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*He imagines a shipwreck overtaking his Viola on her way to America, as he is writing the opening scene of his next play (as in ''[[Twelfth Night]]'').
*He imagines a shipwreck overtaking his Viola on her way to America, as he is writing the opening scene of his next play (as in ''[[Twelfth Night]]'').


*Henslowe's seamstress asks when he will write a sonnet for her; later he writes a sonnet to Viola which begins: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" (as in Sonnet 18).
*Burbage's seamstress, Rosaline, asks when he will write a sonnet for her; later he writes a sonnet to Viola which begins: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" (as in [[Sonnet 18]]).


Christopher Marlowe appears in the film, as the master playwright whom everyone in the film considers the greatest English poet of all time. His ''[[Doctor Faustus]]'' is quoted ''ad nauseam'': 'Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?'
Christopher Marlowe appears in the film, as the master playwright whom everyone in the film considers the greatest English poet of all time. His ''[[Doctor Faustus]]'' is quoted ''ad nauseam'': 'Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?'

Revision as of 03:17, 19 February 2007

Shakespeare in Love
File:Shakes-in-love-mov-poster.jpg
Directed byJohn Madden
Written byMarc Norman
Tom Stoppard
Produced byDavid Parfitt
Donna Gigliotti
Harvey Weinstein
Edward Zwick
Marc Norman
StarringJoseph Fiennes
Gwyneth Paltrow
Geoffrey Rush
Colin Firth
Ben Affleck
Judi Dench
CinematographyRichard Greatrex
Edited byDavid Gamble
Music byStephen Warbeck
Distributed byMiramax Films (USA)
Alliance Atlantis (Canada)
Universal Studios (non-USA/Canada)
Release dates
United States December 3, 1998 (premiere)
United States 11 December, 1998 (limited)
Canada 25 December, 1998
United States 8 January, 1999
United Kingdom 29 January, 1999
Australia 11 February, 1999
New Zealand 25 February, 1999
Running time
137 min.
LanguageEnglish

Shakespeare in Love is an award-winning 1998 romantic comedy film. It portrays William Shakespeare as a young, struggling playwright, plagued by money shortages, problems with women, and writer's block. Shakespeare then meets and falls in love with Viola de Lesseps, an aristocratic woman who has disguised herself as a boy in order to perform on the male-only Elizabethan stage. The film was directed by John Madden and co-written by playwright Tom Stoppard, whose 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, some of the characters, lines, and plot devices are references to Shakespeare's plays.

Shakespeare in Love won a number of Academy Awards in 1998, including Best Picture and Best Actress (for Gwyneth Paltrow). It was the first comedy to win the Best Picture award since Annie Hall (1977).

Plot

Template:Spoiler 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).

Shakespeare and Viola continue their romance as the play is written and rehearsed day by day. Fennyman, originally antagonistic, eventually falls in love with the theatre and becomes a more passionate defender of their artistic integrity than Henslowe. The Sunday before their marriage, Wessex takes Viola to Greenwich where the Queen will bestow her blessing on the couple. Shakespeare secretly accompanies them, posing as Viola's country cousin. The Queen questions Viola over her love of the theater, and argues against Viola's claim that true love can be depicted in a play. Wessex agrees with the Queen, but Shakespeare (still posing as a woman), challenges that claim, betting 50 pounds on it. Elizabeth says she will be witness to the wager, and will judge who wins the bet when the time has come. Later, Burbage discovers that Shakespeare was having an affair with his own mistress, Rosaline, and the two men come to blows. Shakespeare's company goes to a house of ill repute to celebrate their victory and it comes out that Shakespeare has a wife in Stratford-upon-Avon and that Marlowe has been stabbed to death. Shakespeare is overcome with guilt, thinking that Wessex has killed Marlowe in place of him. Viola, who was angry at Shakespeare after discovering that he has a wife, is told by Wessex that her "playwright" is dead, thinks it is Shakespeare, and is also overcome by grief. Both attend Marlowe's funeral, causing Wessex to run away screaming in fear, thinking he is seeing a ghost. The couple reunites.

The play continues rehearsal, risking the wrath of the law against women being on stage by having Viola play the part of Romeo. Wessex figures out that Shakespeare lied to him about his name; the two duel, and Shakespeare defeats him, telling the company that Wessex is Marlowe's murderer. Alleyn informs him that he is not, and that Marlowe was killed in a fight over a bill, relieving Shakespeare's guilt. It is eventually discovered that "Thomas Kent" is Viola when John Webster (Joe Roberts), angry he is denied a part, tells Edmund Tylney (Simon Callow) that he spied Shakespeare and Viola making love, and the theatre is closed for immorality since it was considered lewd for women to perform on stage. Viola is forced out of the play and married to Wessex. Burbage and Shakespeare settle their differences, and Burbage allows Shakespeare's company to perform the play at his own theatre, with Shakespeare replacing Viola on stage in the lead role of Romeo.

File:200616 167268 4 024.jpg
Colin Firth as Lord Wessex and Judi Dench as Elizabeth I

Immediately after her wedding, Viola runs off to the theatre to watch the debut of the play, but is forced on stage when the actor playing Juliet's voice changes. Immediately after the wildly successful performance, the authorities arrive to arrest them all for allowing a woman on stage, but it is revealed that Elizabeth I is in the audience. Knowing the truth and intuiting Viola's relationship with Shakespeare, she plays along with the fiction that it is Thomas Kent playing the role of Juliet, saving them from arrest, but insists that Kent go inside to fetch Viola, as even she could not overrule a marriage consecrated by God. She also orders Wessex to pay Shakespeare off on the bet made earlier over whether the truth of love could ever be expressed in a play, allowing Shakespeare to purchase a share in Burbage's theatre company and begin his ascent through the social ranks to gentleman. Shakespeare is then told by the queen to make his next play happier for the celebration Twelfth Night. Together, Shakespeare and Viola figure out a rough beginning for the play.

Viola departs for America with Wessex after a tearful farewell with Shakespeare. Her eventual fate is somewhat ambiguous. Shakespeare, in voiceover, describes a shipwreck and a new beginning for the heroine of his next play, Twelfth Night, named Viola in honor of his lost love. The last scene shows a lady presumed to be Viola de Lesseps walking out of the ocean onto a beach after a shipwreck.

Historical accuracy

The film is set approximately in the year 1593.[citation needed] It makes no pretence at historical accuracy and features many comic anachronisms (such as a psychotherapist, a mug marked "A present from Stratford-on-Avon", a man leaping into a ferry and saying "Follow that boat!", and Henslowe anticipating the phrase "The show must go on!"). Some events contradict the historical record: for instance, it is unlikely that Lord Wessex and Viola would depart for the Americas in the 1590s, since the first successful English colony, Jamestown, was not established until 1607.

References to Shakespeare's Work

Many of the plot devices used in the film are analagous with those of many and various Shakespearean comedies and with the works of the other playwrights of the Elizabethan era -- the Queen disguised as a commoner, two cross-dressing disguises, several mistaken identities, a 'magic' object, a choreographed swordfight, suspicion of adultery (or, at least, cheating), the appearance of a 'ghost', and a 'play within a play'.

Furthermore, some of the dialogue is spoken in iambic pentameter.

Other broad references include a running joke, in which Shakespeare stumbles across phrases and tableaux in his daily life that the audience knows he will later work into his plays...or not:

  • The intended original title of the play Romeo and Juliet is said to be Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter.
  • On the street, he hears a particularly prolix Puritan preaching against the two London stages: 'I say, a curse on both their houses!' (as in Romeo and Juliet).
  • He walks into the backstage area of a performance of The Two Gentlemen of Verona (parts of which appear on screen) at Greenwich Palace and sees Will Kempe, in full make-up, silently contemplating a skull (as in Hamlet).
  • He also quotes the lines 'Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move' to Philip Henslowe (again, as in Hamlet).
  • As his writer's block is being introduced, he crumples up balls of paper and throws them around his room. They land near props which represent points in his several plays: a skull (again, as in Hamlet), and an open chest (as in The Merchant of Venice).
  • He imagines a shipwreck overtaking his Viola on her way to America, as he is writing the opening scene of his next play (as in Twelfth Night).
  • Burbage's seamstress, Rosaline, asks when he will write a sonnet for her; later he writes a sonnet to Viola which begins: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" (as in Sonnet 18).

Christopher Marlowe appears in the film, as the master playwright whom everyone in the film considers the greatest English poet of all time. His Doctor Faustus is quoted ad nauseam: 'Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?'

The journeys up and down the Thames in river boats are taken from the puppet play Hero and Leander, which is written by the character Littlewit in Bartholomew Fair by Ben Jonson. (One might also point out that they are a reference to the hundreds of films in which a character jumps into a taxi and commands the driver to follow someone.)

John Webster, who is shown playing with mice and speaking to the Queen, grew up to be a leading figure in the Jacobean generation of playwrights. His plays are known for their blood and gore -- which is why he says that he enjoys Titus Andronicus.

When Will Kemp says to Shakespeare that he would like to play in a drama, he is told that 'they would laugh at Seneca if you played it' -- a reference to the Roman tragedian renowned for his sombre and bloody plotlines.

When Viola asks Will, "Are you the author of the plays of William Shakespeare?", this is an obvious hint at the modern day speculation concerning the authorship of Shakespeare's works; i.e. were they really written by him, or did some nobleman (or another famous author, like Francis Bacon) use his identity as a pseudonym?

Will is shown signing a paper repeatedly, with six relatively illegible signatures visible. This is a reference to the fact that several versions of Shakespeare's signature exist -- all of which are different.

Will burns the only copy of his first draft of Romeo and Ethel.

Other theatre conventions are also repeated in the film, as well: 'break a leg', 'the show must...' '-- go on!', the 'mysterious' way in which everything 'turns out alright'.

Controversy

After the film's release, 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.

Cast

Awards

Wins

Nominations

Wikiquote has quotations related to Shakespeare in Love.

Shakespeare in Love at IMDb

Preceded by Golden Globe: Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
1998 		Succeeded by
Preceded by BAFTA Award for Best Film
1999 		Succeeded by
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