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Did the Earl of Oxford write Shakespeare (spoilers: No of course he didn't.) |
Director: Roland Emmerich
Cast: Rhys Ifans (Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford), Vanessa
Redgrave (Queen Elizabeth I), Sebastian Armesto (Ben Jonson), Rafe Spall
(William Shakespeare), David Thewlis (Lord Burghley), Edward Hogg (Robert
Cecil), Xavier Samuel (Earl of Southampton), Sam Reid (Earl of Essex), Jamie
Campbell Bower (Young Oxford), Joely Richardson (Young Elizabeth I), Derek
Jacobi (Himself), Mark Rylance (Henry Condell), Helen Baxandale (Anne de Vere)
Many people would say that, for as long as there has been
Shakespeare, there have been arguments about who wrote him. But that would be
wrong. Because at the time everyone knew it was Shakespeare. Murmurings grew in
the nineteenth century, but it’s only in our bizarre more recent times, when
everyone wants to feel that they are smarter than anyone else, that conspiracy
theories have taken hold. This film dramatizes one of the most famous
conspiracy theories – and takes it to the bonkers extreme, chucking in royal
incest, bastard claimants to the throne and blood purity, like it’s desperate
to be some sort of poetry-circle Game of
Thrones.
Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans) is a genius. He
has written hundreds of plays, despite never (it seems) setting foot in a
theatre. When he does one day, he suddenly thinks – hang about I should get
these on the stage! Looking for someone to put their name to the work, he approaches
a reluctant Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto) before credit is high-jacked mid
performance by drunken dullard William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall). Oxford
continues producing the plays through Shakespeare, carefully using them to
influence the crowd to support the Earl of Essex’s (Sam Reid) campaign to
succeed Queen Elizabeth (Vanessa Redgrave) and win her away from the influence
of the Cecils (David Thewlis and Edward Hogg).
It’s not often you get a film that is both a stinking,
insulting piece of propaganda garbage, but on top of that is also a terrible
film full stop. Anonymous is such a
film. This mind-numbingly stupid, childishly idiotic film is probably the best
case that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare to come out of Hollywood. Because,
after watching this film, you’ll sure as shit be convinced it wasn’t someone as
tedious, pompous and arrogant as Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. Unbelievably
Emmerich and co thought they were making a film that would reset the table of
Shakespeare debate. The only thing that will need resetting will be your table
after you’ve overturned it in fury.
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Our film's Shakespeare goes crowd surfing in an Elizabethan mosh pit. Seriously. |
The Oxfordian theory is yet another garbage “alternative
history” that puts forward a candidate claimed to have “really wrote
Shakespeare”. The central conceit usually goes something like this: Shakespeare
was from a middle-class background, grammar school educated, never travelled
and generally lacked the academic chops to write the plays. He was simply too
common to be a genius. Ergo someone super smart must have done so instead.
The Oxford theory was put forward at the turn of the last
century by (and I’m not making this up) Thomas Looney (yes it is literally a Looney Theory). It argues
that Oxford was well travelled, well-educated and known as a poet so must have written the plays and poems. Shakespeare
was hired to put his name on the plays because it was too shameful for an Earl
to write for the theatre. Of course this doesn’t explain why Oxford had the
sonnets released under Shakespeare’s name while allowing his own (not so good)
poems to circulate freely – but facts never stopped these people. Oxford also
inconveniently died in 1604, before the likely composition (and first
performance) of over a third of the plays, but again never mind eh?
Anyway, I’ll get into the film in a second, but I’ll leave
you with this. All contemporary evidence points to Shakespeare being the author
of Shakespeare’s plays. All evidence we have indicates he was recognised as the
writer by his contemporaries. The much vaunted travel knowledge rests on a few
well-known city names and landmarks (who could possibly have known Venice had a
bridge called the Rialto? Oh I don’t know, maybe anyone hanging out in taverns
in international trading-hub London?) and includes howlers like Bohemia having
a coastline and it being possible to sail between Milan and Verona. All evidence
of research (far too hard work for the Looneys) into typography and the
composition of the plays points to Shakespeare or at least that many of the works were composed after Oxford’s death.
I would also add that the bollocks (which this film explores) of Shakespeare
not spelling consistently is no great surprise when standardisation of spelling
was still over 100 years away. Anyway…
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The clueless bumbling playwrights of the time. |
Anonymous is well
designed. It’s well shot. There are some decent costumes. Rafe Spall is okay as
a ludicrously crude, shallow and dumb Shakespeare. Nothing and nobody else
emerges from the film with any credit. It’s got the intellectual rigour of a
child. It understands virtually nothing about the Elizabethan state. It even
turns Elizabeth I (played direly by Vanessa Redgrave and a little bit better by
Joely Richardson in flashback) into a hormonal idiot, a sex-obsessed harlot
banging out bastards left, right and centre while wailing about how much she
needs the man she loves. Even its understanding of theatre is crap. It is crap.
At the forefront of this steaming pile of manure is Rhys
Ifans, utterly mis-cast from start to finish as super-genius Oxford. Ifans is
bland, disengaged and bottled up, his manic potential completely wasted. Oxford
comes across as an arrogant arsehole, talking down to fellow playwrights, ignoring
his daughter, soaking up vicarious adulation from the crowd as if it was his
right, and merrily putting his full weight behind an agenda stressing government
should be left to those born to it, rather than the nouveaux rich Cecils. If an
unpleasant prick like Oxford was soul of the age, it’s just as well time has
moved on.
This viewpoint is all part of the film’s charmless embracing
of the Looney theory that the plays are all a carefully constructed pro-Essex,
pro-elitist propaganda machine, designed to manipulate the masses into staying
in their place. To make this work, the film plays merry hell with history.
Because nothing works better for a film claiming to be “true” history than to
change established historical facts to better fit its story. Essex is repositioned
as anti-James VI of Scotland, while the Cecils are shown to be advocates for
his succession from day one. It hardly seems necessary to say that this was the
complete opposite of their positions. The film can’t claim to be telling us the
“real story” while simultaneously changing events left, right and centre to
better fit its agenda.
Historical fast-and-looseness continues with Elizabeth I.
Needless to say, half the male cast are her children – Essex, Southampton and
(of course) even Oxford. This allows for lots of icky sex as an unknowing young
Elizabeth and Oxford bump-and-grind. Even without the incest, this scene would
still be revolting beyond belief. If this film has any claim to fame, it will
be remembered as the film where the Virgin Queen performed fellatio on young Oxford
(a weaselly Jamie Campbell Bower, dire as ever) while he recited Shakespearean
sonnets. I watched this with a group of friends and this scene was met by horrified
mass shrieking.
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Mother and son share a post-coital moment |
The land of the Elizabethan theatre doesn’t fare much
better. Shakespeare’s contemporary playwrights are, to a man, plodding
mediocrities dumb-founded that a play can be written entirely in verse. Poor
Ben Johnson (Sebastian Armesto struggling manfully with a terrible part) in
particular gets it in the neck, Oxford haughtily telling him he “has no voice”.
Shakespeare is not only an idiot, he’s also money-grubbing, illiterate and (the
film heavily implies) even murders Christopher Marlowe when he “works out the
truth”.
But that’s the thing about this film: it really doesn’t give
a shit about facts. By the time we reach the Essex rebellion and the film has
changed the one categorical fact we have linking Shakespeare to the rebellion
(his company performed Richard II
privately for Essex’s friends the night before) you’ll have ceased to care.
(The film substitutes Richard III
instead and claims the hunchbacked king was created as a portrait of Robert
Cecil – never mind that the character had already appeared in two plays by this
point…) The Tower is the centre of some sort of all-powerful police state that
alternates between scarily efficient and ludicrously incompetent depending on
the demands of the script.
Amidst this firebombing of history, the film weaves its
pointless conspiracy theory. So of course, Oxford is not only the greatest
writer ever, but as Elizabeth’s son he’s also the true King of England. He is
such a special snowflake genius, he’s even (in the film’s most stupid scene)
shown writing and performing (as Puck) A
Midsummer Night’s Dream aged 14. In a skin-crawlingly shite scene, Oxford
searches for a play to give to Johnson while the camera pans along shelves of
masterpieces he has casually knocked out. I would argue the plays have clearly been
written by someone with an intimate understanding not only of theatre but the
strengths and weaknesses of the company of actors originally performing them –
but then this is a film that turns Richard Burbage into a harassed theatre
manager, so what would be the point. By the end of the film, the announcement
is made that all evidence linking Oxford to the plays will be destroyed and he
will be forgotten. So you see the very fact that there is no evidence that this
ever happened, is in itself evidence.
I realise I’ve not even mentioned the framing device of this
film. The film opens in a Broadway theatre – and rips off the idea from Henry V that we are watching a play
performance that becomes ever more realistic. Notable Oxfordian Derek Jacobi (playing
himself) even narrates, neatly shitting on the memory of the same function he
served in Branagh’s Henry. I love Sir
Derek, but honestly a little of that love died during this film as he sonorously
intones this lunatic nonsense. He’s not the only one of course – Mark Rylance
(another believer) shamelessly pops up for a cameo. Needless to say, at the end
of the “performance” the crowd in the Broadway theatre leave in stunned
silence. I like to think that, rather than having their perceptions of the
world shaken, they were just stunned such an epic pile of fuckwitterey garbage
made it to the stage.
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Oh Sir Derek. How could you? How could you? |
Or the screen for that matter. This is a dire, stupid film,
poorly acted and woefully directed by a tone deaf director. Roland Emmerich,
hie thee back to disaster porn! Everyone in it is pretty awful, the script not
only stinks, it makes no sense, half the scenes are borderline embarrassing.
Even if it wasn’t about a pretty distasteful Shakespearean authorship theory,
this would still be a truly terrible film, a narrative and performance
disaster. The only good thing about it is, the film is so bad, its conspiracy
theory so unbelievably ludicrous, its fast-and-looseness with history so plain
that, far from re-setting the table for Shakespearean studies, it seems to have
fatally holed the Oxfordian theory below the water line. It’s offensive because
it wants to peddle its bizarre agenda as true history, while simultaneously
changing the historical events at every opportunity. Just fucking awful.
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