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I'm currently being mildly amused by the vitriol being squirted all over the web about a film called Anonymous.
The film is based on the premise that Shakespeare's plays were written by someone other than Shakespeare. That, as far as I can see, is the source of the problem. Most works of fiction start from a point of divergence with reality, and this seems to me no different. I've seen films based on the premise that Earth was invaded by the Martians, that runic symbols can summon gigantic bat demons, and that John Wayne won the Second World War (okay, that's a cliché). To me this seems trivial by comparison, of no interest to Shakespeare or anyone who is seriously interested in Shakespeare. Those eccentrics who like to subscribe to alternative theories of authorship may take this film as confirmation if they wish, though that's about on a par with mistaking Da Vinci's Last Supper for a photograph of the actual event; certainly if the film didn't exist they would still believe what they believe.
And yet to look at the opinions I have seen expressed here and on Facebook you would think that director Roland Emmerich (who was responsible, among other things, for Stargate and therefore its spins-off) had spent the entire film passionately advocating intimacy with small farmyard animals, or the culling of the elderly. I cannot fathom the sheer depth of hatred this film seems to have inspired. I've read one actual review of it, which describes it as a stinker, but the text is so shot through with stuttering, trembling outrage at the sacrilegious taking of the Bard's name in vain that I don't feel I can trust it to be unbiased on the virtues of the film as a film. If I get the chance, I hope to see it for myself and make up my own mind. I like stories that muck about with history.
Something that's very "in" these days is an activity I've seen referred to as "giving the sacred cows a good kicking." Reverence is so last millennium dahling. I suppose it depends on the cow. Michael Moorcock, in his Behold The Man, presented a fiction in which Christ was not Christ. It would be amusing if some of the people who thought that was just fine and dandy are the same ones who are finding too hard to stomach the idea of a fiction in which Shakespeare is not Shakespeare.
The film is based on the premise that Shakespeare's plays were written by someone other than Shakespeare. That, as far as I can see, is the source of the problem. Most works of fiction start from a point of divergence with reality, and this seems to me no different. I've seen films based on the premise that Earth was invaded by the Martians, that runic symbols can summon gigantic bat demons, and that John Wayne won the Second World War (okay, that's a cliché). To me this seems trivial by comparison, of no interest to Shakespeare or anyone who is seriously interested in Shakespeare. Those eccentrics who like to subscribe to alternative theories of authorship may take this film as confirmation if they wish, though that's about on a par with mistaking Da Vinci's Last Supper for a photograph of the actual event; certainly if the film didn't exist they would still believe what they believe.
And yet to look at the opinions I have seen expressed here and on Facebook you would think that director Roland Emmerich (who was responsible, among other things, for Stargate and therefore its spins-off) had spent the entire film passionately advocating intimacy with small farmyard animals, or the culling of the elderly. I cannot fathom the sheer depth of hatred this film seems to have inspired. I've read one actual review of it, which describes it as a stinker, but the text is so shot through with stuttering, trembling outrage at the sacrilegious taking of the Bard's name in vain that I don't feel I can trust it to be unbiased on the virtues of the film as a film. If I get the chance, I hope to see it for myself and make up my own mind. I like stories that muck about with history.
Something that's very "in" these days is an activity I've seen referred to as "giving the sacred cows a good kicking." Reverence is so last millennium dahling. I suppose it depends on the cow. Michael Moorcock, in his Behold The Man, presented a fiction in which Christ was not Christ. It would be amusing if some of the people who thought that was just fine and dandy are the same ones who are finding too hard to stomach the idea of a fiction in which Shakespeare is not Shakespeare.
