The ‘Fargo’ TV Series Positions the Coen Brothers As Modern Day Shakespeares in Love With Themselves
It may not be the best movie of 1998, as its Best Picture honor claims it to be, but Shakespeare in Love is a delight for any drama nerd with a boner for the Bard. Hardly acceptable as a true account of the inspiration for and writing of “Romeo and Juliet,” John Madden’s film is really just a celebration of the work of William Shakespeare by being a pastiche of themes, tropes and lines from his plays. Another proper title for the movie would be “Mark Norman (and Tom Stoppard) in Love With Shakespeare.” In their script are direct reverential references — some of them nods of foreshadowing for things later to be written, others familiar devices employed as general homage — to “Hamlet,” “Twelfth Night,” “The Merchant of Venice” and more. Some of it is kind of silly if you find that sort of celebratory amalgamation and obvious, literal allusion to be a cheap reduction of an artist...
- 4/16/2014
- by Christopher Campbell
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
"Originally, Michael Douglas was supposed to star in [the movie]. And he walked away. At that point I was left there with my then-wife, Geena Davis and myself, and a company that was already belly-up. We begged to be let go. We begged that we didn't have to make this movie." In fact, the couple was so frightened that they sunk their own money into a last-ditch script rewrite. "We felt that a pirate movie with a female lead was suicidal, but we were contractually obligated. [...] I personally spent a million dollars of my own money, I hired Mark Norman, who had won an Oscar for writing Shakespeare in Love." Even so, Cutthroat Island turned out to be one of the biggest box office disasters of all time and sunk Carolco production company. Lesson learned! [Kcrw via SlashFilm]...
- 9/14/2011
- Movieline
Hollywood loves stories of failure almost more than it loves success. The tales of flops such as Heaven's Gate, Ishtar and The Bonfire of the Vanities have spawned endless conversations, magazine articles and no few books. But the story of a flop is often distilled down into over-simplified factoids and circumstances. In the broad public view, all most people tend to know is that a movie was over-ambitious or poorly conceived, and that it tanked, possibly taking companies and careers with it. One of the legendary flops is Renny Harlin's Cutthroat Island, a 1995 pirate film that starred his then-wife Geena Davis and actor Matthew Modine. The film cost almost a hundred million to make, and raked in only about one-tenth that amount. Stories have flown that the movie's failure was responsible for the demise of production company Carolco. That company previously made Basic Instinct, Cliffhanger, Terminator 2, and other successful films,...
- 9/14/2011
- by Russ Fischer
- Slash Film
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