Shakespeare in Love

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Movie
German title Shakespeare in Love
Original title Shakespeare in Love
Country of production USA , UK
original language English
Publishing year 1998
length 123 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director John Madden
script Marc Norman ,
Tom Stoppard
production Harvey Weinstein ,
Donna Gigliotti ,
Edward Zwick ,
Marc Norman,
David Parfitt
music Stephen Warbeck
camera Richard Greatrex
cut David Gamble
occupation
synchronization

Shakespeare in Love is an American - British romance film directed by John Madden in 1998. It tells a fictional love story between William Shakespeare and a young noblewoman who inspired the English playwright to write his famous tragedy Romeo and Juliet . Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow can be seen in the leading roles . The film received very positive reviews and was the world's 9th highest-grossing film of the year at box office revenues of more than $ 289 million. In addition to numerous other prizes, it was awarded seven Oscars , including in the categories of Best Film , Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress . A play based on the script was first performed in London in 2014 .

action

London 1593: Philip Henslowe , owner of the Rose Theater , owes the money lender Hugh Fennyman. To pay them off, he wants to bring a new play by William Shakespeare to the stage: Romeo and Ethel, the pirate's daughter . Shakespeare, a young playwright, however, has neither the money nor the inspiration to write the comedy play that he has promised, along with Henslowe's rival Richard Burbage , the owner of the Curtain Theater . He hopes to find a new muse in Rosaline, the lover of Burbage, and thus end his writer's block, but is soon disappointed when he finds her in bed with the court censor Edmund Tilney . From Christopher Marlowe , his famous competitor, he finally received initial advice on how his piece could begin.

While auditioning for the role of Romeo, Shakespeare notices a young actor named Thomas Kent. Shakespeare, enthusiastic about his talent, wants to take a closer look at him, but he takes refuge across the Thames into a noble mansion. When there is a party there that evening, Shakespeare sneaks in and falls in love at first sight with Viola De Lesseps, the daughter of the house. However, Viola is supposed to marry Lord Wessex, to whom a high dowry beckons by marriage. When Shakespeare dances intimately with Viola, Wessex takes him aside and threatens to make it clear to him that Viola is his and that Shakespeare should keep his hands off her. When asked by Wessex for his name, Shakespeare mentions the first one that comes to mind: Christopher Marlowe.

Inspired by his love for viola, Shakespeare made rapid progress with his work on the new piece and the first rehearsals began. Thomas Kent gets the role of Romeo; the young, feminine-looking actor Sam that of his lover. After his arrival with the Admiral's Men , the very convinced actor Ned Alleyn, in turn, agrees to play the role of Mercutio, which, as Shakespeare makes him believe, is the title-giving main role. When Shakespeare accompanies Viola, disguised as Thomas, home on a boat and she kisses him, he finally learns that Thomas Kent and Viola are one and the same person. They spend the following night together and from then on meet regularly, with Viola's wet nurse covering them.

At a festivity at Queen Elizabeth's court , Wessex receives her permission to marry Viola. However, the Queen prophesies that one day he will lose his wife to the theater and may then look for her there. From the audience, Shakespeare, posing as Viola's chaperone, suggests a stake of 50 pounds on a bet that the true essence of love can be portrayed in a play. Elizabeth declares herself a competition judge and Wessex is forced to take the bet.

When Viola learns while partying with the theater company that Shakespeare is already married in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon , she flees in horror. The next morning, on the way to the service, Lord Wessex reports to Viola with satisfaction that the actor whom he believed to be her lover had been stabbed to death in a tavern. Believing that Shakespeare is dead, Viola is overjoyed when she sees him again in the church unharmed. Not Shakespeare but Christopher Marlowe had been killed. In the assumption that Wessex had Marlowe murdered out of jealousy because of his false statements, Shakespeare is plagued by violent feelings of guilt. Only later does he learn that Marlowe's death resulted from a dispute over the colliery in an inn.

When it turns out that Thomas Kent is really a woman, the court censor Tilney closes the Rose Theater - women are prohibited from being on stage because of chastening. Henslowe's competitor Burbage then offers to perform the play in his theater in order to defend the city's acting industry against this act of authority. After her marriage to Wessex, Viola learns that the play, which is now called Romeo and Juliet and no longer ends comically, but tragically, should now be played with Shakespeare as Romeo. Shortly before the piece begins, the young Sam breaks his voice and can no longer portray the role of Julia in a credible way. Viola, who has fled her husband to attend the premiere, jumps in for Sam without further ado. Shakespeare, depressed and forced to play his part in anticipation of defeat, discovers Viola. Both now play their roles so devotedly that the audience is moved and applauded violently at the end.

Since Viola appeared on stage again, the court censor wants to arrest all theater people. Queen Elizabeth, who secretly attended the play, steps in and says she sees a young man in Julia, whose disguise is deceptively real, as it cannot be possible that the Queen would have attended a prohibited performance. She also decides the previously entered bet in favor of Shakespeare and instructs the supposed Thomas Kent to put the money in the right hands. Since even she could not break the connection before God, Viola should follow her rightful husband, Lord Wessex, as planned after the wedding, on his plantations in Virginia . The Queen also tells Shakespeare that he should write a comedy next - according to the motto "what you want". Viola, who will soon be on her way to America, says goodbye to Shakespeare, who wants to give up writing about her loss. When they share ideas about the possible plot of the comedy, Viola manages to talk him out of his decision. While Shakespeare is finally writing his new play What You Want , a ship goes down off the coast of America - in line with his verses. Viola, who was on board, is the only one who escapes to shore.

background

production

Rewrote the original script: Playwright Tom Stoppard (2007)

The American screenwriter Marc Norman got the idea for the film from his son when he was attending a theater course at Boston University in the late 1980s . Together with director Edward Zwick , Norman managed to sell the concept of the film to Universal Pictures . When in 1991 a first, but not yet satisfactory, script by Norman was available, the film studio turned to the British playwright and Shakespeare connoisseur Tom Stoppard , who should give the script the necessary polish. In the course of the revision of the original script by Stoppard, who incorporated numerous Shakespeare quotes and references to his contemporaries, the story, originally designed as a melodrama, became a comedy.

Then Edward Zwick tried for several years to make a film version of the material. Julia Roberts was originally supposed to take on the female lead and start production in 1992. For the role of the young William Shakespeare, Roberts desperately wanted Daniel Day-Lewis . However, when she failed to convince Day-Lewis of the role, the project was canceled prematurely. For a long time, Zwick couldn't find a production company willing to finance his project and willing to pay Universal Pictures $ 4.5 million for the investments that had already been made.

When the New York- based production company Miramax finally showed interest in the project, Roberts was otherwise bound and Zwick was busy directing another film. Shakespeare in Love was directed by John Madden, who had previously directed the drama Her Majesty Mrs. Brown (1997) with Judi Dench as Queen Victoria . The young actor Joseph Fiennes was hired for the role of Shakespeare, while Gwyneth Paltrow, who was under contract with Miramax at the time, received the role of viola. Edward Zwick ultimately appeared alongside Marc Norman as one of five producers.

Filming

Broughton Castle, in the film the de Lesseps house

Filming took place from March 2 to June 10, 1998. Many recordings were made in London. The theater production of Two Gentlemen from Verona at the court of Queen Elizabeth I in the Palace of Whitehall , which was destroyed in a major fire in 1698 , was staged in the great hall of Middle Temple in London. The river scenes were filmed along the Thames in the London borough of Barnes and in front of Marble Hill House in Richmond upon Thames . In the monastery church of St Bartholomew-the-Great in the London borough of Smithfield, the scenes were created in which Shakespeare asks for forgiveness after the death of Christopher Marlowe and Wessex later considers him to be a ghost. Other locations in London were Spitalfields and Whitehall in Westminster .

Contrary to popular belief, there is no setting for the film: the Globe Theater, reconstructed in the 1990s

Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire served as the stately home of the de Lesseps family . The scene in which Shakespeare meets Viola while dancing was created in the great hall there. The scene in which Lord Wessex tells Viola that he will marry her was filmed in another room of the manor house. For the exterior shots of Viola's bedroom, a wooden balcony was attached to the garden side of Broughton Castle. Hatfield House in Hertfordshire was used as a backdrop for the fireworks and festivities in Greenwich , where Viola meets the Queen and Shakespeare poses as her chaperone . The exterior shots of the church after Viola's wedding to Wessex were made in the courtyard of Eton College in Berkshire . The last scene showing Viola on the American coast was shot on the beach belonging to the Holkham Hall estate on the north Norfolk coast. Further recordings were made at Shepperton Studios .

The Rose Theater shown in the film , which had been built in 1587 and performed Shakespeare's first plays, was contrary to popular belief not the Globe Theater, which reopened in 1997 after a reconstruction . It was studio sets that were built especially for the film. After the shooting they were transferred to Judi Dench, who donated them to a theater company. The plans to turn it into a real theater, however, could not be realized. The Curtain Theater seen in the film was also a studio building.

Historical reference

Besides William Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth, there were also some of the supporting characters, such as Philip Henslowe , Ned Alleyn , Edmund Tilney , Richard Burbage , Will Kempe , John Webster , Christopher Marlowe and the Admiral's Men , in fact, as well as the two theaters featured in the film ( Rose Theater and Curtain Theater ), the London plague outbreak (1592–1594) and the ban on women playing on stage, which is why all female roles were played by men at the time.

The plot of the film, however, is purely fictional and allows itself several artistic freedoms in relation to its characters and historically transmitted facts. In the film, for example, tobacco plantations in the Virginia colony are mentioned before they even existed. The house of Wessex , to which Lord Wessex, played by Colin Firth in Shakespeare in Love, belongs, was already extinct in the 12th century. In fact, Queen Elizabeth never actually entered a public theater. The greatest deviation from historical tradition, however, was that Shakespeare did not actually invent the plot of Romeo and Juliet (1594) himself, but merely adapted it for the theater. It is based on Arthur Brooke's verse book The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Iuliet from 1562, which in turn is based on the material of Italian models.

reception

Publication and aftermath

The world premiere of Shakespeare in Love took place on December 3, 1998 in New York . From December 11, 1998, the love comedy was initially shown in selected cinemas in the USA before it went into general US distribution on January 8, 1999. In Germany, the film was shown for the first time on February 14, 1999 at the Berlinale , where it took part in the competition for the Golden Bear and Tom Stoppard received the Silver Bear for the script . The film was released in German cinemas on March 4, 1999; a day later it was shown in Swiss cinemas. On March 12, 1999 it was published in Austria. While it received an R-Rating from the MPAA in the USA and thus an approval from the age of 17, in Germany it was approved from the age of six.

The reviews of the film were extremely positive. The humorous script and the two main actors were particularly praised. The film also received numerous awards. In the Best Picture category, he won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA . With a total of 13 nominations, he was awarded seven Oscars, trumping the war film Saving Private Ryan by Steven Spielberg , which was one of the top favorites at the awards ceremony . Gwyneth Paltrow won the Best Actress category against Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep , among others . Judi Dench received an award in the Best Supporting Actress category for her eight-minute appearance as Queen Elizabeth . Since Cate Blanchett had also received an Oscar nomination for the role of the English monarch in the period drama Elizabeth , 1998 was the only year in which two actresses were nominated for the same role in two different films.

Shakespeare in Love grossed around $ 100.3 million in the United States. The global grossing of the film, which was budgeted for $ 25 million, was $ 289.3 million. In Germany, the film attracted 3.3 million visitors to cinemas and grossed 19.3 million euros.

The British Film Institute chose Shakespeare in Love in 1999 at number 49 of the 100 best British films of the 20th century . In the list of the 100 best American love films of all time compiled by the American Film Institute , the film took 50th place. The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) in Wiesbaden awarded it the title “Particularly valuable” and stated in its reasoning: “ The film masterfully combines the art of English folk theater in the 16th century with a fictional biography of the poet Shakespeare. [...] The brilliant script is implemented in a brilliant way. In a drastically colorful and humorous manner, the film tells of great emotions, which it exaggerates sentimentally theatrically as a game in a game. The excellent actors bring the characters to life with powerful, ravishing energy. "

In the year it was first published, Miramax Books / Hyperion published an accompanying book of the same name, in which texts from dramas, songs and sonnets, images from the film and a short biography of Shakespeare were published. The German translation with the subtitle The love poetry of William Shakespeare was published by Goldmann in 1999 . In September 1999 the film was released on DVD in Germany . In 2010 the release on Blu-ray followed .

A play of the same name premiered on July 23, 2014 at the Noël Coward Theater in London's West End . Lee Hall was responsible for the stage adaptation of the script written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard . In Germany, the play was first performed on July 20, 2018 at the Bad Hersfeld Festival . Directed by Antoine Uitdehaag played Dennis Herrmann and Natalya Joselewitsch the leading roles. Brigitte Grothum , Martin Semmelrogge and Robert Joseph Bartl also appeared in other roles .

Reviews

The lexicon of international film saw Shakespeare in Love as a "[e] benso fast-paced and witty romantic comedy". The great actors, "a congenial script" and John Madden's "determined" direction made the film "a brilliant cinematic fireworks display that can be read as a tongue-in-cheek satire on the film industry, but also as an intelligent reflection on the reality of fictions". The film magazine Cinema described Shakespeare in Love as "one of the most beautiful love comedies". Under John Madden's direction, "the sparks between [...] Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes would just sparkle". How much the course of the love story is reflected in Romeo and Juliet is "the most beautiful gag in this gorgeous, historically fictitious film" that not even Shakespeare could have staged better. The film is summed up as "[s] o beautiful as a kiss in love".

Susanne Weingarten from Spiegel found that the film made use of Shakespeare's works so “skillfully” that its course and characters would “not shame the English playwright” personally. Weingarten attested the film a “hearty joke” that “hits the spirit of Elizabethan theater”, which at the time had to come up with “show value, glamor, sex appeal and spectacle” in order to inspire the general public in London. This is exactly what the film implemented "in a contemporary way" on the screen. For Ruprecht Skasa-Weiß from the Stuttgarter Zeitung , the film was “a cinematic piece of splendid wit” and as such was both “good food for the big gawkers” and “great fun [...] for intimate connoisseurs, for scholars”. Above all, Skasa-Weiß praised Tom Stoppard's involvement in the script, which in his love story offers “yesterday and today, life and work, poetry and half-truth ingeniously intertwined” and “a fine, epoch-consciously devised 'variant'” of Shakespeare's life that has not been handed down .

Anthony Quinn of the Independent stated that the film may not be historically correct, but that this is not important in relation to the little knowledge about Shakespeare's biography and that the makers of the film have "freed" the work. The film is particularly “bold” and “ingenious” when the love scenes between Shakespeare and Viola merge with the theater rehearsals of Romeo and Juliet . Quinn also pointed out clear parallels between the film and Hollywood , for example women are still excluded from good roles today, and also praised the cast of the American Ben Affleck as a self-centered star actor. However, it is Fiennes and Paltrow who could inspire the audience. Fiennes is said to have a "very poetic intensity and carefree athleticism". Paltrow in turn has "a seductive, if not erotic presence."

The Guardian's Jonathan Romney was n't particularly fond of Shakespeare in Love . Although the film with its insider jokes was made "exceptionally clever" for Shakespeare connoisseurs, in the end it was not a convincing comedy, but rather an "all-round mass-compatible costume drama". The two main actors could “at least” show a “considerable charm”. According to the Time Out Film Guide , Fiennes is "finally really convincing" as an actor. Paltrow and Affleck could assert themselves next to him, while the rest of the cast fit in "seamlessly". Tom Stoppard delivered a “witty, intelligent script” that was “very satisfactory” and “effortlessly” combined the film as a “comedy, imaginative film biography and Romeo and Juliet adaptation” with “his sense of clever word games” .

In the eyes of Lael Loewenstein from Variety , director John Madden succeeded with the film what Baz Luhrmann had already achieved with his Romeo and Juliet adaptation in young people: "To make Shakespeare accessible, entertaining and amusing for a modern audience" . The film is "the kind of artistic gem" that also appeals to a wide audience. The love story and its play with reversed gender roles would have been “neither possible nor believable” without “the passionate performances” of the two main actors. Paltrow is said to have "a luminosity that makes viola irresistible" and can also convince as Thomas Kent in disguise. Fiennes, on the other hand, gives his role “a lovable humanity and a romantic magic”, which, in addition to “his good looks”, makes him the ideal cast. The rest of the ensemble is simply "a dream". From a technical point of view, the film is "outstanding" in all respects.

For Janet Maslin of the New York Times , the film was "an intoxicatingly magical love story" in which Shakespeare's language and emotionality were "wittily" woven. Gwyneth Paltrow played the role of the viola "so breathtakingly" that it was "absolutely believable" as Shakespeare's source of inspiration for timeless love poems. The supporting actors are also "great", such as Colin Firth as the "perfect Mr. Wrong" and Judi Dench as the "astute, intimidating Elizabeth". The latter is next to the costumes of Sandy Powell "one of the greatest highlights of the film". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four stars and gave it a “modern-looking humor” that made it appear like a “competition” between the serious television series Masterpiece Theater and Mel Brooks . The plot is "ingeniously" in the style of Shakespeare.

Awards (selection)

Awarded the Oscar and Golden Globe: Gwyneth Paltrow (2000)
Multiple awards as a newcomer: Joseph Fiennes (2009)
Oscar and BAFTA winner Judi Dench (2007)
Also Oscar-winning: costume designer Sandy Powell (2011)
Oscar 1999

Won:

Nominated:

Golden Globe Awards 1999

Won:

Nominated:

British Academy Film Awards 1999

Won:

Nominated:

Berlin International Film Festival 1999
American Comedy Award
  • Nominated for Funniest Male Supporting Actor in a Feature Film (Ben Affleck)
Bodil
  • Nominated for Best American Film
Bohemian lion
  • Best foreign film
Boston Society of Film Critics
Chicago Film Critics Association
Chlotrudis Award
Critics' Choice Movie Award
David di Donatello
  • Nominated in the Best Foreign Film category
Directors Guild of America Award
  • Nominated for Best Feature Film Director (John Madden)
Empire Award
  • Best Actress (Gwyneth Paltrow)
Evening Standard British Film Award
Screen Actors Guild Award
Grammy Awards
Jupiter
  • Best Actress International (Gwyneth Paltrow)
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award
MTV Movie Awards
  • Best Film Kiss (Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow)
  • Nominated in the Best Film category
  • Nominated for Best Actress (Gwyneth Paltrow)
  • Nominated in the category Best Newcomer (Joseph Fiennes)
National Society of Film Critics Award
New York Film Critics Circle Award
Online Film Critics Society Award
Satellite Award
Teen Choice Award
  • Nominated in the Film - Choice Comedy category
  • Nominated in the category Film - Sexiest Love Scene (Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow)
Writers Guild of America Award
  • Best Original Screenplay (Marc Norman, Tom Stoppard)

German version

The German dubbed version was made at Interopa Film in Berlin . Theodor Dopheide wrote the dialogue book and Marianne Groß directed the dialogue .

role actor Voice actor
Viola De Lesseps Gwyneth Paltrow Katrin Fröhlich
William Shakespeare Joseph Fiennes Frank Schaff
Philip Henslowe Geoffrey Rush Lutz Mackensy
Lord Wessex Colin Firth Stefan Fredrich
Ned Alleyn Ben Affleck Johannes Berenz
Queen Elizabeth Judi Dench Gisela Fritsch
Edmund Tilney Simon Callow Jürgen Thormann
Ralph Bashford Jim Carter Engelbert von Nordhausen
Richard Burbage Martin Clunes Jürgen Kluckert
Dr. Moth Antony Sher Bodo Wolf
nurse Imelda Staunton Margot Rothweiler
Hugh Fennyman Tom Wilkinson Lutz Riedel
Wabash Mark Williams Stefan Gossler
Sam Gosse Daniel Brocklebank Gerrit Schmidt-Foss
Will Kempe Patrick Barlow Stefan Staudinger
John Webster Joe Roberts Robert Stadlober
Christopher Marlowe Rupert Everett Benjamin Völz
Rosaline Sandra Reinton Diana Borgwardt
Sir Robert de Lesseps Nicholas Le Prevost Rudiger Evers
Lady de Lesseps Jill Baker Marianne Gross
Preacher Makepeace Steven Beard Michael Narloch
Master Plum Robin Davies Eberhard Prüter

literature

  • Marc Norman, Tom Stoppard: Shakespeare in Love: The screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard (translated from English by Andreas Jäger). Goldmann, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-442-44529-9 (also contains the complete credits, original edition: Shakespeare in Love: A Screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard . Hyperion / Miramax Books, New York 1999).
  • Kenneth Sprague Rothwell: A History of Shakespeare on Screen. A Century of Film and Television . Cambridge University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-521-54311-8 , pp. 248-251.
  • Stephen M. Buhler: Shakespeare in the Cinema. Ocular Proof . Suny Press, 2002, ISBN 0-7914-5139-9 , pp. 180ff.
  • Love letter to the theater . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 1999, p. 278 ( online interview with director John Madden).
  • Marc Norman, Tom Stoppard: Shakespeare in Love. A screenplay. Edited by Barbara Puschmann-Nalenz. Reclam, Stuttgart 2000.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. boxofficemojo.com
  2. ↑ a b c Gary Dretzka: Avon Calling ( Memento from October 21, 2018 in the Internet Archive ). In: Chicago Tribune , December 23, 1998.
  3. ↑ a b cf. cinema.de
  4. ↑ a b c cf. movie-locations.com
  5. ^ Robert J. Williamson: Shakespeare's Rose Theater ( Memento of May 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) on shakespearesrose.org
  6. ↑ David Holmes: Chester's Rose Theater Bid Wilts on the Stem ( Memento of March 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). In: Chester Chronicle , August 12, 2010.
  7. ↑ Janet Maslin : Shakespeare Saw a Therapist? . In: The New York Times , December 11, 1998.
  8. ↑ cf. imdb.com
  9. ↑ cf. boxofficemojo.com
  10. ↑ cf. insidekino.com
  11. ↑ See Best 100 British Films - Full List on bbc.co.uk, 23 September 1999.
  12. ↑ cf. afi.com ( American Film Institute )
  13. ↑ cf. fbw-filmb Bewertung.com
  14. ↑ Nick Clark: Shakespeare in Love to Get West End Play . In: The Independent , November 13, 2013.
  15. ^ Michael Billington: Shakespeare in Love Review - A Heady Celebration of the Act of Theater . In: The Guardian , July 24, 2014.
  16. ^ German press agency: "Shakespeare in Love" premiered on the German stage . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 21, 2018.
  17. ↑ Shakespeare in Love. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 19, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  18. ^ Susanne Weingarten: Lousy in the head . In: Der Spiegel , No. 7, February 15, 1999, p. 198.
  19. ↑ Ruprecht Skasa-Weiß: Lust auf Klassik ( Memento from October 8, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ). In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , October 17, 2001.
  20. ↑ “[T] he film-makers seem to have been liberated by it. […] This is where Shakespeare in Love feels at its most daring, and most ingenious: […] here he offsets high poetic intensity with a careless athleticism […]. Paltrow […] is an alluring if not altogether erotic presence. " Anthony Quinn: The Big Picture: The Proud Tower of Genius . In: The Independent , January 28, 1999.
  21. ^ "It's a remarkably astute packaging exercise, with in-jokes for the literati [...]. [T] his is absolutely mainstream costume romance. [...] Fiennes and Paltrow at least play the glamor ticket with considerable charm. " Jonathan Romney: Comedy, love, and a bit with a dog . In: The Guardian , January 29, 1999.
  22. ↑ “Fiennes is at last truly convincing; Paltrow and Ben Affleck […] hold their own; and the rest of the ensemble gel seamlessly. […] It's Tom Stoppard's witty, intelligent script which proves so satisfying, effortlessly combining and recasting period comedy, creative biopic, Romeo and Juliet adaptation, and his own brand of clever pun and play. " Time Out Film Guide , cf. timeout.com
  23. ↑ “[H] e makes Shakespeare accessible, entertaining and fun for modern audiences. […] This lively period piece is the kind of arty gem with potentially broad appeal […]. None of this would be possible - let alone credible - were it not for the impassioned acting of Paltrow and Fiennes. Paltrow […] has a luminosity that makes Viola irresistible. [… Fiennes] endows Will Shakespeare with a likable humanity and romantic charm that, coupled with his good looks, make him ideally suited for the role. The supporting cast is a dream […]. On the technical front, all aspects are outstanding. " Lael Loewenstein: Shakespeare in Love . In: Variety , December 6, 1998.
  24. ↑ “[The film is] wittily weaving Shakespearean language and emotion into an intoxicatingly glamorous romance. Gwyneth Paltrow […] makes a heroine so breathtaking that she seems utterly plausible as the playwright's guiding light. [...] this boasts a splendid, hearty cast of supporting players. […] Colin Firth plays […] a perfect Mr. Wrong. [...] Judi Dench's shrewd, daunting Elizabeth is one of the film's utmost treats. " Janet Maslin: Shakespeare Saw a Therapist? . In: The New York Times , December 11, 1998.
  25. ↑ "The contemporary feel of the humor [...] makes the movie play like a contest between Masterpiece Theater and Mel Brooks. [...] The story is ingeniously Shakespearean. " Roger Ebert : Shakespeare in Love . In: Chicago Sun-Times , December 25, 1998.
  26. ↑ Shakespeare in Love. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on April 7, 2020 .