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Is the story based on Shakespeare's life?

posted 9 years ago by blondie_96
8 replies | jump to latest

Is it? or is it just a rip-off of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night?

[–] syntinen 9 years ago

It's neither: it is a loving send-up of theatre life, Shakespearean scholarship, every previous film made of a Shakespeare play, and a great deal else in British culture.

No, the story isn't remotely true. Shakespeare didn't invent the plot of Romeo and Juliet (we know exactly where he got the story from), nor would it have been new to any regular theatregoer in the audience; that's just one of the many jokes.

[–] blondie_96 9 years ago

I see! So, it's not on his life story

No, the story isn't remotely true. Shakespeare didn't invent the plot of Romeo and Juliet (we know exactly where he got the story from), nor would it have been new to any regular theater-goer in the audience; that's just one of the many jokes.

Yes, indeed! I think that made the audience become curious about the true story behind the literary work

[–] alfa-16 9 years ago

Define "based on".

Some of its humour derives from wilfully anachronistic flights of fancy, but if you want a picture of Shakespeare's environment and creative process, you'll form a much more accurate idea watching this than you will a film like Anonymous, which purports to reveal the truth behind the man.

Affleck's character Ned says 'Watch! And you'll see how genius creates a legend". That's where the film is aiming but the theatre it portrays, and the concerns of those who put on plays, create them, act in them and watch them, bridges the 16c and 20c. Which is what makes it so good.

[–] Squeeth2 9 years ago

I liked it when she stabbed herself, Your Majesty.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

[–] blondie_96 9 years ago

Define "based on"

The character and plot I thought similar to Twelfth Night, Viola De Lesseps has the exact name as Viola's Twelfth Night also she disguised herself as a man. Hence, I am so curious of this movie's plot and characters come from? Is it based on Shakespeare's real life or is it just a portrayal of the theater life during Shakespearean ?

[–] syntinen 9 years ago

It's a pure flight of fancy. Let's 'suppose' Shakespeare was inspired to invent the plot of Romeo and Juliet (although we know perfectly well he didn't) by his passionate love affair with a well-born girl dressed as a boy, (who certainly never existed, nor anyone like her, in Shakespeare's life). And let's 'suppose' that when he loses her, it inspires him to write a play about a girl called Viola dressed as a boy.

None of this really happened. The writer and directors didn't mean anybody to believe that any of it really happened. Heck, they did everything they could, short of holding up a placard behind the characters' heads saying 'THIS IS A SPOOF, FOLKS!', to signal that nobody was to take the story seriously. I mean things like Viola's surname, 'De Lesseps', which is famously the name of the French engineer who dug the Suez and Panama Canals (there was no wealthy family called de Lesseps in Elizabethan England), and Will having a mug in his garret saying 'A Prefent from Stratford-upon-Avon'.

[–] blondie_96 9 years ago

None of this really happened. The writer and directors didn't mean anybody to believe that any of it really happened. Heck, they did everything they could, short of holding up a placard behind the characters' heads saying 'THIS IS A SPOOF, FOLKS!', to signal that nobody was to take the story seriously. I mean things like Viola's surname, 'De Lesseps', which is famously the name of the French engineer who dug the Suez and Panama Canals (there was no wealthy family called de Lesseps in Elizabethan England), and Will having a mug in his garret saying 'A Prefent from Stratford-upon-Avon'.

Thanks! Just realized how ignorant I am lol  De Lesseps is the last name of a French engineer 

[–] Suzume-san 9 years ago

Not to mention jokes about psychoanalysis, corporate sponsorship of the arts, London taxi-drivers and Harold Pinter.