Coming out this fall is what looks like a really interesting movie about Shakespeare ... Anonymous. It stars Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Elizabeth I and Rhys Ifans as both Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford and William Shakespeare. The film is a political thriller and champions both the Oxfordian theory, the belief that Edward de Vere wrote Shakespeare's works, and also the Prince Tudor theory, the belief that de Vere fathered the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton.
The theories are contested, of course. As the Wikipedia page for the movie states ...
In response to the inception of the film, James Shapiro, Columbia University English professor and author of Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, wrote an April 11, 2010 op-ed article in the Los Angeles Times titled "Alas, Poor Shakespeare." He acknowledged recent popular support for Oxfordian theory, including three Supreme Court Justices quoted in a 2009 Wall Street Journal article. Shapiro said that 25 years ago, support for Oxfordian theory was not strong, and that in a celebrated moot court in 1987, Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens, Harry Blackmun and William Brennan had "ruled unanimously in favor of Shakespeare and against the Earl of Oxford." Shapiro asserted that "Emmerich's film is one more sign that conspiracy theories about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays have gone mainstream," and also against Anonymous in an April 2010 Wall Street Journal interview.
The interview with James Shapiro is interesting. Here's just the first question of it asked and answered ....
The Wall Street Journal: Very few serious Shakespeare scholars have taken on this controversy. Why did you decide to address it?
Mr. Shapiro: There are certain things you can't say or do [in academia], and one of them is to talk about who wrote Shakespeare. But there are only so many times you can be asked that question. The straw that broke the back for me was when a fourth-grader asked me that question, and I realized, it has come to this. … After I finished the book, I learned that Roland Emmerich, the great Hollywood disaster movie guy, is coming out with a movie called "Anonymous." And I'm thinking in the great game of rock-paper-scissors, movie beats book. At least I'm coming to the battle armed, and more than that, I'll be able to say, this is the thinking that led to Emmerich's film .....
If the trailer is any indication, the movie looks interesting, whatever the merits of the theories to which it subscribes :)
