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Idea - "To Be Or Not To Be?"

Semiazas

Semiazas

I've had an idea for what I guess is a sort of abstract/experimental type thing, it doesn't have much plot to it and is very simple in it's premise.

It essentially takes a possible interpretation of the To Be Or Not To Be speech from Hamlet as being the title character debating his own suicide ("To be" meaning "to live" in this interpretation).

It has one actor and two locations - A stage and a house. The idea is he performs the speech on a stage while it cuts to him alone in the house contemplating and preparing for his own suicide (going to get a weapon, pressing it against his throat etc.) and I had the idea of ending it ambiguously and having him look down at the weapon and just once again saying "to be? Or not to be?" and ending it there.

Just wondering what people think, particularly as I guess it's a bit less conventional than some of my other ideas.
 
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Well, the soliloquy in Hamlet IS about debating suicide. It wouldn't be so much a reinterpretation as an expression of it. That said, it's not a bad idea, and you could do a lot with it. Are you thinking of the theatre sections being his thoughts as he's preparing, or the preparation of suicide his thoughts as he is acting? Either way could be pretty cool, and the ambiguity would add to it. I'd like to see where you go with it!
 
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The bits on a stage are in his head, his actually contemplating it, of course no one will be in an audience watching him.
He prepares for it in the house, so it cuts away from the stage to him in the house pacing, debating with himself to do it or not, getting a weapon (a knife of some kind most likely) and then going back and maybe just pressing it against his neck etc. maybe just thinking if he's too scared or not and of course, once the speech finishes, it cuts to him saying "to be? Or not to be?"
Then it ends
 
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By all means as an experimental film for your own experience, it might be worth filming. I think, overall, the idea seems rather bland and redundant. As JoshL points out, the speech is already about Hamlet killing himself. The flashing between home and stage really doesn't add anything fresh. It has been played out over montages with the final sequence ending with that hanging pause ... with the actor contemplating whether to kill him (or her) self. I would urge you to seek a more novel twist.
 
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Sometimes you need to flip ideas around what if instead of mortality we speak of immortality. Realizing he'd be committing to the undiscovered country for an eternity. What if as he walks through the dark and into the looming tavern into the backroom to see the beautiful girl at the end, he wonders "To be or not to be." He holds a stake in one hand and sweet Ophelia bares her fangs as she saunters towards him. Which fateful bodkin finds its mark?
 
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The soliloquy paired with any sort of duality/decision could work. To love someone or leave them. To take a job or not. To vote one way or another. To fight someone or walk away. To take drugs or go to rehab. To start interstellar war by killing a wayward alien explorer in your back yard or not. The important thing is to work with what speaks to you, and with what you want to say.

Oh, and if that happens to be suicide, just because it's been done, is cliched and straight out of the text doesn't mean you can't do it. I'd personally rather see something done well, or done with something to say, instead of something completely different just for the sake of being different, yanno?

Either way, can't wait to see what you do with it!
 
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The suicide one was the one that immediately sprang to mind (I'm not suicidal or anything, don't worry ;D) because it seemed in character for Hamlet (naturally as it was from the text). I'll think it over and see what I decide on :)

EDIT
I quite like the idea of him having a hostage he's debating killing. In his own home of course. And he's just juggling with the moral issues of it all, with it opening with him looking into a room and saying something, then going downstairs and beginning to debate the idea of killing this hostage.

Thoughts?
 
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