Does Veeky Forums prefer to read Shakespeare, or watch Shakespeare?

for movies the Brando/Mason Julius Caesar

Ian McKellen's Macbeth and Richard III, Ralph Fienne's Corialanus. Mel Gibson's Hamlet is also really underrated, although the Oedipal meme was unnecessary

Hamlet (1996) anyone?

Naturally one of the more elegant Hamlets out there. Although this one's Ophelia was a little over the top for my taste.

Watch, always. Reading plays seems a bit weird really, although Shakespeare's poetic enough that it's not crazy.

I like to read the plays, because I enjoy the poetry, and it's always better to read Shakespeare yourself than to see it performed badly.

If it's a particularly cool passage or segment of the play, I'll read it out loud to myself. I also like to memorize the soliloquies and the closing monologues.

Why not both.
They werebmeant to be watched but without reading some of the satire and wit can be missed due to poor performance.

Read. The poetry is so good and a lot of the stuff is easily missed if you are just hearing it unless you have read it before. Also I can't stand most Shakespearean actors, they are always so affected, I don't think they represent how it is best performed rather they adhere to the 'Shakespearean' convention

Both, and Shakespeare very likely wanted that to be the case.

>not going to Stratford Upon Avon for Shakespeare

Why bother

Read.
Not only is it difficult to get a full experience with a performance, but every one I've seen is filled with ridiculous over-acting and pointless stage directions that trample over the text and poetry with their self-aggrandizement.

>liking Ian McKellen's Macbeth but not having seen his vastly superior Iago
Is this a pleb I see before me?

>Not only is it difficult to get a full experience with a performance
It's a fucking PLAY. The full experience it was written for is literally it being performed.

God I hope that was bait.

Watch by far. I didn't get Richard III until I saw it performed live.

Why do so many modern interpretations insist on ~updating~ the setting and story of Shakespeare's plays? It's almost always a ham-fisted attempt at social commentary (see Romeo + Juliet 96), and it makes the language seem even less organic than usual.

Branagh gave a predictably good performance, but overall I thought the whole movie was too long and overwrought. As the other person said, Ophelia was over the top, and it also took itself a bit too seriously. I remember the "swear on my sword" scene was done ridiculously dramatically, whereas when I read Hamlet I took it as one of Shakespeare's comedic interludes (though I guess I could be wrong). So it ended up being funny anyway, but in the wrong way. Because it was trying to be dramatic.

Because directors and actors don't like doing small variations of things that have already been done a thousand time. It's an inherent problem of the medium.

I prefer to watch. Shakespeare wrote to entertain through delivery of dialogue and setting of scenes. Reading activates the imagination but its still nowhere near as powerful as when you see an actor portray their character well

>being able to parse the meaning and subtleties of poetic early modern English upon hearing it once in a crowded room
Congratulations user-sempai, but we're not all as great as You.

There's an amazing drama-adaption of Shakespeare his plays, and I prefer to listen and read alongside of the play.

this tbph