Shakespeare in Love: A Screenplay [Paperback]

Marc Norman (Author), Tom Stoppard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 1999

The screenplay to the critically acclaimed film which New York Newsday called one of the funniest, most enchanting, most romantic, and best written tales ever spun from the vast legend of Shakespeare. Marc Norman and renowned dramatist, Tom Stoppard have created the best screenplay of the year according to the Golden Globes and the New York Film Critics Circle.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Tom Stoppard has always had an ear for the Bard, stretching back to his surreal and hilarious early plays Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Dogg's Hamlet, and Cahoots Macbeth. For those who have already seen the film Shakespeare in Love, this screenplay offers a chance to savor Stoppard's exuberant collaboration with the renowned screenwriter Marc Norman. The result gives us, among many other things, a dog, Hamlet, Kit Marlowe, Elizabeth I, and probably one of the best screenplays in modern cinema based on Shakespeare.

The pace of the script, from its opening long shot of London in 1593 to the final shot of Viola walking off into her brave new world, is breathtaking. The verbal fireworks and Shakespearean borrowings are not only worthy of the Bard himself, but perfectly re-create the conditions of the Elizabethan theater. The jokes and allusions fly thick and fast, often straining the agility of even the most nimble Shakespeare scholar, but at the heart of the screenplay is both a compelling love story and an ingenious perspective on the inspiration behind both Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night. A wonderful piece of writing--long may Shakespeare in Love keep the Bard in fashion! --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk

Product Details

• Paperback: 169 pages
• Publisher: Miramax; 1st edition (March 3, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786884851
• ISBN-13: 978-0786884858
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,402 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LOVE IS A STORM OF WORDS AND THUNDER, May 23, 2000

By 

Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say" (OLLIERGUES France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shakespeare in Love: A Screenplay (Paperback)

Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay of Shakespeare in Love. The film is marvellous and so powerful that no one can resist that love drama. The story of Romeo and Juliet is itself so frightfully emotional that no one can resist the charm of the tragedy and the pain of the love story. So many artists, in so many genres and arts, have tried themselves at adapting this story, this play, this tragedy to their stages or screens or canvasses, and all have been inspired so deeply by Shakespeare's story that Romeo and Juliet have become a true galaxy of masterpieces and stars. The latest ever produced is Shakespeare in Love and the screenplay is richer, more poignant and freer than the images of the film. The screenplay is enriched with stage directions that are so brilliant, so precious that the text, the dialogue, what is going to become the words of the actors, is enhanced and beautified by them. After a while we don't even know what is the gem and what is the golden bed that carries the gem. The screenplay is by itself a work of art, a masterpiece, and the film, if you watch it again afterwards, finds tremendous new meanings and undeemable finesse in the recollections you may have kept of all those lines that are not said, that are not shown, that are at best translated into images, settings, flying visual impressions that the words of the stage directions anchor in your memory, your heart and your brain with delicate tendrils that cannot break anymore. Any lover of Shakespeare, any lover of literature, any lover of love dramas and hate tragedies must read that screenplay to see how laughter and tears can intermingle in an unbreakable alliance. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Universities of Paris, IX and II.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous..., June 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Shakespeare in Love: A Screenplay (Paperback)

...particularly if you are one of those people who think Shakespeare is boring or too difficult (most of us remember the NIGHTMARE of getting through one play at school, right?). Well, kiss boredom goodbye, banish your nightmares and prepare for a TREAT! This is funny, intelligent, fast-paced and heartbreaking, all at the same time - rather like Shakespeare, in fact!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, of course, July 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Shakespeare in Love: A Screenplay (Paperback)

The movie was so great, and mostly on the strength of it's terrific script, so could this book be anything but a great read? I loved, absolutely LOVED this movie, went to see it four times and I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the video. This is very much worth the read, because there is just such a volume of literary and historical allusions that's its impossible to catch all of them at the theater, especially if you only see it once, since all you end up doing is trying to keep up with the plot, which moves at such excellent speed. Reading the screenplay allows you to catch many of the subtler jokes you may miss even upon repeated viewings. Thank you Shakespeare In Love! You have renewed my belief in the capability of the language of movies to be as meaningful and sublimely beautiful as any found in literature ("Love knows nothing of rank or riverbank! It will spark between a queen and the poor vagabond who plays the king, and their love should be minded by each, for love denied blights the soul we owe to God!") (Viola as Thomas: ....Tell me how you love her, Will. Will: Like a sickness and its cure together. Viola as Thomas: Yes, like rain and sun, like cold and heat. (collecting herself) Is your lady beautiful? Since I have come from the country I have not seen her close. Tell me, is she beautiful? Will: Oh, if I could write the beauty of her eyes! I was born to look in them and know myself. Viola as Thomas: And her lips? Will: Oh Thomas, her lips! The early morning rose would wither on the branch if it could feel envy!") Etc.