The Oscars are this weekend, which means this column will no longer have to be dedicated to Oscar-winning and nominated films...at least until the next awards season begins. For this last column, I take a look at one of the Academy’s most controversial decisions in recent memory: awarding the 1998 Best Picture to John Madden’s Shakespeare In Love. The film beat three World War II-set films (Life is Beautiful, The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan) and another Elizabethan England-set film (Elizabeth). Thanks to the late push by the Weinstein brothers’ Miramax during the awards season that year, Shakespeare in Love overcame them all, beating the favorite, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan.
Shakespeare in Love tells an extremely fictionalized tale of how William Shakespeare, played by Joseph Fiennes, came to find inspiration in his affair with Lady Viola, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, and writes Romeo and Juliet. Of course, Shakespeare has to overcome money problems and the fact that Viola is betrothed to marry Lord Wessex (Colin Firth). Pressure comes in from everywhere, as Shakespeare tries to complete Romeo & Juliet, which goes from a comedy about a man stranded on an island with pirates to one of the great romantic tragedies of English literature.
Let’s ignore the fact, if we can, that Shakespeare in Love won any Oscars. The film is fun from start to finish, filled with the right amount of humor and romance thanks to Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard’s fantastic and witty script. There are adequate performances galore. Paltrow lights up every scene she’s in, while Fiennes is able to tread the difficult line between drama and comedy quite often, even if I felt like I was having a staring contest with him during every close-up. Geoffrey Rush has a hilarious supporting role as businessman Philip Henslowe, while Ben Affleck actually has a couple of nice scenes as the ego-centric actor Ned Alleyn. There are also some nice performances from Colin Firth and Judi Dench.
Unfortunately, as enjoyable as Shakespeare in Love is, the actual film will always be weighed down by the undeserving accolades it was showered with. This is not Best Picture material. Sure, there are other, horrible films that won the award (going all the way back to the god-awful Western Cimarron) and Shakespeare is actually better than most of those, but is this really better in any way than Saving Private Ryan? It’s simply not.
That’s not the only award it won that it didn’t deserve. Best Actress winner Paltrow is good in this, but she never has a moment where she really impresses. Supporting Actor winner, the great Judi Dench hardly has any screen time as Queen Elizabeth, but at least she is memorable in her scenes. However, I will say that Stoppard and Norman wrote a fantastic script and the overall look of the film means that wins for art direction and costume design were deserved.
Shakespeare in Love is an enjoyable film, but that’s about it. It’s fun and light entertainment for its two-hour run-time. Of course, the problem with it is it won Best Picture and it just can’t live up to that title, not when it competed with The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan. If you forget that it won, Shakespeare in Love reveals itself to be a unique experience that is worth enjoying as one of the few period films that actually reminds us that people in the 16th century had to have fun, too.
Shakespeare in Love managed to win seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Actress (Paltrow), Supporting Actress (Dench), Art Direction - Set Direction, Costume Design, Music - Comedy/Musical and Original Screenplay. It was nominated for another six, including Supporting Actor (Rush), Cinematography, Director, Editing, Makeup and Sound.
Other Best Picture winners I’ve written about in this column include : Gigi, The King’s Speech, American Beauty and West Side Story.