a random journal entry - Writers Forum

Fakespeare · 12-10-2006, 11:55 AM

Journal Entry 3: My Name
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Many names have vastly interesting stories behind them. My name is not one of those names. Rachel Austin [Fakespeare]. When my mother was pregnant with her first child, she had no idea as to what it’s body parts would be. She glanced through a few lists of girls names. The only name she really liked was Rachel. She mentioned it to my father, who really had no care as to what the thing was called. He said he liked it, so it was set. Now, if it were to be a boy, then it was my father’s choice of what to name him. Turns out, it was a boy. Dad named him Robert James [Fakespeare]. Out of some strange coincidence, Robert and James both happen to be highly prominent names in my mother’s family. My mother had a red-headed brother named James. Coincidentally, Robert James [Fakespeare] had, you guessed it, red hair. My mother was allowed to name one of her newborn brothers, and she named him Robert. Robert soon died due to God smiting my mother’s family for overpopulating the earth. Coincidentally, Robert James [Fakespeare] will also eventually die, but not for the same reason… I hope.

My mother was, once again, pregnant. This time, she knew what I was. She already had my name prepared, so she wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to wait for me. Sometime near September 16, 1990, they remembered that most kids get a middle name. They chose Austin, which was my Dad’s mother’s grandmother’s husband’s grandfather’s Last name, or, more simply, my great great grandmother’s married name. This was not a coincidence. They did it on purpose.

Now, most names have a meaning that they come from. Very rarely does the meaning actually reflect anything about a person, except, on occasion, gender. Rachel means, “Like a little lamb/ewe”. In other words, I am an innocent, quiet little four legged hoofed creature that is often seen being chased by dogs. If you shave me you get wool. And I taste quite delicious when you slit my throat and let the blood drain out of me, slowly. This description, I most certainly hope, does not fit me at all. I am actually a malicious, loud little two legged creature with feet. I am often seen chasing dogs. If you shave me, you will get a very ugly and angry girl. If you slit my throat and let the blood drain out of me slowly, you get a murder charge. Prison food is not delicious. It is thus easy to see why this name doesn’t fit. Austin has a wide variety of meanings, including helpful, a city in Texas, a descendant of the adopted sun of Julius Caesar, revered, and exalted. I have never in my life been in Texas. I am certainly not helpful, as my mother will gladly tell you. No where in my Genealogy will you find anyone related to Caesar. I am certainly not revered or exalted. I live in the bible belt. They save all that revering and exalting for some guy nailed to a tree.

Well, there you have it. What I’m called, why I’m called that, and why it doesn’t fit.

((I wrote this when I was 13, which explains the suckage. It's mildly humorous. Well, the title is, anyways.))

In Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” the Bard’s classic tale of two star crossed lovers takes an odd twist. Although most of the original dialogue is kept, the storyline is set in a far more recent time period. The movie is rather a muddy cross between the rival gangs of “West Side Story”, and the flashy colors and fast paced action of “Rebel Without a Cause”. Although this modern spin should, in theory, allot for a newer audience for Shakespeare, the confusion caused by the directors stylistic choices tend to distract from the actual plot.

The whole storyline of Romeo and Juliet centers around the nature of the couple’s relationship. In the movie, the couple does not seem to be lovers so much as friends, which is the exact opposite of what Shakespeare was trying to achieve. His true intention was to show the to being trapped in a steamy, lusty, and completely impulsive relationship. They never had time to develop the friendship that is so commonly accepted as the foundation of love. Yet, Leonardo DiCaprio and Clare Danes seem to be best friends who knew each other since childhood, not strangers fallen into desperate romance.

Another issue with the couple’s relationship is that, thanks in part to the first scene being stripped to bare bones, the audience never get to see very much of the rivalry between the two households. The bits and pieces that are seen are often lost in the confusion created by the erratic camera angles, the distractingly loud costumes and settings, and the mind-boggling anachronisms that are inevitable when one takes a play written for Elizabethan era commoners, yanking it from a quiet Italian setting, and throwing it into a muddy mix of Miami, Mexico City, and L.A. in an odd time period that tends to switch between the 80’s, 90’s, 70’s, and the 40’s. The viewer is often so wrapped up in trying to get used to all of these oddities, that they often lose the plot.

One of the few things that help keep true Shakespeare fans sane during the movie are the cute allusions to Shakespearian plays, history, and themes. In one scene, a billboard proclaim its slogan as “Double Double, Toil and Trouble,” a quote straight from Macbeth. There are also allusions to Hamlet: “Out, out damn spot cleaners,” and “Rozencranzky’s.” More subtle hints include the refrences to themes common to the Bard’s plays, such as that of the gods. A clever viewer will catch the irony of Capulet’s costume choice for the party: He is Bacchus, the god of parties.

All in all, the movie has it’s good moments, but those are far outweighed by the moments in which the plot, the dialogue, and even the actors seem lost and confused. The idea was good, but the final product turned out to be less than thrilling. It may have introduced a few more people to Shakespeare, but they surely aren’t going to go home and check out Love’s Labors Lost any time soon.

6th Period

A Senseless Piece

Imagine Ray Bradberry’s Fahrenheit 451 turned into a Lifetime Original Movie or else a mainstream soap opera. Well, if we were to let A Separate Peace’s Larry Peerce direct a movie for it, chances are that is exactly what will happen. He seems to have great talent for turning classic and thought provoking novels into movies worthy of a Days of Our Lives episode.
To give Peerce credit, he certainly did put his own spin on John Knowles’s novel, and the movie definitely gave me a good laugh, but I don’t know if he was intending to make a parody. However, the result, regardless of his intentions, is absolutely satirical.
One of the clever aspects of this film was the location; Phillips Exeter Academy. This happened to be exactly where John Knowles went to school and undoubtedly where he based the school in A Separate Peace off of. Somehow, however, Peerce managed to use even this good idea in a bad way; He turned the movie into a Exeter Academy drama production, casting only one actor not currently enrolled in the school, and even this actor was making his debut in the production.
The movie starts off with a shot showing a rather sporadic and clumsy Phineas running amuck amongst peers in the beautiful campus. The camera seems jerky, and the grace and beauty that John Knowles so carefully sculpts Finny with are completely lost. Phineas seems whiny, jerky, and more hyperactive than athletic. On the other note, Gene isn’t whiny enough. He doesn’t seem to have any qualms about running around with his friends and being the center of Finny’s athletic attention. Sadly, these incongruencies of character aren’t lost as the movie progresses.
The scene in the movie that struck me as an absolute betrayal or else an ingenious spoof was the scene in which Gene tries to tell Finny what had really occurred at the tree. The first lines were filmed so that we only see one person’s face per line. Even worse than the filming was the acting. Somehow, the actors managed to put the precisely the wrong emotion into every line. I was amazed at their interpretation. As another reviewer put it so perfectly, “Finny looks wrong. What's worse, he delivers his lines in a wooden manner, and seems to get the emphasis wrong in nearly every case. If this actor ever read the book, I don't think he understood it.”
Gene and Finny weren’t the only characters that surprised me. Leper Lepilier baffled me to no end. To me, he seemed almost more sane after he went insane. He never adopted that kind, gentle, tree-hugger persona that the Leper in the books had. To add to this destruction of character, Peerce took out the scene in which Leper shows his gentle side while out looking for beavers and instead replaces it with a strange confrontation between Gene and a Leper who is painting a tree. We never see how Leper enjoys skiing as a hobby and not as a tool for war. We never see how the other boys treat Leper with contempt or how he seems to trust Gene. We never even see if Leper was indeed at the tree on that fateful day. For such a central character, Peerce seemed to shunt Leper aside just as much as the schoolboys in the novel did.
There are a lot of challenges one must overcome in order to successfully make a movie out of a novel, especially one as psychologically deep as A Separate Peace. Larry Peerce’s artistic talent must have suffered a blow similar to that of Finny’s physique, as it is equally unable to get over such hurdles.