II. The Reeve’s Tale
This video was shot during senior year (circa 2001) for Mr. Preuss’ British
Literature class. The different groups
in class were tasked with acting out a different story from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. My pals Josh Bult and Clayton Thompson were
in my group, which meant that Chaucer was likely going to be rolling over in
his grave at our interpretation of his masterpiece. Leanne Rekau and Dana Borchardt were also in
our group. We lured out Jon Solita to do
the filming. Our particular story was The Reeve’s Tale.
There was a bunch of setup for the story but it didn’t seem very worthwhile to
act out. Therefore, we blatantly ripped
off the Star Wars intro, and just piped in the words from the story, with some
minor revisions. People said I should
have tinkered with the words because the daughter is referred to as being
fat. We were seemingly implying that the
one of the girls in our group (Dana in this case) was fat. Hey, don’t blame me, blame Chaucer.
The story has a mill in it, which was kind of perfect because Peotone is
sort of noted for its “Old Mill”. We had
all intentions of filming the opening scenes at the mill, which you see after
the intro. However, this was in January
or February. The wind was whipping and
we were freezing our asses off. After it
became apparent that we couldn’t pick up audio at the mill, we relocated back
to my house.
As you see me for the first time, I’m rocking the Michigan jacket that I
still have today. I guess some things
never change. I’m playing the role of
Alan and that’s Clayton with me portraying John. God, I hate listening to myself talk,
especially the 17 year-old version of myself.
There were definite parts of the script and acting that could have used
more thought, but I think that adds to the charm. For example, as Clayton and I run off the
first time, you hear me question that move because we’re supposed to have a
horse.
Josh is Simpkin the miller who I
decided to make murderous for no apparent reason. I’m pretty sure it was a weak attempt at a Simpsons reference. Clayton screws up his line (he’s watching the
trough come through the corn?) but it was so cold that we didn’t give a
damn. Truthfully, there is a lot we
probably would have left in regardless of the weather. I also chuckle every time I see the inserted
clip of the woman we feed the horse to.
To this day, I have no idea who that woman actually is.
As we transition to Josh’s house, we’re seen drinking IBC root beer. I think every high school video depicting
drinking uses that product. We filmed
the final scenes in Josh’s attic. I
decided that “performing my magic” was the way I wanted to describe sleeping
with the miller’s daughter (Dana). I
couldn’t help but turn a little red at this part when the class was watching
the video.
Perhaps my favorite moment is when Clayton takes the baby’s bed and flings
it to the floor with complete disregard for what it’s supposed to be holding. I always felt a little bad for Dana because
she had to call me “her love” and make it sound like she meant it. Few things could drop you faster on the PHS social
ladder than showing affection for Dave Younker, even in a scripted production.
As tempting as it may be to laugh at my “sly devil” comment and wink to the
camera, be sure not to miss Clayton’s response while doing so. As I rolled around on the floor grappling
with Josh, it occurred to me that I had little idea of how such a fight should
look. Josh gets a few slaps in but I
make sure to deliver the “People’s Elbow” into Josh’s spine.
I remember doing several takes of the part where the wife (Leanne) hits Josh
over the head with the spade because she didn’t make it look believable enough. Finally, we convinced her to really hit him
and boy did she take a good whack. I’ve
watched it a few times now and I can’t for the life of me make out what Clayton
says after he throws the pillow in my face.
If you can decipher that, I’d love to hear it.
It just wouldn’t have been our style to end the story with a legitimate
lesson learned so we created a setup where Solita got to say “in my ass”. As an added bonus, enjoy the few outtakes at
the end. The outtakes end with the car
ride back to my house from the mill.
With some Led Zeppelin jamming in the background, Solita makes sure to
reference the male reproductive organ a few times. Ah, the old Bonneville. My first car. Good times.
I don’t remember what grade we got on this but I think it was a favorable
one. I think Preuss just appreciated we
put that much effort into the project, so he was willing to overlook the
artistic liberties we took when retelling Chaucer’s work. I can’t say this was the best video he got to
see (spoiler alert) but I know he enjoyed it nonetheless. It was Preuss’ first year teaching at
Peotone, and the bar was set for future British Lit classes. I was told by future seniors that our video
and others were replayed for them.
Pretty cool.
Watch the video here
[Obligatory disclaimer that I do not own the rights to any copyrighted material in the video. This video was created and is being shared for completely non-profit purposes.]
No comments:
Post a Comment