None more snobbish

Sorry, I wrote the above before I read Momus's "On principle, I would never ever go to any movie in which the trailer features a deep, rumbling digital synth note, a deep, male voice, blue smoky darkness pierced by explosions, a gun, and a series of low frequency juddering Dolby impacts every couple of seconds in the soundtrack..."

Actually, not meaning to be picky, but I think "that boxing movie" is pretty boring, to be honest. But then again I think everything Scorcese has ever done is boring.

Whether you like Raging Bull or not, the assumption in that quote is that any performance of Hamlet must have better or more inspiring acting than that of Robert De Niro in Raging Bull, and that's not true. Wasn't the last screen Hamlet played by Mel Gibson?

SHIT SNOBWICH

Wasn't the last screen Hamlet played by Mel Gibson?

Nope -- Branagh. Now think on that and worry.

Let's not forget Ethan "Hamlet" Hawke...

Nope -- Branagh. Now think on that and worry.

Oh no. There were two movie productions of Hamlet in 2000: one was a TV movie with Campbell Scott as the lead, the other had Ethan Hawke.

Yes, but you are talking about Max Beesley, C-list Northern beefcake cheesehead, pal of Guy Ritchie and shagger of Mel B. What did you expect, Proust? He'd have been more honest to say getting in the ES Magazine party section was his inspiration.

Incidentally, I'm with Nick (C) on the issue of trailer-cliches putting me off the films trailed. I can't remember what the name of the particular gravel-voiced trailer guy is, though.

Martin, yes I see your point. Raging Bull is one of those rare movies, one I have actually seen. I thought it was quite good. I remember a female friend being surprised that I liked it (after a male friend got me to sit down and watch it on video), because she felt it glorified violence. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. That certainly wasn't my reading of it, but either way, it's more than just a boxing flick.

Ethan Hawke

I am trying to pretend that never happened. Why do you not let me do this?

hey Ned: ETHAN HAWKE!

Come on, dont diss keneth branagh. His hamlet even has its own greenspun

border, discussion, forum whatever

i've read 'the hottest state' and ethan is the next shakespeare so he was born to be hamlet.

For me, snobbism is a vice, but a sympathetic one. I think the snob's essential mistake - and it's one I make all the time - is to go through life thinking that the culture around him is bad because of aesthetic errors on the part of other people. When in fact he's living in quite a different world, a world where art, music, literature etc are micromanaged with quite different aims than aesthetic ones.

For instance, music in public places is used not to decorate them but because it's been shown that people buy more when music is present, whether they listen to it or not. Sometimes the music is made unpleasant so that you buy, consume and move on promptly, freeing up space for the next consumer.

And the trailers I complain about on t'other thread use those cliches precisely because they contain a subliminal message which says 'this product will appeal to the C2DE market'. It's not a quesion of the trailer makers lacking aesthetic originality. It's that that simply isn't the point. The point is about marketing.

The snob is either just another market demographic (ABC1) or he's the last human being left in a world of micromanaged zombies.

momus do you mean that YOU think posh oppl must have bettah taste by defn, or that you're objecting that the marketing ppl think this?

the original quote martin digs up looks to me a bit more like a bludged joke abt snobbery rather than actual snobbery: also note that where 99% of the actual real acting in the UK actually goes on — ie in neither films OR theatah but television — is not even included. ("His thesp urge came not from watching Hamlet" eg one kind of posh taste "or Scorsese" eg another, once you get past the boxing "but EMMERDALE FARM!!")

Also surely Hamlet would get you into playwriting rather than acting. I assume this thespian epiphany came from watching Bob De Niro in ver Bull and realising for some acting jobs you have to eat loads and it is part of the job!!

ABC1s read The Independent. The snobs at The Independent think it's self-evident that 'Hamlet' is better than 'Raging Bull'. In this case, I agree with the 'snobs', though I wouldn't always. Or rather, I agree with the hierarchy, but not that it's self-evident.

The Independent's readership will include quite a lot of C2s and Ds - students, low-paid teachers and other public sector workers, etc.

In market research terms the "snob" Momus is talking about would probably be an 'outlier' - people whose responses to stimuli are too extreme to fit whatever model of behaviour the rest of the data constructs. Outliers can be 'micromanaged' too, they're just too idiosyncratic for the techniques needed to be developed. They would include ultra-elitists, but also ultra-populists (people who really like the 'ugly' music supermarkets play to move them along), and people whose likes contradict one another within the model (i.e. liking Momus and muzak, cue smart-alec comment from Brutish reader).

Tom, students and their teachers are C1. It's the MRS refresher course for youuuuuu....

Blimey you're right! Heh I have never taken my MRS exams and a good thing too.

Why is Martin being such a snob about Mel Gibson?

Besides the use of 'is' rather than 'was', I don't think I was - I have nothing against Mel Gibson. I just meant that it was far from clear that Mel Gibson (or Branagh or Hawke) playing Hamlet should be inspiring to an actor and De Niro playing Jake La Motta shouldn't. And these are the IoS's choices of material, not mine - I'm not putting either of them up as the right things to be inspired by. As Mark says, most of the acting we see is in popular TV shows, and some of that is tremendous.

I love Mel's Hamlet. He puts his ass into it. For someone who's problem is an inability to take action, he sure jumps around and shouts a lot.