“So far as anybody actually knows and can prove, Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon never wrote a play in his life.”—Mark Twain
Just like the everlasting debate between Darwinists and creationists, and the warring climate-change factions, there’s an ongoing debate between the “Stratfordians” and the “anti-Stratfordians” about whether William Shakespeare actually wrote the plays that bear his name. Roland Emmerich’s 2011 speculative and historically “supplemented” cinematic musing, “Anonymous,” while not coming close to being convincing that “Willy the Shake” was a fake, gives one pause regarding the subject matter, in addition to being quite a fun movie.
Critics, Audiences Agree
I thought “Anonymous” was lots of fun in 2011, and upon rewinding and reviewing, I’m not sure why it got slammed so vociferously by both critics and audiences alike. I suppose I could go study Rotten Tomatoes and find out exactly why, but my guess is that critics probably hated that Emmerich, known primarily for his special-effects-heavy blockbusters like “Independence Day,” “Godzilla,” and “2012,” dared to try and jump out of his pigeonhole and handle more artistic fare.Audiences were most likely expecting Will Smith battling aliens instead of Will Shakespeare portrayed as a vacuous low-class lout devoid of integrity and authenticity. And they reacted much like the audiences shown in the movie: by demonstrating how today’s premiere movie review website, Rotten Tomatoes, got its name. Actually, as depicted in the movie, there tended to be more cabbage thrown than rotten tomatoes at Renaissance theatrical venues.
Pseudohistory of Willy the Fake
It’s historical fiction, tweaked for maximum entertainment effect as only a bona fide blockbuster director is able to. “Anonymous” has probably given more than a few history professors heart infarctions.
Among roiling, multiple plot lines—some true, most probably not—the movie names Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford (a very fine Rhys Ifans), as the real, behind-the-scenes author of the glorious canon normally attributed to William Shakespeare. He can’t publish plays under his own name because in Renaissance times, actors were considered “rogues and vagabonds” (basically prostitutes) and secular theater the dwelling place of Lucifer, and so such an avocation was naturally unworthy of an earl.
An aside: There’s truth to this—the origin of European theater (the Greeks notwithstanding) was church services, meant to uplift the human soul to God and Christ. Eventually it evolved that the proceedings moved out of the cathedrals and onto the church steps. And then down off the church steps and into the hearts of the cities, town, and villages, where secular theater was born. We think now of Shakespeare’s work as high art, and indeed it is, and yet it can’t be compared to theater’s original divine content; some Shakespearean content is as dark as the human condition is capable of descending.
Edward de Vere chooses Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto)—the young, well-known, up-and-coming poet and playwright—for the job of being his public face and name; it’s a sort of reverse ghostwriting situation. However, when Jonson hesitates, one of his more opportunistic actors (also his friend), one Will Shakespeare (Rafe Spall), a bumbling braggart of a classically self-involved thespian, grabs the spotlight and snatches away the prize. The earl then uses this artifice to expose the political intrigues of the day onstage, in plays, which is another reason he can’t sign his name on his work.
In one of the film’s flashbacks, Edward’s father, the 16th Earl of Oxford, entertains the young Queen Elizabeth (Joely Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave’s daughter), who is smitten by the precocious pre-pubescent Edward’s performance as “Puck” in one of his personally penned plays titled ... “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Licentious Young Queen
What may have enraged films critics is the fact that two important characters in “Anonymous” are represented so thoroughly counter to their popular images. Shakespeare, normally perceived as scholarly and erudite, is, as mentioned, portrayed as a loutish, illiterate schemer who manages to be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, but who also has the acting chops to sell the charade.
Queen Elizabeth, normally thought of as chaste and virginal, is here hot-blooded and lascivious, giving birth to at least three illegitimate sons, with an incestuous relationship with one of them thrown into the bargain. That’s a fairly nasty historical twist, differing powerfully from the ones in “Elizabeth” and “Shakespeare in Love” (although one imagines that Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of the young Elizabeth was probably also more lusty than the historical truth).
We'd never seen Elizabethan England on screen quite like this before, in all its byzantine squalor and glowing, chiaroscuro ambiance, although “Elizabeth” came close. (British comedy troupe Monty Python was actually responsible for originally depicting just how much mud actually existed in medieval and Renaissance Europe.) The CGI is outstanding, and being that it’s Roland Emmerich, that’s hardly surprising.
Delightful are the bits and pieces of Shakespearean plays shown in performance at the Globe Theatre. Most medleys trivialize and diminish, but this particular “greatest hits” approach serves only to further underline The Bard’s brilliance and gets one musing about theater subscriptions. The smidgen of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is particularly effective.
Highlights
An all-star British cast presides, with Derek Jacobi reprising a version of the prologue role he had in Kenneth Branagh’s groundbreaking “Henry V.” The mother-daughter team of Redgrave and Richardson switch-hitting for the roles of the older and younger Elizabeth is perfect casting. Edward Hogg as the reptilian-like, calculating heir of court adviser Sir William Cecil—Robert Cecil, upon whom Shakespeare’s “Richard III” is supposedly based—is quietly menacing but also quite funny.
In the movie’s most touching scene, the long-forbearing Edward, who’s seen his rightful glory wallowed in for decades by the shameless, Oscar-speech-giving, self-aggrandizing Shakespeare—finally asks Ben Jonson what he thinks of his work. Jonson’s tearful tribute, with Edward hanging on his every word and deeply grateful for Jonson’s compliment, is moving.
