Eh Another Love Story

I’m usually not a huge fan of romantic movies and I watched Shakespeare in Love several times so far. I didn’t quite like it but, I decided to give the movie another shot. I really did love the concept of the movie in that it portrayed William Shakespeare as a man with a real life instead of the great literary master that he is. Although we don’t know quite a lot about him concerning his private life, I think this movie was a great way to show how he came up with his ideas, just like everyone else. The movie depicted Viola as Shakespeare’s muse in writing Romeo and Juliet. It’s lovely how the movie foreshadows the doomed romance of William and Viola and I like it when movies don’t necessarily have a happy ending. The bittersweet ending kind of made the story better even if it was purely fiction.

Viola’s character made me wonder how many women would have dressed up as men to venture into the theatrical world. In fact, there must have been a lot of women who dressed as men to do things they would not be allowed to do. For some odd reason, Deborah Sampson comes to mind each time I think of a crossdressing women and then I think of dear old Mulan. Regardless, both of the women I have mentioned were in the military and it’s striking to think of which occupations did women have to disguise themselves in.

Shakespeare in Love

Shakespeare in Love is a movie that made me remember why, after 400 years, we are still reading, enjoying, watching and reciting the words of The Bard. The premise of the movie is that Shakespeare’s experiences, in this case with love, gave him inspiration to write his plays. Here, his love for Gwynth Paltrow’s character is his inspiration for Romeo and Juliet. Paltrow’s Oscar-winning performance is riveting as her precise pronunciation keeps the audience hanging on every one of Shakespeare’s words.
Sara asked us to ponder possible inspirations behind the writing process, and to consider whether or not a script can truly express the feelings of love to its audience. In this case, I believe the answer is a resounding YES! The layers of the true actor, playing the stage actor who is Shakespeare, inspired by falling in love and playing Romeo, to convey love to his stage audience as well as to the movie audience, stretches the concept a bit far. However, it enforces the idea that the conveyance of the meaning of love to the audience really comes from the viewer’s interpretation through his/her own emotions and experiences, much like Shakespeare’s character in the movie conveyed his experiences through his writing. In his own words, “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.”
Lastly, the movie did leave me wondering if all of Shakespeare’s plays were inspired by real events or people in his life. If so, his must have been a crazy life!

Shakespeare in Love

This movie helped me gain a deep respect for Shakespeare while questioning my assumptions about love. Love is a big motivator for many people including Shakespeare who is inspired by Viola to write Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo and Juliet has always been my favorite play by Shakespeare. I admired their dedication to each other and the power of love, killing themselves over one another in the end is a grand expression of love to me. Thus, I was disappointed in the movie when the two lovers ended up going their separate ways. This may be a lot more realistic, but it was painful for me to watch.

I learned that there are many circumstances that play into love and that those circumstances cannot be avoided in the real world. However, the power of love is not diminished by the movie. We clearly see how a singular woman has inspired a young Shakespeare to write, translating his feelings he felt for Viola into a play. Even in today’s culture, much of our art is inspired by love and stories of love, from music to movies to novels.

Love is an irrational force that makes us all human, learning to channel its powers will help each of us achieve what we want to achieve in life.

Perspective into a different era

I enjoyed Shakespeare in Love. It was a decent feel-good movie. Even though William Shakespeare and Viola de Lesseps were unable to stay together, it didn’t feel too sad because both knew that it was impossible to live together, and it felt like both were simply making the most of their time together. I liked how the movie featured Romeo and Juliet while also making reference to Twelfth Night. I was not familiar with the latter play, so I did a bit of research, and it turns out that there’s also a character named Viola in the play that disguises herself as a man. The way that the movie interwove elements of both movies was clever in hindsight.

The historical introspection that Shakespeare in Love gave was also interesting. The way theater in the Elizabethan era was produced was interesting to me–no females were allowed to perform and it felt that Shakespeare was under heavy pressure from the theater owners to produce material. It seemed that the owners themselves had sole rights on producing a writer’s work. Furthermore, the competition between Shakespeare and Marlowe was often comedic to experience–Shakespeare seemed to go out of his way to inconvenience him. I was very impressed by the actors’ accents in the film. They were exactly spot on with my expectations of what speech might’ve sounded in that time. I wonder if that’s actually an accurate representation of how people talked back then. How would we know about the kinds of accents that people spoke with in the 16th century?

Love is Art

We constantly strive to portray the abstractions of our lives as physical things. We desire to control everything around ourselves to remain safe and secure. And is there any better way to exert control than to take what was once invisible, merely a concept, and create a tangible thing which can be studied and dissected? Science takes a falling apple and produces physics, history takes an event suspended in time and creates a book, William Shakespeare experiences love and creates art. Art is humanity’s attempt to study and evaluate emotions by making physical representations of what we all experience. Therefore, it follows that in order to make great art the artist must understand great emotions as well.

Shakespeare in Love is a film which tries to show this to its audience. Shakespeare is not a man who imagines what his characters are feeling as he writes, rather Shakespeare knows exactly what Romeo and Juliet are going through. There is a bet in the film that no one can accurately portray love in a play, however Shakespeare has faced love and loss. With his experiences and a significant talent to convert feelings into words, he wins the bet by writing Romeo and Juliet. This speaks to the necessity for artists to go out and experience life to fully understand their subject emotions. And it becomes easy to understand why some of the greatest artists of history often had troubled lives, since they had to deal with hardship in life they could easily portray hardship on the canvas, or on paper, or in song.

Art was somewhat of a mystery to me, I never took a particular interest in it. But now I see art’s importance to society. It is how we understand ourselves and our interactions with others. Art is love, happiness, sadness, loneliness, and every other emotion you can think of. Shakespeare in Love is a not just a film about Shakespeare’s tragic love life, but a story of Shakespeare “in love” as an integral part of his artwork.

Behind The Scenes

Last Friday I viewed the film Shakespeare in Love. In the movie, Shakespeare is in the process of writing  the play Romeo and Juliet. This movie was completely fictional but hypothesized where Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet originated. In the beginning of the movie, Shakespeare unknowingly casted a woman for the part of Romeo, due to the fact that she pretended to be a man, at the time known as Thomas Kent. It later turned out that Thomas Kent was in fact Viola de Lesseps, a woman of the upper class that Shakespeare would have a love affair with.  At this time, the play started to shadow his interactions with Viola. Later in the movie Viola had to marry Lord Wessex, creating an end to their affair. During the final scenes of the movie, Shakespeare had to play Romeo while his love interest, Viola played Juliet. As they thought these were their final moments together they expressed their love for each other in the play. Unlike in Romeo and Juliet, Viola and Shakespeare had a happy ending in comparison. Neither of them died, but Viola did marry Lord Wessex. Overall, I thought that this movie posed an interesting question to where Shakespeare’s idea for Romeo and Juliet had originated. It is possible that these events did occur, but it is unknown. I thought this movie did a wonderful job in portraying the Elizabethan era, I for one was disgusted by the majority of everyone’s teeth during that time period. The movie did a good job highlighting the cast differences and explaining a potential hypothesis on the origin of Romeo and Juliet, as it was not thought that a love like Romeo and Juliet’s could be caught on screen.

What is Love?

Before this past week, I had never really heard of Shakespeare in Love (I’m not really a movie person), but when I looked it up, I saw that it had won seven Oscars, so was interested to see what it was going to be like. Overall, I’m going to say that it was an okay movie. There were definitely parts I enjoyed, but others I found kind of cringeworthy. Before watching the movie, GRF Sara asked us to consider the process of creating a masterpiece of art and if love could be captured in a play or such a movie.

I thought the question about the creation of art was interesting in the case of this movie. Clearly, someone is telling Shakespeare expectations they have – like it being a comedy about pirates or that there needs to be a dog – but his mind takes him in a different direction. But at the same time, he experiences writer’s block, which everyone does. When he talks to Marlowe, you can tell that they don’t have an actual rivalry with each other, as Marlowe just talks about certain ideas that might work for the a star-crossed lover play. Doing this makes it even more impactful on Shakespeare when Marlowe dies, as first, he thinks he is the cause of the death, and two, that no one really source of every part of a large piece of work. It is entirely possible that some of the masterworks we know and attribute to one person could be the combination of many ideas from many different places, not something churned out by a solitary genius.

On the subject of creating a play or movie about love, I don’t know if I think either the original play or the movie capture that. When thinking about the play, I think while Romeo and Juliet clearly had feelings for each other, they could not have possibly been that in love. I guess this point of view may be different for those who believe in love at first sight. That is not to say that I do not enjoy the play. I appreciate Shakespeare’s writing and found myself reciting lines of the play as they either rehearsed or performed them in the movie, because certain prominent lines sort of stick with you unknowingly. I do not know, however, if I find the play to be a great love story.

As for the movie itself, I agree with another poster that it is somewhat tacky. While I don’t know much about fashion at that time, the fact that Shakespeare was always wearing those same strange pants and that he could get away with being a nursemaid to accompany Viola was ridiculous. Also the fact that a woman with so much hair and pretty feminine body language could get away with a fake mustache and a wig was ludicrous. The part of the film that resulted in the most visceral distaste was the reading of the play cutting between Shakespeare and Viola in bed and Viola and the actor playing Juliet in rehearsal. It just seemed contrived and unnecessary. At least to me, it was one of the most unromantic parts of the movie.

All this being said, I really don’t know if love can be fully portrayed in a play or movie or any work of art. Love is such a complex internal emotion that encompasses lots of different thoughts and actions, and is experienced differently in different people. While I think there are definitely instances where love is expressed in art, I cannot say there is a work of art out there that truly captures the feeling of love for everyone.

Shakespeare’s Juliet

I have heard plenty of mysteries regarding the identity of the famous Shakespeare. Many people believe that Shakespeare was a lower-class fellow because writing was not a respected profession back in Elizabethan times. Others believe that the degree of education held by this master of playwrights could not be obtained by anyone other than nobility. That is to say, Shakespeare could have been a mere alias to a nobleman looking to save face. Yet I never considered the origin and inspiration of his stories to have relevance in identifying the man behind the works until I watched Shakespeare in Love at this week’s Rose Movie Night.

Whether he was a solitary genius or a man of social experience was not a question that had crossed my mind, but I believe that in order to get inspiration for masterful poetry and other forms of expression, a person must be emotionally driven or inspired by experience. While I realize that the movie was fictional, it brought to consideration a valid point. Shakespeare must have drawn inspiration for his numerous sonnets from something, even if it was mere observation of his surroundings and the interactions between others. He may even have been a confidant amidst the drama in the life of others. Yet, there is a very likely possibility that he drew from his out heart-wrenching, emotional experiences in order to concoct his masterpieces. Like the Shakespeare portrayed in the movie, Shakespeare in the real world could have used writing as an escape from his internally conflicting emotions about what was happening around him, without actually having lived through struggles similar to his characters’.

Whoever the real Shakespeare was, he could not have been a lonely man without friends or family to depend on. His life remains much of a mystery, but his poetry contains universal struggles and messages applicable to people of different time periods, heritages, and social classes, that would be overlooked by someone solitary and without personal experiences. Maybe Shakespeare wasn’t being threatened for stealing a forbidden heart, but I truly believe he must have had his own real-life Juliet.

A Perfect Valentine’s Day Film

Last week I went to the Flora Friday Film night where we watched the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love. The movie was pretty much a polar opposite from last week’s film, Fight Club. Shakespeare in Love was a romance full of lighthearted jokes, fun, and non-controversial topics, very different from the violent themes of Fight Club. I don’t know if this was done on purpose, but I loved seeing the two dramatically different styles of film-making so close to each other. These two movies were also made within one year of each other, making them an even better comparison between the two film styles.

I liked Shakespeare in Love because the movie knew what it was. It knew it was a romance, and did not attempt to do much else. It instead focused on telling the romance story between Shakespeare and Viola well, giving time to develop the characters so that the audience is invested in the story. With that said, I was surprised at how much erotic content and nudity was included in the story. Perhaps sex was useful tool to convince the audience of how much Shakespeare and Viola are in the love with each other, but it excludes a large audience by restricting the movie rating to R. Since the rest of the movie was so innocent and would have catered well to a younger audience, I’m surprised the director decided to include the sex scenes.

Another plus of this movie was the stories’ similarities and references to the works of its subject, William Shakespeare. Many of Shakespeare’s comedies involve ridiculous situations with deceit and miscommunications. The plot of Shakespeare in Love captured this style by having Viola’s to be husband think he killed Shakespeare, and by having Viola dress as a man so that she could become an actor. Both of these scenarios would not be out of place in an original Shakespeare play. This movie was not a masterpiece, but it was a good homage to Shakespeare and a perfect choice for Valentine’s day week.

The Nature of Genius

Genius is usually seen as something you are born with. It’s an innate quality you simply possess. It’s just what you are. Our narrative of genius essentially posits that either you have it, or you don’t. You cannot claim genius, no matter how hard you work, or become a genius. Genius is conceived of as effortless.

“Shakespeare in Love” is not the sort of movie I would chose for myself. Romances of any sort are not my speed. But, it is interesting in the way it conceives of genius. As “Shakespeare in Love” tells it, genius is not so much an innate characteristic as something which happens to you-genius, it seems to say, arises from brilliant experiences, rather than originating in the self. In the film, the young playwright William Shakespeare draws heavily upon his lived experiences while writing Romeo and Juliet. As the film tells it, the great love story in “Romeo and Juliet” is so meaningful because it is inspired by the real life love between Shakespeare and Viola de Lesseps.

While the actual movie is somewhat tacky, its narrative of the creative process and of the nature of genius is compelling. It is far more democratic than the traditional narrative. Of course, you can tell yourself you are a genius-but there are a lot of other people in the world, all of whom are free to tell you that you’re wrong. But, no one can really stop you from seeking out brilliant experiences. If genius is experiential, anyone can be a genius. You can try and fail, and fail a lot, and still be a genius, once you find the right story (or idea, or experience, etc..).

All said, I enjoyed this movie. It presented a unique take on the creative process, and on the nature of genius. It was also a fairly effective love story.

 

Watching a Somewhat New Movie about an Old Playwright

“Shakespeare in Love” definitely felt like a 90’s movie.  Its visual quality and props were a little subpar to today’s standards, and it kind of added to the feeling of historical times.  William Shakespeare, a fledgling playwright, falls in mutual love with a rich woman by the name of Violet de Lesseps who is already arranged to marry Lord Wessex, a jerk, and move with him to the New World.  First seeing each other at a party hosted at the de Lesseps castle, the two bond through their love for poetry, as Violet is one of the few people already well versed in several of William’s works.  For several nights, Shakespeare manages to sneak his way into Violet’s room where the two enjoy their ripe fruit of intimacy.  While this showed both’s desire to be together despite being caught, it also allowed the two to wake up startled by the morning bell, which counts down the few days left before Violet is set to leave for the New World.  I liked how the imminent end of their relationship periodically presents itself throughout the movie, and how it both prevents and promotes romantic scenes.  While the couple can’t realistically expect their relationship to persevere, it makes imagining their future that much more tempting, as their dreams are the only place they can live their longterm desires.  These dreams find themselves untouched by time and by the less romantic aspects of reality, sealing the the couple’s passion for one another.

I was thinking on my way to lunch today, how much better it feels to be hungry and eating than to be full and satiated.  Throughout the movie, Violet and William are feverishly feeding their want for each other because they know they will not be able to in the future.  They are able to maximally enjoy each other at the tall peak of their love, at a height that has been set by their inability to be together later.  While relationships can and sometimes do flourish in the long run, there is a charm to being in love with someone when their presence still feels new to you.  For that reason, I don’t think their relationship is as tragic as it initially seems.

*SIGH*

So, I am not really the greatest fan of Shakespeare. Oddly enough though, “Romeo and Juliet” is one of my favorite stories because of its extreme absurdity and corny-ness. (Fun fact: I own about 7 different versions of the play, including one written almost entirely in emojis!) I think that, like “Romeo and Juliet”, “Shakespeare in Love” also does not really do much to bring justice to the the intricate complexities of “love” and instead just takes a one-sided static viewpoint of “love” and exaggerates it to a point that is almost comical. Even with that being said, I enjoyed the film , for that reason, and I can understand why it sold so well with many audiences.

Theater in Film: Shakespeare in Love

Shakespeare in Love takes a playful and delightful turn on the creation of Romeo and Juliet. A rather steamy, inventive, and somewhat parodic take on William Shakespeare’s approach to writing one of the greatest classics of all time, screenwriter Tom Stoppard energetically blends the drama and fiction of playwriting with the constructed fiction of the screen, doing so both through language (the whole film is written in iambic pentameter) and through parallel stories (the fictional biography of Shakespeare and the actual play). The fluidity between these parallel universes speaks to a larger conversation on the relationship between art and life. This is something Stoppard visually plays with during the brawl scene on stage when Lord Wessex challenges Shakespeare to a duel; during a suspenseful moment when Shakespeare is about to pierce Wessex through the heart, his choice of sword fails him and undermines his attack, bending as it humorously pokes at Wessex but also at us, the audience, and the spectacle of theater and of film-making. The film is able to so brilliantly convey a William Shakespeare as an everyday man that reminds us at most that he was a populist writer above all, something we oftentimes forget when we approach his work and place it on a pedestal.

Broadening English Requirements

I attended a Friday film night that showed “The Rose”, Shakespeare in Love and I have to say generally I was very surprised.

The scene and feel of the movie made it seem like a film that was based off of one of Shakespeare’s many plays. However, I was surprised as it intertwined an interpretation of how Shakespeare had the inspiration for Romeo and Juliet and I generally enjoyed the film. However, what surprised me the most was that by presenting the play of Romeo and Juliet in a way that made the audience had a glimpse of what the love story would have played out and meant in real life made me able to understand the lines of the play a lot better.

I think it showed that no matter what language and style that something is written through, they are written all about the same universal experiences. I remember how difficult it was for me to understand the lines back in high school. However when the lines were intertwined with imagery of an actual relationship, it became much easier.

Shakespeare is often portrayed as something so difficult to understand, not relatable, and not relevant for modern times. Now I understand that it really is just another language speaking about the same feelings and I hope that English teachers will continue to try to “universalize” Shakespeare writing.

Does Art Imitate Life?

Shakespeare in Love depicts the birth of a masterpiece, Romeo and Juliet. In attempting to answer the question of how Shakespeare came up with the story, the movie makes his world his influence. I think it is highly probable that Shakespeare’s environment fed into his creative processes. The best ideas happen when people come together, so there were most likely many people in his life who helped him create some major ideas. I don’t think solitary geniuses can create masterpieces that resonates with so many people.

Another theme of the film was whether plays, or any literary vehicle, can actually portray love. Although Queen Elizabeth contends that Romeo and Juliet portrayed love well, there is a conflict on whether something as complex as love can ever be depicted justifiably. In my opinion, art is when people attempt to portray the most difficult concepts in our world. Although they might not completely illustrate the concept, humans create ingenious masterpieces when they attempt to describe such ideas.

Overall, I thought the movie was very well done. It was engaging and the acting was superb! I really enjoyed the costumes and setting. It also explored complex ideas about the possible factors that could have influenced the formation of Shakespearan literary masterpieces.

The Art of Life

I loved how Shakespeare in Love offers the audience a new perspective from which they can view a work of art. Rather than seeing the product and wondering about what inspired its ending or who was the source of inspiration for the hero or heroine, the audience gets to watch the process while continuously looking for parallels between life and the artwork it inspires. In flipping this arrangement, the movie conveys several important points about how an artist creates a work of art. First, Shakespeare in Love reminds us that art needs an audience. The power of art rests in its ability to move an audience. Some told Will they wanted a comedy, others told him they wanted a play involving battle, and still others told him he should change his title. The array of suggestions with which Will constantly met underscores the fact that audiences are not passive observers. Rather, they have expectations and stories they want to see come alive. A writer has to find a story that resonates with all these desires or transcends them to create a new common desire to fill through his or her story. Also, Shakespeare in Love communicates that art creates a story out of the beauty, tragedy, excitement, suffering, triumph, and so on of the world. As the relationship of Will and Viola changed, the script transformed to reflect these changes. In a way, the parallel the film creates between life and art serves as a reminder that people should find the aspects of art that move and inspire them in real life. It assures us that the adventure, love, mystery, and passion found in art exists in the world as well.

In addition to challenging the way audiences usually view art, the film also challenges notions of love. Will had a wife, and Viola was betrothed to another man. When their relationship overcame one obstacle, another one sprung up in the distance. Will and Viola acted out their love on stage but were forced to part once they left this stage. As opposed to capturing the love story that ends with two vowing to grow old together or not grow old without one, the film captures the power of a love that will “never age or die.”