When I heard about the new project to film Shakespeare's sonnets--all 154 of them--on the streets of New York, I had a mixed reaction. On one level, what a great idea: drawing attention to the sonnets in a completely different cultural context from the one that students usually expect; enlisting respected actors and actresses; using Kickstarter and the app format to get the public involved. On the other hand, the lyric poet in me went... well, are sonnets actually filmable? I mean, they're not plays, and they're mostly not written for explicit, embodied performance (unless you're writing them as a set of song lyrics, or unless you're Romeo and Juliet--in which case, have at it). But most sonnets aren't drama, after all, and part of their point is that they speak in a different generic mode; one of their voices, for better or for worse, is always the one that you hear in your own head. From that angle, I'm a little worried that the project mashes two distinct art forms together without interrogating their differences, or even pointing out to the public that the differences exist.
Now, I have to admit, I feel a little pedantic writing that. After all, anything that appifies the Bard is a fabulous idea, and it generates discussions like these in the first place. So, I've decided to sign up for the app. There's only one sonnet-film available at the moment, but (for some reason) I haven't been able to access it on this machine. I'll check back once I've figured out the difficulty, and I'll keep you updated on my reactions. For the moment, though, I'm thinking that the sonnet-films are going to be, at the very least, fabulous conversation starters about genre, drama, and inwardness--particularly in the Shakespeare classroom.
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