Word: stoppard
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...chase for audience approval and Oscar nods, screenwriters Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard could not have custom tailored "Shakespeare in Love" any better. Gwyneth Paltrow bares her breasts, audiences can test their recognition of the Shakespearean quotes interspersed in the dialogue, the most acclaimed playwright and poet is known by the affectionately simple title "Will," and the bond between two beautiful lovers is yet again tragically severed. What is there not to love? Oh, and one more thing: the screenwriters took the liberty of redirecting a bit of William Shakespeare's prose to alter his sexual orientation. But in Hollywood...
...Norman and Stoppard yearned to make a movie about homosexuality, here would have been an opportunity to show that the man capable of creating the "greatest love story of all time" would have pursued not Juliet, but fair Romeo. But this plot would not have rewarded the screenwriters with adoring audiences, and certainly not with 13 Oscar nominations...
...that Academy Award glean in their eye must create films to which the majority of American audiences can relate. And more Americans can relate to Shakespeare's pursuit of Viola de Lesseps rather than perhaps the pursuit of Christopher Marlow, Shakespeare's authentic friend and literary rival. Norman and Stoppard wrote the movie with the intention that audience members would either trudge out of the theater longing for some Romeo to climb through their bedroom window at night, or with patrons holding on a bit tighter to the Romeo they had already won over. Had the plot focused...
...title character searching for a muse to stir up his creative juices. Paltrow is just the ticket as she employs the ol' Victor/Victoria trick to gender bend her way onto the stage and into Fiennes' heart. The adultery angle doesn't really do it for me, but Tom Stoppard, the screenwriter, deftly weaves Shakespeare's elegant language with his own poetic words. If the Scarlet Letter duo don't affect you, at least the verbal swordplay will keep you interested till...
...Stoppard has won most awards out there, and he was knighted in 1997; but he is worried that his work is like "building sand castles"--with Shakespearean immortality far from guaranteed. "I'm thinking of the tide coming in and sweeping it all away," he admits. "History is stiff with writers who have been praised in terms exceeding anything my generation has received, and you think, 'Well, where are they now?' It's a chastening thought." But not one, fortunately, that keeps him from his desk for long...