Script To Screen: “Shakespeare in Love”

The final scenes from the 1998 movie Shakespeare in Love, written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard.

IMDb plot summary: A young Shakespeare, out of ideas and short of cash, meets his ideal woman and is inspired to write one of his most famous plays.

Here Viola, newly married, meets for the last time with her lover Will Shakespeare.

INT. THE CURTAIN THEATRE. STAGE. DAY. WILL
(heartbroken, testing her
name)
My Lady Wessex? VIOLA nods, heartbroken too. For a long moment they
cannot say anything to each other. The she holds up
Wessex's purse. VIOLA
A hired player no longer. Fifty
pounds, Will, for the poet of true
love. WILL
I am done with theatre. The playhouse
is for dreamers. Look where the dream
has brought us. VIOLA
It was we ourselves did that. And for
my life to come I would not have it
otherwise. WILL
I have hurt you and I am sorry for it. VIOLA
If my hurt is to be that you will
write no more, then I shall be the
sorrier. WILL looks at her. VIOLA (CONT'D)
The Queen commands a comedy, Will for
Twelfth Night. WILL
(harshly)
A comedy! What will my hero be but the
saddest wretch in the kingdom, sick
with love? VIOLA
An excellent beginning
(a beat)
Let him be…a duke. And your heroine? WILL
(bitterly)
Sold in marriage and half way to
America. VIOLA
(adjusting)
At sea, then--a voyage to a new
world?…she lands upon a vast and empty
shore. She is brought to the
duke…Orsino. WILL
(despite himself)
Orsino…good name VIOLA
But fearful of her virtue, she comes
to him dressed as a boy WILL
(Catching it)
and thus unable to declare her love Pause. They look at each other. Suddenly the conversation
seems to be about them. VIOLA
But all ends well. WILL
How does it? VIOLA
I don't know. It's a mystery WILL half smiles. Then he's serious. They look deeply at
each other…and rush into each other's arm. WILL (CONT'D)
You will never age for me, nor fade,
nor die. VIOLA
Nor you for me. WILL
Good bye, my love, a thousand times
good bye. VIOLA
Write me well. She kisses him with finality. Then turns and runs from
him. WILL watches as she goes. INT. WILL'S ROOM. DAY. A blank page. A hand is writing: TWELFTH NIGHT. We see
WILL sitting at his table. WILL (VO)
My story starts at sea…a perilous
voyage to an unknown land…a shipwreck EXT. UNDERWATER. DAY. Two figures plunge into the water WILL (VO)
the wild waters roar and heave…the
brave vessel is dashed all to pieces,
and all the helpless souls within her
drowned INT. WILL'S ROOM. DAY. WILL at his table writing WILL (VO)
all save one … a lady EXT. UNDERWATER. DAY. VIOLA in the water WILL (VO)
whose soul is greater than the ocean …
and her spirit stronger than the sea's
embrace … not for her watery end, but
a new life beginning on a stranger
shore EXT. BEACH. DAY. VIOLA is walking up a vast and empty beach …. WILL (VO CONTINUED)
It will be a love story … for she will
be my heroine for all time INT. WILL'S ROOM. DAY. WILL looks up from the table. WILL (VO CONTINUED)
and her name will be … Viola. He looks down at the paper, and writes: "Viola" Then:
"What country friends is this?" EXT. BEACH. DAY. DISSOLVE slowly to VIOLA, walking away up the beach
towards her brave new world. THE END

Here is the movie version of the scene:

The translation of script to screen is precise, even to the point of shots back and forth between Will and “The Twelfth Night” images with Viola.

One wonderful grace note in the scene: The callback to the line: “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.” It’s the fourth time the line is uttered in the movie, the previous three times by Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush). The three previous iterations are used for comedic purposes. Here it takes on a bittersweet quality due to the reality of what’s transpiring — the final moments of the two being together.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

For more Script To Screen articles, go here.