Shakespeare shakes the big screen

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.