“A bright and shining
lie.”
Once again, a
conspiracy theory, supposedly based on fact, is on the big screen. A nobleman
passes off his plays under the name of an actor, who then becomes known as the
greatest playwright of all time. This is of course the movie Anonymous, based on the theory that Edward de
Vere, the Duke of Oxford, wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare. It starts off with distinguished actor
Sir Derek Jacobi looking the audience in the eye and making some misleading
statements, and goes rather downhill from there.
Anonymous commits one of the greatest sins known to cinema – it’s dull. And actors who should know better do
some pretty ordinary work. The villains do everything shy of twirling their
moustaches, all the while looking at each other thinking, “I’m being evil. Are
you being evil?” Rhys Ifans as de
Vere spends most the film trying to look noble and thoughtful, but mainly comes
across as if someone is standing on his foot and he is far too polite to say
anything. Each character seems to have been given not so much a one-dimensional
character as a one word – ‘evil’, ‘jealous’ ‘drunk’, ‘shrew’ ‘slut’ etc.
It’s one of those
conspiracy theories that a lot of people know about but no-one says a word. His
enemies the Cecils knew all about it, but never seemed to use his alleged
transgression as a playwright against him. Queen Elizabeth I knew about it, and
(I’d say spoiler alert but I don’t care) punishes de Vere at the end by
proclaiming he will never be known as the author of his plays. As this was one
of de Vere’s motivations throughout the movie, I failed to see the punitive
aspect. It was a beautiful moment on de Vere’s deathbed when he handed over
King Lear to be produced. I don’t know if he handed over a production schedule
for all the plays produced after he was dead, including the ones with topical
references to events also after his death, but I can only presume he did.
Obviously I was not
convinced by the central premise, nor was I ever going to be, but I was at least
hoping for a few entertaining hours in the dark. As it was I got bored, and the
more bored I got, the more irritating the film got. As a piece of history, it
made Shakespeare in Love look like an
entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. As entertainment goes, it was the other
way around.
I won’t go on and on
with the argument that Shakespeare wrote the plays he wrote. Read about it
here, or grab James Shapiro’s Contested Will: Who wrote Shakespeare?, an
examination of the various conspiracy theories (there are at least 70
contenders for this already filled position). You can also read Jack Lynch’s Becoming Shakespeare: The unlikely afterlife that turned a provincial playwright into The Bard, which will answer your
questions as to, yes, how did an obscure playwright get transfigured into the
voice of the ages? Both Shapiro and Lynch take an unusual approach – they
examine actual evidence and see where that leads them.
The arguments for de
Vere or anyone else tend to be either snobby or ignorant. All conspiracy
theories hold an element of snobbishness i.e. I know better than the rest of
you blinkered fools, but this one depends on people with degrees and
qualifications up the yinyang unable to believe that a country hick could write
so well and with such insight. Why a nobleman should have particular insight
into humanity denied a commoner is unanswered. And Shakespeare’s
admittedly limited education
contained more Latin and Greek from Ovid to Homer to Caesar, and lessons in
rhetoric than you and I have encountered. Languages, history, mythology and
rhetoric – good bases for a career as a playwright.
‘Oh,’ you say, (I’m
being very presumptuous about you, aren’t I?) ‘It’s only a film.” Roland Emmerich
the director and his writer John Orloff have already congratulated themselves
in several forums for having the courage to tell this story, warning us against
those terrible Shakespearian scholars who have a vested interest.. Meanwhile education
kits have been sent to schools with the message ‘teach the controversy – it’s
only fair both sides get a say.’ It is not just a film, it is propaganda trying
to teach a lie. And lie it is. There aren’t two sides to history. There are the
facts, and interpretation of the facts. Interpretation of course can and does
differ, but ignoring and creating facts to manufacture some sort of controversy
is not history, it is marketing; marketing at best.
And as weasel writers
such as Oliver Stone and Dan Brown have done before him, any time you point out
obvious falsehoods and mistakes and misinformation in the work, Emmerich and
Orloff respond with ‘It’s only a movie, entertainment.” Po-faced they tell us
they are courageously giving us the truth, all the while carrying their get-out
clause. Damn them all. Sod off.
History, despite what
some will tell you, is not something you make up as it suits you. Reputable historians and scholars
confronted with facts and evidence that go against their theories, change their
theories. In the words of Professor Richard Evans, a professor of History at
Cambridge, the past “really happened, and we really can, if we are scrupulous
and careful and self-critical… reach some tenable conclusions about what it all
meant.” There is not a conspiracy theorist that I have come across who is
scrupulous. All evidence against a conspiracy is proof of the conspiracy. The
lack of evidence for a conspiracy is proof of the conspiracy. The evidence that
points anywhere else is part of the conspiracy. There is nothing that can
injure a conspiracy theory so it is safe and easy and brain-dead to espouse.
Sorry if this is
insulting to anyone but this idea makes my blood boil. The theory denies
imagination has any part in creative writing. It takes that clichéd advice to
young writers ‘write what you know’ as the only approach to writing that
exists. As to Shakespearian scholars and their vested interests, I doubt highly
that their conferences begin with a toast ‘To Evil’ followed by a money fight.
These sorts of things insult centuries of scholarship and the personal morality
of generations of scholars just so people like Roland Emmerich can make a buck.
Who really has a vested interest in this “controversy”? A scholar in a
university or a director with a film to sell?
“Oh,” you say again
(you do enjoy poking the bear, don’t you?) “The play’s the thing. It doesn’t
matter who wrote them.” This sounds reasonable and on one level is. However who
said or wrote something is important. It colours our perceptions and our
interpretations. Martin Luther King Jr talking about his people’s destiny has a
different effect to say Joseph Stalin making a similar statement. Several fauxtations
have floated around the Internet of late, misattributed to the likes of King
and Thomas Jefferson. If they were attributed to Anonymous, or the geek in
front of his computer who wrote it, people would have seen them for the
meaningless, tendentious self-serving pieces of crap they were. Emmerich has de
Vere writing plays that have as their ultimate effect a political one, reducing
the plays to propaganda, as if politics is the highest calling of humanity. No,
politics is the shit politicians go through so they can get to a position so
they can do the good they entered politics to do. Shakespeare’s plays (apart
from the ordinary and crap ones (let’s not forget they exist)) are so
extraordinary as to defy categorisation.
The real Shakespeare
wrote to keep an audience happy and coming through the doors to make a buck. He
made up words because he didn’t have sufficient education not to. The plays are
badly structured with characters that change names or disappear and plotlines
that don’t get played out. This was a man writing for a playhouse giving out
the pages almost as fast as he could write them, without little chance to
rewrite or revisit. The phrase “the word ‘genius’ is bandied about all too
easily these days” is in itself bandied about all too easily these days. But
Shakespeare was a genius. As we so benighted, so lacking in imagination, that
we cannot accept that?
Oh I have gone on long
enough. But I called this Part One. Like any good conspiracy theory, there is
more to this than meets the eye.
No, I'M Shakespeare!
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