Date: 2004 Posted by:soonest2turn Credits: Not given Cast: Not given Duration: 2.58
School project Shakespeare raps are scattered all over YouTube, and most are lame and annoying. This Grade 12 English project video from Canada stands out from the crowd by some realistic venom amid the goofy performance, and its strong language (a broadminded English teacher was involved, clearly). The lyrics show a strong engagement with the play, more than vindicating the exercise:
Straight Outta Denmark a crazy m———r named Hamlet
I’m a bad ass hero that’s tragic
Thoughts are pending, time’s not mending
Tragic means I die in the ending.
The full text is given on the YouTube page. Just a shame about the half-hearted lip-synching.
It is all too easy to sigh at yet another American middle school English project where the class has been encouraged to demonstrate that Shakspeare can be fun by producing a YouTube video. You may sigh even more at the all-too-obvious choice of rap, something whose novelty factor wore out years ago.
And yet, and yet. Look again. This is a terrific video. It displays such enthusiasm for the task in hand, which is to make a rap video out of the story of Hamlet. The lyrics are sharp, the editing is good, the music is strong, and the performances are goofy but dedicated to the cause. Care has been taken to make the individual scenes varied. In common with many such video spoofs, the titles are done in MTV-style, while the subtitles are helpful. Shakespeare himself turns up in the car for the chorus (“Hamlet here with my boy Shakespeare”) – he’s the one with a skull in his hand. It’s a fine English project that brings out such delight in recognising the vitality of the play.
Date: 2005 Posted by:mf99 Credits: The credits, in MTV Style, say “Lear”, by Wilson Mccutchan, on Phat Phish Records Cast: David Mclean (King Lear), Chris Teolis (Cordelia), Kevin Hagino (The Fool), James Mangan (Stunt Lear), Andrew McConnon (Regan), Victor Wong (Goneril), Wilson Mccutchan (Lead Vocal) Duration: 7.07
A first-rate parody of the video for Eminem’s ‘Stan’, changing the story from that of an obsessed fan who writes repeatedly to Eminem before killing himself and his girlfriend, to King Lear writing to his daughter Cordelia (“Dear Cordelia, I wrote to you, but you still ain’t calling, hope there’s not a problem, I sent two letters to France in autumn…”), complete with the sample from Dido’s ‘Thank You’ to intercut the familiar tale of ‘drama, violence and death’. It works ingeniously well, finding adroit parallels in these two tales of disordered passion, maybe even offering some insight into the psychodrama that is King Lear.
Date: 2007 Posted by:Scartol Credits: Created by Scartol Cast: Jon Finch (Macbeth), Francesca Annis (Lady Macbeth) Duration: 5.13
A logical fusion of Macbeth with Gangsta rap, in this neatly-edited mashup of shots from Roman Polanski’s 1971 Macbeth (in widescreen), with Jon Finch as Macbeth and Francesca Annis as Lady Macbeth, to the music of the Geto Boys’ ‘Mind Playin’ Tricks On Me’. There are numerous adroit matches between lyrics and action; note, for example, the timing of the lines (from the song) of ‘my hands are all bloody’.
Date: 2006 Posted by:SupaComix Credits: Directed and animated by Nick Browne, music by Mitch Benn Cast: Lego Duration: 4.27
A Lego animation, marrying the story of Macbeth to a rap accompaniment not so far away from Eminem. The animation is rudimentary by some brickfilm standards, but it makes a virtue of its roughness, and serves as a witty comment on the play. The obligatory expletives have been deleted. The assorted Lego figures include characters from Star Wars as the three witches. The film was directed and animated by Nick Browne, who manages the Supa Comix website, which is dedicated to the worlds of online media and comic books. This is an output of one of the site’s projects, ‘We 3 Men’. Music is by Mitch Benn (with a burst of Green Day over the credits).
Posted by bardbox 
Posted by bardbox 
Posted by bardbox 