Shakespeare shakes the big screen

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): Two writers, both alike in dignity, in fair Hollywood, where we lay our scene. From ancient sequels break to new films, where civil vision makes civil theaters unhinged, beneath the genius hands of these two men, a pair of star-crossed actors take their cue.

Shakespearean scholars would surely cringe at such an unfettered alteration of Master Will's opening lines to Romeo and Juliet. But a new film loosely based on England's most famous bard makes no apologies of its open interpretations -- and emerges triumphant as a result.

By the time this article is published, a review of Shakespeare in Love will be gratuitous. The Best Picture title will have been splashed across the film's billboards. Paparazzi photos of a jubilant Gwyneth Paltrow -- only 25, one of Hollywood's youngest Best Actress recipients -- will have adorned scores of newspapers. Audiences will flock to the theaters.

Another coup for hip film producers and distributors Miramax (Good Will Hunting, Life is Beautiful)? No doubt the Oscar awards will inspire the Weinstein brothers to suit their muse Paltrow in ever more elaborate period costumes (already Miramax is making Alicia Silverstone sing in a new Love's Labour's Lost -- a musical!).

But the true victor is William Shakespeare, who, 400 years after his glory days on the Elizabethan stage, is seeing his words relived on the big screen -- over and over again. The success of Shakespeare in Love, and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet two years before, is spawning a slew of Shakespearean remakes, few of which display traces of the 16th century. The latest Hamlet will brood through corporate America, Desdemona will skirt by basketball courts in a version of Othello called O, and Titus Andronicus will swing his sword in futuristic Rome. Kenneth Branagh, a one-man band of Shakespearean renaissance (Hamlet, Much Ado about Nothing, Henry V), is even setting As You Like It in Japan. A new generation of film-viewers may soon wander through shopping malls muttering "Doth thou want french fries with that?"

Shakespeare in Love would surely not deny such linguistic heresies -- the film is full of the anachronisms and literary elan which only make modern audiences stand to attention. Shakespeare spends his pennies on a therapist's couch, and drinks from a mug sold at Stratford's souvenir stalls. A producer deadpans to a bombastic actor (a hilarious Ben Affleck delivering the film's best one-liners): "I'm the money."

Indeed, tragedy aside, Shakespeare in Love is a sonnet to the stage, an ode to the intrigues of theater and its artists elbowing for acclaim. The film opens with a sweeping view of the Rose, a stage forever threatened by censors and debt-collectors: how can many off-Broadway theaters not share the same predicament? And it comments on the stage's pecking order; a theater producer dismisses Shakespeare as a "Nobody. He's the author." But Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) cunningly plays the game, juggling two producers while waiting for ultimate patronage from the Queen.

But here's where the plot enters: writer's block has struck the young bard. The comedy he is working on -- a pirate's adventure called Romeo and Ethel -- can't seem to get off the ground, even as this lost Lothario peruses a tired muse (his patron's mistress Rosalind). Historical archrival Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett) provides some guidance -- "Romeo is Italian, always in and out of love; Ethel, the daughter of his enemy", but still young Will searches for the true love for whom he can compose prose.

When inspiration strikes, it's in the form of a sweet-faced boy called Thomas Kent (Paltrow in a wig), auditioning for the role of Romeo. From here on, Cupid rules.

The flattery that's been heaped on Gwyneth Paltrow is by now all too familiar. Luminous, effervescent -- the words used to describe Hollywood's newest princess are rarely less than generous, even when Paltrow does not live up to the hype (A Perfect Murder). Yet, strangely, she is best sighing the Queen's English while strapped in a corset -- this is not the first time Paltrow has been the lone American among veteran British thespians (see Emma and Sliding Doors). Paltrow doesn't disappoint here. As Shakespeare's newfound muse Lady Viola de Lesseps, she more than commands the stage -- and the boudoir. When the two lovers rehearse -- all too well -- the more sensuous scenes of Romeo and Juliet, audiences are left equally breathless (sadly, Indonesian censors have cut short these pivotal scenes).

These scenes are the film's best. A montage of stage rehearsals and bedroom passion, they will no doubt send Shakespeare's devotees reeling.

After all, who better to play Romeo than the man who brought him to life?

And though he may not have won any awards, Fiennes -- eyes piercing with intensity -- has my vote as current cinema's most convincing paramour.

The entire cast is stellar. Judi Dench (Mrs. Brown), as Queen Elizabeth, has a great cameo role which the Academy deemed worthy of a Best Supporting Actress award. Colin Firth (The English Patient) vilifies himself wonderfully as Lord Wessex, Shakespeare's rival for his Lady's affections. Geoffrey Rush (Les Miserables) takes a comic turn as Shakespeare's patron Henslowe. All are seasoned graduates of period dramas, as are director John Madden (Mrs. Brown) and writers Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead).

What makes the film is the ease with which the film's makers and its cast pace themselves -- hitting a high note when the words, and swords, fly, and falling back to catch a breath when a moment's silence is required. And the film looks sumptuous, thanks to costume designer Sandy Powell and production designer Martin Childs (also an Academy award winner).

But ultimately, as Shakespeare would agree, it's the words that count.

Half the pleasure of Shakespeare in Love comes from a text on the shelves of every literature professor. The film's climax -- a enactment of Romeo and Juliet played by Shakespeare and his beloved Viola -- is sheer magic, like the play itself. Writer Tom Stoppard has wrapped the playwright's fanciful adventures in a lavish production modern audiences can relish, but it's Master Shakespeare that lives to tell the tale.