It is the beauty of internet that I am taking a lecture like this for free. That audience is lucky to sit there and listen your thoughts about this play in person.
You've illuminated what matters most about this play and its playwright. I've loved it for years, but couldn't quite articulate to myself or others what (beyond the bleak humor) moves me. The San Quentin anecdote is a wonderful starting point.
Amazing lecture! I have seen this play live (in Philadelphia/US), and throughout I grew frustrated watching the two men go on and on and watching them wait and wait. I was with a friend who had the same sentiments; at intermission she asked if we should leave, and because the intermission was after more than half the play, I wanted to stay to see how things played out. I just had to see Godot. Was he/she God? Death? A dream realized? 🤷🏽♀️ So we stayed. Of course I left the play disappointed and unfulfilled because of its ending. That was a year ago. I have frequently thought of the play from time to time, smirking at the time wasted in seeing it. It wasn’t until this very moment (about 20 mins ago at 6:39AM Saturday mourning/morning) that I realized how clever Sam B was; not only was his audience thrust into the play themselves to casually see which character they identified with, but for me and my friend, we actually became the two main characters if but for one moment. “Do you wanna leave?” “No...let’s WAIT and see.” And to that end I’ll say, live in every moment; whatever’s coming will come anyway, if it’s meant to; but don’t waste your time watching the time, waiting to act, waiting for Godot. In doing so (waiting) you will upset the balance of your suffering. Just live in the meantime ❤️#waitingforgodot
This is the most outstanding commentary I have ever heard on Waiting for Godot. Thank you Nick...you're spot on. I was first introduced to this play 35 years ago at Canterbury University in Christchurch, New Zealand. In my 3rd year and I have held on to it ever since as a life compass - the other thing is I have a firm belief in God and huge faith in what will eventually happen to me and my soul - how bizarre is that......... Philip Kubiak
I watched this thinking I would be given an explanation of the strange-seeming events in the play that I watched recently, and found so deeply compelling but so inexplicable. Instead you explained that there is no explanation, and that somehow makes the play all the more appealing and brilliant.
Sir, I sincerely wish that we had more professors like you. Thank you for such an illuminating insight on the play....And u summed it up brilliantly by saying that Godot represents "any belief system that promises a complete explanation to life!"
This is the best lecture on Waiting For Godot...thank you for making me fall in love again with literature with your commentary.Will be looking forward to more of your commentaries Sir.
my god this is a genius, extremely informative, enriching lecture. i wish it were longer. so many points that you mentioned, i noticed while reading the play, and it's amazing to have you analyze it and share your knowledge. teachers like yourself are the ones who make me love learning. thank you a ton, can't wait to watch your lecture on woolf's to the lighthouse!
Correction - Waiting for Godot (performed in St Quentin) was not an obscure avant-garde French play. Its an Irish play. The narrator says that Beckett's play was a hit with the prisoners because the play was unpretentious as was its author, Becket. I would suggest that his unpretentousness is hardly a French characteristic but it is an Irish one.
Interpretation of a text which has no context, within a multitude of possible contexts, requires skill. This was great. Especially, the focus on 'waiting' as a medium for Time to show itself in the space of a stage. :)
Thanks so much for posting this terrific lecture online. Beckett's evasiveness about who Godot is has always puzzled me (was this just the artist being coy?). Your observation that it's the waiting that matters, not Godot, resolved this issue convincingly. I watched your lecture in preparation to see a new production of Godot coming to New York. It's of course now cancelled, but at least the play will take on renewed relevance as we all sit in quarantine :)
Truly understood every single point of this very absurd play. The lecture is absolutely the best I have come across on the internet regarding the concept.
One thing Professor Mount fails to mention is the Theater of the Absurd movement that began in Paris. Beckett lived in Paris from 1937 till his death, (and wrote both "Godot" and "Endgame" in French.) . Both Camus and Beckett frequented a literary bar called Pont Royal Hotel. Camus was, after the war, the foremost and most popular of the Existentialist writers, and is generally regarded as the inspiration of the "Theatre of the Absurd", to which Beckett and many others , through Harold Pinter to Tom Stoppard, belong. Beckett was an avid reader of philosophical tracts, and would certainly have read "Sysiphe". So would most educated Frenchmen in the 1950's. He must have been familiar with Camus’s philosophical work and his plays. He must have known of the theatrical movement which was best expressed by Camus, Sartre and Ionesco.
Lecture is selective in order to prove his point. One thing that irked me is dismissing historical context of creators- Beckett was a generation younger than Eliot and Woolf. Modernism as a style was over- also- like this commentator says- Camus and the Absurd seems more context of Beckett’s work.
I read WFG when I was young, in the US Navy off the coast of Viet Nam. Didn't really get it. Read it many times over the years and watched the play on RU-vid a few times. Why would someone who didn't get it, return to it over and over? Because there is something intriguing in it. A thing of beauty that we can't describe. A hole that shouldn't be there with an unknown depth. Fortunately, by flipping through various things on RU-vid, this lecture came up. Now I understand what I don't understand. Absolutely brilliant lecture that opened many doors to different universes. Never thought I'd be able to see something invisible, but your lecture has changed my view.
Nick Mount - you are a mightily impressive lecturer on these modern giants of literature. You cut away pretense and reveal the magic... Thanks so much for what you do.
@@NickMount PS - Your lecture on the Wasteland was astounding - and terribly dramatic, too - which I believe, from what I've read over the years, the poet would have approved of! It is a terrifying poem - a just indictment... were it not for Eliot's still fledgling Christian soul and ethical sense to temper it all... And for the fact that he left us his final superlative masterpiece to set the record straight - with its dignified restraint yet unsurpassed elation. I learned so much from your lecture... Thanks again.
Very interesting and I appreciate the interpretation after watching the whole playing, and truly not understanding much of Beckett's life history that formed much of the structure. Well done.
My oldest and dearest friend recently died. His last words were "I've talked with you about this and that, I explained the twilight, admittedly. But is it enough, that's what tortures me, is it enough?" This then, forced me to dive more deeply into Waiting for Godot. This lecture by Nick Mount is pure genius, and very much appreciated. It is a long journey to try and grasp this play, and I am trying. Someone once asked me how smart I am. "I am smart enough to know, that above me are 'next level" geniuses who operate above the clouds, out of my view." My friend Don was certainly that, and would have enjoyed a coffee with Nick Mount, in a peer to peer conversation. Thank you Nick for a near perfect lecture. Best Regards, Richard
It is about the dichotomy between the humans search for meaning in a meaningless universe. But we just keep going as we've no option. 'Try, fail, try again, fail better' as Sam said.
I just had a 10 day stay in a hospital while in severe pain. It was a humbling experience. Always waiting. I was cared for but after that my issues weren’t that important. To the nurses. They had real work to do. For example. One poor fellow died.
Having listened to your brilliant lecture on WAITING FOR GODOT, I see remarkable similarities with the thinking in Eckhart Tolle's celebrated THE POWER OF NOW. Especially the issue of time running through both books.
My favorite play.It was sold out when I tried to get my ticket to go and see it in London.I m still waiting for the play to be on again, even tho, I know,I won't be able to get a ticket and will have to wait for a next time...
Thanks for the lecture! I really enjoyed Godot, pairs well with Adorno aesthetic theory, If this play was making people angry thats perfect, its a reflection of their amusement culture which simply wants to laugh all the time rather than seeking truth. Just like the Guinea pigs.
Excellent and insightful review and talk about the nature of this Trinity of a Film. Exceptional stories about our lives now in 2020. Keep looking inside of our Hats...We want Lucky to speak to pass the time, and hoping Lucky will say something meaningful....and does not end offering anything of value.
This lecture does well to give some additional meaning and background, as well as sharing the thoughts of one person on the play. However I think the most important take away from this play is what it means to each person who watches. The answers the convicts gave were correct, for each in his own. Thank you so much for sharing. I will have to watch some of your other lectures!
Good lecturer. I'm sure he's right. There are no answers. There is nothing else; there is no hope in the wreckage. Thus "Godot". But what if you reject the entire thing? What if we are not born over a grave? What if we are all on a fascinating journey into a beautiful and endlessly wonderful Universe? The journey will end, as all journeys must - but the end is not important. It hardly matters. It is the journey that matters. What if you think that? Why, then, the play is meaningless. Does that mean that any time spent on it is wasted? No. Not if it causes the utter rejection above, and the determination to find something better. I wonder... could that have been Beckett's purpose?
Absolutely brilliant - I love this play in the way that it is complete absurd and without meaning, its effortlessly both simple and complexe at the same time. Thank you for this! To me, the audience trying to find meaning where there is possibly none, is interesting because we try to fill this "void" and if this play had no meaning, it would be utterly terrifying. It is interesting also to compare Waiting for Godot to Camus' Sisyphus. Camus explore the 7 ways in which we deal with meaninglessness: 1- Suicide (Didi and Gogo), 2- Distraction (Play with hats, insult each other), 3- Denial (they wait for Godot, they sometimes are religious, therefor they pretend there is meaning where there is none), 4- Become an actor (All of them are), 5- Get involved in other art (Didi's singing), 6- Get political (Pozzi and Lucky) The last element is acceptance (Lucky accepting his fate). If we look into more detail into this concept, we can see that each character confronts one or more aspects out of the 7. So many different takes are possible, that's what makes it so approachable and not at the same time!
Very interesting lecture. I thought the play was extremely boring on the first watch, but spent days thinking about it afterwards. It's the perfect allegory for life; it's trivial and nothing much really happens, you assume there must be point to, but there's no big revelation coming and no-one has any real insight or answers.
12:52 it ends exactly as it begins Does not have an ending, does not adhere to a resolution nor even a sighting of a resolution in the classical unity of plays 36:14 action helps us to forget the passage of time, the excruciating wait for full meaning, or a full answer 38:24 not an existentialist play?
While I didn't enjoy the play at all, I have to say I really appreciated what you said and I can now at least appreciate the play for its nuance and intentions even if I struggle to personally connect with it.
What grounds the story is that it's (arguably) about two friends, one of them suicidal, and the other trying to save his life. You have to think about actors, who use the rehearsal period to try out different interpretations and see what works; what sticks. Don't be afraid to ask them - and not just your professor, what the play means.
It's not a French play. It was written in French. The San Francisco play was in English. I don't think the reason why the original audience didn't like this play is because they were sophisticated but because unlike the prisoners, they were not broken people. Broken people recognise the emotions of the characters immediately on a visceral level.
An excellent lecture. So nice to hear 'Godot'' pronounced as Beckett intended as well, not in that weird way that North Americans tend to pronounce French (or French sounding) words.
The Irish Free Theatre performed Waiting for Godot at the Goodman a few years ago with a good deal of humor and a take on the characters that like this lecture illuminated the play. That performance being the artifact is superior to this lecture being a bit of analysis and a lot of interpretation. Art belongs to the audience and every attempt to say what a piece of art means can inform or steal understanding. There's a lot to take away from Professor Mount's talk. Its greatest effect is to get me into another theatre seat to see the play again. And to think about what the Professor said and what Beckett created that illuminates existence.
