Anonymous

(http://www.poptower.com)

Rating:

40%

Format:

DVD

Year:

2011

Predominant Genre:

Fantasy

Plot:

Shakespeare’s plays were written by somebody else - with the same name.

Theme:

Social snobbery

Similar Titles:

Unknown

Best Performance:

Rhys IFANS

Caucasian Snobbery

The usual socially-snobbish rubbish about the apparent mystery of Shakespeare’s identity.

The English upper class - who pretend to revere the man - cannot bear to face the fact that someone not of their class could possibly be a genius. This upper-class do not have a history of producing geniuses and so here is there chance to appropriate a tradesman as one of their own, in the hope that this will confirm their belief that genes determine character.

As with Amadeus, we are presented with the all-too-obvious resentment of mediocre men who can only imagine an historical puzzle, when the real problem is their own inability to match the greatness they never see in themselves.

The ostensible solution to this non-existent problem is to pretend that a nobleman pretended to be a playwright without any good reason being given for the subterfuge. Few other great writers have felt the need to do this.

The other ploy is to suggest that because the historical evidence for the existence of Shakespeare is scant, that this, in itself, is proof of pseudonymousness; while never really considering why anyone would have such left little evidence for their ever having existed. By eliding such matters, we appear to have a real mystery, but this is only so because so much has been left out and because there is no admission that the story we are being told is a modern-day guess at why such a famous writer should be so essentially unknown - ably-supported by a profound ignorance of Elizabethan life. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - so what the screenwriter does not know, he speculates upon.

This playing fast and loose with historical facts, of course, is to play the non-objective, politically-correct game of pretending that only the attitudes of today should form the basis of any appreciation of the past. Historians know better that this leads not to an understanding of the past, but of the present: Not so much value-free history as political propaganda. This attitude contradicts that espoused by guilt-ridden White historians who claim Atlantic slave trade, for example, is to be judged by the standards of the time, not those of the present: Not so much political propaganda as value-laden history. The truth is that history is studied precisely for what it can tell us about the present, as well as about the past, if only to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past - so both views lead to a lack of historical accuracy and factual comprehensiveness.

Well-acted fun, but this really is historical nonsense; making it somewhat dramatically unconvincing. A tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.

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Copyright © 2013 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.