I think I'd prefer a Marlovian film.

[swan_tower]

It had to happen eventually, I suppose.

SCENE: The inside of swan_tower's head

SWAN: Let's go look at movie trailers. Anonymous -- what, like the group?

PAGE: <loads>

SWAN: No, it's something set in Elizabethan England! With Derek Jacobi and other cool people! <reads further in synopsis> . . . oh, shit. It's a "Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare's plays" story.

TRAILER: <plays>

SWAN: Old London Bridge! <swoons in a fit of historical geekery>

DIRECTOR: <is Roland Emmerich>

SWAN: grk.

IMDb: This movie's theory is apparently Oxfordian, since Rhys Ifans has top billing, and he's playing Edward de Vere.

SWAN: <sigh> But . . . London Bridge . . . Elizabethan geekery . . . but Roland Emmerich. And Oxfordianism. <more sigh> Well, at least it seems I'm over my knee-jerk "please god no more" reaction to the sixteenth century. And that's something. Whether or not I can bring myself to watch this movie . . . we'll have to see.

Comments

[leatherdykeuk.livejournal.com]

I shall have to see it. I've written Marlowe stories myself.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

So have I, kind of. (http://www.swantower.com/stories/other/tdocm.html)

[leatherdykeuk.livejournal.com]

Splendid :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

This sounds like me faced with anything claiming to be set in 'the Dark Ages'. I sympathise.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yeah, that phrase alone sets off the warning bells, don't it?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Don't touch it! It's eeeeevil!

By which I mean, seriously, don't watch it, it will be worse than Erik the Viking.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I was about to say, "but how come such good actors are involved with it, then?" -- until I remembered the existence of Uwe Boll.

[kniedzw.livejournal.com]

I have a soft spot in my heart for Erik the Viking. Then again, I have a soft spot in my heart for the IMDb Bottom 100, so....

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Let's wait for the DVD so we can watch it together and heckle it.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

That might be the way to go.

[wadam.livejournal.com]

Wow. That looks shockingly bad.

And yet I think I have to see it.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Inorite?

[tiamat360.livejournal.com]

No matter how bad it may be...it has Derek Jacobi.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

As the Prologue, so he isn't in much of the film. But yeah, you look at it and think, "Derek Jacobi! If he's in it, how bad could it be?"

I'm afraid of the answer to that question.

[pameladean]

Yeah.

Mark Rylance is a brilliant actor and has put together an absolutely amazing group that tours around doing Shakespeare on a bare stage with all male actors. I won't say "as originally done," but it's an attempt to show how it might have been done. Their productions are wonderful.

He thinks there is an "authorship question." And he's an ass about it. It's really a kind of disease, I think.

Oh, good Lord. I did a quick Google because I originally thought Rylance was an Oxfordian but wasn't sure. Jacobi is right with him. They have a little website. They don't name a candidate. They just think there should be "academic debate" about the "question."

My head hurts.

Anyway, being a good actor doesn't mean you can't have really stupid ideas. I mean, Mark Twain was an anti-Shakespearean.

P.

P.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I can't get past the way that there's usually an elitist substratum to the whole thing: "whoever wrote those plays has to have been a nobleman, because noblemen are just cooler." (Or if not a noble, then somebody that seems cooler than an ordinary guy from Stratford.)

And it's not that I think Derek Jacobi can't have stupid ideas. It's that I usually trust him not to be in stupid movies.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

It's worse than that. It's the Oxford-is-Elizabeth's-son theory. Which, I admit, I used. BUT I MADE FUN OF IT WHILE I WAS USING IT, DAMMIT.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Oh, god.

I mean, it isn't that I don't think historical conspiracy, however batshit, can't make good fiction. It's that I trust some people to do it (e.g. you), and not others (e.g. Roland Emmerich).

Yeah. I think the only way I'm going to watch this is at home, with knowledgable friends, and much sporking.

I might even bend my "I don't really drink" rule, and make a drinking game out of it.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

It calls for a nice Rhenish, I think. With chipped sugar.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Only if I can pour the Rhenish on Emmerich's head.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Not without mustard!

[skirmish-of-wit.livejournal.com]

Argh, anti-Stratforianism, it burns.

I feel like I should recommend James Shapiro's Contested Will and the Shakespeare Authorship website to counteract the batshittery.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I think what bugs me about the movie is that it isn't intended to be counterfactual, you know? If it was openly saying, "btw, this is total bollocks, but" and then going on with its crazy story, I wouldn't mind at all.

I mean, really. I'm the woman who's written four books about how half of English history was the fault of faeries. I'm clearly fine with making shit up. I just want it advertised as fiction, rather than suckering in people who don't know any better.

[skirmish-of-wit.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It's presenting conspiracy theory as plausible/factual.

On the other hand, given the popularity of, say, Fox News, this is probably a shrewd moneymaking scheme.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Sympathies. The more backstory research I obtain for the novel that ate my brain last year (I had a slightly bland first draft, set entirely in the C20th, and then found someone who was prepared to fill in the historical details behind the central family, stately home and art works) the fewer historicals I can take seriously. Also I crave more and more good historicals set in the various periods I'm learning about.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

It is definitely true that while your tolerance for the bad stuff goes way down, your appreciation for the good stuff becomes that much deeper.

[d-c-m.livejournal.com]

*giggle* I shouldn't laugh at your brain's angst but I did see the preview for that flick today and thought "Wow! What is Derek Jacobi doing there?"