In Search of Shakespeare
|
List Price: Our Price: $21.11 You Save: $13.88 (40%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $19.97 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of In Search of Shakespeare
Movie Review: The BARD: Who Was He???
Summary: 5 Stars
+++++
"What a piece of work is man!
How noble in reason!
How infinite in faculties!
In form and moving, how express and admirable!
In action, how like an angel!
In apprehension, how like a god!
The beauty of the world!
The paragon of animals!"
The man this program is in search for is the one who wrote the above beautiful words and, as well, wrote many verses and words like it. His name: William Shakespeare (1564 to 1616), "[a man] not of an age, but for all time."
Surprisingly, not much is known of Shakespeare's life, until now. The enthusiastic Michael Wood takes us on a wonderful trek to discover just who Shakespeare was. We learn about such things as follows:
his parentage; his birth; his times, the politics and religion of the time; his youth; his marriage and loves; his "lost" years; his London years; his career; and his plays and sonnets.
There are four parts to this program (originally aired on the Public Broadcasting Station). Each includes a very brief introduction that I will reproduce here:
(1) A Time of Reformation (9 scenes including introduction and credits)
"Like all stories in history, this is a search for ghosts. A quest for the people that made us what we are. And for one man in particular. William Shakespeare is the most famous writer of all times...Yet his life is still shrouded in mystery...This is a historical detective story...searching for the life of William Shakespeare of Stratford Upon the Avon."
This is the only part where Wood gives a summary. He says,
"There's the first nineteen years of Shakespeare's life. [Wood then proceeds with his brief summary...] and that's just the beginning of the story!"
(2) The Lost Years (8 scenes)
"How did a poor country boy...become such a celebrity so soon after he arrived in London? It's one of the great mysteries of Shakespeare's life...Ten years before Shakespeare had been...in Stratford with no job and few prospects. How did he do it? How did he make that leap? And what did he do in those ten years?"
(3) The Duty of Poets (8 scenes)
"In the 1590s the English theatre entered its golden age and for the next twenty years its brightest star was William Shakespeare. But back in the early 1590s, Shakespeare was one of many gifted young poets. What was it that transformed him in the next few years to the greatest thing anybody had ever seen. What happened to him in his career and his private life?"
(4) For All Time (8 scenes)
"For William Shakespeare, 1603 was a very good year. Writer, actor, director, he was now the artist and chief of Elizabethan theatre. He created some of the greatest characters in literature...In [England], theatre wasn't just entertainment, it was popular and political - it had a thrilling and dangerous power. Shakespeare...is...in his late thirties...Out of the experience of his life and the turbulent times through which he lived, the new worlds and the lost worlds, he pulls it all together in some of the greatest works of literature ever written. It's that last story and the mysterious end to his career that we're going to uncover."
Wood travels extensively to different places, talking and interviewing people. He even reads from the actual historical documents that indicate something about Shakespeare, some of it uncovered only recently!
The cinematography is breathtaking. The photography inside actual buildings of Shakespeare's time is fantastic. The background music compliments Wood's narrative.
Special mention should be given to the Royal Shakespearean Company who travel with Wood. They act out bits of not only Shakespeare's plays but other plays of that time (such as those of his rival, Christopher Marlowe). You'll hear bits of his plays from each of these categories:
the Romantic Comedies (example: "A Midsummers Night Dream"); the Histories (example: "Henry IV," Part 1); Tragedies (example: "Macbeth"); and the Tragicomic Romances (example: "The Tempest"). (There was no example from his "Problem" plays.)
There is one DVD extra (about twenty minutes) that has eight scenes. It is quite good.
The DVD's picture and sound quality were perfect. There were no distracting artifacts.
Finally, if you're a William Shakespeare fanatic like I am, then you'll enjoy this program. I learned a lot of new things that I was not aware of before. If you're a newcomer to Shakespeare's life then I envy you. This program is the best introduction to his life, in my opinion, that there is.
In conclusion, be sure to view this program and find out why Shakespeare discovered that the duty of poets was "to speak what we feel and not what we ought to say!"
(2003; 4 hours; 2 discs; made for TV; wide screen)
+++++
Movie Review: The life and times of Shakespeare
Summary: 5 Stars
Another wonderful work by Michael Wood. This time, he sticks close to home, wandering across England. Whether crossing a river estuary at night, watching the Royal Shakespeare Company rehearse, or sitting in front of the fireplace in the Shakespeare family home, Wood tells the story with all the enthusiasm his fans expect.
For the first time, Will Shakespeare actually comes alive. It's fascinating to see how much he was a man of his times. I was completely unaware of the "backstories" of his plays. For instance, Macbeth premiered shortly after the collapse of the Gunpowder Plot. As Wood points out, he presented a play about the murder of a Scottish monarch, shortly after an attempt to murder a Scottish monarch, in the court of this monarch.
Shakespeare comes across here on all levels. The country boy, the family man, the writer, the parent, the political man, and the religious man. Sonnets about the love for a boy turn out to be written just after the death of William's young son. Wood makes sure we see how much of himself Shakespeare put into his works, and how he used his work as a means of expressing his real feelings and emotions.
As I said, he was a man of his times, and they were fascinating times. Religious conflict, war, corruption, and other human acts all play a role in the plays and poems he wrote. Intriguingly, Wood shows us that racial strife was also part of this age, and that Will showed his sympathies with the classic "Othello".
The cinematography is excellent. It's fascinating to watch Wood wander through the streets of London with a hand-drawn map in his hands, discussing the location and significance of a long-vanished building.
It's also a glimpse into what I'll call The Idea of England, as we walk through breathtaking gardens, cozy cottages, bustling streets, and so on. We watch old fashioned printings of the Works of Shakespeare, laugh at plays by students at the Stratford school Shakespeare attended, and talk glove-making (the trade of Will's father John) with a Master.
I've long admired Shakespeare's works. I wish I could say that I love them, but they are hard to read on one's own. I shudder at what would have happened had Wood taken us down that road, but he doesn't. Instead, he presents snippets of plays- both those of the Bard, and those of his contemporaries- with The Royal Shakespeare Company. Watching these talented performers, one begins to get a real feel for the emotions the plays contain. Seeing a contemporary audience as the Company presents a bit of Shakespeare, you begin to understand why he's still so popular. It's also fascinating to listen to these performers talk about certain aspects of the works.
I highly recommend this. I wish it were another 2 hours long, but then Wood has never led me astray yet. I suspect I'll watch this as much as some of Wood's other works.
Movie Review: I can't imagine how it could be improved
Summary: 5 Stars
IN Search of Shakespeare is a 4-part documentary shown on PBS recently. I missed the first part, but watched with increasing interest the last three. Rarely have I found a documentary so engaging and ultimately moving. I should also mention that it is beautifully photographed.
It was written and presented enthusiastically by host/narrator Michael Wood. Wood travels to the original scenes, sometimes the original buildings associated with various stages of Shakespeare's life. He goes into the archives and lets us see with our own eyes original documents like wills, legal documents, contemporary books, theater schedules, etc., that pertain directly to Shakespeare. He follows the modern Royal Shakespeare Company on tour, and we see scenes from Shakespeare's plays and other plays contemporary with Shakespeare. Most importantly, we learn about the events of history, politics, and Shakespeare's personal life that intersect with the plays and sonnets he wrote.
Can you really "know" Shakespeare by watching a four hour documentary? Hardly. I think his true beliefs are enigmatic, and whatever he expressed in his plays was necessarily limited by the censorship and political expediencies of his time. But his was a great art, and this biographical documentary gives us at least a hint of what lay behind that great art. Context is always helpful.
Even Shakespeare's greatest rival -- in a folio of Shakespeare's plays published after his death as a tribute that would allow future generations to remember and appreciate hitherto unpublished works -- wrote of William S., "He was a man not for our time, but for all time."
Movie Review: More than Shakespeare
Summary: 5 Stars
Michael Wood is good at everything he touches. His documentaries are clear and fun to follow. What makes this one excel is not just the direct information on the life and times of Shakespeare but the biographies of his contemporaries.
I have seen just about all of the plays and read some of the sonnets but this documentary seems to bring its own life to the parts of the plays that are portrait and makes you want to be there now.
I also enjoyed seeing what is left of the places that Shakespeare lived. However, it was even more impressive to see the recreation of the Globe Theater.
When Michael was walking around in the estuary, it was fun watching him in his Wellies it made you think of "Midsummer murders."
I also thought I knew pretty much about the time of Shakespeare. However, I received a good civil lesson and a different perspective of the plays as they were written for the politics of the time. Today in our quasi-police state, we again can see how powerful moving force plays can be. One day they may meat with censorship here.
Anyway leaving off all the deep thoughts this documentary make, you realize why they made T.V.
The documentary comes in four parts so it is a good idea to put some time between each viewing so you have time to think and talk about what you saw.
A Time of Reformation
The Lost Years
The Duty of Poets
For All Time
Movie Review: Best Shakespeare biography yet!
Summary: 5 Stars
Shakespeare was born in 1564, attended the Stratford grammar School , marries Anne Hathaway in 1582, his wife had their last children in 1585, a legal action is taken up against him in 1589 and then he is in London working as a playr and playwright. How did this country peasant come to write such magnificent works of art. Michael Wood seeks to answer age old questions about his identity and lost years. This DVD is an in-depth exploration with some pretty bold statements as to what kind of person Shakespeare was and how he grew and developed. He manages quite successfully to make a very strong case that in the end seem like the right answers. He fully supports his postulations with very convincing evidence, some of which is fairly recent. Many points that were previously contested are simply explained away. Is he correct? Who knows? What matters here is that these suppositions are supported strongly with evidence both hard and factual or linked by casual but strong inference. It is a creditable piece that offers clear counterpoint to all the conspiracy" Shakespeare was written by someone else" theories. Case in fact, we know more about Shakespeare than any other playwright except for Ben Jonson, those few facts coupled with Wood's explanations and evidence clearly supports the idea that Shakespeare wrote his own plays.