#tetralogy

The Sword in the Stone (1963, Wolfgang Reitherman)

This weekend we return to The works of Mr. William Shakespear: in ten volumes with the fifth volume published in 1728 by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) and Dr. George Sewell (d. 1726) for Jacob Tonson. Volume Five is made up of King Henry VI Part I, King Henry VI Part II, King Henry VI Part III, and King Richard III. The four plays create a tetralogy that covers the entire saga of the Wars of the Roses, a series of 15th century civil wars fought to determine control of the English throne.  

King Henry VI Part I enacts the loss of England’s French territories and the political momentum spurring on the Wars of the Roses. Part II delves into King Henry’s failings and the rise of the Duke of York. Part III documents the chaos and horror of war and contains one of the longest soliloquies in all of Shakespeare. The volume ends with King Richard III depicting the violent rise and short reign of King Richard III.  

Like Rowe’s earlier collection, scene divisions, stage directions, dramatis personae, and full-page engravings by either French artist Louis Du Guernier (1677-1716) or Englishman Paul Fourdrinier (1698-1758) precede each play.  

Pope’s editions of Shakespeare were the first attempted to collate all previous publications. He consulted twenty-seven early quartos restoring passages that had been out of print for almost a century while simultaneously removing about 1,560 lines of material that didn’t appeal to him. Some of those lines were degraded to the bottom of the page with his other editorial notes.  

View more Shakespeare Weekend posts. 

20 years ago, I was writing a story.

Then a PC crash sent 5 years of work into the void. A decade after I gathered the courage to start over again. 

Dir. Josh Cooley; Wri. Andrew Stanton & Stephany Folsom

The perfect trilogy or an imperfect tetralogy? That’s what made me, and I think most viewers, nervous. Mark Kermode, a UK film critic, in his review said that the first 20 minutes or so he was intensely nervous as he thought that it was re-treading old ground. I thought so too. Kermode then went on to say that once he realised where they were going he relaxed and found the movie a joy - that’s paraphrasing. Indeed, I was later to the party.

For the first half (ish) I was enjoying, like I do most Pixar films, the humour, the familiar characters and their well-crafted interactions etc. But, I was waiting for what I had heard referenced to, and needed, to justify this instalment - the emotional heart of the film. Then I realised it was already there.

If Toy Story 3 was about letting go and being outgrown then this film is about making an active choice to replace oneself for the good of another (Bonnie). When she creates Forky, Woody must keep him from running away as Forky is her favourite toy. I thought that, if Toy Story 3 was about parents letting their children grow into adulthood, Toy Story 4 is about parents actively taking on a new role, like Woody does here, and being accepting of the futility of trying to remain in one place. Bo Peep has already figured this out.