Don Newman
For lovers of history and literature, 1998 uncanned an admirable variety of academically interesting, thought provoking, and artfully produced films. Elizabeth, Life is Beautiful, and Saving Private Ryan each glow with their own impressive list of Academy Award nominations. Be that as it may, in the end only one movie could garner the coveted Oscar for Best Picture of the Year. Certainly, each of these productions went beyond stock in assembling their respective portrayal of a historically based period or event. The outstanding costuming in Elizabeth, finely tuned acting of Life is Beautiful, and graphic realism at the heart of Saving Private Ryan, cannot be dismissed as run-of-the-mill. But as it happens, Shakespeare in Love, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes, was the cinematic presentation which blockbusted its way to capturing the year's Best Picture award.
Yet this honor, together with the six other Academy Awards bestowed upon it, does not reflect what makes viewing it a joyous experience. Rather, for many it seems that the picture's postmodern influence contains the remarkable sensibilities for which it has been so well received. Techniques such as making references to various characters known to have lived in Shakespeare's London; interplay of words and works of the Bard himself; breaking the unity of time--these and others blur the lines between art and reality, now and then, the writer and his characters. Such strokes of creativity, together with a twist on the traditional tragi-comical plot, make Shakespeare in Love a must see.
One outstanding scene, particularly noticeable through a postmodern grid, concerns young Shakespeare's visit with a "Priest of Psyche." "Will" has gone to seek help with his writer's block. In the counselman's quarters, which come complete with a psychiatrist's couch, Will finds a place to express himself in a confidential, healing way. The priest then prescribes a bracelet from Aphrodite's tomb, into which Will is to insert a slip of paper with his name, and then place the amulet onto the wrist of a "muse".
This at first seems to work, but soon turns disastrous as he chooses for his muse the nymphomaniacal wife of Richard Burbage. However, inasmuch as Will's carousals become known to Burbage, the young playwright's disappointment leads him to languish about the playhouse in the mode of a dejected writer. Inevitably, this is where he finds his true inspiration. A new "player" (Thomas, or Master Kent), who knows by heart the words to Shakespeare's most recent play, is in actuality a young woman of high social status (Viola) who dreams of being an "actor." The course of events leads to Master Kent's participation in the production of Shakespeare's current play, in which "Kent" continues to be a motivating factor in Will's life.
Eventually exposed through a series of plausible character
interactions, Master Kent/Viola becomes romantically involved with Will.
Nevermind that she has been promised to Lord Wessex in an arranged marriage. Of
course, this affords the opportunity of connecting "true life" to the production
of Shakespeare's work in progress. Blending the play's "real world" with its
"creation of art" (as well as the motion picture's creation of itself), the
forbidden love, conspired marriage, and the like, evolves into the emotive drama
of Romeo and Juliet.
The details of the remainder of the plot are too extensive to relate here. Suffice to say that much comic relief ensues, helping along the undercurrents of tragedy. The young lovers, Will and Viola, passionately provide fodder for the new play--making it up as they go along--melding their lives into the dramatic presentation. This essentially blurs any distinction between the theatre and the lovers' other lives. Holding true to the postmodern program of presenting Art as Reality/Reality as Art, much as our multi- media entertainment industry/infoblasted communications network cranks out moment by moment today, the film allows its audience to get a feel for how this commingling works in its own world.
The making-it-up-as-we-go-along implies the notion of luck and inspiration being as important as skillful and crafty writing, thus deconstructing the notion of the great writer as singly producing a body or piece of work in a vacuum of creative genius. This essentially mirrors life for the postmodern subject, wherein often the best-hoped-for-results come spontaneously rather than through worked out plans of the finest detail.
Ultimately, the star-crossed lovers' affair exposed, Lord Wessex prevails in forcing Viola to marry him. But "the show... must go on". As the play is about to begin with no young male actor (whose voice has not changed) available to play Juliet, Viola absconds to the playhouse where all parties involved amass--the townspeople, the players, the Queen, Wessex, Will, and Viola. Saving the day, our heroine joins the cast for the play, which is a huge success, and says her good-byes to Will (per the Queen). She tells him that "It's a mystery" how everything will work itself out, but that it will. She then leaves as royally ordered--with Wessex for Virginia.
This presents the opportunity for Will to compose a play of a shipwrecked lady who cross-dresses in order to be near the man she loves. We know the product of this work as Twelfth Night, or What You Will. This deconstruction of traditional thinking of Shakespeare (where he is seen as "The Bard," masterfully crafting great works of literary art) along with a host of other postmodern moves reflects that life, then as now, consists of a melding of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual facets of existence. Only now, in our time, has "the center" dispersed into the far reaches of time and space. The past, present, and future co-exist, as do feminine and masculine energies within them. Art reflects Reality as Reality reflects Art. The world moves on; we play our individual parts. How does it all come together? As the owner of "The Rose," the theatre that gets shut down for indecently allowing a woman on stage, is also fond of saying--"Its a mystery."
The film's inspirational conclusion leaves open the possibility for Viola to live free, in the New World, where she continues as William Shakespeare's muse presumably for the rest of his life. For the student of literature who continues to be awed by Shakespeare, the Shakespearean scholar who may need to have a bit of fun with life's focus, or the couple that just wants to watch a really good flick, this movie is sure to please.
