The film speculates that Lord Wessex is so desperate for money that he will marry Viola no matter what. A woman of Viola’s standing in Elizabethan England would never have the privilege of having sex with a man she wasn’t married to. Even though Juliet gave it up after two days, at least she had the common sense to demand marriage first. – I know the film is supposed to parallel Romeo and Juliet, which is why Viola and Shakespeare immediately fall in love and then into bed with each other. I find it unbelievable that her parents would have left her on her own and not taken her with them, or at least left her in the hands of a prominent family friend. Even if she did, how in the world did she hear about the auditions that Shakespeare was holding? This makes little to no sense, and the idea that she could have participated in rehearsals because her parents were out of town for three weeks is also absurd.
However, what made no sense to me in watching the film, was that a woman of high standing with a good family name and a lot of money would ever want to find herself involved with the horrible scandal that was the theater.
VIOLA SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE MOVIE
The movie addresses the obvious problem, being that she’s a woman. – Gwyneth Paltrow ‘s character, Viola de Lesseps, would never have auditioned for a play. Things that probably would have never happened in Elizabethan England For anybody who read my previous post on Elizabethan Theater, some of these inaccuracies are ones that you would have been able to find yourself. I’ll mostly be addressing issues of writing and inspiration in the post, but I will start with some cultural things. Nonetheless, considering the film’s popularity and the fact that I think most people don’t know a whole lot about Shakespeare’s writing process, the film is worth considering. Tom Stoppard has written some phenomenal and funny plays, particularly Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.) However, the overall plot is not terribly serious, and the whole film is constructed in a way as if to wink at the fact that it knows the historical accuracy is not there.
The screenplay – co-written by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman – rightly deserved its Oscar for some really good, clever writing. This film in particular caused a great deal of controversy when it beat out Saving Private Ryan at the Oscars, which in hindsight seems kind of silly. (Don’t get me wrong, I loved The King’s Speech, but did it really deserve top honors?) I think this gives nod to Hollywood’s tendency to reward historically focused films, regarding them as a higher art form than other films, despite their inaccuracies or other faults. Three of these films also happened to win Best Picture (including this film). Originally, I was going to try to tackle a film on Asian history for this week’s review, but I settled on Shakespeare in Love instead because that gives my first four reviews the honor of having all been nominated for Best Picture. Period of history in focus: Elizabethan England (specifically the year 1593) Starring: Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Judi Dench