Anonymous is a political thriller and pseudo-historical drama film which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2011.Directed by Roland Emmerich and written by John Orloff, the movie is a fictionalized version of the life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, anElizabethan courtier, playwright, poet and patron of the arts. Starring Rhys Ifans (de Vere) and Vanessa Redgrave (Queen Elizabeth I), Anonymousutilizes emerging VFX CG technology] to recreate exterior period backgrounds in and around old London, circa 1550–1604.
Set within the political atmosphere of the Elizabethan court, the film presents Lord Oxford as the true author of Shakespeare's plays, and dramatizes events leading to the succession of Queen Elizabeth I and the Essex Rebellion against her. De Vere is depicted as a literary prodigy and the Queen's sometime lover, with whom he sires a son, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, only to discover that he himself may be the Queen's son by an earlier lover. De Vere eventually sees his suppressed plays performed through a frontman (Shakespeare), using his production of Richard III to support a rebellion led by his son and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.The insurrection fails, and as a condition for sparing the life of their son, the Queen declares that de Vere will never be known as the author of his plays and poems.
Produced by Centropolis Entertainment and Studio Babelsberg and distributed by Columbia Pictures, Anonymous was released on October 28, 2011, in 265 theatres in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, expanding to movie theatres around the world, in the following weeks. Critical comment has been mixed, praising its performances and visual achievements, but criticizing the film's time-jumping format and the filmmakers' promotion of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship
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Plot
After a theatrical prologue delivered by Derek Jacobi, the film opens with Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, ordering a desperate search for a trove of manuscripts. Ben Jonson, who has the manuscripts, hides them in the Globe theatre, but it is burned down while being searched. Successive flashbacks cast us back five and then forty years, as the film evokes the reputed life of Edward de Vere from childhood through to his entanglement in an insurrection, and later on to his death.
The main action takes place towards the end of the Elizabethan era as political intrigue flourishes between the Tudors and the Cecils (father William andson Robert), over the succession to Queen Elizabeth I. In flashbacks, de Vere is portrayed as a prodigious genius, writing at eight or nine years of age (1558/1559) A Midsummer Night's Dream, de Vere acting the role of Puck before the young queen Elizabeth. He is then forced to live in the repressive,puritanical house of William Cecil where, years later, he kills a spying servant lurking behind an arras, much like the death of Polonius in Hamlet. William Cecil uses this murder to blackmail de Vere into a loveless marriage with his daughter, Anne Cecil, compelling him also to renounce literature. De Vere later becomes the Queen's lover, and sires - unknown to him - an illegimate son; the son is adopted, becoming Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, but his true parentage is hidden from all but the Cecils.
De Vere must struggle against a taboo that would forbid him to write; against his wife's impatience with his literary work as a dishonour to her family;and against the Queen's counsellors. Foremost among these is his father-in-law William Cecil, who is convinced that theatres are sinful. Cecil's plan to haveJames, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots crowned king is also threatened by the presence of de Vere's and the Queen's child, who would be an alternative contender for the throne, and also of pure Tudor lineage.
Almost four decades after his private première, de Vere visits a public theatre and is deeply impressed by the way spectators can be swayed. Much taken by the propagandistic power of art, considering that "all art is political ... otherwise it is just decoration," de Vere decides to employ his secretly written plays for the promotion of the Earl of Essex's cause (Essex being another of the Queen's illegitimate sons) over the candidate preferred by the Cecils, writing Henry V and, later, Richard III as propaganda designed to foment revolution. He contacts Ben Jonson, who had been confined in the Tower of London on charges of sedition until de Vere uses his influence to free him, in order to have his play Henry V staged under Jonson's name. The plan backfires when an unscrupulous young actor, William Shakespeare, steps up on stage and claims authorship, Jonson having shrunk from passing himself off as the author after a riot on the play's opening night. It is this "drunken oaf" who takes on the role as de Vere's front man, while Jonson becomes de Vere's only confidant in the truth.
Shakespeare however, having discovered the real author's identity, extorts money from de Vere to build the Globe theatre, and wangles £400 per year for posturing as a front. After Christopher Marlowestumbles on the truth that Shakespeare's inexplicable talents hide the genius of another hand, he is found with his throat slit. Jonson later confronts Shakespeare and accuses him of the murder.
At the climax, de Vere uses the play Richard III as a thinly veiled attack on the hunchbacked Robert Cecil. The plan is to incite a mob to march against Cecil, and thus weaken his position at court. At the same time, Essex is to march with the Earl of Southampton to the Palace, to promote his own claim to the succession. However the plan fails, as a jealous Jonson betrays the plot to Cecil, who guns down the mob, stopping it from joining Essex. The Queen, swayed by Cecil, thinks that Essex is trying to depose of her violently. Cecil easily captures Essex and Southampton, who are condemned for treason.
Robert Cecil then tells a broken de Vere that Elizabeth had other bastard sons - one of which was de Vere himself. If true, it would mean that de Vere committed incest with his mother. In order to save his son from being beheaded, de Vere writes Venus and Adonis to remind the Queen of their love. She agrees to save Southampton, but insists that de Vere remain anonymous as the true author of 'Shakespeare's' works.
After the Queen's death, James succeeds, though Cecil's hopes of a more puritanical regime are shattered when James expresses his wish to see more of Shakespeare's work. Shakespeare retires on his ill-gotten gains to Stratford to become a businessman, and de Vere dies in 1604, having commended his manuscripts to the care of a repentant Ben Jonson. Cecil however still wants the manuscripts destroyed. With the destruction of the Globe, he believes them burnt, but Jonson later discovers they have survived. Nevertheless, the 'truth' that Edward de Vere, not the nearly illiterate Shakespeare, is their real author remains concealed.
