Ben Kingsley | Ozymandias (1996)

[johnanthonyp]

Oh wow, A lesson in poition, Time is the boy. Maybe the God we all hunt. Like these human;s do-I am time-fit the spec. I was am and will be. You cannot touch me-you cannot concive me

[SpidermanInLondon]

This is amazing.

[thespecialneedsgroup]

I've never noticed before, but Ben Kingsley looks like a cross between Patrick Stewart and Lord Voldemort.

[needsafix2]

Ah, irony... A bit like goldy and silvery, but funnier. :)

[baraxor]

Evidently UBS = Ramesses II after Kadesh.

[FootDanielLight]

lolol excellent . surely a farce

[kokoinmars]

hahahahahahahahaaahahahaha

[jg2904]

His reading isn't bad, but the music is horribly out of place.

[krane121]

@jg2904 Not if Ozymandias' words are taken as the One's...as they should be.

[scurrie42]

How moving, and what a lovely reader Sir Ben Kingsley is.

[Chiaroscuro1973]

Irony.

[Keltibarian]

This is an awful, awful reading....

[hiota45]

Irony!

[midnightmilo]

This should be framed for posterity as an example of 'Irony'.

[TheAnte2610]

@midnightmilo Why?

[midnightmilo]

@TheAnte2610 The poem is about the vanity of those who think their mighty empires will last forever more. The irony is that when this was made in 1996 neither UBS nor the banking community at large could have foreseen just how much they'd be emasculated by the global financial crisis of the past few years. As the other commentator said - UBS is Ozymandias - and the irony lies in the fact they never thought it would happen to them.

[TheAnte2610]

@midnightmilo Wow I totally missed the UBS introduction, nice spot, thanks.

[BradBrassman]

@midnightmilo Indeed, "Look upon my works ye mighty and despair" And what follows is the Ozymandias of John Cristopher, a dystopian world ruled over by a few Masters, whilst we mind-controlled slaves either serve them, or exist in some pre-industrialised rural society keeping well away from the ruined cities.

[richardnbrandt]

@midnightmilo I actually thin UBS think of themselves as the sand.......

[NYCParkourAddict]

Kingsley looks like a dickhead, lol hahahaha XD.

[LeCommedieDellArte]

Thank you, very, very much !!

[LeCommedieDellArte]

( 3 )

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

(Percy Bysshe Shelley)

[MissRitaFairbanks]

Um. Nimrod??!

[crazyxmarine]

fuckface: yes, I'm mad, if by madness you mean mad; but the VA helps me keep it in check. But stupid people, and ignorant comments, always make me wobble a bit but I find solace in great poetry and music.

[JONNOG88]

I don't care what people on here say. This is a stirring performance by Kingsley.

If 0:37 onwards does'nt give you goosebumps then I doubt your human

By the way Shelly's poem is not about meglomania. It is about how the great conquest of Ramses the Great. Are eventually destroyed by the onward march of time . As indeed are all of us

[swisnieski]

@JONNOG88 Correct. The wasting power of time is a recurring theme in Romantic poetry, and Ozymandias is a particularly powerful demonstration of that theme.

[crazyxmarine]

Zeno, love your awesome Engrish (Bankers have sadistic urges that last as long as their body) Christ, that's fucking classic! But NO, I do not feel that Islamic nations even pretend to be "neutral;" (Switzerland protected Nazis and still does, and has kept billions in "treasure" from Holocaust Jews, so no, those fuckers aren't neutral either)... but to humor your bizarre analogy; name one fucking Muslim country which currently condemns Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Islamic terrorists? Just one.

[MrPhukface]

@crazyxmarine lol u mad?

[crazyxmarine]

Love Ben Kingsley, but love Shelley more, and when your read bios of him you realize he spent MUCH more time reading this great little poem... what a waste of Kinsley's talent and great voice... fuck Bank of Naziland; they've profited billions on blood money, while pretending, pussies they are, to be a "neutral country." Fuck the Swiss; I'd rather wear a Timex than a Rolex.

[Zeno1999]

@crazyxmarine < Bankers have sadistic urges that last as long as their body. Swiss try to create an image in world as a peaceful nation( haven't we seen same with Islamic nations !); considering, everything is upside down in this age : Doctors/medicine create illness, schools dumb down intuition, police protect shrewd criminals ... and it would end just as arrogance of 'OZYMANDIAS' ended !

[BeerMan5000]

@Zeno1999 Ozymandias apparent arrogance ended with his entire age. When Ramses II died, so did a vast empire. This is not a story about arrogance meeting its doom from justice, it is about meeting ones eventual doom from the onward march of time. We are all likewise doomed.

[Zeno1999]

@BeerMan5000 < Not about dying. When a king set up a kingdom to glorify his image, it's arrogance. Plato is still alive due to his exalted ideas. So are Robert Schumann, Einstein, Raman etc remembered and kept alive in a way that supports life-force.

Now you know, we still keep monsters like Nero and Stalin alive in the books but it's different; we want to learn from our mistakes. And death is not end of life as more and more scientists now believe, so more reasons to sow good seeds.

[Aurelian603]

Whats the name of the piece playing in the background ? It fits the poem so well

[henryhaven]

@Aurelian603 elgar nimrod

[Aurelian603]

@henryhaven

Thank you!

[JONNOG88]

@Aurelian603

Sir Edward Elgars Nimrod.

I know It has to be one of the finest and stirring pieces of music ever composed. It is often performed by military bands on Remembrance Sunday. November 11th. It also featured in the final scence of Elizabeth.

[workingclassbum]

Very ironic poem for a bank given the economic collapse

[trishcrystal]

God, this is horrible. the rendering is kind of upbeat, and i've always thought the poem had this conquering, bass aspect to it.

sorry, Ben Kingsley, but this is not the poem for you.

[loveupskirts]

i wonder if kinglseys dry reading, was a nod to the poems themes?.

anyway kingsleys supposed to be an arrogant sod, i heard. but a great actor.

[masterfeatherpen]

Interesting thought. I think you might be right.

[pixi6666]

Of all the poems for a bank to pick...

[asurasyn]

@pixi6666 I honestly don't think people get the point of the poem these days.

The line "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair" is almost always used out of context, implying that old Ramses built something that would last

[keytoothed]

The poet always has the last laugh.

[brunobabashay1]

the point is that Shelley influenced Bertrand Russell so much, that word became a map to the searching soul that feighns a lisp. thats the point.

[paulglink]

Terrible realisation. Why dettract from the words with the overlay of Nimrod; and what is the relevance of Nimrod to Ozymandias? Whoever made this is aesthetically illiterate. That would be fine if it's an amateur posting, but good money was obviously wasted on this

[boughtoi]

At first I thought the addition of the soundtrack was a bit extraneous as well. When I remembered though that Nimrod was known as the King who attempted to build the Tower of Babel as per the Bible, it is actually quite fitting in a thematic sense.

[ponzi6]

A poem about hubris offered to us by a bank? It must be tounge in cheek.

[Marno19]

ahahahahahahaha oh mercy! why not use dulce et decorum est to support invading the middle east?

[CarlGauss]

LOLOL, worst sonnet for a corporate empire ever.

[Ennio444]

Yes, it's almost a prophecy.

[NoneSoPretty]

I thought this poem was by Shelley not Shakespeare.

Which is worse: the delivery, the soundtrack, or the camera work?

[bulakaiser]

it is Shelley.

[Sbisbee3]

shadows and dust

[aaronfromhastings]

PULVIS ET UMBRA SUMUS

[AnotherCuppaCoffee]

Is the point that UBS is Ozymandias, and its arrogance is crumbling?

[zoushaomenohu]

@AnotherCuppaCoffee I think the gist of this entire ad-campaign isn't about the content of the poems. It's about the immortality of the various poems. All of these poems are quoted and read and remembered fondly decades or even centuries after they were written, and just like them, UBS will be there for its customers long into the future. That's my horse pucky interpretation, anyway.

[MysticTraitor]

Is this a joke? Or did they miss the point of the poem?

[papervampire]

I guess you missed the point.

[Number1ricky]

@MysticTraitor You missed the point; I did too when I first read it. Think about the sculpture. It's of a king, but all that's left is the sculpture (made by those he ordered) not the king or anything he had. It goes to show that nothing lasts forever, except perhaps art, except perhaps nature. It's very romantic and a shot against pride.

[Zondergrod]

A poem about time's victory over even the greatest of things, and then the bank of Switzerland's little motto: "Here today, Here tomorrow", to end it off

I was laughing my ass off.

[bluerocklpx]

love it