"Anonymous", the film.
Questioning Shakespeare´s authorship. Was Shakespeare a fraud?
Anonymous is a political thriller and historical drama which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2011. Directed by Roland Emmerich and written by John Orloff, the movie is a fictionalized version of the life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, poet and patron of the arts.
Set within the political atmosphere of the Elizabethan court, the film presents Lord Oxford as the true author of Shakespeare’s plays, and dramatizes events leading to the succession of Queen Elizabeth and the Essex Rebellion against her. De Vere is depicted as a literary prodigy and the Queen's sometime lover, with whom he sires a son, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. De Vere eventually sees his suppressed plays performed through a frontman ( Shakespeare ), using his production of Richard III to support a rebellion led by his son and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.The insurrection fails, and as a condition for sparing the life of their son, the Queen declares that de Vere will never be known as the author of his plays and poems.
Critical comment about the film has been mixed, praising its performances and visual achievements, but criticizing the film's time-jumping format, and the filmmaker's promotion of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship.
"Anonymous" official trailer
Extension links
