Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Right or Wrong. Wrong or Right. Does it Matter?


There are people that say that "a picture is worth a thousand words." Generally, I would agree, but in the  case of Waiting for Godot, I wouldn't be so sure. After having watched the film, I am now forced to look at the play through someone else's eyes. I see things the way the director imagined them, and this alienates me from the play, and from what I felt and saw as I was reading it. The fact that it is a play means that Beckett wanted this to happen. He wanted the actors to interpret the emotions and actions of the characters a certain way and try their best to portray that, but at the same time leaving a large grey area so that the audience can replay the entire thing in their heads and have it come out completely different.

How can I know what you see? How can I know what you feel? Every single person experiences things in unique ways, so there is no way of knowing whether what the author intended you to feel is actually what you are experiencing.

If we take Lucky's speech from the play, there are a thousand different ways that an actor can choose to interpret it. I had imagined Lucky as a worn down, shaky, small old man that would just start to ramble on and on about nothing, with occasional lapses in judgment. However, the way it is presented in the movie, Lucky talks with passion and conviction. He makes pauses, and when he reaches the middle he starts to get really into it.

Whether you are like me, and imagine a life-less Lucky babbling about inconsequential things, or whether you agree with the impersonation he was given in the movie, no one can tell who is right and who is wrong because there is no right or wrong.  

No comments:

Post a Comment