shakespeare in love film revie
Watching Sandy Powell's designs for Shakespeare in Love for the second time only reaffirmed my feeling that she deserved the Academy Award, if only for the peacock-feather dress worn by Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth. I was literally drooling over the costumes both times through the film. The film itself is a lovely fantasy loosely based on Shakespeare and his contemporaries, i.e. Marlowe, Burbage, Henslowe, Tilney, and of course, the Virgin Queen herself. The basic plot is this, William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) is experiencing a bout of writer's block when he meets the lovely Viola (Gwenyth Paltrow). He is enchanted by her beauty and yet does not recognize her when she appears at the theatre, under the alias Thomas Kent, to perform the role of Romeo in his yet-to-be-completed comedy, Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter. Meanwhile, she is madly in love with Shakespeare the poet, but unfortunately is promised to the utterly detestable Wessex, who she will ma
Though I also questioned some of the assertions regarding the major Elizabethan theatre figures represented in the film, it was still fun to get a peek at what Shakespeare's world may have been like. I felt that Powell's costumes captured the period brilliantly, even while taking the viewer's breath away with their beauty and attention to detail. We see not only the male actors playing female parts in Shakespeare's play, but also Viola in men's garb and at one point, Shakespeare disguised as a nurse. Tilney and company invade at the play's conclusion, but are thwarted by the Queen herself. Also recognizable is the Puritan, in his black and white, seen preaching outside the theatre. In a toast to realism, Shakespeare and Viola are not allowed to finish the movie together; she is en route to the New World, while he sits down to write a play for Twelfth Night, its heroine of the name Viola. The costumes play a major role in the film, by delineating social classes and genders. Shakespeare is below Viola's class and that of her betrothed, and therefore his doublets are simpler in pattern and made of more dull material. However, a year later John Madden has captured a slice of a very different, very colorful England. The Elizabethan period is rich in opportunity for fabulous costumes, and Powell creates a beautiful world of fabric in which the characters hide and reveal. Costumes seem to descend in color, with Queen Elizabeth's exquisite jeweled gowns at the top of the pyramid, and the groundlings of the theatre audience at the bottom with their drab, plain clothes. The show seems ready to go up with Shakespeare himself playing Romeo, but at the last minute, Juliet's voice changes, and the newly married Viola is plucked from the audience to fill in. Cross-dressing, an element of Elizabethan theatre and often featured in Shakespeare's plots, also figures largely in the film. I found the film realistic overall, and true to its period (although I noted a few questionable things-would Shakespeare go through paper as carelessly as he does in the first scene of the film?).
Common topics in this essay:
Queen Elizabeth's,
John Madden,
Richard Burbage,
Daughter Meanwhile,
Queen Elizabeth,
Shakespeare Viola,
Shakespeare Love,
Gwenyth Paltrow,
Joseph Fiennes,
Malfi Tilney,
shakespeare love,
elizabethan theatre,
|
Acceptance Essays
