Shakespeare In Love: A Wealth of Knowledge

Subject: Shakespeare In Love: A Wealth of Knowledge

In all reality when we were assigned to watch the movie Shakespeare In Love, I thought that it was going to be a boring, sappy love story. Love story it was, as well as sappy, but boring, no. I have to say that the plot of the movie itself was very interesting. Whether it is true or not, the thought that it might represent the real way that William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet is amazing. The actors in the cast I believe did justice to the movie and I believe that we can learn much from this as well, not only about the movie, but also about the theatre. The story itself requires that the audience assume that the two main characters have watched each other for a long time. If this is not assumed then the "Love" turns to lust. There would be no love in a late night hook-up after a man danced with a woman once, at a party that he wasn't even supposed to be at. The movie itself depicts actors on a stage. So the play is a play inside a movie. In this the audience gets some of the feelings that a theatre audience might get. Though there is no real theatre acting in the motion picture. There is also an aspect that the audience of the movie gets to get inside the mind and the thoughts of 'Will' because not only is he playing his thoughts out on the page and on the stage but he is also living that play with his new found lover. We, the audience, get to see all of this and it helps us in the understanding of the character that is William Shakespeare. Along with all of what we have seen, we also see, as a class what our textbook told us in the third chapter. We see Queen Elizabeth and learn that she had almost ultimate control over all of the theatre as well as everything else in England. Not only have we read about it, we now have a physical representation. Over all, the movie was ‘good’, not only as a movie for entertainment, but also as a representation of history, of the theatre, and of acting.
--Michael