Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard: Didn’t he write plays? And didn’t he win a record five Tonys for them? Oh, and didn’t one of them even win the Pulitzer Prize? Yes to all of the above. But- He also wrote several dazzling screenplays.

Yes, and one of them won an Oscar for him. Whenever I mention Shakespeare In Love (1998) to someone, their almost invariable reaction is, Oh, I love that movie! Indeed! So did the Academy,  favoring the film with 13 nominations and seven wins, including Stoppard’s screenplay. The film itself won Best Movie. The entirely made-up plot involves Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) trying to negotiate his plays to production while being barred from one theater and dealing with England’s ban on female actors.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) is loosely based on two minor Shakespearean characters in Hamlet. Stoppard’s screenplay is taken almost directly from his stage play of the same name. This film is also Stoppard’s only directorial effort. The named characters find themselves roaming the back roads of Denmark, trying to deliver a letter to Hamlet. The letter calls for Hamlet’s death, but he figures it out and escapes on a pirate ship.  The victim list somehow gets changed to R and G, who wind up hanged for their efforts. Roger Ebert said he had trouble following it. Join the club.

Anna Karenina (2012) finds Tom Stoppard adapting one of the most famous novels in literature for the silver screen, and doing a damn fine job of it. Keira Knightley is the doomed countess in love with the dashing cavalry officer Vronsky. Jude Law is the erstwhile husband Karenin. All are quite good and so is the screenplay. It is not easy to write an adaptation of a story virtually everyone already knows, but Stoppard was up for it. Most of the criticisms of this film involved the over use of stagecraft and costumery, not the acting or the script. To say it is better than earlier versions is damning with faint praise.

The 2020 made-for-TV version of A Separate Peace is far superior to the 1972 version, due in no small part to the faithful screenplay of Tom Stoppard. The story of young men at a prep school, and their camaraderie and conflicts, has been read by many since its publication in 1959. It is not an easy read, somewhat vague and not always linear. There’s no one in the cast you’ve ever heard of but in this case, that’s ok. Is it about homosexuality? Nobody is quite sure. 

Empire of the Sun (1997) is a fine screenplay adapted by Stoppard from JG Ballard’s autobiographical novel of the same name. It stars an incredibly young Christian Bale as Jamie, a kid living the dream in the Shanghai American settlement. Then the Japanese come and he is separated from his parents and on the run through occupied China. Helped by various Chinese people to dodge the bad guys, he is reunited with his parents but hardly recognizes them any more. 

All of the movies in this article are for grown-ups.