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Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 romantic comedy/drama film. The film was directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard. Stoppard's first major success was with the Shakespeare-influenced play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.
The film is largely fictional, although several of the characters are based on real people. In addition, many of the characters, lines, and plot devices are references to Shakespeare's plays.
Shakespeare in Love won a number of Academy Awards in 1999, including Best Picture, Best Actress (for Gwyneth Paltrow) and Best Supporting Actress (for Judi Dench).
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Quotations
A broad river divides my lovers: family, duty, fate. As unchangeable as nature.
A Comedy About the Greatest Love Story Almost Never Told...
And tell Master Shakespeare, something more cheerful next time, for Twelfth Night.
Good morning, my lord. I see you are open for business - so let's to church.
I know something of a woman in a man's profession. Yes, by God, I do know about that.
I would stay asleep my whole life, if I could dream myself into a company of players.
Encyclopedia
Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 romantic comedy/drama film. The film was directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard. Stoppard's first major success was with the Shakespeare-influenced play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.
The film is largely fictional, although several of the characters are based on real people. In addition, many of the characters, lines, and plot devices are references to Shakespeare's plays.
Shakespeare in Love won a number of Academy Awards in 1999, including Best Picture, Best Actress (for Gwyneth Paltrow) and Best Supporting Actress (for Judi Dench). It was the first comedy to win the Best Picture award since Annie Hall (1977) and as of 2009, no comedy has won the award since.
Synopsis
The film centres around the forbidden love of William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) and Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow), the daughter of a wealthy merchant.
As the film begins, theatre manager Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush) finds himself in debt to loan shark Hugh Fennyman (Tom Wilkinson). Henslowe offers Fennyman a partnership in the upcoming production of Shakespeare's newest comedy, Romeo and Ethel, The Pirate's Daughter promising that it will be a hit. This play will later be renamed Romeo and Juliet and be reworked into a tragedy (but with some comical undertones with a few characters, like the Nurse).
Will Shakespeare is suffering from writer's block and has not completed the play, but begins auditions for Romeo. A boy named Thomas Kent is cast in the role after impressing Shakespeare with his performance and his love of Shakespeare's previous work. Unknown to Shakespeare and the rest of the theatre company, Kent is young Viola de Lesseps, whose dream is to act, but as women are barred from the stage, she must disguise herself as a young man in order to fulfil her dream.
After Shakespeare discovers his star's true identity, he and Viola begin a passionate secret affair. There are strong parallels between the pair's romance and the romance in Romeo and Juliet, including the ballroom scene from Act 2 and the balcony scene immediately following it. The element of forbidden love forms the basis of Shakespeare's inspiration, and many of their conversations later show up as some of the most famous quotes in the play.
Inspired by Viola, Shakespeare begins writing feverishly. His work in progress also benefits from the off-hand advice of playwright and friendly rival Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett). Yet Shakespeare and de Lesseps know that their romance is doomed. Shakespeare is married, albeit long separated from his wife, and Viola’s parents would never permit her to marry a commoner such as Shakespeare. In fact, Viola's father has privately arranged a betrothal for her to Lord Wessex (Colin Firth).
Viola is called to the court of Queen Elizabeth I (Judi Dench), and Shakespeare dons a woman's disguise to accompany her. At court, Shakespeare manages to goad Wessex into betting fifty pounds that a play cannot capture the nature of true love. If Romeo and Juliet is a success, Shakespeare as playwright will win the money. The Queen, who enjoys Shakespeare's plays, agrees to be a witness to the wager. The true purpose of the meeting is revealed when Wessex announces his intent to marry Viola.
The Master of the Revels, the Queen's official in charge of the theatres, learns that there is a woman in the theatre company at the Rose playhouse. He orders the theatre closed for this violation of morality and the law. Left without a stage or lead actor, it seems that Romeo and Juliet must close before it even opens. Shakespeare is offered one last chance by the owner of a competing theatre, the Curtain, who offers his theatre to Shakespeare. Shakespeare will take the role of Romeo himself, with a boy actor playing Juliet.
Viola learns that the play will be performed on the day of her wedding. After the ceremony, Viola's loyal nurse (Imelda Staunton) helps her slip away to the theatre. In a final twist, shortly before the play begins, the boy playing Juliet starts experiencing the voice change of puberty. Viola takes the stage to replace him and plays Juliet to Shakespeare's Romeo. Their passionate portrayal of two lovers inspires the entire audience.
Mr. Tilney, the Master of the Revels, arrives at the theatre with Wessex, who has deduced his new bride's whereabouts. Tilney invokes the name of the Queen to arrest all there for indecency. Suddenly, Elizabeth I's voice rings out from the back of the theatre: "Have a care with my name Mr. Tilney - you will wear it out!" The Queen had decided to attend the play in disguise, and says that she will handle this matter herself. Although she recognizes Viola in her guise as Thomas Kent, the Queen does not unmask Viola, instead declaring that the role of Juliet is being performed by the boy Thomas Kent.
However, even a Queen is powerless to break a lawful marriage. Queen Elizabeth orders "Thomas Kent" to fetch Viola so that she may sail to America. She also states that Romeo and Juliet has accurately portrayed true love and so Wessex is forced to pay Shakespeare the fifty pounds, the exact amount Shakespeare requires to buy a share in the Chamberlain's Men. The Queen then directs "Kent" to tell Shakespeare to write something "a little more cheerful next time, for Twelfth Night".
Viola and Shakespeare part, never to meet again: she must accompany Wessex to a colonial settlement in Virginia. Shakespeare immortalizes her by making the main character of his new play, Twelfth Night, Or What You Will, a strong young woman named Viola who disguises herself as a boy. The final image of the film has Viola walking away down a beach, with a voiceover by Shakespeare discussing his plans to write Twelfth Night and musing of its main character, "For she will be my heroine for all time, and her name will be... Viola."
Historical accuracy
The film makes no pretence at historical accuracy. For example, the basis of Romeo and Juliet was a poem and not one of Shakespeare's romances.
The film features many comic anachronisms: a psychotherapist; a mug marked "A present from Stratford-on-Avon"; Shakespeare leaping into a ferry and saying "Follow that boat!"; Queen Elizabeth I remarking "Have a care with my name or you will wear it out"; and Shakespeare anticipating the phrase "The show must go on!"
The characters of Ralph Bashford, James Hemmings, Edward Pope, Sam Gosse, James Armitage, Viola de Lesseps, Robert de Lesseps (Nicholas Le Prevost), Lady de Lesseps (Jill Baker), Hugh Fennyman, and Lord Wessex did not exist.
The characters of Philip Henslowe, Richard Burbage, Ned Alleyn, Will Kempe, Edmund Tilney, Augustine Philips, John Hemmings (spelled in real life as "John Heminges"), George Bryan, Christopher Marlowe, and John Webster did exist, but their actions in the film are fictitious.
There were neither tobacco plantations nor English colonies in America in the 1590s.
Casting
- Ben Affleck was not considered for his role until Paltrow put him forward, supplying an audition tape to the producers that they had prepared together.
Controversy
The writers of Shakespeare in Love were sued in 1999 by Faye Kellerman, author of the book The Quality of Mercy. Ms. Kellerman claimed that the story was lifted from her book, a detective novel in which Shakespeare and a cross-dressing Jewish woman attempt to solve a murder. Miramax derided the claim of similarity as "[an] absurd...publicity stunt". After the film's release, certain publications, including Private Eye, noted strong similarities between the film and the 1941 novel No Bed for Bacon, by Caryl Brahms and S J Simon, which also features Shakespeare falling in love and finding inspiration for his later plays. In a foreword to a subsequent edition of No Bed for Bacon (which traded on the association by declaring itself "A Story of Shakespeare and Lady Viola in Love") Ned Sherrin, Private Eye insider and former writing partner of Brahms', confirmed that he had lent a copy of the novel to Stoppard after he joined the writing team, but that the basic plot of the film had been independently developed by Marc Norman, who was unaware of the earlier work.
Awards
Cultural influence
Shakespeare in Love has since been used as material in the VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) in Australia.
External links
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