Shakespeare in Love


Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 romantic period comedy-drama film directed by John Madden, written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard, and produced by Harvey Weinstein. It stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, Ben Affleck and Judi Dench.
The film depicts an imaginary love affair involving playwright William Shakespeare and Viola de Lesseps while Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet. Several characters are based on historical figures, and many of the characters, lines, and plot devices allude to Shakespeare's plays.
Shakespeare in Love received positive reviews from critics and was a box office success, grossing $289.3 million worldwide and was the ninth highest-grossing film of 1998. The film received numerous accolades, including seven Oscars at the 71st Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Original Screenplay.

Plot

In 1593 London, William Shakespeare is a sometime player in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and playwright for Philip Henslowe, owner of The Rose Theatre. Suffering from writer's block with a new comedy, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter, Shakespeare attempts to seduce Rosaline, mistress of Richard Burbage, owner of the rival Curtain Theatre, and to convince Burbage to buy the play from Henslowe. Shakespeare receives advice from rival playwright Christopher Marlowe, but is despondent to learn Rosaline is sleeping with Master of the Revels Edmund Tilney. The desperate Henslowe, in debt to ruthless moneylender Fennyman, begins auditions anyway.
Viola de Lesseps, daughter of a wealthy merchant, who has seen Shakespeare's plays at court, disguises herself as a man named Thomas Kent to audition. "He" gains Shakespeare's interest with a speech from Two Gentlemen of Verona, but runs away when Shakespeare questions her. He pursues Kent to Viola's house and leaves a note with her nurse, asking Kent to begin rehearsals at the Rose.
Shakespeare sneaks into a ball at the house, where Viola's parents arrange her betrothal to impoverished aristocrat Lord Wessex. Dancing with Viola, Shakespeare is struck speechless and ejected by Wessex, who threatens to kill him, leading Shakespeare to say that he is Christopher Marlowe. He finds Viola on her balcony, where they confess their mutual attraction before he is discovered by her nurse and flees.
Inspired by Viola, Shakespeare quickly transforms the play into what will become Romeo and Juliet. Rehearsals begin, with "Thomas Kent" as Romeo, the leading tragedian Ned Alleyn as Mercutio, and the stagestruck Fennyman in a small role. Shakespeare discovers Viola's true identity, and they begin a secret affair.
Viola is summoned to court to receive approval for her proposed marriage to Wessex. Shakespeare accompanies her, disguised as her female cousin, and persuades Wessex to wager £50 that a play can capture the true nature of love, the amount Shakespeare requires to buy a share in the Chamberlain's Men. Queen Elizabeth I declares that she will judge the matter.
Burbage learns Shakespeare has seduced Rosaline and cheated him out of payment for the play, and starts a brawl at the Rose with his company. The Rose players repel Burbage and his men and celebrate at the pub, where a drunken Henslowe lets slip to Viola that Shakespeare is married, albeit separated from his wife. News arrives that Marlowe has been murdered, and a guilt-ridden Shakespeare assumes Wessex had Marlowe killed, believing him to be Viola's lover. Viola believes Shakespeare has been murdered but he appears at her church, terrifying Wessex who believes he is a ghost. Viola confesses her love for Shakespeare, but both recognize she cannot escape her duty to marry Wessex.
John Webster, an unpleasant boy who hangs around the theatre, spies on Shakespeare and Viola making love and informs Tilney, who closes the Rose for breaking the ban on women actors. Viola's identity is exposed, leaving them without a stage or lead actor, until Burbage offers his theatre and the heartbroken Shakespeare takes the role of Romeo. Following her wedding, Viola learns the play will be performed that day, and runs away to the Curtain. She overhears that the boy playing Juliet cannot perform, his voice having broken, and Henslowe asks her to replace him. She plays Juliet to Shakespeare's Romeo to an enthralled audience.
Tilney arrives to arrest everyone for indecency due to Viola's presence, but the Queen reveals herself in attendance and restrains him, instead asserting that Kent's resemblance to a woman is “remarkable”. Powerless to end a lawful marriage, she orders Kent to "fetch" Viola to sail with Wessex to the Colony of Virginia. The Queen tells Wessex, who followed Viola to the theatre, that Romeo and Juliet has won the bet for Shakespeare, and has Kent deliver his £50 with instructions to write something "a little more cheerful next time, for Twelfth Night".
Viola and Shakespeare say their goodbyes, and he vows to immortalise her, as he imagines the beginning of Twelfth Night, in character as a castaway disguised as a man after a voyage to a strange land.

Cast

The original idea for Shakespeare in Love was suggested to screenwriter Marc Norman in the late 1980s by his son Zachary. Norman wrote a draft screenplay which he presented to director Edward Zwick, which attracted Julia Roberts, who agreed to play Viola. However, Zwick disliked Norman's screenplay and hired the playwright Tom Stoppard to improve it.
The film went into production in 1991 at Universal, with Zwick as director, but although sets and costumes were in construction, Shakespeare had not yet been cast, because Roberts insisted that only Daniel Day-Lewis could play the role. Day-Lewis was uninterested, and when Roberts failed to persuade him, she withdrew from the film, six weeks before shooting was due to begin. The production went into turnaround, and Zwick was unable to persuade other studios to take up the screenplay.
Eventually, Zwick got Miramax interested in the screenplay, but Miramax chose John Madden as director. Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein acted as producer, and persuaded Ben Affleck to take a small role as Ned Alleyn. Kate Winslet was offered the role of Viola after the success of Titanic, but she rejected it to pursue independent films.
Principal photography began on March 2, 1998, and ended on June 10, 1998.
The film was considerably reworked after the first test screenings. The scene with Shakespeare and Viola in the punt was re-shot, to make it more emotional, and some lines were re-recorded to clarify the reasons why Viola had to marry Wessex. The ending was re-shot several times, until Stoppard eventually came up with the idea of Viola suggesting to Shakespeare that their parting could inspire his next play.
Among the locations used in the production were Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire, the beach at Holkham in Norfolk, the chapel at Eton College, Berkshire, and the Great Hall of Middle Temple, London.

Plot precedents and similarities

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 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.
The film's plot can claim a tradition in fiction reaching back to Alexandre Duval's "Shakespeare amoureux ou la Piece a l'Etude", in which Shakespeare falls in love with an actress who is playing Richard III.
The writers of Shakespeare in Love were sued in 1999 by bestselling author Faye Kellerman. She claimed that the plotline was stolen from her 1989 novel The Quality of Mercy, in which Shakespeare romances a Jewish woman who dresses as a man, and attempts to solve a murder. Miramax Films spokesman Andrew Stengel derided the claim, filed in the US District Court six days before the 1999 Academy Awards, as "absurd", and argued that the timing "suggests a publicity stunt". An out-of-court settlement was reached, but the sum agreed between the parties indicates that the claim was "unwarranted".

Historical inaccuracies

The film is "not constrained by worries about literary or historical accuracy" and includes anachronisms such as a reference to Virginia tobacco plantations, at a time before the Colony of Virginia existed. A leading character is a member of the House of Wessex, which died out soon after 1125. Queen Elizabeth I never entered a public theatre, as she does in the film. Between Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night, Shakespeare wrote ten other plays over a period of six years. The biggest historical liberty concerns the central theme of Shakespeare struggling to create the story of Romeo and Juliet as he simply adapted an existing story for theatre. The Italian verse tale The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet had been translated into English by Arthur Brooke in 1562, 32 years before Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Reception

made the film an "NYT Critics' Pick", calling it "pure enchantment". According to Maslin, "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." Roger Ebert, who gave the film four stars out of four, wrote: "The contemporary feel of the humor 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... Is this a movie or an anthology? I didn't care. I was carried along by the wit, the energy and a surprising sweetness."
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 92% approval rating based on 139 critical reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Endlessly witty, visually rapturous, and sweetly romantic, Shakespeare in Love is a delightful romantic comedy that succeeds on nearly every level." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 87 out of 100 based on 33 critical reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
Shakespeare in Love was among 1999's box office number-one films in the United Kingdom. The U.S. box office reached over $100 million; including the box office from the rest of the world, the film took in over $289 million.
The Sunday Telegraph claimed that the film prompted the revival of the title of Earl of Wessex. Prince Edward was originally to have been titled Duke of Cambridge following his marriage to Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999, the year after the film's release. However, after watching Shakespeare in Love, he reportedly became attracted to the title of the character played by Colin Firth, and asked his mother Queen Elizabeth II to be given the title of Earl of Wessex instead.
In the wake of sexual abuse allegations against Weinstein, many of the cast and crew began to distance themselves from the producer and his past behavior. Madden, while condemning Weinstein, stated that the producer "craved power and had power and, as we now know, he was using it in ways that are repugnant and should be utterly condemned."

Best Picture Oscar controversy

Shakespeare In Love won the Best Picture Oscar at the 71st Academy Awards, controversially beating out critically favored Saving Private Ryan and becoming the first comedy to win the award since Annie Hall. The Academy's decision was vastly criticized by many for awarding the film over Saving Private Ryan. In recent years, many have considered the film as one of the worst films to win Best Picture.
Many industry pundits speculated that the film's loss was attributed to the awards campaign led by Weinstein. Weinstein was reported to have strong-armed the movie's talent into participating in an unprecedented blitzkrieg of press. Terry Press, an executive at DreamWorks at the time, stated that Weinstein and Miramax "tried to get everybody to believe that Saving Private Ryan was all in the first 15 minutes.” Mark Gill, an executive at Miramax at the time, claimed that Weinstein had a reliance on relatively cheap publicity. He stated, “this was not saying to the stars, ‘O.K., you can go on a couple of talk shows to open the movie and do a weekend of interviews at a junket and thanks so much for helping,’” Gill said. “That was just ‘Good morning. You’ve got three more months of shaking hands and kissing babies in you.’”
In a poll in 2015, Academy members indicated that, given a second chance, they would award the Oscar for Best Picture to Saving Private Ryan.

Accolades

American Film Institute recognition:
AwardCategoryRecipientOutcome
71st Academy AwardsBest PictureDavid Parfitt, Donna Gigliotti, Marc Norman, Harvey Weinstein and Edward Zwick
71st Academy AwardsBest ActressGwyneth Paltrow
71st Academy AwardsBest Supporting ActressJudi Dench
71st Academy AwardsBest Art DirectionArt Direction: Martin Childs; Set Decoration: Jill Quertier
71st Academy AwardsBest Costume DesignSandy Powell
71st Academy AwardsBest Original Musical or Comedy ScoreStephen Warbeck
71st Academy AwardsBest Original ScreenplayMarc Norman and Tom Stoppard
71st Academy AwardsBest DirectorJohn Madden
71st Academy AwardsBest Supporting ActorGeoffrey Rush
71st Academy AwardsBest CinematographyRichard Greatrex
71st Academy AwardsBest Film EditingDavid Gamble
71st Academy AwardsBest MakeupLisa Westcott and Veronica Brebner
71st Academy AwardsBest SoundRobin O'Donoghue, Dominic Lester, and Peter Glossop
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best Film
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting RoleJudi Dench
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best EditingDavid Gamble
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best DirectionJohn Madden
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading RoleJoseph Fiennes
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading RoleGwyneth Paltrow
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting RoleGeoffrey Rush
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting RoleTom Wilkinson
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best CinematographyRichard Greatrex
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best Original ScreenplayMarc Norman and Tom Stoppard
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best Makeup and HairLisa Westcott
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best SoundRobin O'Donoghue, Dominic Lester, Peter Glossop, and John Downer
52nd British Academy Film AwardsAnthony Asquith Award for Film MusicStephen Warbeck
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best Costume DesignSandy Powell
52nd British Academy Film AwardsBAFTA Award for Best Production DesignMartin Childs
49th Berlin International Film FestivalGolden Bear
49th Berlin International Film FestivalSilver BearMarc Norman and Tom Stoppard
Directors Guild of America Awards 1998Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion PicturesJohn Madden
56th Golden Globe AwardsGolden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
56th Golden Globe AwardsGolden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyGwyneth Paltrow
56th Golden Globe AwardsGolden Globe Award for Best ScreenplayMarc Norman and Tom Stoppard
56th Golden Globe AwardsGolden Globe Award for Best DirectorJohn Madden
56th Golden Globe AwardsGolden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion PictureGeoffrey Rush
56th Golden Globe AwardsGolden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion PictureJudi Dench
5th Screen Actors Guild AwardsOutstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion PictureBen Affleck, Simon Callow, Jim Carter, Martin Clunes, Judi Dench, Joseph Fiennes, Colin Firth, Gwyneth Paltrow, Geoffrey Rush, Antony Sher, Imelda Staunton, Tom Wilkinson and Mark Williams
5th Screen Actors Guild AwardsOutstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading RoleJoseph Fiennes
5th Screen Actors Guild AwardsOutstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading RoleGwyneth Paltrow
5th Screen Actors Guild AwardsOutstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting RoleGeoffrey Rush
5th Screen Actors Guild AwardsOutstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting RoleJudi Dench
Writers Guild of America Awards 1998Best Original ScreenplayMarc Norman and Tom Stoppard
1998 New York Film Critics Circle AwardsBest ScreenplayMarc Norman and Tom Stoppard

In 2005, the Writers Guild of America ranked its script the 28th greatest ever written.

Stage adaptation

In November 2011, Variety reported that Disney Theatrical Productions intended to produce a stage version of the film in London with Sonia Friedman Productions. The production was officially announced in November 2013. Based on the film screenplay by Norman and Stoppard, it was adapted for the stage by Lee Hall. The production was directed by Declan Donnellan and designed by Nick Ormerod, the joint founders of Cheek by Jowl.
The production opened at the Noël Coward Theatre in London's West End on 23 July 2014, receiving rave reviews from critics. It was called "A joyous celebration of theatre" in the Daily Telegraph, "Joyous" in The Independent, and "A love letter to theatre" in The Guardian.