Anonymous is being unleashed ... or is that released? ... to theaters in two days. In anticipation, shall we have a vote? What did you think of this bloody disaster? Does it soil Shakespeare's good name? Is it a mess of epic proportions? Is it something that cat left in the litter box?
Indeed, I saw it last night. I was hoping for a typical Roland Emmerich movie ... You know, Independence Day, Godzilla, 2012 ... Instead, it was mostly yawn-inducing boring material, with a few jolts of "let's shock the audience!" ... in the same way you can be shocked by an elementary school play.
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBmnkk0QW3Q[/YT] Looks like a different change of pace for Roland Emmerich. Before seeing the preview or reading through the above posts, I thought this was a movie about the hacker group of the same name.
I'm interested to see what they do, but as someone who graduated from college with a degree in English, I find the basic premise of this film completely ridiculous. And, as one of my good writer friends tweeted the other day: That being said, I'll wait till I see it before making my final assessment.
Hasn't there been a longstanding idea that Shakespeare really didn't write any of his plays, that it was actually someone else? Or is that just a silly conspiracy theory? I admit to not being a huge Shakespeare expert; my favorite Shakespeare production is 10 Things I Hate About You.
The idea that William Shakespeare didn't really write the plays in his canon began in the 19th Century, about the same time that the idea began that Shakespeare is an unsurpassed and unsurpassable genius against which all other writers of English literature shall forever be measured and found wanting.
As Sci mentioned, the questioning of Shakespeare's authorship began in the 19th-century. Ironically, it began as a joke. The author Samuel Mosheim Schmucker was trying to combat then-in-vogue Biblical criticism that was questioning the historicity of Jesus. In his work titled "Historic Doubts Respecting Shakespeare, Illustrating Infidel Objections Against the Bible," Schmucker was trying to argue in parallel that while we can't prove that Shakespeare wrote his plays we know that he did, just as we can't prove that Jesus actually existed and yet he did. Unfortunately, Schmucker was too clever by half, and suddenly people began to think that, just maybe, Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare. Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, is the leading alternate candidate today, but he wasn't always. Anonymous is using a particularly insane version of the Oxfordian theory called "Prince Tudor II," that not only did Oxford father a child on Queen Elizabeth, Henry Wriothesley, but Oxford was himself the child of the then-Princess Elizabeth (so Oxford incestuously fathered his own half-brother). Despite that bit of insanity, I'm genuinely curious about the film and will likely see it. I think the Doctor Who audio The Kingmaker treates the Shakespeare Authorship Question with all the seriousness it deserves -- King Richard III wrote Shakespeare's plays.
Well, whether the movie is based on fact or fiction, it doesn't really matter to me. I think it looks entertaining enough. If nothing else, we can call it "alternate history."
Well, doubleohfive, you and I have something else in common. I could say exactly the same thing. It always struck me as the ultimate bit of snobbery when people assume that some middle class, self taught man couldn't possibly have written these great plays; only someone of noble birth could possess such talent. BULL. PUCKEY. I had no idea that this was a Roland Emmerich movie. That makes me want to see this even less.
I t really looks like a nice piece of eye candy and I love historical dramas. I don't mind Roland Emmerich's movies and this doesn't seem like his typical movie. I will rent it wen it comes out. But other than seeing clips of this on You Tube and other movie related sites I have not seen one add for this on TV.
No, Jacobi is an Oxfordian. I believe he was quoted as approving of Emmerich's "bravery" in making Anonymous.
Oh, awesome! I took ENG 201 with Dr. Syme back in the day, during his first semester ever as a professor. He seems to have done well for himself.
I don't see what al the fuss is about. The movie industry crushes history beneath the wheels of its chariot on a regular basis. Better to ask how many accurate representations of events have ever been made.
Yeah, I tend to think that Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him, but the "theory" that this film presents didn't anger me or anything. I just took it as a "what if", as I would any work of fiction. This is certainly a different sort of genre for Emmerich, although the film itself still suffers from his usual excesses. The plot was a bit convoluted, and the audience isn't really given enough time to get to know the characters in order to develop a vested interest in the proceedings. It's just a little too much "this happens, and then BAM, that happens, then BAM, this happens too", etc. It certainly doesn't help that few of the characters are likeable (particularly the more famous ones, like Shakespeare himself, or Queen Elizabeth). I will give the actors credit, though, for doing a pretty damn good job with what they had to work with (particularly Rhys Ifans as Edward de Vere). Another plus is that the film looks pretty good -- it's a visually interesting picture, if nothing else. Also, I will admit I didn't see that rather sick twist at the end coming (the one that Allyn Gibson mentions... yes, it is actually a final act reveal). I did find that part somewhat effective. In the end, Anonymous is a meagerly entertaining, if highly preposterous, costume drama, but it doesn't really rise above that too much. It's nice to see Emmerich going outside of his comfort zone a bit, and while this is probably his best film in quite a while, he still failed to truly hit it out of the park. I will be generous and give it a grade of average.
The screenwriter addresses some of his thoughts on the film in an interview with The Atlantic. He defends its history in an interesting way: