John Madden Talks Shakespeare In Love Blu-ray Release

Shakespeare in Love Blu-ray Release
An Interview with director John Madden
By Wilson Morales

January 31, 2012

Out today on home video is the Blu-ray release of ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ the 1998 British-American comedy that won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Directed by John Madden, and starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Colin Firth, Ben Affleck, Geoffrey Rush, Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Rupert Everett, and Imelda Staunton, the film centered on a young William Shakespeare, who, out of ideas and short of cash, meets his ideal woman and is inspired to write one of his most famous plays.

Madden, who has since gone on to direct other films, recently helmed ‘The Debt’ with Helen Mirren and has upcoming comedy, ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ with Judi Dench.

Blackfilm.com recently spoke with Madden about the blu-ray release to his Oscar winning film.

Will there be anything new on the blu-ray?

John Madden: There have been technological leaps since we made the film. Visually, you’ll get a more vivid experience. If we are benefiting from what modern technology has been able to achieve, then I’m happy to be a beneficiary of it.

Had blu-ray been out at the time of the shooting, would you have done anything different in terms of directing?

JM: I think you simply try to make the best of visual use of the medium that you can. There would have been an argument to make into 3D for example, but I find 3D as an unhelpful distraction when you’re dealing with dramatic circumstances because it involves you in a lot of considerations that aren’t relevant to what’s going on. You also tend to think about the aspect ratio and how you will compose the shot. The simple objective when I made the film was to inject truism and put people right in the center of it so that they could experience subjectively what it was like to be in that play at that time in that theater.

An aspect of blu-ray for some films is how clear the colors look and with this film, the colors were in full display from the cinematography to the costume designs.

JM: The color in the film comes from the costumes because the theater at the time, apart from the odd backdrop, didn’t find it necessary to provide elaborate production or scenery. The scenery was in people’s imaginations I suppose. Sandy Powell and I decided early on that the costumes were going to carry that information and have a narrative on their own. We were pretty religious about that. Shakespeare had no more money so they wore the costumes very often whereas the queen had a different dress for every time you saw her. The final explosion that comes about is when the production of Romeo and Juliet happens and an enormous amount of color just bursts into the picture. That will be enhanced in the blu-ray release and I’m very pleased about that.

Did you ever imagine that Judi Dench’s short stay on the film would net her an Oscar?

JM: I didn’t think about that particularly but there was definitely a sense. She had been nominated the year before for ‘Mrs. Brown.’ There was no question in my mind that I wanted her to play that role. She never read script. I simply told her that it was another monarch but different era. She said it was the same performance but different costume. The truth is that none of us had any idea that the film would click in the way that it did. There was a predisposition that films and theater never really work and some perceived script stage as an in-joke and as something that a wider audience wouldn’t relate to. Universal had the film early on before Miramax and were convinced that it wouldn’t work.

Although you’ve since worked on other films, looking back, would you say ‘Shakespeare’ has been the biggest production to date?

JM: I think that was a unique assignment. I feel pretty lucky to have had a project like that in my life because it was very unusual. It brought so many strands of my own life because I’ve a long association with Shakespeare one way or another. At that point, I had been making films for a while and had an idea on how to do that and it was a bigger budget than I had worked with before. In a way, I felt I was on home territory. It was shot 15 miles from where I live and I was involved in every aspect of it. I took the team that I made my last film with me. It was an incredible experience and you learn from everything you do. I just made another film with Judi (Dench) and Tom Wilkinson. It has certain analogies with ‘Shakespeare in Love.’

Did you shoot this film after ‘The Debt’?

JM: It seems that way but ‘The Debt’ had a long journey into the light. We made that film for Miramax and then they closed down right after we delivered the film and so we became orphaned for a while. Disney was going go to release it and then they decided not to and then it got picked up by Universal. It should have been released a year ago, but I did ‘Merry’ right after that. I finished that film about six months ago.

Can you talk about ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’

JM: Without pushing the parallel too much, it is quite Shakespearean. It’s the model for most Shakespearean comedies. It’s a group of people going into an unusual environment, and they have to discover things about themselves, like the way they live and the choices they have made. It’s a comedy and a melancholy drama at the same time. It’s an ensemble and the setting is in a hotel whereas the theater was the setting for ‘Shakespeare.’