A dangerous film

Rating: Null/10 (28 January 1999)

One thing about this film disturbs me. I heard a schoolgirl say, It was wonderful. I have been studying Romeo and Juliet in class, and now it is so good to know what Shakespeare was really like.' Okay, so most people know this is sheer fiction, that it no more tells us what Shakespeare was really like', than Shakespeare's tragedy tells us what King Richard the Third was really like'. But there will be some people who go through life thinking that Shakespeare was really like' this. Film is such a powerful medium that often such an impression is difficult to brush off. I have met intelligent people who think Thomas More was really like' Robert Bolt's unhistorical and anachronistic version in that fine film A Man for all Seasons. The Shakespeare of this screenplay is a long way from the ambivalent man we glimpse in the Sonnets as Katherine Duncan-Jones's wonderful introduction to the new Arden Edition of the Sonnets (London, 1997) shows. And here comes the really dangerous bit. Once you think you know what Shakespeare was really like', it is a short step to thinking you know what he really meant'. And that suggests there is a right' way and a wrong' way to do the plays; it allows the possibility of definitive performances. The glory of Shakespeare is that we know virtually nothing about him except what the plays tell us. And the plays tell us what we are able to hear. By interpreting Shakespeare's plays, we learn about ourselves. All interpretations are valid. But that wonderful fact is in danger if people start to think they know what Shakespeare is really like'.
So enjoy the film, have a good laugh, but please don't think there is any connection at all between the fictional character in this film and the man from Stratford-upon-Avon who wrote the plays. He is as much of a mystery as ever - and thank God for it.