I wasn't sure what tone to take the 92nd Sonnet in when I read it. On one hand it seems almost comical in its assurances that the subject cannot hurt the writer by leaving him because to do so would hurt him so bad that it would end his life, and thus give him no more worries; however the idea of the writer defined so much by another that she has so much control on whether he lives or dies is also a bit dark. It was interesting to me then that the film seems not to be sure of the tone either.
At times the actor delivers the lines with abandon and confidence, but then at others he is much grimmer and seeming to have a certain amount of resentment or resistance to the person who he thinks is leaving him or thinking of leaving him, In between lines we have the man also repeating lines to himself as if thinking them over or trying to reconcile them in his own head. It is an odd way to deliver the sonnet but I quite liked it because it did slow the delivery down and the repeated lines did give the actor more room to play with them; okay perhaps it is a device that the writer did not intend, but I did like it.
Problem is that, although the film is only a few minutes lone, I felt like it overplayed this idea. The editing in particular is where this happens since it does rather go over the top and make it about that rather than the words or the performance. The multi-mouthed spinning collage is one example but generally the rapid cutting is also quite heavy handed and I felt it pushed the idea to the point where this became the focus rather than the text or the performance. I'm not sure if it is because so much of the film was in the hands of Herman (editor, director, filming, scoring) that he maybe got tied up with what he was doing rather than what the film was doing, but it does seem like he overdid what was fundamentally an interesting idea. It is a shame for Hathcoat too, because the idea hands a lot to the actor to make it work, but although his performance is engaging and his delivery clear, his performance does increasingly get lost in all the editing around.
I did still quite like the film in its tone and concept, but by the end it did feel like it had pushed it too hard and had missed the opportunity to add character, inflection and detail with the device, instead being more about the technical delivery of the film and the editing tools available, which is a shame.
At times the actor delivers the lines with abandon and confidence, but then at others he is much grimmer and seeming to have a certain amount of resentment or resistance to the person who he thinks is leaving him or thinking of leaving him, In between lines we have the man also repeating lines to himself as if thinking them over or trying to reconcile them in his own head. It is an odd way to deliver the sonnet but I quite liked it because it did slow the delivery down and the repeated lines did give the actor more room to play with them; okay perhaps it is a device that the writer did not intend, but I did like it.
Problem is that, although the film is only a few minutes lone, I felt like it overplayed this idea. The editing in particular is where this happens since it does rather go over the top and make it about that rather than the words or the performance. The multi-mouthed spinning collage is one example but generally the rapid cutting is also quite heavy handed and I felt it pushed the idea to the point where this became the focus rather than the text or the performance. I'm not sure if it is because so much of the film was in the hands of Herman (editor, director, filming, scoring) that he maybe got tied up with what he was doing rather than what the film was doing, but it does seem like he overdid what was fundamentally an interesting idea. It is a shame for Hathcoat too, because the idea hands a lot to the actor to make it work, but although his performance is engaging and his delivery clear, his performance does increasingly get lost in all the editing around.
I did still quite like the film in its tone and concept, but by the end it did feel like it had pushed it too hard and had missed the opportunity to add character, inflection and detail with the device, instead being more about the technical delivery of the film and the editing tools available, which is a shame.