History, like a good sonnet, rhymes. It is another award season, and a movie centered on William Shakespeare and what inspired one of his great works is once again in major Oscar contention. This year, it is Hamnet, from Academy Award-winning director Chloé Zhao. 27 years ago, it was Shakespeare in Love.
Now most infamous for winning the Best Picture Oscar over Saving Private Ryan due to the infamous producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein’s relentless Oscar campaign strategy, Shakespeare in Love was a beloved movie at the time, ranking as the ninth-highest-grossing movie of 1998. Shakespeare in Love and Hamnet both take a peek behind the curtain to understand an aspect of William Shakespeare that is both similar and shockingly different.
What is ‘Shakespeare in Love’ About?
Directed by John Madden, Shakespeare in Love is a romantic comedy period piece that depicts a fictional love affair involving William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) and Viola de Lesseps (Paltrow) during the production of Romeo and Juliet. Violet, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, disguises herself as a male actor named Thomas Kent to perform in the play. Shakespeare discovers Viola’s disguise, and the two begin an affair, despite her being engaged to Wessex (Colin Firth). The movie does make reference to Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway (Agnes in Hamnet), but Shakespeare in Love establishes that they are separated. Shakespeare in Love is filled with as many twists and turns as one of the Bard’s classic plays.
Written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love opened in limited release on Dec. 11, 1998. The movie had a slow theatrical rollout, expanding week by week to build positive word of mouth. The nominees for the 71st Academy Awards were announced on Feb. 9, 1999, and Shakespeare in Love received 13 nominations. Three days later, it went into wide release in 1,956 theaters and took the number 3 spot at the box office on Valentine’s Day weekend. Shakespeare in Love went on to gross $100 million domestically and $289 million worldwide and win seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, and Best Original Musical or Comedy Score.
Shakespeare in Love’s legacy is now deeply tied to its controversial win for Best Picture over Saving Private Ryan. Much of this was due to the relentless campaigning by producer Harvey Weinstein, who is said to have changed the Oscar-season playbook with Shakespeare in Love. The Hollywood Reporter noted that it was the first time an in-house publicist was hired specifically for the awards push. Weinstein pushed the film’s talent during award season, telling them that attending award shows and getting close with the voting body was part of the job if they wanted to win. Now, the very entertaining movie is less remembered for its actual quality, the disgraced producer behind it, and the fact that it beat what many consider one of the best movies ever made.
Similarities Between ‘Shakespeare in Love’ and ‘Hamnet’
Given that both Shakespeare in Love and Hamnet center on William Shakespeare, they are bound to share some similarities. Both movies center on the performance of one of Shakespeare’s most iconic works. Shakespeare in Love focused on the first performance of Romeo and Juliet, while Hamnet‘s final act sees Shakespeare turn the tragic death of his son into the foundation of Hamlet.
Both Shakespeare in Love and Hamnet feature allusions to various Shakespeare plays, in which moments from Shakespeare’s life inspire his most iconic work. Interestingly, both productions also feature Shakespeare taking the name from someone he knew in real life to inform one of his plays, with his son Hamnet being the namesake of Hamlet, while Shakespeare in Love concludes with the playwrite beginning work on Twelfth Night, naming the lead character of Viola, who, like her namesake in the movie, disguises herself as a man.
There are also interesting comparisons that exist outside the films themselves. Gwyneth Paltrow won the Best Actress Oscar for playing Viola de Lesseps in Shakespeare in Love. Now, the Academy might award another actress for playing Shakespeare’s love interest, as Jessie Buckley is the frontrunner to win Best Actress for playing William Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes, in Hamnet.
Hamnet has now also come down with a bit of the dreaded “Oscar villain” syndrome that befell Shakespeare in Love. Likely due to Hamnet’s Golden Globe win and its role as another awards contender that focuses on William Shakespeare, it has been categorized as a traditional “Oscar-bait” film when compared to the likes of One Battle After Another, Sinners, and Marty Supreme. However, despite sharing a similar character subject, Hamnet actually has more in common with those films than Shakespeare in Love.
‘Hamnet’ and ‘Shakespeare in Love’s Differences Show How Much Has Changed in 27 Years
Despite having much in common, Shakespeare in Love and Hamnet are stylistically very different. Shakespeare in Love, both in tone and visual language, is a much more flamboyant and theatrical piece. It very much matches the public perception of a Shakespeare play, putting the man himself at the center of a story filled with backstabbing, betrayal, and disguises, leading to comedic understandings and tragic ends. The Oscar-winning costumes by Sandy Powell reflect this more theatrical stage-to-screen translation.
Because of this commitment to a theatrical presentation, Shakespeare in Love depicts William Shakespeare as a classic romantic hero, a tortured soul whose emotions overflow at every moment. In contrast, Hamnet largely moves away from the mythic elements of William Shakespeare. While he is still a gifted playwright, much of his work as a writer is largely unseen. The movie begins by depicting his humble origins, and his later success is shown off-screen, with the focus on him as a loving, if not always present, father and husband. Where Shakespeare in Love focuses on the life of William Shakespeare as an icon, Hamnet focuses on him as an ordinary man who just happens to be one of the greatest writers in human history.
Hamnet also has a very different visual palette from Shakespeare in Love. While Hamnet isn’t “realistic” as it also compresses the actual history, it grounds its story in a more visceral, tactile reality. Shakespeare in Love‘s lighting and cinematography were traditional, standard coverage. Hamnet, on the other hand, sees Chloé Zhao employ modern filmmaking techniques, including extreme close-ups and often dark lighting that leaves subjects obscured, which speaks to a modern audience’s desire for movies to “feel real.” Costume designer Malgosia Turzanska opts for very muted colors for the majority of the costume work, though fittingly puts Agnes in bright reds at the beginning during her most vibrant moments. Yet as the movie goes on and tragedy rears its head, the color in her wardrobe begins to fade, like the light inside her is dimming. It has its own sense of stagecraft, but one that is more subtle than the opulence seen in Shakespeare in Love.
Both Shakespeare in Love and Hamnet are movies that speak to the tastes and desires of their respective audiences at the time. Shakespeare in Love was very much what people expected from a prestige picture in the 1990s. Like Titanic and Braveheart or The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love is a sweeping period piece with big emotions that plays like a then-modern send-up of classic Best Picture winners from the 1950s. Hamnet, on the other hand, feels more at home with past winners like Anora and Moonlight: Smaller, more character-driven stories that shift the focus to the struggles of the working class.
Where Shakespeare in Love sees William Shakespeare mingling with aristocrats and even Queen Elizabeth, Hamnet is focused on the country home of Agnes and the family that Shakespeare leaves behind to work on his plays. No queens or lords are ever seen in Hamnet. They have no place in this story about a grieving mother and how the death of a child drives a wedge between a couple who were once deeply in love. This emphasis on the everyday person is literalized when Agnes watches Hamlet in the pit of the Globe Theater, called “the cheap seats.”
Hamnet serves as a fascinating complementary and contrasting film to Shakespeare in Love. These two Shakespeare movies can both be nominated for awards, but are told in drastically different ways that speak to how much has changed for audiences and awards voters in 27 years. The two certainly would make for a fascinating, tonally different double feature.
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