OFFICIAL SELECTION
soundtrack award
"Behind the Name SHAKESPEARE: Power, Lust, Scorn & Scandal"
DIRECTED BY
Robin Phillips
Synopsis:
"WHO CREATED THE GREATEST WORK OF IAMBIC THUNDER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE? “Behind the Name SHAKESPEARE: Power, Lust, Scorn & Scandal” answers that question in this fun yet important film. It is a costume-filled journey into literary history’s greatest mystery: Who really wrote the works of Shakespeare?
This charming documentary is clearly a labor of love, which one can feel in every scene. The world needs it and bravo to Christina di Marlo for doing it!" -- Don Rubin, Professor Emeritus, York University Editor, World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre.
VENICE FILM AWARDS REVIEW, 11/11/2020
"BEHIND THE NAME SHAKESPEARE is an extraordinary one-woman show/documentary.
The exceptional Robin Phillips guides us through the exciting investigation about who is really behind the most important plays in the whole world and therefore behind the name of William Shakespeare…
Robin Phillips puts all her talent as an author, actress, and storyteller, playing sort of comedian detective (a brilliant choice that makes us remain glued to the screen for the whole duration of the film) but contextualized in the era we are referring to. She transforms herself several times, she steps out and gets back into the narration with delicacy and without ever being out of tune.
And as a consequence of this, it's not difficult to get involved in the typical atmosphere of the sixteenth century, also thanks to the beautiful costumes designed by Phillips herself, who also worked on the music ("Best Sound Design," Venice Film Awards) hairstyles, make-up, and artistic direction.
The documentary is full of information, anecdotes, details, and spins around two centuries, between literature, history, and art. Despite being so full of news and quotes, you can easily follow it from start to finish. Not only without ever getting bored but remaining with bated breath in search of yet another proof that helps to agree with an increasing number of groups of people who support this extraordinarily beautiful and thrilling theory.
It's difficult, after having seen it, not to want to join the chorus of voices of these artists, historians, writers, who claim that a glove maker's son could not have created what are among the greatest masterpieces of world theater literature. And that it's much more likely that it was the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, lover (to be reductive) of Queen Elizabeth, and an erudite and brilliant man of letters.
Art Harman enriches the movie with his cinematography and his technical effects, which join the narrative moments in a fluid and coherent way .To quote Anna Rice, even within the documentary itself this is "very very interesting stuff", which could not tell this crazy part of history in a better way.
I challenge the public not to fall in love with this story, with their protagonists, and with Robin Phillips in this delightful documentary film, which teaches and entertains, thus remaining faithful to the primary purpose of Elizabethan theater.""
DURATION
01:39:00
COUNTRY
United States
COMPLETION DATE
2020-09-08
CATEGORY
Soundtrack Award