Customer Reviews

In Search of Shakespeare [VHS]

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

+++++

"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)

+++++

I love Michael Wood. In his wonderful legacy series and in his books also, he puts a friendly arm around the viewer/reader and takes him/her on a voyage to old places which he makes new by his up-close show-and-tell-style. By jove, I never knew so many of Shakespeare's haunts were still standing, nor had I ever been so immersed in the traditions that are still going strong from Shakespeare's times. M. W. takes us inside dozens of town halls, old manors and castles to the very spots where the Bard first performed as a boy, applied for a wedding license, played for the queen, etc. By placing Shakespeare squarely in his dangerous times and showing us the political and religious plots that swirled around him, Shakespeare became beautifully real for me. M.W. shows us Shakespeare's writing may be for all times but the Bard was very much a product of his times. Beautifully photographed, also, and oh yes, Anglophiles will love all the neat old places. Thanks Michael.

It is more than quarter of a century since Michael, nearly fresh out of Oriel College Oxford, first appeared on our TV screens. Clad in unfusty denim, he hurled himself about the great English outdoors, enthusiastically telling us about Eric Bloodaxe and Co in the BBC series 'In Search of the Dark Ages'.

Since then, Michael has been abroad with 'In Search of the Trojan War', 'In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great', and ... well, you get the general picture.

Now he's back in England -- mostly Warwickshire, Lancashire and London, actually -- and he's ditched the denim in favour of the Barbour 'Bushman' jacket and Karrimor backpack. This four-part programme is as much a celebration of England's landscape and ancient buildings as it is the story of our greatest playwright. The photography is exceptional, the music well-composed, and Michael is always a pleasant companion to escort us around the key sites. We also spend much time in the company of the RSC, as they travel around the more authentic venues to perform excerpts from Othello, Henry IVth Part Two, Romeo & Juliet etc.

There's always latent demand on British TV for Shakespeare insmall, digestible chunks. It is one of the regrets of so many adults that they wished they liked Shakespeare more ... if only it wasn't so much work to appreciate him, compared to 'Friends' etc. Here Michael makes him very digestible. If you could cope with 'Shakespeare in Love', then you can handle this series. The problem for me is that, having now viewed it once, when will I next want to watch it again? Probably in a couple of years' time. This is really a DVD to buy, watch once, and then lend to friends and family.

One intriguing moment: in the College of Arms sequence, William Hunt, who used to run the HAC recruits course, takes Michael through the creation of the Shakespeare coat of arms. For the final shot, Mr Hunt is suddenly wearing his mess kit -- why??

But back to the real world: one of the strengths of this series is that it shows the audience so clearly entranced and enjoying themselves. If this series doesn't have you rushing out to buy a copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses, it should at least persuade you to stop watching the telly and go out to the theatre, which can be no bad thing.

This four-part documentary goes above and beyond in bringing us the true story of the life and times of William Shakespeare, the greatest writer who ever lived. Each segment runs about an hour, but those four hours flew by in the blink of an eye for me because the story was so riveting. The viewer gets to know Shakespeare as a person, not just as some writer who lived in a very distant land and time and wrote in a rather hard to understand language. Not a lot has previously been known about his personal life, but thanks to this wonderful series, there are now a lot more facts out there. It also really helps that Michael Wood, the narrator, is really enthusiastic about his subject, and has a very friendly and engaging demeanour, instead of being some boring overly academic suit.

Shakespeare did not exist in a vacuum; his life, and by extension his writing, were shaped by the outside forces around him. The man lived through a lot of turbulent times, witnessing such events as the Armada, the Gunpowder Plot, and the beginnings of colonisation in the Americas. Elizabethan England was also a major police state, and his family were often at the brunt of it, seeing as how they were originally Catholics. In the era before separation of church and state, to be the "wrong" religion was inviting a lot of persecution. He had also experienced firsthand a lot of highs and lows in his life; for a time his father held a lot of positions of prestige, honor, and respect, enabling him to go to a good private school, but at the age of fourteen, the family fortunes disappeared as quickly as they had sprung up, and he was forced to leave school, his literary awakening, and the promise of going to college and making something of his life. It's really an amazing story how this young man was able to go from a nobody farmer's son to a highly renowned and respected playwright starting in the 1590s, to say nothing of going down in history as the greatest writer ever. Though the series explores a lot of aspects of his life and times (such as the Globe Theatre, the earliest plays he acted in, the tragic death of his son Hamnet, his marriage, his Catholic roots, where he lived, his friends, and of course his wonderful plays), I was still left wanting more. Shakespeare was such a fascinating person, who lived in such fascinating times, that just 4 hours is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to delving into his life and what he was all about! Interspersed with this journey into who Shakespeare really was are scenes from the current players in England's Royal Shakespeare Company acting out some of his plays, such as 'Macbeth,' 'Hamlet,' 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' and 'The Tempest.' In the end, the series shows how, though he wrote very much for his own time, in the end he was a man for all times. A lot of the things he wrote about and dealt with seem so very modern, as though they could have been written in much more modern times but for the often hard-to-understand Elizabethan English. Too many people make the mistake of seeing him as a balding middle-aged guy in an Elizabethan collar, not as someone who was once young and just starting out in his life and career, and as someone who's inaccessible to the modern era just because, to be honest, it can be rather hard to read and appreciate his works without seeing them on the stage or screen or at least studying them with a teacher. There are also some deleted scenes which go into further detail on some of the subjects explored, such as Shakespeare's rival playwright Christopher Marlowe and his family's Catholic roots.

As awesome as this series was, however, I was a bit shocked to see numerous scenes of Mr. Wood and some of his assistants actually handling these original books, documents, and other artifacts with their bare hands. There were maybe 5 scenes in which they actually wore gloves before touching these pages which are over 400 years old. I was also rather offended at how he even speculated on whether or not Shakespeare really loved his wife Anne (though at least in the end he admitted that it was very possible he always loved her). There was even some joking, when he was looking at the church record of their marriage, about how this 18 year old boy was being "forced" to marry this "long in the tooth" woman who was 8 years his senior. While it's true that Anne Hathaway was pregnant when they married, there's no evidence other than conjecture that this was a shotgun marriage. Is it really that unthinkable that an 18 year old boy could fall madly in love with a woman that much older, and truly want to marry her independent of the fact that he got her pregnant? I seriously doubt that there would be this question of whether he actually loved his wife if he had been the 26 year old and she had been the 18 year old. I say more power to him for picking an older woman to be his wife and going against the hypocritical convention in which it's normal and socially acceptable for the husband to be older, but suspect or strange when it's the wife who is older. We also hear the beautiful early sonnet he wrote to her, with the concluding line declaring "And saved my life," which sounds like "Anne saved my life" when read aloud.

All in all, it's a great introduction to the Bard, for both devotees and people who aren't that familiar with his life, times, or works yet. It's guaranteed to amaze those who never thought of him as so interesting, modern, lively, and accessible.

An excellent film that documents the ideas and pressures that tore at Shakespeare's soul in Elizabethan England. The photography is colorful and well done. The use of modern day actors to present dialogue from his plays gives the film a "flesh and blood" reality. This, interposed with actual documents concerning the Shakespeare family, adds reality to the narrative. I have read biographies about Shakespeare and have read his plays. The film puts a clearer face on the man and his art. I found it to be a wonderful and revealing film.

Simply put, one of the best documentaries I've seen. I was one of those kids who suffered through Shakespeare in high school, but that began to change one warm, tranquil summer night when the local university staged outdoors a production of A Midsummers' Night Dream; so moving and atmospheric, it was the way Shakespeare should be appreciated--not cooped in some classroom reading it from a book. And so too this documentary captures the essence of Shapespeare the man and the Elizabethan England in which he lived (as a subversive, no less). Shakespeare was NOT the man that centuries of scholars and changing moral tastes have made him into; he was a dynamic man, one who lived at times on the fringes of society, a man in many respects at odds with his changing times. He was, therefore, a person that youth of any generation in truth should be able to identify with, and this ultimately is what this fine documentary reveals. One can only wonder what a difference this documentary would have made had I been able to see it when I was in high school.

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.

I have owned this DVD for a few years now and I have watched it several times. I do not see how it could be improved upon. My wife was an English teacher who turned me on to Shakespeare years ago and I was always frustrated at the lack of a reliable source of information on Shakespeare and the world he inhabited. This DVD satisfied my curiosity as it explores the life of his father, his home life, his marriage to Anne Hathaway, the police state that was the Elizabethan age, his friends and competitors like Christopher Marlowe, and the Catholic vs. Protestant split that defined the times. Outstanding.

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."

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