ophliea

[ophliea]

*         FRIGHTENING    LITTLE     MONSTER    ……        𝔭𝔯𝔦𝔳𝔞𝔱𝔢   𝔞𝔩𝔦𝔠𝔢   𝔠𝔲𝔩𝔩𝔢𝔫   𝔟𝔶   𝔯𝔬́𝔦𝔰𝔦́𝔫.  

[ophliea]

Magic Magic (2013) dir. Sebastián Silva

[ophliea]

               MOVIE STARTERS VOL.18    MIDSOMMAR    ARI ASTER

❛ So we’re just gonna ignore the bear then? ❜

❛ Do you feel held by him? Does he feel like home to you? ❜

❛ Hi. Hello! There you are! Listen: You can’t speak. You can’t move. ❜

❛ We have this dance competition and the winner gets crowned. ❜

❛ As an offering for our Father, we will today surrender nine human lives. ❜

❛ You will today be joined in harmony with Everything. ❜

❛ Maybe you can redeem this! ❜

❛ Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing? It’s actually kind of outrageously unsubtle, the fact that you’re being this bold about it, I’m honestly kind of impressed? ❜

❛ It makes him open, for the source. ❜

❛ Do you think that there is a masochistic part of you that is playing out this particular drama to avoid the work you actually need to be doing? ❜

❛ Wow, okay, thanks for the psychoanalysis. ❜

❛ You know, I’m very, very glad you’re coming. I think it’s very good you’re coming. ❜

❛ You know that what you’re doing is unethical, and leechy, and lazy. And, frankly, it’s kind of sad. ❜

❛ But I have always felt held. By a family. A real family. Which everyone deserves. And you deserve. ❜

❛ Are you not disturbed by what we just saw? ❜

❛ The Queen must ride alone. ❜

❛ You know what, um, I’m worried I’ll have a bad trip. ❜

❛ What? Okay, relax. Relax! What did I do? ❜

❛ I think we really need to just at least try to acclimate. ❜

❛ Hey. How you doing? Today was tough. Are you going to be okay? ❜

❛ And yet, I was the most excited for you to come. ❜

❛ I’m really sorry. Thank you for inviting me, but I really have to go. Can someone maybe drive me somewhere? ❜

❛ We’re going to stand until it’s right to sit. ❜

❛ Wait, you’re not talking about an actual one? ❜

❛ Tomorrow’s a big day. ❜

❛ You’ll get a better sense tomorrow. ❜

❛ That can’t be right! The sky is blue! ❜

❛ That feels wrong. I don’t like that! ❜

❛ That’s not fine! Why is it like that? ❜

❛ That’s an interesting symbol. ❜

[ophliea]

saved gertruide & obviously laetres should any of you be so inclined. :-]

[ophliea]

Mostly I’m here because of the press. It was felt we needed to be on guard because of all the silly attention that your Royal Highness is attracting. Their lenses are terribly powerful these days, Ma'am.

Spencer (2021) dir. Pablo Larraín

[ophliea]

        BOOK STARTERS VOL.53    THE DIVINE COMEDY    DANTE ALIGHIERI

❛ All hope abandon, ye who enter here. ❜

❛ The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and pain. ❜

❛ The love that moves the sun and the other stars. ❜

❛ The devil is not as black as he is painted. ❜

❛ Through me you pass into the city of woe. Through me you pass into eternal pain. ❜

❛ Into the eternal darkness, into fire and into ice.  ❜

❛ There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery. ❜

❛ Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost. ❜

❛ Without hope we live on in desire. ❜

❛ Make my veins and pulses tremble. ❜

❛ I did not die, and yet I lost life’s breath. ❜

❛ I found myself within a forest dark. ❜

❛ If the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought. ❜

❛ Here were every fruit and never-ending spring. ❜

❛ The well heeded well heard. ❜

❛ Through me the way that runs among the lost. ❜

❛ A longer ladder still is to be climbed. ❜

❛ Why should you care about what’s whispered here? ❜

❛ Why have you let your mind get so entwined? ❜

❛ I was told about this torture, that it was the hell of carnal sins when reasons give way to desire. ❜

❛ What is it then? Why do you hesitate? ❜

❛ Why do you relish living like a coward? ❜

❛ A just request is to be met in silence, by the act. ❜

❛ There was not, nor will be, from the first day to the last night, an act so glorious and so magnificent. ❜

❛ Your name is widely known in hell! ❜

❛ Oh human creatures, born to soar aloft, why fall ye thus before a little wind? ❜

❛ That brute which knows no peace came ever nearer me and, step by step, drove me back down to where the sun is mute. ❜

❛ The shining strengthened me against the fright whose agony had wracked the lake of my heart through all the terrors of that piteous night. ❜

❛ It was so dark, and deep, and clouded, that I could see nothing by staring into its depths. ❜

❛ Love rules me. It determines what I ask. ❜

[ophliea]

⤳   @juiliet​​   asked:     ‹ i’m always thinking about useless things. ›

  A knowing glance spared to Juliet,  accompanied by a small curve of her lips,  a gentle smile worn only in the company of fools  ––   to say,   girls with similar hearts,  bound by a single suffocating responsibility,  that of making use of themselves for their families by tangible means.  Lovestruck,  moonstruck,  awestruck  by  the  silly  and  delicate  beauty  of  the  world,   honor-stuck in sinking mud to the betrothal by design awaiting right around the corner,    a lurking bogeyman with its dirty palms reaching out from the armoire.    “ By nature, I think everything we think may be considered useless. ”    Fools,  the pair of them.  To speak anything but yes,  certainly,   of course   ––    by default it would ring out foolish and useless.  So was it not everything that they thought that didn’t fit this narrow criteria utterly nonessential?

  “ For oafs like us,  a meeker type  ––  they only ought to bide their time.   None of us think of necessities or otherwise when we’re dead.  We have only the right to take foolishness to our graves. ”   Her smile widens at this with an uncommon sincerity,  a jesting expression overtaking her features  (a much welcomed reprieve from a practiced countenance).  It would be much too bold to make a statement so gravely,  admittedly,  so it seems natural for it to becoming joking,  a self-deprecating jab which contains a half-truth  ––   what is it,  left in their minds,  should not the two young girls have a bit of folly in their head?

 “ I’d offer a penny to hear your useless thoughts,  good lady. ” 

[ophliea]

the hamletophelia of it all!

[ophliea]

WOMEN UNDERWATER Claire Danes as Juliet Capulet in Romeo + Juliet (1996) Gwyneth Paltrow as Sylvia Plath in Sylvia (2003) Kate Winslet as Tula in Romance & Cigarettes (2005) Anna Gunn as Skyler White in Breaking Bad (2008 - 2012) Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers in Black Swan (2010) Erika Sawajiri as Lilico in Helter Skelter (2012) Rosamund Pike as Amy Dunne in Gone Girl (2014) Hana Sugisaki as Mai in Pieta in the Toilet (2015) Lana Del Rey as Herself in Music To Watch Boys To (2015) Victoria Pedretti as Dani Clayton in The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)

[ophliea]

have a 6am meeting 2morrow and was busy all day out n about so sadly i shall be slow in coming back for like ..  a day while i balance work and recouping from socialization LMAO but when i come back i’m going to start messaging ppl regarding plotting! and messaging back some folks who i think i left hanging bc i’ve been mia 🫡😁

[ophliea]

& who will allow me a little bit of creature horror... a little grotesque body horror with the ghost of a woman wronged coming back soaking & wailing & crooked!

[ophliea]

the  dramaturg’s  notebook:       in regards to “i was the more deceived”  &  my personal interpretation of the nunnery scene.

firstly  ––   some performances i like of this scene:    tennant  &  gale,    scott  &  findlay.

to be perfectly blunt,  i comply with the understanding that hamlet and ophelia shared mutual affection,  a deep seated love for one another which at one time might have been on a steady pace towards marriage.  it would have faced its own obstacles,  naturally,  but i believe the two of them under normal circumstances would likely have been married in a matter of years.

ophelia’s obsession with marriage is a beast in and of itself and technically was developed completely separately from her feelings for hamlet,  though understandably the two have become conflated over time,  and so it becomes impossible to talk of one without the other.  ophelia’s aspirations could be summed up entirely by her usefulness as a wife,  for a variety of reasons  ––  

to begin with,  though she was given education from a young age,  she was only ever treated,  in practice,  like a doll made of porcelain by her father and brother both.  she had no individual freedoms,  remained under the guardianship of her father even after she’d come of age,  and was discouraged at every angle from actualizing her own autonomy.  the prospect of marriage,  funnily,  offered a new sort of captivity that seemed less restraining than her childhood.  partnership in an official capacity with another would mean others would be forced to recognize her as outside of their jurisdiction,  though she was well aware it only meant a new keeper of sorts. 

another motivation for desiring marriage so fully was that it seemed a good lady’s fate.  above all,  it’s natural and expected of her,  and it would be fulfilling a responsibility that was one of the very few she was entrusted with.  ophelia’s utility hinges on her relation to those around her and how she serves them best;  the ultimate dedication of service would be to her husband,  and she had been raised to believe this.  she largely only had her father and brother to insist on the particulars of this role,  as her mother passed when she was quite young.  with her father,  he spoke of the rules young ladies ought follow in order to maintain virtue and marriageability. with her brother,  she learned that it was only men who had freedom before marriage.  men were not on a clock,  either,  which was a funny lesson  ––  while he galavanted in paris,  ophelia wondered at the years she had left,  made rampant calculations of when she needed to settle.  he hadn’t even spared it a thought.  but he did speak of marriage,  sometimes  ––  and she would note how he spoke of women he most decidedly wouldn’t marry,  and how it reflected their character.  a loose woman,  a woman much too argumentative,  a woman who nagged,  a woman who lazed.  there was no honor in being a woman on her own,  there was only fulfillment and worthiness is being the type a man would take as a wife.

and finally,  ophelia was quite simply a romantic.  she grew up reading fairytales,  often morbid kinds like the little mermaid and cinderella,  but still,  romances all the same.  thumbelina was her favorite romance,  and she daydreamed about it often  ––   it encapsulated exactly how she felt about marriage;  to be granted wings by your holy binding to another.

WITH  THIS  CONTEXT,     CONTINUE  . . .     throughout this scene,  act iii  scene i,  we see at first a private conversation made public as hamlet discovers he and ophelia are being spied on by her father and his uncle.  what begins as an intimate display of the complicated nature of their relationship becomes a mad show of rage and betrayal which has a bit more to do with the anger he feels towards his uncle than any actual ill will towards ophelia,  but it sears her all the same and he becomes cruel with her and lashes out.

i don’t believe that,  prior to the line  “ where’s  your  father? ”  that anything hamlet says is meant to be mean.  it is meant to cut himself off from her,  and in my own interpretation,  the speech he first gives  (below)  is actually alluding in part to that obsession mentioned above that ophelia holds with marriage and family:

HAMLET    

       Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a            breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;            but yet I could accuse me of such things that it            were better my mother had not borne me: I am very           proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at           my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,           imagination to give them shape, or time to act them           in. What should such fellows as I do crawling            between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,            all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.

it is all to say:  forget me,  but more than this,  forget any man who asks for your hand or offers you what you so long for,  because we are wretched sinners all of us.  bear not any children for they’ll be sinners by nature,  because it is human to be such.  love no one because you cannot trust any of them:   your own spouse might kill you dead,  your own brother might,  everyone in the world is a liar.

it’s very much a warning rather than a admonishment,  which is why i personally like adaptations that have hamlet speak it softly and almost near-apologetically,  again because i believe that just at first,  just in this moment of time,  he believes this to be a wholly private conversation.  the tone shifts and the nunnery comment takes on a completely separate meaning once he gains an understanding of ophelia’s betrayal of his trust,  in that the two of them are being actively spied on.  

HAMLET    

       If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for             thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as           snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a            nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs            marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough            what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go,            and quickly too. Farewell.

these words are meant to be cutting  ––  directly and specifically so.

róisín,  you’re wondering,  but what about the way he speaks at the beginning!  that’s a bit mean!  right-o,  i think though the conversation is private and there’s that moment of sincerity when he gives the first nunnery speech,  i think he starts off the interaction as if trying to push her away.  this is why i love tennant’s performance so much,  because i think he showcased these beats perfectly.  

it also shows this genuine madness that hamlet is fighting,  which is to say sincere grief and confusion  ––  it makes sense even in private for him to doubt ophelia’s honesty and loyalty,  because he has been betrayed by his uncle,  by his mother,  and he feels utterly alone in his current predicament.  the way i see this scene,  the reaction given by ophelia to his beginning statements and insults and claims of never having loved her,  but also having loved her once,  etc.,  her reaction to all of this is something which grounds him in speaking candidly if only for a moment.

to end the scene,  ophelia then speaks alone,  and i think it’s a speech that mostly goes without saying.  she laments   “  WOE  IS  ME / TO  HAVE  SEEN  WHAT  I  HAVE  SEEN,   SEE  WHAT  I  SEE  ”   which i think is the true tragedy of it all,  that she has experienced in so short a period of time the greatest love she’d ever known and the cruelest.  by one who she’d never been made to feel uncomfortable with,  as i believe hamlet to be one of the few people ophelia felt like a real,  actual person besides,  to be used now as a proxy for his anger.  to be used by others as a pawn against him.  she is forced into this situation of being thought of completely differently now by the only man she had come close to marrying. 

[ophliea]

watching branagh’s much ado 4 some insp so i shall be lurking!

[ophliea]

the national, sleep well beast | lyric starters feel free to change pronouns as preferred. warning for mentions of drugs, alcohol, and death.

meet me in the stairwell in a second.

nobody else will be there.

can you remind me the building you live in?

goodbyes always take us half an hour.

i don’t need you, i don’t need you.

besides, i barely ever see you anymore and when i do it feels you’re only halfway there.

the day i die, where will we be?

i’d rather walk all the way home right now than to spend one more second in this place.

let’s just get high enough to see our problems.

i’m always thinking about useless things.

i’m mixing weed with wine.

i can’t stay here and i can’t come back.

maybe i listen more than you think.

why are you hiding from me?

we’re in a different kind of thing now.

i thought that this would all work out after a while.

i thought you and i might be okay.

i’d like to spin a while around the copperwood tree.

there’s something about her eyes.

dim the lights a little lower.

this must be the genius we’ve been waiting years for.

i’ve been trying to see where we’re going, but you’re so hard to follow.

i don’t think we’re getting anywhere any time soon.

you just keep saying so many things that i wish you won’t.

i’ve been talking about you to myself cause there’s nobody else.

and i want what i want, and i want everything.

they all have something against me.

i keep re-reading the same lines always up at 5am every morning.

i have no positions, no point of view or vision.

i’m just trying to stay in touch with anything i’m still in touch with.

i swear you got a little bit taller since i saw you. 

it wasn’t so bad, i wasn’t that sick.

i wanted to ask if you could stay.

i’m gonna keep you in love with me for a while.

go back to sleep, let me drive, let me think, let me figure it out.

i’ll tell you about it some time.

i came back to see if you were here, but everything was different.

i’ll still destroy you some day.

[ophliea]

Christopher McKenney

[ophliea]

nightmare blunt rotation being all of the primary Shakespearean women

[ophliea]

Twin Peaks (1990-1991) / “The Unified Theory of Ophelia: On Women, Writing, and Mental Illness”, B.N. Harrison