Shakespeare in Love (1998) ...
The show must go on ... but William Shakespeare has a bad case of writer's block.
| Released: | December 3, 1998 |
| Running Time: | 137 minutes |
| Cast: | Joseph Fiennes: William
Shakespeare Gwyneth Paltrow: Viola De Lesseps Geoffrey Rush: Philip Henslowe Tom Wilkinson: Hugh Fennyman Judi Dench: Queen Elizabeth I Colin Firth: Lord Wessex Ben Affleck: Ned Alleyn Rupert Everett: Christopher Marlowe |
| Writers: | Marc Norman, Tom Stoppard |
| Director: | John Madden |
| My Rating | ***** |
Shakespeare in Love is one of my all-time favorite movies
... either one or two ... sometimes three, but always in the top five, usually
fluctuating around between Blade Runner, Amedaeus, Cassablanca and The Fabulous
Baker Boys.
It's really simple for me to understand why I love this movie
so much. The script is brilliant, the actors are brilliant and the use of
different devices to explain how some of the most popular cliches came about is
genius i.e.: Henslowe: "The show must...you know..." Shakespeare: "Go
on!"
Gwyneth and Joseph Fiennes give the performances of their lives and both deserved all the attention and awards that came their way. I don't want to take anything away from Steven Speilberg and Saving Private Ryan, a great movie that's probably in my Top Ten all-time favorites, but John Madden really should have won best director along with best picture — but that's the Academy Awards. Both movies deserved a clean sweep of the top two awards, so what can you do ... flip a coin, I guess.
From the opening credits to the closing sequence with Gwyneth wandering across an isolated beach, the music score also gives me chills as do so many of the scenes that are brilliantly written and staged. I determine my favorite movies of all time by how many times I can watch a movie over and over again and enjoy it as if I'm seeing it for the first time, and this is one movie that never fails to give me chills of pleasure each time I watch it.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shakespeare in Love is a 1998
motion picture. In this dramatic comedy/romance, William Shakespeare is
portrayed as a young, struggling playwright, plagued by money shortages,
problems with women, and writer's bl
ock. Some
of the characters and their lines are references to lines and characters in real
Shakespeare plays -- implying that these inspire the film's Shakespeare later in
life. Most of the film's major plot devices are also taken from
Shakespeare.
The film is largely fictional, although it is based around several actual historical characters. It won a number of Academy Awards in 1998, including Best Picture and Best Actress. Notably, the film became the first comedy to win the Best Picture award since 1977's Annie Hall.
Summary
Young William
Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) is cursed with writer's block, a theatre whose
owner is deep in debt to moneylenders, a jealous rivalry with Christopher
Marlowe (Rupert Everett) and the discovery that his mistress, Rosaline, is
cheating on him.
Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush), manager of The Rose theatre, has promised his angry moneylender, Hugh Fennyman (Tom Wilkinson) that he can repay all debts by making him a partner in the production of a new play by Shakespeare. At an audition for a play -- "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter" -- that he actually has not yet written (but for which both Richard Burbage (Martin Clunes), manager of the Curtain theatre, and Henslowe have already paid him), Shakespeare admires the talent of a new actor, Thomas Kent, who quickly runs away.
Shakespeare meets Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow), who lives in the same house as Kent, by sneaking into a party held in honor of Viola's suitor Lord Wessex (Colin Firth). He promptly falls in love with her during a dance, inspiring him to begin writing his play again, but is threatened by Wessex to never touch his property; in fear, he tells Wessex that he is Christopher Marlowe.
By the time Will realizes that Viola and Thomas are the same person, she is promised in a marriage to Wessex approved of by Queen Elizabeth I herself (Judi Dench). Regardless of the engagement, the couple find themselves unable to avoid a clandestine affair during which Shakespeare writes his new play, inspired by the events surrounding him and Viola and now retitled Romeo and Juliet at the suggestion of Ned Alleyn (Ben Affleck).
Plot devices
Many of the
plot devices used in the film are frequently associated with Shakespeare,
although many were common among other writers of Elizabethan drama. These
include:
* both high and low comedy
* much dialogue
spoken in iambic pentameter
* anachronisms (psychotherapy, "Follow that
boat!", Henslowe: "The show must...you know..." Shakespeare: "Go
on!",
* creative accounting -
promising the actors a share of the profits in lieu of pay, royal figures
playing key characters, cross-dressing as disguise, mistaken identities
* a dog figuring in a comic scene (a device referred to within the
movie) the appearance of a ghost
* the "play within the play" (Romeo and
Juliet's performance within the film).
Awards
Academy Award for
Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Actress - Gwyneth Paltrow
Academy
Award for Best Supporting Actress - Judi Dench
Academy Award for Best Art
Direction - Martin Childs & Jill Quertier
Academy Award for Costume
Design - Sandy Powell
Academy Award for Original Music Score - Stephen
Warbeck
Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay - Marc Norman &
Tom Stoppard
BAFTA Award for Best Film
BAFTA Award for Best
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role - Judi Dench
BAFTA Award for
Best Editing - David Gamble
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture -
Musical or Comedy
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture
Musical or Comedy - Gwyneth Paltrow
Golden Globe Award Best Screenplay -
Comedy/Musical Film - Marc Norman & Tom Stoppard
Writers Guild of
America Award for Best Original Screenplay - Marc Norman & Tom
Stoppard
