shakespeare demands to be relevant. by the breadth and depth and focus of things that will be part of a society forever. the politics, the revenge, conflict. establishment versus... >> rose: >> the reason shakespeare is still alive is he couldn't help being relevant. he wasn't trying to be clever. he needed himself to explain the world around him to himself. >> rose: he needed to explain it to himself. >> the's a wonderful piece of advice a celebrated actor gave to would be actors. i can't remember who it was but he said "don't do it unless you can't do anything else." and i don't think shakespeare could do anything else. he was an okay actor but really the thing he could do was write and there was an urgency. there was a real need. the audience needed it, too, for it... needed it to be relevant as well. there was that visceral communication between a writer and the audience at that tim too many of shakespeare's contemporaries fell into the trouble of being poe lem cysts, essayists, agitators. teachers, in a way, shakes

, all part of our series "why shakespeare?" welcome back. >> lovely be here. >> rose: since you were here you've announced you ear leaving. >> yup. it will be ten yearsext year and, of course, i thought about whether to go for a third term as it were and i felt like i would spend time in a rehearsal roomith no queue behind the door. and it's time to hand it over to someone else. there's a great bunch of brit irk directors comin through. >> rose: well, there's a list of people, kenneth branagh and michael grandage. there a good people willing to step in. >> there are good people, colleagues of mine there's a terrific field and somereally good women dirtors as well. >> rose: when you look back there's a chance for you to sort of say this is what i intend to do and this is what i did. >> i wanted to reserve collaborative art form, the ensemble. >> that was principle, the idea that we will have a group of actors. >> it was partly idealism, partly wanting to experiment with artistic community that the work happens in the space betwe

then rim jim who has an upcoming back called king leer, shakespeare. we conclude our conversation about shakespeare with kenneth branagh, and kenneth branagh has directed and started in numerous shakespeare films including hamlet and henry v. >> under my battlement. come. tendon mortal thoughts. unset me here and fill me with the crown full of direst cruelty! take of my blood, stop the accessing passage to remorse that no shape of nature takes nor keep peace between the effect d it. come to my woman's breast and take my milk. you murdering menace are forever in your site. come. take and pull thee in the dunnest smoke of hell. thy king seen not the wound nor heaven peek through the blanket of the dark and cry! >> tell me about you and shakespeare. >> i got lucky. >> when you were a you aspiring actor? >> yeah. in school i studied classical theater because i thought no one else would ever possibly be interested in this and i had heard how competitive acting was and i felt it was a niche thing. i would be a small fish in a big pond. >> now you're a fish i

for a lot of people shakespeare in school is really a chore. >> right. >> and it's hard. but i think when it works and when i've seen great actors do it and inhabit it, it can be fantastic. there's always a little learning curve, if you like. the first one, i go to the theater and i see a shakespeare play, i always have a moment of ijudgment. >> jon: right. >> about ten, 15 minutes, then my ear clicks in. i've seen some wonderful actors. vanessa redgrave is in this playing my mother. she's just extraordinary and her ease with the language... you're right in there with it. >> jon: right. >> but there is no question that sometimes the language is a challenge, but i have heard actors do it and inhabit it in a way that i think it... the english language is take on the another level. >> jon: it elevates it. it's lyrical, musical in a way. >> and it's very rewarding when... i did the shakespeare play just now in london in the west end, "the tempest. " and people come up to me after and say, i've never seen shakespeare before and i loved it and i want to see more. >> jon: that's

shakespeare took this story and made it into a play. he haded his ow..p characters that plutarch hadn't developed but it's a play about a crisis of leadership. at the centeof it is a mother/son rationship. >> rose: vanessa? >> vanessa playing volumnia. but it's an exposé of perennial political dysfunion that we're all part of and social dysfunction. i think it's quite a bleak piece i think it's properly tragic and i think that tragedy is something that you... you don't get a nice tidy message at the end of it. it should disturb you possibly. >> rose: is it also about the corruption of power? >> yes, it is, absolutely. about also the continue turnaround of power gera's character has a speech "one fire drives out one fire, one nail rights by rights fault strengths by strengths do fail." the continual one fire flames out another fire, one nail punches out another nail. we spin the turnaround of power. it never, ever stops. >> i've never asked this and i've always wanted to know this. as an actor do you have to know in order to be as good as you want to be w

they think in 1960 or late early 1960s, after sylvia beach shakespeare. she is the one that i am named after. >> who was she? >> sylvia beach was a very incredible person. she is very determined. she is famous primarily for publishing james joyce ulysses, and there is a wonderful book called sylvia beach and the lost generation, and it describes how contact with the lost generation and what the bookshop was like and how philosophy, which i think my father has continued to an extent helping penniless writers and supporting artists who don't really have the money to support themselves. so yes, i think she kind of supported a lot of people like hemingway and joyce and she had quite an incredible cycle of for -- circle of writers around her. >> why did you come to paris in the first place? >> it was just an accident. i just came for a holiday and i liked it here. before i came to paris i had already wintered around the world and i thought this was, this became my favorite part right here in this little corner of paris, the lower bank between the notre dame ca

but now you go from that to doing shakespeare. >> yeah. >> jimmy: now "coriolanus" is shakespeare. it was a part i played on stage about 11 years ago. and i developed -- i suppose, a kind of obsession with the piece, believing it could be a movie. it's a political thriller in a sense. with a sort of very strong mother-son relationship that's right at the center of it. i think many things in it reflects what's going on today. it's a story about a crisis of leadership. there's a background of political, economic unrest and uncertainty. there are people on the streets. there are wars being fought. it's about power, politics. with this very confrontational figure at the center, a soldier. and i just think if you were to -- i worked with john logan, the screenwriter -- >> jimmy: it's fantastic. >> to strip it right down. so you get -- i hope, i hope, this very lean dynamic political story. >> jimmy: it's like a political war action movie. and you go, "there's no way that's shakespeare." but, yes it is. and it's very well done. congratulations. >> thank you. thank you. i was very lucky.

we did a series here about shakespeare. it's what shakespeare is about. jealousy, anger, treachery, scandal. we're going to get to newt gingrich in a moment. when you put this together, what were the guidelines for you. first of all you had to find the right guys. you had two of them right here. the two. what else. what were the imperatives for you in putting these four e books together. >> the imperative, what we're talking about is character is destiny. evan is the best writer of his kind of our time and mike can get everybody to talk. if this were not goo if this were people saying do you know what we discovered there's a thing called the inner web. and things are moving fast. that would be difrent. what this is, though, and we have to find a way, all of uso who are in the content business, whether we're on at night or in the morning just to use an example at random. >> charlie: only one person i saw at night and in morning. >> we were talking before, it used to be you could go to bed with charlie and he will leave. he will be there in the morning and

should have done this, only shakespeare could write this fully. well, now, sometime later -- three years later -- here we are, and i came across laurie sandell's book. and i want to say that it's utterly fascinating. i mean, we thought we knew everything, but we didn't. and just reading about the family and finding out that even though bernie madoff is kind of ab sent from the book -- absent from the book because you didn't interview him, but you at least i as a reader, i will say i realize this man was a bully, and he bullied his wife and sons. and so they got to the point that they were afraid to ask him questions. they certainly never -- he didn't answer their questions. um, and so there's a whole psychological element that laurie managed to get into this book that just was never in the newspapers. and i want to say that i think the madoff family was incredibly lucky to pick laurie sandell because of all the possible journalists who could have written this book, she is the best because she herself grew up with a con man in her life. so i now pr

he, there is, you know we -on't say like, is, is shakespeare all funny or all serious?ome of the people you mentioned, if you read gooddye columbus, that's a hilarious book. it's also a very deep book3 by philip roth. >> smith: but funny, funny doesn't have to be shallow. >> borowitz: it doesn't have to be.3 i actually think, you know, there is no more profound american writer than mark twain. i think he is our shakespeare -- >> smith: >> smith: right. >> borowitz: -- because heú writes about humanity in aú way that transcends time or geography, and there are that. very ew writers of the 9th century, who you can pick up and ay wow that still speaks to me. here') a line from mark twain that i came across which may ring true today. he said, "suppose you're an3 idiot. now suppose you're in [laughter] >> smith: as fresh as today's headlines, as they say, right, yeah. >> but that could be a defeat. you know, that's my, and not greatness according to whether or not -- >> borowitz: -- it would fit on twitter. >> smith: right, yeah. >> borowitz: but my point is, and molly ivins

but the joke was on shakespeare, because he never wrote another play after that. guys want to make a snow fort? all: yeah! dogs invented forts. really? oh, sure! and they invented cocoa and parkas and even mittens. i never knew about the mittens. well, you learn something new every day. truman: they did not invent mittens! helen: relax, truman. just have fun. hey! check out this song. ♪ philosophy ♪ what is your philosophy? ♪ it needn't be greek to be or even deep to be ♪ ♪ important or true ♪ philosophy ♪ your philosophy ♪ is what you believe to be or perceive to be ♪ ♪ important for you. philosophers are people who try to figure out what life is all about. ♪ i think, therefore i am. but everyone can have his or her own philosophy. ♪ don't throw your stuff away, save it for a rainy day ♪ ♪ philosophy ♪ what is your philosophy? ♪ you don't have to cogitate or ruminate ♪ ♪ calculate or speculate ♪ have a debate or postulate ♪ until it's getting very late ♪ to have a philosophy. ♪ i am, therefore i'm hungry. (horse neighs) i can't believe we mined this much gold in