I've just heard that there's a new film being made about the life of Shakespeare. Directed by Roland Emmerich. You know Roland Emmerich. He directed that film where the earth almost gets destroyed but then doesn't. 'You mean Independance Day?'. Yeah, but that wasn't the one I...'Godzilla?' Yeah, but not that one. 'The Day After Tomorrow?' Oh, I'd forgotten about that. '2012'. Oh yeah...
Maybe I'm being unfair to the guy. He has directed other films. One of them had mammoths in it.
Knowing nothing about the film other than that it'll be about Shakespeare, a primitive version of the plot I expected surfaced in my mind. Shakespeare (played by Kevin Costner) is a reluctant meteorological expert and part time playwright who has an awkward relationship with his estranged wife (played by Anne Hathaway, in a piece of joke-casting far too intelligent to have been made intentionally) and two interchangeable blonde children. Strange scientific readings lead him to implore his colleagues to beware the Ides of March, which herald the coming of the Winter of Our Discontent. They fail to do so; but instead he is contacted by the Three Musketeers and, along with his trusty beagle Chumley, travels to the nearby city of France. There he is mistakenly identified as King Louis XVI (they both have beards, y'see. I think) and placed in a guillotine. In a moving scene he conducts a final, teary phone-call with his wife and improvises a sonnet, the beauty of which convinces the authorities to let him go, appoint him King, and place defences around France to prevent the coming disaster. Meanwhile his wife and kids manage to escape the Winter by riding the icy tidal wave on Shakespeare's second best bed, thus proving that he was a good husband after all. At the end of the film France is the only city left alive, and the death of millions is compensated by the fact that despite a few scrapes, Chumely survives. Oh and there's a scene where Shakespeare drop-kicks Napoleon and throws him off the Eiffel Tower. It's awesome.
Then I did a bit of research and found at it's actually going to be about the whole 'Who Was Shakespeare' thing, with the inevitable answer being 'not him'. More info here: http://www.empireonline.com/News/story.asp?nid=29834
Any rising confidence I might have had about the film (sparked by the fact that Rhys Ifans and David Thewlis are in it; though sadly it looks like Chumley's been dropped in pre-production) has been offset by the fact it's about this stupid Shakespeare imposter debate. Because the fact is, there's never been an even vaguely convincing theory to say Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare. If you fancy evidence to back this up you can read the Peter Akyroyd book, or the much shorter and better Bill Bryson one. Or if you lack the time just become someone vaguely intelligent.
It seems to me that this debate isn't really to do with the fact that we know very little about Shakespeare, for there are plenty more authors that we know less about, or the idea that he doesn't seem educated enough to be the genuis that wrote his plays. It's just that people can't believe that someone so boring could ever write anything so interesting. Shakespeare doesn't appear to have done anything particularly gripping in his life, so stupid people continue to try and prove that he was actually someone else; and by someone else they mean literally ANYBODY even a little bit more interesting.
And I don't like that idea. I love that Shakespeare was probably a boring bastard. Speaking as someone who spends half their life sitting in their pants in their room I need to believe that boring people are capable of writing interesting things. Because otherwise I'm really fucked.
Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to write the film's spin-off sequel in which Chumley protects Queen Elizabeth from ninjas. So long.
2 comments:
There is some genuine contention over the authorship of some of 'Shakespeare's' plays, but it's more down to the collaborative nature of Elizabethan (play-)writing. I'm not certain whether it's Two Gentlemen of Verona or another of the plays (or perhaps even a play initially attributed to another contemporary playwright... the lecture was ages ago and I forget), but there is substantial evidence to show that it was almost half/half in terms of authorship. Similarly, the Hecuba parts in Macbeth are meant to be later additions, etc, etc.
But you probably already know this, so you don't need a lecture. X
I really prefer your version, Rory. I would pay to see that.
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