{"id":322,"date":"2015-02-11T14:36:57","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T14:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlantis-film.de\/?p=322"},"modified":"2015-04-23T13:06:54","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T13:06:54","slug":"the-shakespeare-enigma-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlantis-film.de\/en\/the-shakespeare-enigma-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shakespeare Enigma"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s one of greatest literary mysteries of all time: who wrote Shakespeare\u2019s plays? And there really is a mystery. How could the Stratford grammar-school boy, son of a glove-maker, become the universal genius who wrote the greatest plays of all time? Why do we know nothing of Shakespeare\u2019s life for the ten years after he left rural Stratford, until he appears in the London theatre world? Why does no-one write about him, as a playwright, during his lifetime?
\nAnd why would the real playwright not want to be acknowledged? Well, for one thing, these were extremely dangerous times when the wrong political or religious allegiance could cost you your life. You might not want to have the high profile of London\u2019s leading playwright.<\/p>\n

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Details:<\/h4>\n

ZDF, 2011
\nLength:<\/strong> 42\/52 minutes
\nDirected by:<\/strong> Eike Schmitz
\nStory by:<\/strong> Susanne Utzt, Eike Schmitz
\nCamera:<\/strong> Lars Barthel, Alexander Sass
\nCostumes:<\/strong> Alison Mitchell, Glenda Sharp
\nMake-up artist:<\/strong> Brenda Leedham
\nEditor:<\/strong> Mathieu Honor\u00e9
\nProducer:<\/strong> Eike Schmitz
\nProduction assistants:<\/strong> Stephanie Schnabel, Anne Marie Sackx
\nMusic:<\/strong> Brynmor Jones
\nSound design & mix:<\/strong> Sebastian Reuter
\nNarrator:<\/strong> Chris Eldon Lee
\nAdvisers:<\/strong> Giles Milton, Prof. Bastian Conrad
\nCommissioning editor:<\/strong> Hans-Christian Huf
\nGerman or English version
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\n\r\n\t\t\t \t\tIn der ZDF Mediathek ansehen<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t <\/a>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
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No wonder amateurs and scholars have spent 200 years speculating and investigating whether the real author of Shakespeare\u2019s plays was another, \u2018better qualified\u2019 writer. At the last count there were over fifty candidates for the post, many of the them aristocrats, most of them better educated, more travelled and better-connected than the Bard of Stratford.<\/p>\n

The most intriguing of all is Shakespeare\u2019s immediate predecessor as lion of the stage: Christopher Marlowe. The author of \u201cDr. Faustus\u201d and \u201cTamburlaine the Great\u201d revolutionized English drama, and paved the way for Shakespeare. University-educated diplomat, spy, criminal and young man about town, he lived the international plots and intrigue a provincial grammar-school graduate like William Shakespeare could only have imagined \u2013 yet they became the themes of Shakespeare\u2019s dramas.
\nAnd Shakespeare\u2019s first plays weren\u2019t performed until after Marlowe\u2019s early death in 1593 at the age of 29 in a sordid pub brawl in Deptford, by the River Thames, East of London.
\nUntil now this has seemed to rule out Marlowe as a candidate for the writer of Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear. But in this new documentary, biography and history specialists explore a fascinating and revolutionary thesis: Christopher Marlowe faked his own death to avoid arrest and possible execution by Elizabeth I\u2019s ministers. This freed him to devote his life to literature, using actor-manager William Shakespeare as his straw man \u2013 drawing on his own life\u2019s experiences for at least some of his subject matter!<\/p>\n