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    Categories: movies

Anonymous (2012)

Audio version

Was Shakespeare a fraud? A question that’s been asked for hundreds of years and Roland Emmerich decided to run some light on this legend via Anonymous – a movie starring Rhys Ifans.

I have recently decided that Anonymous director, Roland Emmerich is one of my favorite movie directors.

Independence Day is one of those movies I watch with the same interest each time it’s on tv. And I still feel some tension until the first misle hits the alien spaceship above the USA. Id made an impression to me as a kid that still holds on until this day.

2012The day after tomorrowGodzilla just to name a few of his other “masterpieces”. I like to compare his movies to wrestling: you know it’s fake but you really want to see how it will end.

The first exception from the list will be The Patriot. Or not. It’s more than funny that a German born director is responsible for a patriotic movie about the United States of America.

And, to me, more funny is that it’s starring Mel Gibson as the main character, an Australian born actor, witch five years before The Patriot, directed and had the leading role (I think he won himself a few Oscars for that one) in Braveheart, a film based on the life of William Wallace, a Scottish national hero.

The second I will count to be is the Anonymous movie.

It’s based on a legend (witch first I hear from my Slovenian English teacher from high-school), a legend that says William Shakespeare isn’t the author of the plays witch the name is known for, but it’s more than a fictional character.

That more than one author used to sign for their plays. As always, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Shakespeare is loved all over the world for his plays and his probably more popular than ever today.

Some non-English speaking nations had the opportunity to read Shakespeare with very good translation, more adapted to the present day language (East-Europe), as opposed to the English natives, who are reading/studying him in the old English language that was used in his time.

My first surprise was the main character, Sir Earl of Oxford, played by the wales born actor Rhys Ifans (I’m not sure how that’s pronounced).

First seen the guy in Notting Hill (starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts) back in 1999. He was the house-mate witch lived with Grant’s character, a more than eccentric appearance. He did some other roles based on the same type of character.

But, in Anonymous, he definitely proved himself as a great actor, a person who could do just about any role that is out there (sometimes you go on with a character tag all your life until you got a chance like he had on this one). A remarkable role.

As the movie goes on, you’ll find a present-day resemblance with the medieval times the movie is set on, with the same politics and plots witch runs the deciding minority.

There’s a scene that I remembered recently from a LinkedIn post that I’m having trouble finding (LinkedIn should do better in giving you the option to see what your activity was in the previous months).

The post was about public manipulation via Social Media, or, the modern day theater plays. You already know I don’t like to talk about scenes in the movies but for this, I need to give a spoiler alert first.

On a play premier night, when the social situation was already unstable, Shakespeare made the characters resembling real-life persons and strategically planted people in the audience that, at a trigger moment, they would shout and incite the mob. Public manipulation 101.

A story about a man’s passion, about a man’s obsessions, about a man who is possessed by voices that would not go away until their message was written down.

A story about a man, despite all the troubles he encountered, had putt he’s devotion to the Art above all: belief, family, social status, and money. He put his work above all.

It didn’t matter he would remain Anonymously.

Em: Digital Marketing Consultant from Toronto and Blockchain Enthusiast. https://about.me/emanuelp986/
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