INTRIGUE AND UNCERTAINTY ABOUNDS IN YE OLDE ANONYMOUS

There have been and still arguments that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him. Suggestions of other authors and doubt actually begins during Shakespeare's life and for many years some people have doubted, from what we know of the actor's life, that he would have been able to write the plays and poems, and may therefore have served as a 'front' for a hidden author. Experts have debated, books have been written, and scholars have devoted their lives to protecting or debunking theories surrounding the authorship of the most renowned works in English literature. Now, the cinema’s most infamous deployer of disasters, German born director Roland Emmerich, also is turning his attention to the authenticity of William Shakespeare’s writing. And while we still can’t quite get used to the idea that the director has taken on a period drama about Shakespeare but the movie will arriving soon this fall. “Anonymous” is surely set to annoy every single person who has studied Elizabethan England, the life of Shakespeare and his plays but what do you expect from the man who gave us escapism & speculation as the premise behind his previous movies. However, quite exciting question is will Emmerich bring his trademark of massive special effect and ripping Stratford to the ground by a massive disaster or will the film be a disaster itself at box office since Emmerich doesn’t play with his famous element this time.The movie isn’t simply about the controversial theory anyway but it is wrapped up in a much larger period drama involving political intrigue and how the plays were used to criticize the monarchy while protecting the identities of the true authors. Here is how Emmerich himself describes the film: “It’s a mix of a lot of things: it’s a historical thriller because it’s about who will succeed Queen Elizabeth and the struggle of the people who want to have a hand in it. It’s the Tudors on one side and the Cecils on the other, and in between [the two] is the Queen. Through that story we tell how the plays written by the Earl of Oxford ended up labeled ‘William Shakespeare’.” This conspiracy theory around Earl of Oxford was started in 1920 when a schoolteacher came up with the idea that a minor Elizabethan poet, Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who may or may have not had a love-child with Queen Elizabeth I and who died before at least 10 of the plays were performed, had written Shakespeare's plays. Yet "Anonymous" also incorporates the far more dubious and confusing 'Prince Tudor' theory that de Vere was the illegitimate son of Elizabeth I. Emmerich himself says in an interview that "When Shakespeare wrote 'Henry V', he made things up and we’re making things up too." The screenwriter John Orloff also says in the same piece "there is a point where you have to go with the emotional truth, not the literal truth, because the drama is the primary concern."
At least, the film boasts a stellar cast: Welsh actor and musician Rhys Ifans as de Vere, Veteran English actress Vanessa Redgrave as Elizabeth I of England, David Thewlis as longtime adviser to Queen Elizabeth William Cecil, Xavier Samuel (Twilight Saga: Eclipse) as Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, and Rafe Spall (Shaun of the Dead) as the questioned William Shakespeare.Some facts if Shakespeare really was a fraud:

# Screenwriter John Orloff (Band of Brothers) had penned the script back in the late 1990s, but it was shelved after “Shakespeare in Love” came out in 1998. It was almost greenlit as "The Soul of the Age" for a 2005 release, with a budget of $30 to $35 million. However, the financing proved to be "a risky undertaking."

# Emmerich who has actually had the project for 8 years stated that It's very hard to get a movie like this made, and he want to make it in a certain way.

# Emmerich noted that the success of his more commercial films made this one possible and that he got the cast he wanted without the pressure to come up with at least two A-list American actors and being able to film the script without studio interference.

# The first major full-length motion picture to be shot with the Arri ALEXA high-definition digital-video camera. However, Disney's 2011 film “Prom” made it to theaters first. Alexa platform have a 35mm-size 3.5k pixel sensor with 800ASA sensitivity, onboard HD recording, and shooting speeds up to 60fps, and some people in the industry are calling it the final nail in film cinematography’s coffin.

# Rafe Spall's father Timothy Spall appeared in “Hamlet” and “Love's Labour's Lost”, two movies adapted from Shakespeare’s plays.

# Elizabethan London was recreated for the film with more than 70 painstakingly hand-built sets at Studio Babelsberg. These include a full-scale replica of London’s imposing The Rose theatre. The remainder of the Elizabethan setting was created and enhanced via CGI.

# In response to news that the film was in production, James Shapiro, Columbia University English professor and author of “Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?”, wrote an April 11, 2010 op-ed article in the Los Angeles Times titled "Alas, Poor Shakespeare." He acknowledged recent popular support for Oxfordian theory, including three Supreme Court Justices quoted in a 2009 Wall Street Journal article. Shapiro said that 25 years ago, support for Oxfordian theory was not strong, and that in a celebrated moot court in 1987, Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens, Harry Blackmun and William Brennan had "ruled unanimously in favor of Shakespeare and against the Earl of Oxford." Shapiro asserted that "Emmerich's film is one more sign that conspiracy theories about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays have gone mainstream," and also against “Anonymous” in an April 2010 Wall Street Journal interview.Mark your calendar on:

Sept 15, 2011: Portugal

Oct 21: Finland, Norway

Oct 28: Canada, Ireland, UK, USA

Nov 03: Germany

Nov 11: Spain

Nov 16: France

Nov 17: Russia, Singapore

Dec 01: Netherlands

Dec 02: India, Mexico

Dec 16: Sweden

Feb 02, 2012: Hong Kong, Hungary

Sources: Wikipedia, IMDB – Photos courtesy of Columbia Pictures