Anonymous

When Anonymous was released in theaters last fall, I avoided it for two reasons: one, director Roland Emmerich is a hack of the highest order. I've never seen a movie of his that I liked. Second, the subject matter, conjecture that the plays of William Shakespeare were written by someone else, is ludicrous, the literary version of the Flat Earth Society. However, the film did receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Costumes (by Lisy Christl), and though I don't usually watch a movie because of the clothes, I figured I would give it a chance.

It wasn't half bad. As to the history, I'll let others more knowledgeable speak for me, such as this article by Stephen Marche that does a complete take down of the argument. I'll add some other problems that Marche doesn't mention, concerning the character of Ben Jonson: Jonson was much younger than Shakespeare, and did not have a hit play until 1598, almost ten years after Shakespeare had started writing. In the film, Jonson is an established playwright when Henry V (not Shakespeare's first production) was staged.

The idea that Shakespeare did not write his plays is old, but the film supports the Oxfordian view, which started in the 1920s. The theory is that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and used Shakespeare, a dumb actor, as his front. This theory seems to stem from the most arrogant of positions--that genius can not spring from anywhere but good breeding and education, but of course this has proved wrong over and over through history.

However, this is a movie, not a history (for Emmerich's other history-butchering film, check out 10,000 B.C.). If one views it as a fantasy, it's a decent film. De Vere is played beautifully by Rhys Ifans as a nobleman who burns for literature but is denied that by his station. To further push history askew, De Vere is seen having an affair with Queen Elizabeth (played as a young woman by Joely Richardson, and an older woman by Richardson's mother, Vanessa Redgrave). There's nothing I found on the 'Net to support this theory, nor is there anything to suggest, as the film does, that Elizabeth, the "Virgin Queen," had three (!) bastard children, including Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex, which, if true, gives the film The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, starring Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, some interesting subtext.

Shakespearean scholars must have really hated this film for portraying their guy as a barely literate oaf, but it was kind of funny. The only harm this film can really do is if some person sees it and believes it is true. The next thing you'll know people will believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya.