pls help me!!!! in the film "Shakespeare in love"?

Question

pls help me ans this ff question... i really need ur help..
REACTION to the FILM

1. What is the film’s theme? Is it about love of country? Heroic love? Lifestyle of the rich and famous? Commentary about the present society? Etc. The theme tells something or is a commentary by the director about a specific or a general subject. The theme is not about the goodness or the badness of the characters, but the overall idea of what the movie is all about. “Poverty” is not a theme, but when you say “Poverty degrades, then it is a theme.

2. Do I agree with what happened to the main character? Or, do I agree with what he/she did? Is it justified?

3. What is the impact of the movie to me as a reader? Do I see a change in me as a result of my viewing? What new windows opened for me after undergoing this project? Or, no change in me at all but..... Do I agree with the points of view if the author, with his/her depictions? Values? Beliefs? ETC.

thank you in advance.. n.n

Answer 1

In a decade in which Shakespearean subjects had become increasingly popular, John Madden's Shakespeare In Love ripped the envelope and then some. Madden's treatment of Marc Norman's and Tom Stoppard's screenplay reminded audiences that Shakespeare's plays were works of flesh and blood, and their playwright a living, breathing human being who faced practical problems and used his best creative impulses, sometimes on the spur of the moment, to solve them. Joseph Fiennes's Shakespeare is a realistically human portrayal, the jumping-off point for one of the more robustly believable movie depictions of Elizabethan life, true to history in large measure, yet not afraid to allow some laughter and incorporate a historical conceit or two in telling its story. The movie won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Gwyneth Paltrow as Best Actress, and Judi Dench in a brief but memorable turn as Queen Elizabeth, revealed to be as quirkily and dimensionally human as Shakespeare himself.

There is a boatman in "Shakespeare in Love" who ferries Shakespeare across the Thames while bragging, "I had Christopher Marlowe in my boat once." As Shakespeare steps ashore, the boatman tries to give him a script to read. The contemporary feel of the humor (like Shakespeare's coffee mug, inscribed "Souvenir of Stratford-Upon-Avon") makes the movie play like a contest between "Masterpiece Theatre" and Mel Brooks. Then the movie stirs in a sweet love story, juicy court intrigue, backstage politics and some lovely moments from "Romeo and Juliet" (Shakespeare's working title: "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter").

Is this a movie or an anthology? I didn't care. I was carried along by the wit, the energy and a surprising sweetness. The movie serves as a reminder that Will Shakespeare was once a young playwright on the make, that theater in all times is as much business as show, and that "Romeo and Juliet" must have been written by a man in intimate communication with his libido. The screenplay is by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, whose play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" approached "Hamlet" from the points of view of two minor characters.

"Shakespeare in Love" is set in late Elizabethan England (the queen, played as a young woman by Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth," is played as an old one here by Judi Dench). Theater in London is booming--when the theaters aren't closed, that is, by plague warnings or bad debts. Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) is not as successful as the popular Marlowe (Rupert Everett), but he's a rising star, in demand by the impecunious impresario Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush), whose Rose Theater is in hock to a money lender, and Richard Burbage (Martin Clunes), whose Curtain Theater has Marlowe and would like to sign Shakespeare.

The film's opening scenes provide a cheerful survey of the business of theater--the buildings, the budgets, the script deadlines, the casting process. Shakespeare, meanwhile, struggles against deadlines and complains in therapy that his quill has broken (his therapist raises a Freudian eyebrow). What does it take to renew his energy? A sight of the beautiful Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow), a rich man's daughter with the taste to prefer Shakespeare to Marlowe, and the daring to put on men's clothes and audition for a role in Will's new play.

Players in drag were of course standard on the Elizabethan stage ("Stage love will never be true love," the dialogue complains, "while the law of the land has our beauties played by pipsqueak boys"). It was conventional not to notice the gender disguises, and "Shakespeare in Love" asks us to grant the same leeway, as Viola first plays a woman auditioning to play a man and later plays a man playing a woman. As the young man auditioning to play Romeo, Viola wears a mustache and trousers and yet somehow inspires stirrings in Will's breeches; later, at a dance, he sees her as a woman and falls instantly in love.

Alas, Viola is to be married in two weeks to the odious Lord Wessex (Colin Firth), who will trade his title for her father's cash. Shakespeare nevertheless presses his case, in what turns out to be a real-life rehearsal for Romeo and Juliet's balcony scene, and when it is discovered that he violated Viola's bedchamber, he thinks fast and identifies himself as Marlowe. (This suggests an explanation for Marlowe's mysterious stabbing death at Deptford.) The threads of the story come together nicely on Viola's wedding day, which ends with her stepping into a role she could not possibly have foreseen.

The film has been directed by John Madden, who made "Mrs. Brown" (1997) about the affection between Queen Victoria and her horse trainer. Here again he finds a romance that leaps across barriers of wealth, titles and class. The story is ingeniously Shakespearean in its dimensions, including high and low comedy, coincidences, masquerades, jokes about itself, topical references and entrances with screwball timing. At the same time we get a good sense of how the audience was deployed in the theaters, where they stood or sat and what their view was like--and also information about costuming, props and stagecraft.

But all of that is handled lightly, as background, while intrigues fill the foreground, and the love story between Shakespeare and Viola slyly takes form. By the closing scene, where Viola breaks the law against women on the stage, we're surprised how much of Shakespeare's original power still resides in lines that now have two or even three additional meanings. There's a quiet realism in the development of the romance, which grows in the shadow of Viola's approaching nuptials: "This is not life, Will," she tells him. "It is a stolen season." And Judi Dench has a wicked scene as Elizabeth, informing Wessex of his bride-to-be, "You're a lordly fool; she's been plucked since I saw her last, and not by you. It takes a woman to know it." Fiennes and Paltrow make a fine romantic couple, high-spirited and fine-featured, and Ben Affleck prances through the center of the film as Ned Alleyn, the cocky actor. I also enjoyed the seasoned Shakespeareans who swelled the progress of a scene or two: Simon Callow as the Master of the Revels; Tom Wilkinson as Fennyman, the usurer; Imelda Staunton as Viola's nurse; Antony Sher as Dr. Moth, the therapist.

A movie like this is a reminder of the long thread that connects Shakespeare to the kids opening tonight in a storefront on Lincoln Avenue: You get a theater, you learn the lines, you strut your stuff, you hope there's an audience, you fall in love with another member of the cast, and if sooner or later your revels must be ended, well, at least you reveled.

While the film's storyline is labyrinthine, its premise is fairly simple: William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) has writer's block and needs a muse to unlock his creative abilities. When he falls for the lovely Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow), his passion is released, and his ineptly-titled "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter" becomes "Romeo and Juliet."

But in true Shakespearean fashion, their romance is hampered by various complications: Viola is betrothed to another, the insufferable Lord Wessex (Colin Firth), and that union has been sanctioned by Queen Elizabeth (Judi Dench).

Set against the backdrop of London in 1593, pic presents a theatrical community in which Shakespeare is but one of several successful playwrights --- including Christoher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Robert Greene and George Peele. Notoriously competitive with the then better-known Marlowe ("Dr. Faustus"), Shakespeare is striving to find his own creative niche.

Meanwhile, despite theater's growing popularity, the plague forces the closure of many houses, including the Rose, owned by Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush) and the Curtain, run by Richard Burbage (Martin Clunes).

When Shakespeare promises to write a new play, both impresarios vie to mount it, and casting sessions begin, during which, the law decrees, only men may audition.

But Viola, a keen fan of drama and of Shakespeare in particular, is determined to try out for the new play. Disguised as the youth Thomas Kent and acting to perfection, she catches Will's eye and wins the part of Romeo. Later she presents herself as Viola, and he is smitten. The confusion over sexual identity is expertly played out, and, in a hilarious yet touching scene that echoes "Twelfth Night's" reverse-gender dynamics, Will confesses to Thomas his love for the youth's friend Viola. As the guise falls away, their passion heats up.

None of this would be possible --- let alone credible --- were it not for the impassioned acting of Paltrow and Fiennes. Paltrow, who demonstrated her capacity for period British roles in "Emma," has a luminosity that makes Viola irresistible. In goatee and boy's wig as Thomas, she cuts an equally appealing figure.

And Fiennes gives brother Ralph a run for his money. The RSC-trained actor endows Will Shakespeare with a likable humanity and romantic charm that, coupled with his good looks, make him ideally suited for the role.

The supporting cast is a dream, filling out a potpourri of character parts with undiluted strength. Rush, who gets some of the catchiest quips, is sympathetic and funny. As the smarmy Wessex, Firth is hateful without overdoing his part.

The unassailable Dench, meanwhile, plays Elizabeth with gusto: She provides a brilliantly wry counterpoint to her last monarch, Victoria, in Madden's own "Mrs. Brown." In an uncredited role, Rupert Everett is memorable as Marlowe. And Ben Affleck, as the arrogant thesp Ned Alleyn, does some of his very best work, suggesting that comedy may be his true calling.

The combination of Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard on the script has produced a lovely and seamless result. Stoppard, whose neo-classic "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" made Shakespeare newly accessible, is credited with fleshing out the supporting characters.

Madden keeps his cast together with the skill of a veteran, finding opportunities to let almost every actor shine. If there is any flaw here, it might be that with so many fine actors, there aren't always enough great lines to go around.

On the technical front, all aspects are outstanding, with the money behind this Miramax-Universal coproduction quite evident onscreen. Richard Greatrex's lensing lends a refreshingly contempo feel to the proceedings.

David Gamble's editing is deft and effective, especially in stretches that cross-cut between the rehearsals of the play-within-the-film and the "real" lovers' romantic trysts. Sandy Powell's impressive costumes and Lisa Westcott's make-up show the Elizabethan era to its best advantage.

Shakespeare meets Sherlock, and makes for pure enchantment in the inspired conjecture behind "Shakespeare in Love." This film's exhilarating cleverness springs from its speculation about where the playwright might have found the beginnings of "Romeo and Juliet," but it is not constrained by worries about literary or historical accuracy. (So what if characters talk about Virginia tobacco plantations before there was a Virginia?) Galvanized by the near-total absence of biographical data, it soars freely into the realm of invention, wittily weaving Shakespearean language and emotion into an intoxicatingly glamorous romance. No less marvelous are its imaginings of an Elizabethan theater fraught with the same backbiting and conniving we enjoy today.

Tom Stoppard's mark on the jubilant screenplay, which originated as the brainstorm of Marc Norman, harks back to the behind-the-scenes delights of his "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead." This is a world in which a therapist times his patient with an hourglass and a souvenir mug is inscribed "A Present From Stratford-Upon-Avon." Says the dashing young Shakespeare, played tempestuously well by Joseph Fiennes, about the more successful Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett): "Lovely waistcoat. Shame about the poetry." And there is the inevitable moment when someone asks who Shakespeare is, only to be told by a comically obtuse producer (Geoffrey Rush): "Nobody -- that's the author."

Ingenious as the film's many inventions happen to be (from boatmen who behave like cabbies to its equivalent of Shakespearean outtakes -- "One Gentleman of Verona" in the writing process), it could never have had so much energy without the right real-life Juliet to dazzle Will. Gwyneth Paltrow, in her first great, fully realized starring performance, makes a heroine so breathtaking that she seems utterly plausible as the playwright's guiding light. In a film steamy enough to start a sonnet craze, her Viola de Lesseps really does seem to warrant the most timeless love poems, and to speak Shakespeare's own elegant language with astonishing ease. "Shakespeare in Love" itself seems as smitten with her as the poet is, and as alight with the same love of language and beauty.

As directed by John Madden in much more rollicking, passionate style than his "Mrs. Brown," "Shakespeare in Love" imagines Viola as the perfect muse: a literate, headstrong beauty who adores the theater and can use words like "anon" as readily as Shakespeare writes them. She comes into his life at a pivotal moment in his career, about which the film speculates with literary scholarship and Holmesian audacity. What if, before making the leap from his early works to the profound emotions of "Romeo and Juliet," he had suffered both writer's block and a crisis in sexual confidence? ("It's as if my quill has broken," he tells his therapist.) What if such impotence could be cured only by a madly romantic liaison with a Juliet prototype, an unattainable woman with a habit of speaking from her balcony?

Enter Viola, who is so eager to work in the theater that she disguises herself as a boy, since women are forbidden to act. (Part of the film's great fun is its way of working such Shakespearean gambits into its own plot.) On her way to winning the role of Romeo, Viola finds herself suddenly enmeshed with the handsome playwright himself, and the film gives way to a heady brew of literature and ardor. In one transporting montage, the lovers embrace passionately while rehearsing dialogue that spills over into stage scenes, and the bond between tempestuous love and artistic creation is illustrated beautifully. The film is as bold in its romantic interludes as it is in historical second-guessing, leaving Ms. Paltrow and Fiennes enmeshed in frequent half-nude, hotblooded clinches in her boudoir.

Far richer and more deft than the other Elizabethan film in town ("Elizabeth"), this boasts a splendid, hearty cast of supporting players. (The actors in both films, like Fiennes, do notably better work here.) Colin Firth plays Viola's fiance as a perfect Wrong. Rush's opportunistic producer is very funny, as is Ben Affleck's version of a big-egoed actor, Elizabethan style. (Cast as Mercutio, he is also hoodwinked by Will into thinking that "Mercutio" is the play's name.) Also most amusing is Tom Wilkinson as a financier who grows stage-struck, Jim Carter as the actor who looks silliest in a dress, Simon Callow as the Queen's censor and Imelda Staunton as Viola's nurse. Judi Dench's shrewd, daunting Elizabeth is one of the film's utmost treats.

So are its costumes. The designer Sandy Powell has previous credits including "Orlando" and "The Wings of the Dove," and she deserves to be remembered for her wonderfully inventive work this year. She contributes extravagantly to this film's visual allure and did the same for "Velvet Goldmine." Gear-switching that extreme is no mean feat.

Answer 2

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