Born to Be Blue

"I want to play. All I want is to play." 

There is no such thing as too much Ethan Hawke on this blog :) 

I am still incredibly grateful that he can be so prolific and release movie after movie, after book :) 

"Born to Be Blue" (2015) is a fantastic one, a mixture of beautiful  jazz music, a story of never giving up on your dreams and Ethan Hawke getting more and more talented (who would have thought this was possible? :)) 

"You should find one thing and be better at it than anybody else in the world." 

The drama film tells the story of Chet Baker, the American jazz trumpeter with a divine voice who falls in love in his adulthood and after getting his teeth knocked out in a fight, tries to musically come back and impress his audience with his original style and music. All this happens in the late 1960s and this is one more reason why you will most definitely enjoy the movie: the music is perfect, the atmosphere of those times is rendered vividly and 'the movie within a movie' idea (Chet was in fact asked to star in a movie about his life) mingles just fine. 

What else to add? Ethan wanted to play this part for more than 15 years but at that time, his age did not match.  After years of effort, he successfully managed to do that with his charisma, energy and fearlessness. Am I just praising him because I am a huge fan? Not really. The Guardian and Rolling Stone have written wonderful reviews. 

Last but not least, Ethan performs two of the 14 songs from the soundtrack, "My Funny Valentine" and "I've Never been in Love Before". Enjoy it! 

To Be or Not To Be

I have read almost everything Shakespeare wrote hundreds of years ago, but my favorite play still remains "Hamlet". It is so complex and the main character is incredibly intriguing that it makes you raise so many questions about human nature, revenge, love and the intricacies of the human mind.
I got acquainted with "Hamlet" in high school because we had to study a few extracts and I found the prince of Denmark quite mysterious.
Years after that moment, in 2000, I discovered that my favorite actor, Ethan Hawke, starred as Hamlet in the modern-day New York City adaptation of Shakespeare famous play. I saw it first in 2004 or 2005, I guess and I was absolutely amazed at how well he succeeded in embodying the main character and how actual the story can be, even if written at an uncertain year between 1599 and 1602. Watching the adaptation for the screen makes you realize once more what a powerful universality Shakespeare can have.
Another plus that this movie offers is the fact that it was directed by Michael Almereyda, the famous, talented director who also directed "Cymbeline" in 2014, based on Shakespeare's play and which also stars Ethan Hawke as Iachimo.
"Hamlet" (2000) got mixed reviews from different important magazines, but you cannot judge it until you see it, and you also need to appreciate how faithful it is to the original play, not by simply sticking to Shakespeare's lines, but by playing with ideas and feelings in crucial moments. prior to delivering the well known monologue "To Be or Not To Be", Ethan's Hamlet watches a movie of a famous Buddhist teacher in which he explains the principle "To be is to be with others, to be is to inter-be."
Almereyda has definitely created a new standard for Shakespearian adaptation, one in which we should understand more the emotional pull of the characters while still "TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE." 

I Am a Happy Reader

“You are always in the right place at exactly the right time, and you always have been.” 

I have been in (an artistic) love with Ethan Hawke since I was in high school back in the late '90s and I saw him starring in "Great Expectations", an adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel. I followed his artistic career with the steady care of someone who wants to discover if Ethan Hawke was more than a pretty face. And he definitely is more than that. He is an extraordinary actor, getting better and better with each part and each year passing by, but he is also a fantastic writer. He is the proof that you can be a Hollywood star and still go beyond the shallowness of it all by writing.
He can act in thrillers, romantic or horror movies and impress me deeply. He is my favorite Hamlet (2000) and Snow Falling on Cedars (1999) is among my all time favorite movies.

“Like a dead branch falling from a tree, which them decomposes and nourishes the soil, your disappointments can transform into the elements of change and growth.” 

A few years ago I read his Ash Wednesday and the novel came as a shock of how well he can write about love, marriage and the intricacies they imply.
On the same note, last year in November he launched his "Rules for a Knight", a small book full of pieces of advice and wisdom about how to raise your children in an authentic way and what lessons you should teach them. I received the (signed) book in January and I really loved it. So simple, yet so true, just as any serious matter of life... and finally, death, and what happens in-between.
Here is Ethan talking about his book: