Shakespeare in Love

Continuity mistake: Halfway into the film, Shakespeare is holding Viola's face placing his hands around her jaw, looking closely at her. When the angle is behind Viola, we see that her hair gets caught around his left hand's fingers. The angle changes to a wider side angle and his hand has no hair around, even though he hasn't moved it at all.

Sacha

Continuity mistake: In the tavern scene, when Shakespeare and Marlowe are speaking, there is a bartender. In the shot in which Marlowe says, "His best friend is killed in a duel by Ethel's brother or something. His name is Mercutio", the bartender starts looking at Marlowe, and by the end, he turns his eyes towards Shakespeare. In the next shot, when Shakespeare says, "Mercutio... good name", the bartender's face has immediately turned toward Marlowe, without any time to do so.

Factual error: About 20 minutes in when they are at some ball/dance thing, Shakespeare's talking with a musician holding a lute. You can see fret markers on the fretboard of his lute, but these were not used on instruments until the late 1800's, early 1900's, definitely not in Shakespeare's time. (00:27:20)

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Queen Elizabeth: Have her then, but you're a lordly fool: she's been plucked since I saw her last, and not by you. Takes a woman to know it.

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Trivia: The young boy in the film is John Webster. Webster himself became a famous playwright in the 1600's; his speciality was writing gruesome plays foregoing the love and tenderness of Shakespeare and Marlow. Could this be why we see his character feeding the mouse to the cat?

Tallicame

More trivia for Shakespeare in Love

Question: How did Will not recognise Viloa in her boy disguise? Even in disguise, you can clearly see it's her, and she didn't sound like a boy.

Answer: In real life, Viola, of course, would be recognized as a female in disguise. However, in literature, film, opera, etc, it often is necessary to employ what is known as a "suspension of disbelief." That is, the author expects the reader or audience to know something is impossible, unlikely, or completely unreal, but they have to accept a certain premise in order to allow the plot to unfold. We go along with the idea that no one realizes Viola is actually a woman, so that we can enjoy the overall story.

raywest

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