BetterMost, Wyoming & Brokeback Mountain Forum
Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond => Brokeback Mountain Open Forum => Topic started by: Shakesthecoffecan on March 19, 2011, 03:14:31 pm
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This morning I was shaving listening to an interview with Ben Kingsley on NPR. He was telling about his method and his career and told a story that resonated with me, and made me think of the experience of Brokeback Mountain in my life:
Kingsley had played Hamlett at the Royal Shakespear Theater in the UK. The following day he was crossing a field at Stratford-Upon-Avon when he saw a woman coming his way. He moved to avoid her and she moved too, he repeated the action and she did as well. Finally he gave into the dance and allowed her to approach him. She spoke and told him she had seen him play Hamlet the night before and then she said:
"How did you know who I was?"
It took me a second to let the statement sink in, and then I recognized it, somewhere deep down in my soul. It was what I had felt when Ennis Del Mar shut that closet door.
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72 degrees here in the house with the furnace on; yet, you just covered me in goosebumps, Truman.
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I heard that too, this morning, and was thunderstruck.
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8)
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Here's the link--you can either listen (9:24) or read the transcript, but his voice is wonderful.
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/19/134682388/Ben-Kingsley-On-Portraying-Holocaust-History
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Here's the important bit, at the end.
SCOTT SIMON: How has playing all these roles affected you as a human being, as an actor?
Mr. KINGSLEY: I think I'm getting closer to a madman at the bonfire telling stories. I think it's just very important to embrace tragedy as a real part of our lives. David Mamet, in his book, "Writings in Restaurants," defined - let me slightly paraphrase and say Western civilization. Western civilization is a civilization determined to outlaw tragedy. If removed, the interpretation of tragedy and the presentation of tragedy from the shaman, who's sitting by the bonfire, you're telling the tribe nothing of real life. And it doesn't prepare us as adults. It's infantilizes us and it dodges an enormous responsibility.
And all great mythology that we love and respect has included loss and tragedy, as well as great moments of salvation. It's braided in. After a performance I gave of Hamlet, I was walking across a field near Stratford-upon-Avon and I saw a young woman on the other side of the field walking towards me, so I decided to go that way and she moved that way. So, I moved that way and she moved that way. She was determined.
And she faced me in the middle of this field and she said - 'cause I played Hamlet on stage the night before - she said, "I saw 'Hamlet' last night. How did you know about me?" That's my job. I know you. I'm trying to know you. And through knowing each other and holding onto that tribal bonfire, we'll be OK.
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"I saw 'Hamlet' last night. How did you know about me?" That's my job. I know you. I'm trying to know you. And through knowing each other and holding onto that tribal bonfire, we'll be OK.
I was priveleged to hear that interview too and was heartstruck. When he talked about the people gathered round about the tribal campfire, you know what campfire I saw in my mind! Interesting too, that his performance of Hamlet reached out to a woman and spoke to her like an arrow drawn straight and true. Thanks for posting this, friends.
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Cheers, Friend Lee. Makes me think, what would we do without NPR? I just renewed my membership. They need it now, more than ever. You won't hear this stuff anywhere else.
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The following day he was crossing a field at Stratford-Upon-Avon when he saw a woman coming his way. He moved to avoid her and she moved too, he repeated the action and she did as well. Finally he gave into the dance and allowed her to approach him.
My mother told of an older woman doing that in a doorway or corridor, and finally saying "Just once more young man, and then I really must be going."
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Yes, I think with us all, this thing was something we recognized, longed for, needed in a way because our civilization had infantilized us, had not told us the story.
But now it has been told, cannot be untold, and we are changed.
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But now it has been told, cannot be untold, and we are changed.
As long as we can ride it, there ain't no reins on this one!