Gay Elizabethan Spy and Playwright found murdered!

June 19, 2000 5:32 AM

Gay Elizabethan Spy and Playwright found murdered! Not one, but two Christopher Marlowe movies. Hollywood, thou art such a suppurating whore. Thanks to Pete for the link.
posted by Ezrael (9 comments total)

sup·pu·rate (Sup"pu*rate)
v. intr. sup·pu·rat·ed, sup·pu·rat·ing, sup·pu·rates.

To form or discharge pus.

It's really early. I haven't had coffee. What's with the big words?

Personally I think these movies sound very interesting. And we get two sides of the story. I rather like that. I suspect many people will be motivated to actually read something to find out more.

Why so angry with Hollywood?
posted by y6y6y6 at 6:23 AM on June 19, 2000

Hollywood is rulled by SATAN. Master of all. Obey your leader, and please read win98 instrallation how-to befoure-hand.
posted by tiaka at 7:10 AM on June 19, 2000

I think the "suppurating whore" bit was just an opportunity to (mis?)quote Marlowe himself, but I'm too nekulturny to be sure.
posted by harmful at 7:20 AM on June 19, 2000

Rupert Everett's weary show-stealing Kit Marlowe in Shakespeare in Love must have sold the studio execs. But how about just a remake of The Massacre at Paris? Or The Jew of Malta? Um, well, perhaps not.

The grumpy thing is that "homosexuality" didn't exist in Elizabethan England. There were homosexual acts, for sure, usually meriting nasty punishments, but the notion of "sexual identity" is a much later invention.
posted by holgate at 7:57 AM on June 19, 2000

I just find it amusing that in one film, Marlowe is going to be depicted as Manly Action Hero Man, and in the other as Sensitive Tortured Soul Man. I don't know, I just wish they'd make one Marlowe film. Does Chris Marlowe, writer of such fine plays as Edward the II, Tamerlane the Great, and Doctor Faustus need to be another example of Hollywood's two-for-one filmmaking? It reminds me of that spate of father-son bodyswitching movies a few years back. I mean, is Judge Reinhold to play Marlowe?
posted by Ezrael at 11:56 AM on June 19, 2000

Although I'm with Holgate re: the non-existence of "sexual identity" in apre-Freud world, it takes only a good reading of Edward II to see that Marlowe knows whereof he writeth... Poetry aside, it's one of the most painful depictions of tragic love in drama. Let Shakespeare write about that Italian school kid and his girl-from-'cross-town; Chris clearly knows first hand the red hot poker that can drive through your heart when your love (and his gender...) are not to society's liking.
posted by m.polo at 12:14 PM on June 19, 2000

> I just wish they'd make one Marlowe film.

What's the chance you'd be happy with it if they did? Hollywood isn't about accuracy, it's about broad appeal. What we have here is a disagreement about what moviegoers want to see most. I doubt history will get the final say in either of these. I hope I'm wrong.

At least they aren't setting either movie in the twentieth century. Yet.
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:46 PM on June 19, 2000

Truth is, there's little chance that BOTH these projects will reach theatergoers. Most likely the first one to get an A-list star on board will proceed, and the other will go into turnaround, never to be heard from again.
posted by dhartung at 3:31 PM on June 20, 2000

You say this, and I am comforted, but then I remember The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan. SPR was a very good film, but to me, TTRL was an exceptional one, and while they both got made there was a lack of interest in the experimental nature of TTRL. Sorry about the abbreviations, by the way.
posted by Ezrael at 6:42 PM on June 20, 2000