Real-Life Communication
Casting directors must be good readers because they have to sift
through various scripts and be able to visualize the type of person they want
for each part in a film. If they don't understand a film script, how
will they know what type of person to cast for a role?
"Good reading
skills are essential," says Christopher Gaze, a director and producer. "Just
as an actor must be able to be a good cold reader, a director must know ahead
of time what he wants to hear from the actors."
Your film company is
going to do another production of Hamlet. You studied the play in high school
and remember it fairly well, but you must know the script intimately in order
to cast the roles.
Right now you are studying the character called
Polonius. In the following passage, Polonius is sending his son, Laertes,
off to sea. Polonius gives his son much advice about how to behave.
Polonius
says to his son:
Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any
unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means
vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them
to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But be not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of
each new hatch'd and unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to quarrel;
but being in,
Bear't, that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give
every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure but
reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not
express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims
the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are the most
select and generous sheaf in that.
Neither a lender nor a borrower be:
For
loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of
husbandry.
This above all, -- to thine own self be true;
And it must
follow as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Questions
you ask to make sure you understand the text:
- What metaphor does Polonius use to say how his son should keep his old
and true friends?
- Why shouldn't Laertes wear fancy or gaudy clothing?
- Give one reason why a person shouldn't be a borrower or a lender.
- What should Laertes remember above all else?