This is an example from the 116 Project, in which ‘Shakespeare Cowboy’ (possibly not his real name) films ordinary Americans and gets them to read Shakespeare 116th sonnet (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments”). It’s a delightful idea, and the several videos on his YouTube channel each charm through the freshness of their (mostly) untutored readings and the everyday settings. Here the sweetness of Eleanor’s rendition is enriched by the homely setting, the dog and the cat. As the videos’ creator says, “Shakespeare shows us people and people show us Shakespeare”.
Date: 2005 Posted by: ElMatadore88 Credits: Created by Edward Cast: Andrew Dexter, Casey Inouye, Edward Fan, Maki Hattori, Nolan Chung
Duration: 10.43
Posted on 18 December 2005, this must be one of the earliest original Shakespeare titles on YouTube. It’s certainly not a conventional production. Describing itself as ‘all the confusing themes of Shakespeare packed into one!’ the video is tagged with such terms as ‘blood’, ‘honor’, ‘ghosts’, ‘romance’ and ‘love’. It starts with Shakespeare’s name written out in what look like cushions, with a piano is played and voices mutter in the background. The images that follow include a church, a paper boat in water having rocks dropped on it (and then the film reversed), birds by a pond, schoolroom actors (mostly Chinese-American) with masks grimacing at the camera, a boy giving birth to a rock, a young woman with a moustache (‘this is what’ll you learn in Shakespeare’), an invisible man, ghostly figures (some of whom dance in the style of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’), blood, fighting, and snatches through out of Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and the sonnets. With snatches of music, messages written on hands, and voices played backgrounds, this is a puzzle, if not quite a paradox. To a degree, it’s just a silly student jape, but it’s a creative jape for all that.
Posted by bardbox 
Posted by bardbox 