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?