Movies from the Heart—Shakespeare in Love

If you’re a writer, you must see this film. There are so many small jokes and allusions to things that only a writer would get. So watch it once for the film itself, then watch it a second time to see how many little gems you can catch about what it means to be a writer back in Shakespeare’s time that are still relevant today!

Shakespeare in Love [1998], by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, takes us back to the days of the Rose Theatre and its rival The Curtain in Shakespeare’s London. And what a time it was! Take a look at the trailer for the film.

One of the things I particularly like about this film is the way it humanizes a larger-than-life character by taking us back to who he was as a young man. In fact, it’s just taking him back to what feels close to the reality of what his life must have been like in this rowdy era when being a writer was way different than it is for writers today.

But is it that different? Hmmm… not sure there. Let’s analyze. The two men who run the rival theatres—The Rose and The Curtain—are both imbecilic, but in different ways. But the one thing they have in common is absolutely no interest in the quality of the work writers like Shakespeare give them to produce. Their major goal is to get a play up and running—seems like there are built-in audiences who are hungry for the latest thing. As portrayed in the film, the audiences reminded me of the fervor of soap-opera addicts! And who knows, in Shakespeare’s time, maybe what he was doing wasn’t considered “serious” drama.

The language of Shakespeare’s time is far enough removed from modern-day English that it might be difficult to imagine that it was very much accessible to the audiences of its day. And for some people, getting past the difficulty of the language makes Shakespeare’s work a bit too difficult for them to manage.

One of the things to realize about Shakespeare’s plays is that they’re all in public domain. This means you can take one and rewrite it as you like. In fact, this would be a really good writing exercise—to take a play from hundreds of years ago and update it for a modern audience.

Another interesting exercise is to do what the writers of Shakespeare in Love did—imagine the creation of an iconic work. How/why did the author write it? And make that the subject of your film.

However you go about it, delving into the past can give you great ideas for the present.

Next week come with me to visit a more dramatic romantic film—The Bridges of Madison County.

Copyright © Diane Lake

19Jan25

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com