people say, "Well, his
language". The language?! Yeah.

573
00:33:18,115 --> 00:33:22,525
He has invented our language!
He is so ultra modern...

574
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:27,645
He's so accessible. There is
a power in the verse, you know...

575
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:30,535
"O for a muse of fire that would ascend
the brightest heaven in invention,

576
00:33:30,570 --> 00:33:33,338
a kingdom for a stage,
princes to act

577
00:33:33,373 --> 00:33:35,418
and monarchs to behold the
swelling scene..." - The swelling scene.

578
00:33:35,453 --> 00:33:38,269
"Then should the..."
It has bounce and power

579
00:33:38,304 --> 00:33:43,184
and so Shakespeare has
a reality, for God's sake...

580
00:33:43,219 --> 00:33:44,445
But you know...

581
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:48,381
Here's a line from Shakespeare...
'Light thickens'?

582
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:50,805
Light thickens!

583
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,365
- Yeah.
- Where did that come from?

584
00:33:54,537 --> 00:33:57,192
This is why I will
defend Shakespeare,

585
00:33:57,227 --> 00:34:00,039
this is why they
need to look at it and bring it in.

586
00:34:00,074 --> 00:34:03,400
We were very lucky cos presumably
we had teachers at school who

587
00:34:03,435 --> 00:34:06,205
managed, well, I did,
managed to inspire me,

588
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:10,680
passionately inspire me about
Shakespeare, and then it becomes...

589
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:14,005
- completely compulsory.
- Yeah.

590
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:18,405
I'm afraid I am a little fearful
that our education system makes it

591
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:20,467
very frightening and
off-putting to people

592
00:34:20,502 --> 00:34:23,582
who, like me, who couldn't
speak till I was seven years old,

593
00:34:23,617 --> 00:34:27,320
you know, couldn't be understood
by anyone, I spoke so fast.

594
00:34:27,355 --> 00:34:30,337
I speak fast still now and maybe
I still can't be understood.

595
00:34:30,372 --> 00:34:33,549
- I had to have elocution lessons
to slow me down. - Yeah, me too

596
00:34:33,584 --> 00:34:36,103
- I had the same thing. Sent to rooms
with two-way mirrors. - Yes.

597
00:34:36,138 --> 00:34:38,623
- Made to speak with other kids
who couldn't speak. - That's right.

598
00:34:38,658 --> 00:34:41,559
And learning this stuff
by heart and speaking it

599
00:34:41,594 --> 00:34:44,426
was the first time
that I was able to express

600
00:34:44,461 --> 00:34:48,308
all kinds of things in front of
people that I couldn't.

601
00:34:48,343 --> 00:34:51,115
- My mind just went too fast.
- Yeah.

602
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,405
I think in the final
analysis, he is...

603
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:55,495
- we've got our author.
- Yeah.

604
00:34:55,530 --> 00:34:58,238
- The blue planet has its author...
- Yes.

605
00:34:58,273 --> 00:35:01,040
- And it is Shakespeare,
William Shakespeare. - Yes.

606
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:09,180
<i>I count myself exceedingly lucky to have
been given English as my mother tongue.

607
00:35:09,215 --> 00:35:14,160
<i>There's no doubt that Flaubert, Tolstoy,
Goethe and any number of other writers

608
00:35:14,195 --> 00:35:16,565
<i>are immense talents
but, yes, Shakespeare

609
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:21,680
<i>is our planet's author and I am not
talking jingoism here,

610
00:35:21,715 --> 00:35:24,285
<i>he just covers all the bases.

611
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:26,845
<i>Over at the Comedie Francaise
in Paris,

612
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,600
<i>they of course
revere their literary giants...

613
00:35:29,635 --> 00:35:32,045
<i>Racine, Moliere, Corneille,
Marivaux...

614
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:37,160
<i>But do they also recognise
Shakespeare as the master?

615
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:42,680
<i>Guillaume Gallienne is France's
foremost classical actor

616
00:35:42,715 --> 00:35:46,240
<i>and has played Shakespeare
along with Moliere and the rest.

617
00:35:46,275 --> 00:35:49,780
<i>What does he make of Hamlet's
most famous soliloquy?

618
00:35:49,815 --> 00:35:53,240
'To be or not to be'. How does that
sound in French? How does that go?

619
00:35:53,275 --> 00:35:56,040
Etre, ou ne pas etre,
la est le la question.

620
00:35:56,075 --> 00:35:58,908
- That's very good.
- But there's different theories.

621
00:35:59,972 --> 00:36:04,960
Some theorists believes that it's not
'To be or not to be, that is the question'.

622
00:36:04,995 --> 00:36:09,761
but they believe it's 'To be or not?
To be, that is the question'.

623
00:36:09,796 --> 00:36:13,165
Whoa! This is an example
of what you're saying,

624
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:15,546
about the reinterpretation
that French allows that play.

625
00:36:15,581 --> 00:36:19,182
Well, it still engloves what's
suggested in the first version,

626
00:36:19,217 --> 00:36:22,912
but it brings it
somewhere else also.

627
00:36:22,947 --> 00:36:27,337
Do you think there's a freedom that you
can have if it's in another language?

628
00:36:27,372 --> 00:36:31,525
You can translate it and it may not have
the richness of the original English,

629
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:36,084
but that you can just, you know, let go
of having to pronounce every syllable

630
00:36:36,119 --> 00:36:38,341
- and give it a...
- I'm not so sure. No.

631
00:36:38,376 --> 00:36:41,525
- I still prefer Shakespeare in English.
- You do? Yeah.

632
00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:45,865
I learn a lot from how... When you
know how to act Shakespeare,

633
00:36:45,900 --> 00:36:47,485
I think you can act anything.

634
00:36:47,715 --> 00:36:50,097
If I were to put to you
an absurd question,

635
00:36:50,132 --> 00:36:52,445
that if either Moliere
or Shakespeare had to be

636
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:56,280
expunged from the cultural pantheon,
hence they no longer existed...

637
00:36:56,315 --> 00:37:00,040
- I would choose... I would keep
Shakespeare, by far. - Oh, really?

638
00:37:00,075 --> 00:37:01,557
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

639
00:37:01,592 --> 00:37:03,005
It's richer, for me.

640
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:08,620
Shakespeare, you can reckon
yourself in something human, in...

641
00:37:08,655 --> 00:37:13,188
a quality or defect, but it's very...
it's higher, it goes higher.

642
00:37:13,223 --> 00:37:17,472
- It goes far away, for me.
- Yeah.

643
00:37:17,507 --> 00:37:21,721
- It makes me travel much more.
- Yeah.

644
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:30,845
<i>Translation is a tricky area.

645
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:34,285
<i>Can you even begin to grasp
the genius of Shakespeare in

646
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:40,480
<i>another language, especially one as
Different, say, as Mandarin Chinese?

647
00:37:40,515 --> 00:37:42,885
<i>Entrepreneur
and aesthete Sir David Tang

648
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:47,160
<i>and his old school chum,
Johnson Chang, have a view.

649
00:37:56,280 --> 00:38:02,799
So, "Shall we seek life or should we
seek death? This is the main issue."

650
00:38:03,675 --> 00:38:06,607
That's fun... It's...
So that rather gives the game away.

651
00:38:06,642 --> 00:38:09,985
As if Hamlet comes on stage and
says, "Shall I commit suicide or not?"

652
00:38:10,020 --> 00:38:11,469
It gives the game away.

653
00:38:11,504 --> 00:38:15,448
Yeah, whereas 'To be or not to be' is
a sort of gentle, easing into the whole

654
00:38:15,483 --> 00:38:17,685
sort of meditation that
he then goes through.

655
00:38:17,720 --> 00:38:22,980
The trouble is that the words
'to be' does not exist in China.

656
00:38:23,015 --> 00:38:28,240
Anybody translating 'To be or not
to be' must use the same verb

657
00:38:28,275 --> 00:38:30,685
and just put a not in front of it...
Mmm.

658
00:38:30,720 --> 00:38:33,600
but we have never seen
a translation that does that.

659
00:38:33,635 --> 00:38:35,045
Isn't that interesting? Yeah.

660
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:38,908
- The Chinese just... gives the game away.
- Ok. Here's another question.

661
00:38:38,943 --> 00:38:41,246
"Whether it is nobler in the mind to
suffer the slings and arrows

662
00:38:41,281 --> 00:38:43,654
of outrageous fortune."
That's not an easy one.

663
00:38:43,689 --> 00:38:44,958
I can only do...

664
00:38:44,993 --> 00:38:48,509
'O, for a muse of fire that would ascend
the brightest heaven of invention.'

665
00:38:48,544 --> 00:38:52,000
- No, but we meant in Chinese.
- Oh, in Chinese.

666
00:38:54,240 --> 00:38:58,720
You're not supposed to mock your own
language. That's outrageous.

667
00:39:04,297 --> 00:39:05,720
That's very funny.

668
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:11,080
What I love about Sir David Tang
is that he's funny

669
00:39:11,115 --> 00:39:14,445
and utterly unafraid to say
whatever he likes.

670
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:15,524
He reminds me,
in some ways, of those

671
00:39:15,559 --> 00:39:19,261
delectable eccentric
characters in PG Wodehouse.

672
00:39:19,555 --> 00:39:23,085
Now, Wodehouse is one of my
all-time favourite authors and,

673
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:25,704
while many might consider him
about as far from Hamlet

674
00:39:25,739 --> 00:39:30,525
or James Joyce as you could get,
I would disagree. I love them equally.

675
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:34,400
And that's the beauty of great writing -
it comes in so many guises.

676
00:39:34,435 --> 00:39:38,720
Suppose that you were strolling
through the illimitable jungle

677
00:39:38,755 --> 00:39:41,777
and you happen to meet
a tiger cub...

678
00:39:41,812 --> 00:39:44,765
The contingency is
a remote one, Sir.

679
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:47,620
- Never mind. Let us suppose it.
- Very good, Sir.

680
00:39:47,655 --> 00:39:50,440
Let us now suppose that you
biffed that tiger cub.

681
00:39:50,475 --> 00:39:52,085
And let us further suppose

682
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:54,845
that word reached its mother
that you'd done so.

683
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:58,205
Now, what would you expect
the attitude of that mother to be?

684
00:39:58,240 --> 00:40:02,360
In the circumstances, I should anticipate
a certain show of disapprobation, Sir.

685
00:40:02,395 --> 00:40:04,320
Yes, very good, Jeeves.
Very well put.

686
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:10,079
'One of the best biographies
of PG Wodehouse ever written

687
00:40:10,114 --> 00:40:14,460
is by Robert McCrum, 'so it gave me
great pleasure to catch up with him

688
00:40:14,495 --> 00:40:17,732
'and have a conversation
about our beloved author.'

689
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,068
Robert, when people hear
the word "Wodehouse",

690
00:40:20,103 --> 00:40:22,137
they think the voice
of the upper-class twit

691
00:40:22,172 --> 00:40:24,925
and that it's a world of silly asses
and country houses.

692
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:27,794
And they might be put off by that
because they're not aware

693
00:40:27,829 --> 00:40:29,311
the great secret of Wodehouse is

694
00:40:29,346 --> 00:40:33,320
not the characters and the plots,
wonderful as they are, but the language.

695
00:40:33,355 --> 00:40:37,000
Yeah, he's a virtuoso of language
and he revels in it.

696
00:40:37,035 --> 00:40:41,077
But it's drawn on Old English,
Latin and Greek,

697
00:40:41,112 --> 00:40:45,120
Middle English, Jane Austen,
Dickens, Tennyson.

698
00:40:45,155 --> 00:40:47,197
These are all his subjects.

699
00:40:47,232 --> 00:40:49,205
And he loves American slang,

700
00:40:49,240 --> 00:40:51,565
poetry of everyday speech,
and he just loves...

701
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,445
He's got some great... I want to
read you one bit, if I may.

702
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:58,160
This is one of the most brilliant
opening lines of any Wodehouse.

703
00:40:58,195 --> 00:41:00,325
This is The Luck of the Bodkins
and he goes,

704
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,485
"Into the face of the young man
who sat on the terrace

705
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:05,464
"of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes

706
00:41:05,499 --> 00:41:08,605
"there had crept a look
of furtive shame -

707
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:12,309
"the shifty, hangdog look
which announces that an Englishman

708
00:41:12,344 --> 00:41:13,995
is about to speak French."

709
00:41:14,195 --> 00:41:16,057
That's funny. That's so good.

710
00:41:16,092 --> 00:41:17,885
And another character says

711
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:22,000
he doesn't try and speak French properly
because if he does, it gives him a nosebleed.

712
00:41:22,035 --> 00:41:23,565
- That's very good.
- Yes.

713
00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:27,520
That sentence could only have been written
by someone who knew the classics.

714
00:41:27,555 --> 00:41:30,557
But at the same time
as this wonderful language,

715
00:41:30,592 --> 00:41:33,560
he omits two of the great themes
of literature.

716
00:41:33,595 --> 00:41:35,965
There's no sex and there's no death.

717
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:40,200
The only use for a bed in Wodehouse
is for someone to hide something under.

718
00:41:40,235 --> 00:41:43,640
- Or to put a hot water bottle in.
- That's right, to booby trap them

719
00:41:43,675 --> 00:41:46,717
by putting a darning needle
at the end of a broom handle.

720
00:41:46,752 --> 00:41:49,725
He's a bit like... He's a kind of
Zelig-like character -

721
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:52,885
- he passes through this 20th
century... - Yes. - This incredible...

722
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:57,120
1900 to 1945's one of the great
half-centuries in terms of drama...

723
00:41:57,155 --> 00:41:59,325
- Yeah - ...of any historical period.

724
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:02,560
- He passes through it... - Yes.
- ... untouched. He never grows up.

725
00:42:02,595 --> 00:42:04,797
Care for a saunter,
Angela, old girl?

726
00:42:04,832 --> 00:42:08,536
- Love to, Bertie, darling.
- Good-oh.

727
00:42:08,571 --> 00:42:12,240
Ssh! Tom's listening to the news.

728
00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:17,600
I have much to say
that's not for the public ear.

729
00:42:20,720 --> 00:42:26,485
It's as if every sentence you read of his,
he's looked at it and thought,

730
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:28,801
"That's just a man crossing the room
and sitting down in a chair -

731
00:42:28,836 --> 00:42:30,293
there must be another way."

732
00:42:31,315 --> 00:42:35,040
So he doesn't put the £5 note
into his pocket, he "trousers" it.

733
00:42:35,075 --> 00:42:38,240
So "to trouser" becomes a verb,
which is fantastic.

734
00:42:38,275 --> 00:42:40,472
Words for "drunk" alone -
here's a list of them...

735
00:42:40,507 --> 00:42:43,925
Awash, boiled, fried,

736
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,900
lathered, illuminated, oiled,

737
00:42:46,935 --> 00:42:50,447
ossified, pie-eyed, polluted,

738
00:42:50,482 --> 00:42:54,281
primed, scrooched, stinko,

739
00:42:54,316 --> 00:42:58,045
squiffy, tanked and woozled.

740
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:00,600
- That's fantastic.
- All made up. - Yeah.

741
00:43:00,635 --> 00:43:03,445
So there it is.

742
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:08,640
My only daughter, for whom I had dreamed
of a wonderful golden future,

743
00:43:08,675 --> 00:43:11,717
is going to marry
an inebriated newt fancier.

744
00:43:11,752 --> 00:43:14,725
Well, aunt of my heart, yes,
I can't but agree

745
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:17,600
that things are not too
"oh, ja, come spiv" at the moment.

746
00:43:17,635 --> 00:43:20,405
Apparently, Wodehouse
is most popular with...

747
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:24,245
with, er, prisoners and people
in hospitals and, actually,

748
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,960
- if you think about it, I can't think of
a greater compliment for a writer. - No.

749
00:43:27,995 --> 00:43:30,765
I mean, if you can make
prisoners and the ill happy,

750
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:34,520
then you've spoken to people who
are low and you've warmed them...

751
00:43:34,555 --> 00:43:36,125
- Mmm
- ... just by language.

752
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:39,900
The number of people who I've encountered,
having written this biography,

753
00:43:39,935 --> 00:43:43,640
who tell me that when they're feeling
down they turn to Wodehose.

754
00:43:43,675 --> 00:43:45,825
- I don't know whether this works
for you. - Absolutely does, yeah.

755
00:43:45,860 --> 00:43:50,345
They'll read a favourite or a new
Wodehouse - and there are plenty of those-

756
00:43:50,380 --> 00:43:52,073
- to cheer themselves up.

757
00:43:52,555 --> 00:43:56,245
George Orwell was
a contemporary of PG Wodehouse.

758
00:43:56,280 --> 00:44:00,400
He was educated at Eton, but
he rejected his caste and his class.

759
00:44:00,435 --> 00:44:04,520
Even his rather unprepossessing
name of Eric Blair was changed.

760
00:44:04,555 --> 00:44:06,245
Politics were his theme.

761
00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:10,040
Animal Farm and 1984
have rightly become classics,

762
00:44:10,075 --> 00:44:12,605
warning us of the dangers
of totalitarianism.

763
00:44:13,368 --> 00:44:17,405
Wodehouse and Orwell may seem
like unlikely literary bedfellows,

764
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:22,520
but they share a concern for using the
English language accurately and precisely.

765
00:44:22,555 --> 00:44:26,920
But if Wodehouse never embraces
change, Orwell is all about change -

766
00:44:26,955 --> 00:44:31,200
and his dystopian 1984 world
sees a vision of the future

767
00:44:31,235 --> 00:44:33,845
that reduces English
to a bare minimum,

768
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:37,440
with the aim of reducing emotions
and thought to the same.

769
00:44:37,475 --> 00:44:39,997
So with Newspeak,
if you can't say it,

770
00:44:40,032 --> 00:44:42,485
then you can't think it or feel it.

771
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,920
It's a beautiful thing,
the destruction of words.

772
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:51,280
You won't have seen the Dictionary
10th Edition yet, Smith.

773
00:44:51,315 --> 00:44:53,885
It's that thick.

774
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:55,800
The 11th Edition will be that thick.

775
00:44:58,240 --> 00:45:01,160
'Praise be to our leader
and the party workers.'

776
00:45:01,195 --> 00:45:05,005
Newspeak was what
Orwell coined as a title

777
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:10,040
for this particular political language in a
tyranny that he imagined as being in 1984.

778
00:45:10,075 --> 00:45:11,485
I mean, as ever,

779
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:15,440
Orwell has written better
about English than anyone else.

780
00:45:15,475 --> 00:45:18,357
And that particular invention
is fantastic,

781
00:45:18,392 --> 00:45:21,205
cos it's very, very simple,
all of Newspeak.

782
00:45:21,240 --> 00:45:24,720
You know, like Doublethink - they're
all very simple sets of words,

783
00:45:24,755 --> 00:45:29,040
but the whole point of all of them
is to be euphemistic

784
00:45:29,075 --> 00:45:31,205
and to prevent you
thinking about the truth.

785
00:45:31,240 --> 00:45:34,400
And becomes really nasty when
it's in military situations,

786
00:45:34,435 --> 00:45:37,525
so you have "collateral damage",
which means "dead civilians",

787
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:41,040
- and you actually don't really want
to think about it. "Rendition." - Yes.

788
00:45:41,075 --> 00:45:44,520
"Someone's been rendered somewhere."
Someone's been taken on a plane

789
00:45:44,555 --> 00:45:47,165
- to somewhere where you
can torture them. - Yes, yes.

790
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:52,365
You know, all of these words
are deliberately vague and bland

791
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:56,320
to stop you thinking, "That's really
not what we should be doing."

792
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:03,160
<i>Ian Hislop, editor of the satirical
magazine Private Eye,

793
00:46:03,195 --> 00:46:06,565
<i>shares Orwell's love
of clarity with language

794
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:11,840
<i>and has devoted columns to exposing
humbug and the inglorious use of language.

795
00:46:11,875 --> 00:46:14,245
So, these columns tend to start

796
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:15,823
because people are irritated with

797
00:46:15,858 --> 00:46:19,934
particular words
or a particular sort of jargon.

798
00:46:20,075 --> 00:46:21,565
And the management speak -

799
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:25,645
we originally called it Birtspeak,
after John Birt,

800
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:31,040
because the place where this management
drivel reaches its apogee is the BBC.

801
00:46:31,075 --> 00:46:34,917
I mean, well away from the cameras
and the creative process,

802
00:46:34,952 --> 00:46:38,760
there are decks and decks of people
who are telling each other

803
00:46:38,795 --> 00:46:42,920
about "traction" and "rolling out
360-degree platforms"

804
00:46:42,955 --> 00:46:45,725
and this is taking up
a lot of their time.

805
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:50,640
This, I always thought, was the
classic Birtspeak. A lot of these...

806
00:46:50,675 --> 00:46:52,800
A lot of the jargon's
focused in job adverts,

807
00:46:52,835 --> 00:46:55,245
but you have to guess this one.

808
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:58,559
"Procurement is targeted
with delivering savings

809
00:46:58,594 --> 00:47:01,245
"on generic goods and services,
pan-BBC,

810
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:05,880
"through a competitive category-management
initiative and driving compliance.

811
00:47:05,915 --> 00:47:08,565
"The Category Manager -
Logistics, Ground Transport

812
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:10,068
"is responsible to the
Head of Production

813
00:47:10,103 --> 00:47:13,834
"and Logistics and Senior
Category Managee - Logistics."

814
00:47:13,869 --> 00:47:16,485
- Holy...
- And guess what that is a job for.

815
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:20,520
I know the word "logistics" means
"haulage" is it to do with transport?

816
00:47:20,555 --> 00:47:22,360
- Lorries?
- No, it's booking taxis.

817
00:47:24,298 --> 00:47:26,005
- That's it.
- Taxis...

818
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:28,445
Taxis that another manager has
already decided

819
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:32,400
BBC executives shall never, ever use,
as it might get into the Daily Mail.

820
00:47:32,435 --> 00:47:34,645
That is astonishing!

821
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:38,525
But we had a classic about
three or four years ago of...

822
00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:39,330
We called it "neologisms",

823
00:47:39,365 --> 00:47:42,834
- but it was, everything was
"the new" something else. - Yes.

824
00:47:42,869 --> 00:47:46,520
- Everything was the new black for a time,
wasn't it? - Everything was the new black.

825
00:47:46,555 --> 00:47:48,557
"Botox is the new heroin.

826
00:47:48,592 --> 00:47:50,525
"Opera's the new cocaine.

827
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:53,525
"Spelling's the new punctuation.

828
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:56,520
"Checking your inbox
is the new going out."

829
00:47:56,555 --> 00:47:58,445
Oh, here's a good one...

830
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:01,116
"At the risk of going into
Private Eye, I think white pepper

831
00:48:01,151 --> 00:48:02,474
is the new black pepper,"

832
00:48:02,635 --> 00:48:06,725
says Stephen Fry
in Sainsbury's Magazine.

833
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:10,200
I did know what I was doing
but it was absurd, of course.

834
00:48:10,235 --> 00:48:12,805
So that's the point - all these...

835
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:16,440
- not things you've made up just to
be amusing. - No. - They are genuine.

836
00:48:16,475 --> 00:48:19,975
No, and that is the great joy of,
er, the real quote,

837
00:48:20,010 --> 00:48:22,773
is they're always funnier
than anything you could make up.

838
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:27,680
Alexander Pope, I think, he wrote
this marvellous essay on criticism.

839
00:48:27,715 --> 00:48:30,480
If you want to talk about
how well language can be used...

840
00:48:30,515 --> 00:48:33,757
He said, "True wit is nature
to advantage dress'd

841
00:48:33,792 --> 00:48:36,965
"what oft was thought,
but ne'er so well express'd."

842
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:40,525
- Gorgeous. - And that's it. You want
someone to tell you something.

843
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:42,125
You think, "Yes, that must be right.

844
00:48:42,160 --> 00:48:45,356
- I've thought of that but I've never
said it that well." - Yeah.

845
00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:54,720
<i>And that, in a nutshell,
is what it's all about.

846
00:48:54,755 --> 00:48:56,525
<i>It's why we turn to the poets

847
00:48:56,560 --> 00:49:00,940
<i>in times of love, death,
joy and grief -

848
00:49:00,975 --> 00:49:05,285
<i>they just do it better
than anyone else.

849
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:08,480
"He was my North, my South,
my East, my West,

850
00:49:08,515 --> 00:49:11,565
"My working week, my Sunday best,

851
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:15,880
"My noon, my midnight,
my talk, my song;

852
00:49:15,915 --> 00:49:20,160
"I thought that love could
last for ever:

853
00:49:20,518 --> 00:49:22,080
"But I was wrong.

854
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:27,640
"The stars are not needed now:
Put them out, every one;

855
00:49:27,675 --> 00:49:31,777
"Pack up the moon,
dismantle the sun;

856
00:49:31,812 --> 00:49:36,046
"Pour away the ocean,
sweep up the woods.

857
00:49:36,081 --> 00:49:37,074
"For nothing now

858
00:49:37,608 --> 00:49:38,796
"can ever come

859
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:40,807
to any good."

860
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:49,040
That poem was by WH Auden,
but you may well know it better

861
00:49:49,075 --> 00:49:51,765
from the film
Four Weddings And A Funeral,

862
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:56,800
where it was magnificently used
in the funeral of the title.

863
00:49:56,835 --> 00:50:01,217
It's extraordinary how something
can have such impact,

864
00:50:01,252 --> 00:50:05,026
be so succinct and have such
emotional truth behind it.

865
00:50:05,061 --> 00:50:08,690
Maybe it's something to do with
the very nature of a poem.

866
00:50:08,725 --> 00:50:12,320
As Joyce would say, "The right words
in the right order."

867
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:25,965
<i>'Richard Curtis - old friend,
creator of Blackadder

868
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:29,925
<i>'and, of course, writer of the most
successful rom-coms of our generation,

869
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:33,735
<i>'from Notting Hill, Love Actually
and, of course, Four Weddings

870
00:50:33,770 --> 00:50:35,969
<i>and that now-famous Funeral.'

871
00:50:36,555 --> 00:50:39,325
I mean, tragically in my life,
in every film I've ever done,

872
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:43,000
the actual single best moment in
the film has nothing to do with...

873
00:50:43,035 --> 00:50:45,965
nothing to do with me at all -
it's always the case.

874
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:50,520
Why did you choose that poem? And secondly,
were you astonished by that response?

875
00:50:50,555 --> 00:50:53,760
Yeah, I mean, I chose the poem
because I didn't feel up to the job...

876
00:50:53,795 --> 00:50:56,045
- Right, I see.
- ... of writing a moving funeral,

877
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:59,005
so I thought I'd better leave it
to a better man.

878
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:02,360
But also, I mean, the fact that
I knew it was, in a funny way,

879
00:51:02,395 --> 00:51:05,680
because I'd always been told
I should study Auden and Lovell

880
00:51:05,715 --> 00:51:08,765
- and then I didn't understand
most of his poems. - Right.

881
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:11,680
I remember being very thrilled
when I came across that one.

882
00:51:11,715 --> 00:51:14,560
I think it's no coincidence
that it's in fact, as you say,

883
00:51:14,595 --> 00:51:17,697
- called Funeral Blues
and is in fact a lyric... - Yes.

884
00:51:17,732 --> 00:51:20,765
- Was meant to be sung. - Right.
- And that sort of is...

885
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:22,914
probably, for me, quite symptomatic

886
00:51:22,949 --> 00:51:27,150
of the fact that I've got
a great passion about lyrics -

887
00:51:27,155 --> 00:51:29,325
in a way, more than poems.

888
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:32,560
It's become the thing
for funerals, hasn't it,

889
00:51:32,595 --> 00:51:35,725
for music to be chosen,
songs to be chosen?

890
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:37,153
There are ones that are...

891
00:51:37,430 --> 00:51:39,018
They're cliches but one
shouldn't mock them -

892
00:51:39,053 --> 00:51:42,485
you know, I Did It My Way
and Je Ne Regrette Rien.

893
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:45,280
Angels, I believe, is number one
at funerals these days.

894
00:51:45,315 --> 00:51:47,245
They do have top-ten lists,
don't they?

895
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:48,901
I heard someone had Countdown

896
00:51:48,901 --> 00:51:52,404
playing when his coffin
went through the curtains.

897
00:51:53,035 --> 00:51:56,280
"Da-dum, da-dum-dum, boom."
It's another way of doing it.

898
00:51:56,315 --> 00:52:00,037
But still people read poems -
there are a few -

899
00:52:00,072 --> 00:52:03,725
but you feel that actually lyrics
have more...

900
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:07,605
I won't say "more power",
but that they do the job better,

901
00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:09,562
they can express emotion
everybody can understand?

902
00:52:09,562 --> 00:52:10,947
- Is that...?
- I don't know.

903
00:52:10,947 --> 00:52:12,883
The thing is about poems,
people don't have

904
00:52:12,883 --> 00:52:14,924
as passionate access
to them now as they did.

905
00:52:14,924 --> 00:52:18,805
People were apparently outraged
by the work of Byron

906
00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:21,925
- and people knew about it, and they
were more famous... - Yes. Yes.

907
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:23,754
It's hard for a poem
to break through.

908
00:52:23,754 --> 00:52:26,329
Perhaps what happened
on the Four Weddings one was,

909
00:52:26,329 --> 00:52:31,325
it was a rare example of a poem
being put out to enough people...

910
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:33,793
to get a passionate reaction
and, of course, poems are

911
00:52:33,793 --> 00:52:36,436
often perfect, word for word.

912
00:52:36,915 --> 00:52:41,097
Pop lyrics are often not perfect,
but they are known by so many people

913
00:52:41,132 --> 00:52:45,280
and they've got the passion and
perfection of the music behind them.

914
00:52:45,315 --> 00:52:47,685
You know, there also are very...

915
00:52:47,720 --> 00:52:50,800
there are geniuses working
in the world of pop lyrics now.

916
00:52:50,835 --> 00:52:53,845
Paul Simon has written some
very extraordinary things.

917
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:57,120
The Boxer is very extraordinary.
Every day I think of that line...

918
00:52:57,155 --> 00:53:00,005
"A man hears what he wants to hear
and disregards the rest."

919
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:01,978
As you go through life
and realise people are only hearing

920
00:53:01,978 --> 00:53:06,677
a bit of what you say, because
it's the bit that suits them.

921
00:53:06,712 --> 00:53:09,445
It's part of the fabric
of your life now.

922
00:53:09,480 --> 00:53:13,280
Now, if you pick a poem, it may be
the first time someone's heard it,

923
00:53:13,315 --> 00:53:15,365
they've got to piece it together...

924
00:53:15,400 --> 00:53:19,560
- Yes. - Whereas if you have... There's
a song by Coldplay called Fix You,

925
00:53:19,595 --> 00:53:22,525
- and you can't do much better than...
- Yeah, right.

926
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:26,360
... "I will try to fix you," after
a terrible sorrow has occurred.

927
00:53:26,395 --> 00:53:28,285
It's got a tremendous potency

928
00:53:28,320 --> 00:53:33,165
and the fact that the lyrics
may not be as well crafted,

929
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:35,295
the compensation of
the beauty of the tune

930
00:53:35,295 --> 00:53:38,486
is enough to turn it
back into something deeper.

931
00:53:38,521 --> 00:53:42,560
I suppose there's the feeling that your
whole generation heard that song together,

932
00:53:42,595 --> 00:53:44,685
so it has a sort of binding effect.

933
00:53:44,720 --> 00:53:49,200
- It connects you all. - Yeah, you know,
if you stood in a stadium...

934
00:53:49,235 --> 00:53:53,680
- Yeah. - ...with 45,000 other people
who know those words... - Yes.

935
00:53:53,715 --> 00:53:59,920
..they become... It is,
it's a Nuremberg Rally of pop.

936
00:54:00,769 --> 00:54:05,400
♪

937
00:54:05,970 --> 00:54:09,470
♪

938
00:54:14,611 --> 00:54:21,077
♪

939
00:54:21,940 --> 00:54:27,864
♪

940
00:54:29,073 --> 00:54:34,223
♪

941
00:54:43,960 --> 00:54:48,840
<i>Well, there's no doubting the intensity
of that collective experience,

942
00:54:48,875 --> 00:54:52,797
<i>but can Coldplay or
the rapper or band of the moment

943
00:54:52,832 --> 00:54:56,720
<i>really stand alongside
the pantheon of great poets?

944
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:02,680
<i>Sir Christopher Ricks is one of the most
eminent literary critics of his generation.

945
00:55:02,715 --> 00:55:06,840
<i>He's written on everything from Keats,
Tennyson, Milton and TS Eliot,

946
00:55:06,875 --> 00:55:09,965
<i>but he doesn't shy away
from popular culture.

947
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:13,800
His latest opus has been
on one of his all-time favourites.

948
00:55:13,835 --> 00:55:15,525
♪ Thinking about the government ♪

949
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:18,245
♪ The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off ♪

950
00:55:18,280 --> 00:55:21,440
♪ Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off... ♪

951
00:55:21,475 --> 00:55:24,565
You've, you know, written
a full-length work on Dylan,

952
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:26,083
which I think you would call poetry,

953
00:55:26,083 --> 00:55:29,685
although, of course, it is written
often and mostly for singing.

954
00:55:30,355 --> 00:55:34,000
Dylan is, I think, a great artist.

955
00:55:34,035 --> 00:55:35,485
I think that he's, er...

956
00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:39,280
simply astonishingly imaginative
with words.

957
00:55:39,315 --> 00:55:41,977
♪ Darkness at the break of noon ♪

958
00:55:42,012 --> 00:55:44,605
♪ Shadows even the silver spoon ♪

959
00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:46,640
♪ The hand-made blade
The child's balloon ♪

960
00:55:46,675 --> 00:55:48,757
♪ Eclipses both the sun and moon ♪

961
00:55:48,792 --> 00:55:50,376
♪ To understand, you know too soon ♪

962
00:55:50,411 --> 00:55:51,925
♪ There is no sense in trying... ♪

963
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:55,645
I think again and again, Dylan
is very good when you could imagine

964
00:55:55,680 --> 00:55:59,480
an unimaginative creative-writing
school telling him he'd got it wrong.

965
00:55:59,515 --> 00:56:02,197
♪ So don't fear ♪

966
00:56:02,232 --> 00:56:04,845
♪ If you hear ♪

967
00:56:04,880 --> 00:56:08,280
♪ A foreign sound to your ear ♪

968
00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:11,640
♪ It's all right, Ma ♪

969
00:56:11,675 --> 00:56:13,800
♪ I'm only sighing... ♪

970
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:21,677
When you sing, "Don't fear if you
hear a foreign sound to your ear,"

971
00:56:21,677 --> 00:56:23,088
you can imagine somebody saying,

972
00:56:23,088 --> 00:56:26,545
"No, no, it's either a sound
that's foreign to your ear

973
00:56:26,545 --> 00:56:29,485
"or you hear a foreign sound
in your ear.

974
00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:34,520
"You don't hear a foreign sound
TO your ear". Oh, yes, you do.

975
00:56:34,555 --> 00:56:37,880
♪ As some warn victory,
some downfall ♪

976
00:56:37,915 --> 00:56:39,645
♪ Private reasons, great or small ♪

977
00:56:39,680 --> 00:56:41,520
♪ Can be seen in the eyes
of those that call ♪

978
00:56:41,555 --> 00:56:43,325
♪ To make all that should be killed
to crawl ♪

979
00:56:43,360 --> 00:56:47,560
♪ While others say, "Don't hate
nothing at all except hatred"... ♪

980
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:51,760
This is wonderfully well put.

981
00:56:51,795 --> 00:56:53,965
It couldn't be better put.

982
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:57,560
In a sense, that's almost the
definition of poetry that you need,

983
00:56:57,595 --> 00:57:02,359
- and none other.
"This is so well put." - Yeah.

984
00:57:02,359 --> 00:57:04,845
- It sounds almost trite.
- Yeah.

985
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:07,160
<i>And yet that actually says so much.

986
00:57:11,160 --> 00:57:14,485
<i>So that's it.
There really are no rules.

987
00:57:14,520 --> 00:57:18,520
<i>There is no right and wrong as to
what makes good or bad writing,

988
00:57:18,555 --> 00:57:22,960
<i>and all I can urge you to do is
to read and read some more,

989
00:57:22,995 --> 00:57:25,880
<i>for therein dwells
the story of us all.

990
00:57:26,960 --> 00:57:32,440
<i>Much of our extraordinary ability with,
and delight in, language has ended up here,

991
00:57:32,475 --> 00:57:36,520
<i>on the page, recorded forever,
for us and for our ancestors.

992
00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:42,420
<i>It has the power to move us,
console us and inspire us.

993
00:57:42,455 --> 00:57:46,800
<i>Without doubt, it is
our species' supreme achievement.

994
00:57:46,835 --> 00:57:48,160
<i>It is our glory.

995
00:57:53,520 --> 00:57:54,760
♪ So don't fear ♪

996
00:57:55,760 --> 00:57:57,845
♪ If you hear ♪

997
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:01,440
♪ A foreign sound to your ear ♪

998
00:58:02,640 --> 00:58:04,800
♪ It's all right, Ma ♪

999
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:07,480
♪ I'm only sighing ♪

1000
00:58:17,126 --> 00:58:19,628
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