"Nothing Truer than Truth" is an assuredly done documentary about the Shakespeare authorship controversy siding with Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, as the true author. It is well-written and photographed, especially focusing on the Italian period of de Vere's life. If the authorship question can never be settled with full certainly, much of the best evidence for de Vere's authorship is the Italian influence on the Shakespeare Works. This film demonstrates that. The details about Venice and environs in the 1570s and the life that de Vere is known to have led there is the best part of the film. The photography in Italy cannot be more highly recommended.
This is a controversial subject, and yet this documentary saves its most didactic argument - that de Vere rather than the man from Stratford wrote the Works - for the last twenty minutes. Before that, it presents its evidence with the assumption that de Vere was the true author. That is a bold move, but I cannot think of any other evidence for de Vere's authorship that is more compelling than the Bard's astonishing knowledge of Italy, whereas the man from Stratford never went there.
Though nineteenth and twentieth century English professors have argued that Shakespeare was misinformed about Italy, it turns out that, whoever Shakespeare was, he knew more about sixteenth century Italy than nineteenth and twentieth century English professors. The film does not dwell on that aspect of the controversy except to point out that Shakespeare's reference to Giulio Romano as a sculptor rather than a painter in "The Winter's Tale" was not the mistake that some critics have thought. Like many artists of the time, Romano sculpted, too (he was also an architect), and the Bard knew this though later professors who assumed themselves to be better informed than Shakespeare did not.
The film also looks at the parallels between the events of de Vere's life and the things that occur in his plays and poems, for example, his estrangement from his wife after - like the title figure of his play, "Othello" - he was persuaded of her infidelity. Of course, "Othello" is based on an Italian source that de Vere would have known and Shakespeare of Stratford might have; so, how much is really autobiographical, and how much borrowed, and what if anything can be proven by that? More telling is the detail that in his poem "Venus and Adonis," the Bard describes Adonis as wearing a hat, which seems to match a rare painting of the figures Venus and Adonis, who are more often shown hatless. The painting with the hat existed only in Italy at that time.
Even among Oxfordians (the term for those who champion de Vere as the true Bard), there are differences of opinion: Was Oxford/Shakespeare bisexual? The film says yes. Was he a universalist who understood every class, sex and walk of life, as the film affirms, or did he view the world from a privileged aerie of sex and class? The distinguished talking heads in this documentary (who include Sirs Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance) all seem to agree on the same answers to these questions. Not all Oxfordians do. The interviewees in this film perhaps disagree with each other about whether the Bard was a misogynist or a closet feminist (unless they all think that somehow he could be both).
An odd thing about "Nothing Truer than Truth" is its neglecting to explain its title, which it does reveal to be a translation of the Latin motto "Vero Nihil Verius." But we are left to our own devices to learn that this was de Vere's motto and that de Vere loved to pun on the similarity of his name to the Latin word for truth.
This is a controversial subject, and yet this documentary saves its most didactic argument - that de Vere rather than the man from Stratford wrote the Works - for the last twenty minutes. Before that, it presents its evidence with the assumption that de Vere was the true author. That is a bold move, but I cannot think of any other evidence for de Vere's authorship that is more compelling than the Bard's astonishing knowledge of Italy, whereas the man from Stratford never went there.
Though nineteenth and twentieth century English professors have argued that Shakespeare was misinformed about Italy, it turns out that, whoever Shakespeare was, he knew more about sixteenth century Italy than nineteenth and twentieth century English professors. The film does not dwell on that aspect of the controversy except to point out that Shakespeare's reference to Giulio Romano as a sculptor rather than a painter in "The Winter's Tale" was not the mistake that some critics have thought. Like many artists of the time, Romano sculpted, too (he was also an architect), and the Bard knew this though later professors who assumed themselves to be better informed than Shakespeare did not.
The film also looks at the parallels between the events of de Vere's life and the things that occur in his plays and poems, for example, his estrangement from his wife after - like the title figure of his play, "Othello" - he was persuaded of her infidelity. Of course, "Othello" is based on an Italian source that de Vere would have known and Shakespeare of Stratford might have; so, how much is really autobiographical, and how much borrowed, and what if anything can be proven by that? More telling is the detail that in his poem "Venus and Adonis," the Bard describes Adonis as wearing a hat, which seems to match a rare painting of the figures Venus and Adonis, who are more often shown hatless. The painting with the hat existed only in Italy at that time.
Even among Oxfordians (the term for those who champion de Vere as the true Bard), there are differences of opinion: Was Oxford/Shakespeare bisexual? The film says yes. Was he a universalist who understood every class, sex and walk of life, as the film affirms, or did he view the world from a privileged aerie of sex and class? The distinguished talking heads in this documentary (who include Sirs Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance) all seem to agree on the same answers to these questions. Not all Oxfordians do. The interviewees in this film perhaps disagree with each other about whether the Bard was a misogynist or a closet feminist (unless they all think that somehow he could be both).
An odd thing about "Nothing Truer than Truth" is its neglecting to explain its title, which it does reveal to be a translation of the Latin motto "Vero Nihil Verius." But we are left to our own devices to learn that this was de Vere's motto and that de Vere loved to pun on the similarity of his name to the Latin word for truth.
