Skip to main content

German press responds to Emmerich's Anonymous

Hanno Wember of the Shake-speare Today website reports from Germany that major media in Germany has responded to Roland Emmerich's Shakespeare authorship film, Anonymous:
Film release was Thursday [in Germany]. All major German (Austrian / Swiss) newspapers, magazines, many broadcast and TV-stations and an uncounted number of smaller media respond to the film [Anonymous]. Among them Frankfurter Allgemeine, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau, Die Welt, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Financial Times Deutschland, Berliner Zeitung, Berliner Morgenpost, Der Tagespiegel, Salzburger Nachrichten, Wiener Zeitung, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, Focus, Stern, SWr, NDr, RTL . . . -- many with full-page articles, some even twice or thrice this week. During the last week we have posted 30 links on our webpage, but this is only one third or even less of the full number: http://shake-speare-today.de/index.57.0.1.htmlThe vast majority welcomed the film, taking the authorship question seriously, only few remained critical, and very few hostile. “Der Tagespiegel” offered the headline “Fakespeare lebt” (Fakespeare lives) and “BILD”, the most popular tabloid newspaper in Germany [wrote]: Ein Historien-Thriller entrƤtselt das grĆ¶ĆŸte Geheimnis der Welt-Literatur" (A historical thriller unraveling the greatest mystery of the world literature). http://www.bild.de/unterhaltung/kino/roland-emmerich/bild-bei-den-dreharbeiten-20784512.bild.html
Wember added that an interesting interview with Vanessa Redgrave appeared in the Frankfurter Rundschau titled “Du must groƟe Fehler machen” (You must make great mistakes.) at http://www.fr-online.de/leute/schauspielerin-vanessa-redgrave--du-musst-grosse-fehler-machen-,9548600,11136716.html. Here is a short quote translation from Wember:
Q: You have played many great Shakespearean roles. Does it not bother you if in a film like "Anonymous" his authorship is in question?
V.R: I find this question fascinating. Even before I learned that another person might have written these plays, I was irritated by some points in the biography of Shakespeare….
Q: You can follow this theory, then?V.R: I have not read all studies on the subject. But I have to say that the professors who insist on the authorship of William Shakespeare, are very narrow minded. And I like now even unbiased, open-minded people. A film like "Anonymous" opens up all sorts of ideas, and he also deepens our love for these pieces. So I find it very exiting…. (emphasis mine, HW.)
 Editor's note: Click on the "ENGLISH" tab on the Shake-speare Today website for a generic translation of the page. 

Popular posts from this blog

What's a popp'rin' pear?

James Wheaton reported yesterday in the Jackson Citizen Patriot that the Michigan Shakespeare Festival high school tour of Romeo and Juliet was criticized for inappropriate content -- " So me take issue with sexual innuendoes in Michigan Shakespeare Festival’s High School Tour performances of ‘Romeo & Juliet’" : Western [High School] parent Rosie Crowley said she was upset when she heard students laughing about sexual content in the play afterwards. Her son didn’t attend the performance Tuesday because of another commitment, she said.  “I think the theater company should have left out any references that were rated R,” Crowley said. “I would say that I’ve read Shakespeare, and what I was told from the students, I’ve never read anything that bad.”  She said she objected to scenes that involved pelvic thrusting and breast touching and to a line in which Mercutio makes suggestive comments to Romeo after looking up the skirt of a female. The problem with cutting out...

Winkler lights the match

by Linda Theil When asked by an interviewer why all the experts disagree with her on the legitimacy of the Shakespeare authorship question, journalist and author Elizabeth Winkler  calmly replied, "You've asked the wrong experts." * With that simple declaration Winkler exploded the topic of Shakespearean authorship forever. Anti-Stratfordians need no smoking gun, no convincing narrative, no reason who, how, when, or why because within the works lies the unassailable argument: Shakespeare's knowledge. Ask the lawyers. Ask the psychologists. Ask the librarians. Ask the historians. Ask the dramaturges. Ask the mathematicians. Ask the Greek scholars. Ask the physicists. Ask the astronomers. Ask the courtiers. Ask the bibliophiles. Ask the Italians. Ask the French. Ask the Russians. Ask the English. Ask everyone. Current academic agreement on a bevy of Shakespearean collaborators springs from an unspoken awareness of how much assistance the Stratfordian presumptive would h...

Dudley nails it to the door

Michael Dudley author of The Shakespeare Authorship Question and Philosphy: Knowledge, Rhetoric, Identity (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023) Michael Dudley views his vocation of librarian at the University of Manitoba with dialectic rigor. "Librarianship has a duty to inform democracy," he said in Kathryn Sharpe's virtual bookclub on April 27, 2024. Dudley discussed his new book The Shakespeare Authorship Question and Philosophy: Knowledge, Rhetoric, Identity published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing last fall. Update 08/21/24 Dudley's book is also available as an ebook from   Google Play . In SAQ and Philosophy Dudley uses the hammer of logic to nail his accusations against the barricaded door of the Shakespeare citadel. "The question of Shakespeare's authorship is a malformed debate practiced in an unethical fashion," Dudley said. When asked why his book is important, Dudley said: "What sets my book apart from others on the authorship quest...