That Which Survives

What becomes "classic literature" (or "classic art" or "classical music")?  That which survives the test of time — which sometimes is an imperfect filter (stuff disappears, falls out of favor, then gets rediscovered — sometimes — later on).

Shakespeare wrote some great stuff — but he also wrote stuff that mass entertainment, the "hit motion pictures" of the day. A lot of modern adoration for him as a "classic" playwright and his works as some of the greatest literature in the English language would have been subject to a lot of laughter and disbelief in Elizabethan times (and scoffing from a lot of other playwrights and critics of the era).

So who knows? This may be a lot more believable than you think — though I suspect that Disney will still be holding tightly to the copyrights a thousand years hence …

Reshared post from +Isaac Sher

“Welcome back to Masterpiece Theatre 3000.  I am your host, Hologram-Simulacra Thomas Hiddleston.   Today, we will be watching Arturo Branagh’s critically acclaimed reinterpretation of IRON MAN 3, as performed by the Royal Marvel Company.  Arturo Branagh is, of course, the descendant of one of the great contributors to the Canon, director to the original THOR, Kenneth Branagh, and has devoted his life to the analysis and creative manipulation of these timeless classics.”  

“Arturo’s specific alteration to ‘The Extremis Play’, as some colloquially refer to it, is the translocation of the setting and characters to the mythical land of Faerie, where the Iron Man technology becomes a heightened metaphor for the integration of accepted knowledge and careless innovation, an allegory heightened further by the Fey’s well-known weakness against Cold Iron, making the Iron Man suit a two-edged sword that gives Lord Stark tremendous personal power in battle, but at the cost of intense physical pain, illness, and fear from those who surround him who fear the touch of deadly iron.”

“Of special note is the presentation of the Extremis itself, changed here to be an eldritch formula and curse rather than technological advancement.  Branagh has said in public discussions that he considers the Extremis as a metaphor for the perils of limitless greed so evident in the plutocrats of the early 21st century, an inner fire that appears to give great power but in truth, consumes painfully from within, which then in turn resonates with Lord Stark’s Iron Man technology-as-metaphor as noted previously.  But now, let us begin.”

#RoyalMarvelCompany