Only Looney Lovers Left Alive

Tom Hiddleston is one of those actors who shows up in my news feeds quite frequently, because his name is basically synonymous with Shakespeare.  In a good way – not in the Gwynneth “award-winning Shakespeare in Love actress” Paltrow kind of way.

So I knew about his new vampire movie Only Lover’s Left Alive, directed by Jim Jarmusch. I paid a little more attention when I noticed that Christopher Marlowe is a character.  But, still, Marlowe’s no Shakespeare.

Image courtesy reddit user cmunk13

Then I learned that director is rabid anti-Stratfordian. Turns out he’s more of a Marlovian, which in my book puts him a little bit higher than the Oxfordians because at least Marlowe had some playwriting talent.  (Although I take that back, he goes on to say that Oxford was “probably more likely” and that he only uses Marlowe as his example because he thinks Marlowe’s death was a conspiracy as well.)

Jarmusch seems an odd duck. I had to go look to see if I’d ever watched any of his movies. I’ve heard of many of them, but never seen any. What put him back in the camp of “ignore” for me was the way he name checks the other “famous” people who were also Shakespeare deniers, like some sort of talking points memo regurgitated by Fox News:

I’m not alone. I’m with Mark Twain and Henry and William James and Sigmund Freud and Orson Welles, Emerson — a lot of people don’t buy the Shakespeare thing.

They truly thought they scored a coup getting Orson Welles on their side. The problem is that the evidence, what little there is, is complete nonsense. So I know the guy hasn’t put any thought into it, he’s just parroting back the same old stuff, just like what’s his name did with Anonymous.
What I’m deeply curious about is whether he and Tom Hiddleston had any serious discussion on the topic, or if they just did the “agree to disagree” thing, or what.  That would be the real interesting interview.

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