Not really. My grade school never had us read it and I’ve never picked it up at a bookstore. All I know is that it inspired the lion king.
Hamlet is at least fun to perform. We start Macbeth next month and it is such a chore. The Hamlet-Hamnet bit is funny but why did Shakespeare have to name one character Macbeth and then have another named Macduff?
The deepest my high school English classes got to Shakespeare was showing us the Leo and Claire Danes movie.
I liked this way more than i thought i would. Jessie has to have the oscar locked up. She was fantastic.
I thought this was going to be one of those long slog Oscar bait period films, but this went by pretty quick. Pretty snappy pacing. I like that they don't utter the word "Shakespeare" until the final act. Like imagine someone going into this blind not knowing anything about English literature to pick up context clues from, and then being like "oh shit this is a Shakespeare movie??" once the London part starts lol
That’s exactly how it was for me watching this lol. I knew something about Shakespeare was related to the film from reviews, but I didn’t know Paul’s character was supposed to be William until his name was said at the end of the film.
The scene with Shakespeare contemplating suicide and quoting his most famous line was so embarrassing. There are a couple moments that feel like the old Zhao breaking through, especially the Macbeth scene, but this is the kind of Oscarbait that belonged in the Weinstein years.
Don’t know how to explain it other than Shakespeare just feels like an oscarbaity subject. Unless you do something like Romeo + Juliet it’s going to feel that way to me.
You don't need to do scenes like the ledge one. You don't need to have scenes with Agnes parting the audience for her closeup. You don't need to make your title character into a vessel for plot. There is very little known history about Shakespeare's family so there is plenty of room to make any type of movie you want. However, everyone knows that austere seriousness and English period dramas are catnip for awards and that is how we get here.