I am not offended that these creatures (that's the word)
Of my imagination seem to hold me in such light esteem,
Pay so little heed to me. It's part of a complicated
Flirtation routine...John Ashbery

It's a shame the general release of Ralph Fiennes' film of Shakespeare's Coriolanus (London Film Festival, LFF) doesn't co-incide with the opening this week of Anonymous for it would serve only the greater purpose of promulgating these Elizabethan plays rather than detracting from either film. Anonymous posits that Shakespeare the man didn't exist at all and was actually a pseudonym for the politically powerful Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere (Rhys Ifans) - plays were deemed "the work of the devil" so he couldn't possibly use his own name. Director Roland Emmerich turned many a brow when this action/disaster movie director came on board to direct John Orloff's script. Turns out he does a damn fine job much to the chagrin of his detractors.

Does the film convince you of the case for 'anon'? Well, yes in so much as throughout history anyone seen to rock the establishment will be under scrutiny. And it takes not only a brave human writer but one that can withstand "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" to survive 'the powers that be'. Rare that an artist can cope with that and politics was no more rife than in the Elizabethan court. I digress for a minute to note that I have my own London Film Festival cross to bear, for politics is rife there as well. Festival PRs decreed that I couldn't film any of the Anonymous press conference with my little DSLR (the big boy dinosaur cameras were stabled at the back;). They also denied struggling filmmakers this privilege of independent publicity too: the ones who really needed it. At the George Clooney press conferences you couldn't move for a sea of iPhones, iPads and other filming devices. Hypocrisy can be the only word for PR censure of hand-held devices. In fairness, I am yet to receive comment in this regard from Anonymous's distributor Sony - one company that has always appeared more open than other studios to widening its appeal to independent debate.

You have what are essentially 3 (or arguably 4 festivals going on at the BFI London Film Festival)
1. the more 'socialist' orientated films that will always have minority audiences though through no fault of their quality;
2. This aesthetic in tandem with the BFI's (British Film Institute) remit to preserve and promulgate the history of cinema both new and archival;
3. The more mainstream films e.g. Anonymous and Coriolanus whose studio or mini-major distributors use the LFF to create a PR platform for their imminent release;
and 4. films both experimental and otherwise that defy these former categories and while probably in tune with the BFI aesthetic would rather exist outside that rubric e.g. Phil Solomon's American Falls (earlier work of his screened at the Tate Modern Thurs Oct 27 and a video interview with me to come) or Joseph Cedar's Cannes Fest award winning Footnote - the director quipped at the Q&A last night that even though he arrived for his screening in a marked Festival car, the red carpet was clearly not for him and he had to convince 6 people on the way that he was indeed a festival filmmaker! Out of the 80 odd films I've seen at the Fest Footnote would have to be at least in the top 5.

What all this has to do with the film Anonymous is fairly clear I think. Joseph Cedar is from Tel Aviv, not from the occupied territories or their allies. Friends in some cities can be thin on the ground. And his film is all to do with belonging, of not so much finding the truth insomuch as finding if not happiness then contentment between a father and son. That's where the war should begin, resolve and end - not in the wider realms Cedar seems to say. De Vere in Anonymous has everything he could desire and so too his sons. Yet he is allowed power without a voice. "You have no voice that's why I chose you," he barks to his surrogate purporting to be Shakespeare. De Vere's fatal flaw is not his vanity but his love of art and poetry and his belief that the world could be a different place. He pens Richard III to inspire a political revolt. Footnote questions not so much the notion of authenticity but how we as humans inevitably bend our ego towards an acknowledgement of our talents in the form of medals, prizes, disputed lands and ideals. Or in John Ford's world: if the legend becomes truth, print the legend. That's until a real historian like Simon Schama comes a-digging up the daffodils.
Grigori Kozintsev's often gutting and spellbinding Russian versions of Shakespeare's Hamlet (1964) and King Lear (1971) are B/W classics just out on DVD (wish Mr Bongo would hurry up with their new website -it's been months!). Kozintsev really does make the world a stage to behold our swelling scene.

More family strife in Lynne Ramsay's much anticipated adaptation of Lionel Shriver's book We Need To Talk About Kevin (LFF and now on general release). Easy viewing this ain't but Ramsay and her production team create a world in every frame - the angle of light, the design on a costume, the textures of our lives. Is it all too much? Perhaps, but this is cinema aiming to really get under your skin so that you leave the cinema seeing the world a little or even a whole lot more. The 'social realist' Dardenne brothers offered The Kid with a Bike that has wowed every critic on every continent. And the end really is worth the wait. Seen in isolation this, of course, is a fine film choking with nuances. But as my brain wizzes through all the LFF films it doesn't seem to fall in the top 5. Perhaps Louise Wimmer (a first feature from Cyril Mennegun) does - a film whose subject would normally make me doubtful. A performance from little known French stage actress Corinne Masiero capturing magnificently the character's "insignificance in the eyes of others". I'm still asking myself why this film affected me more than most.

Should Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn have the last word this week? Perhaps not. But I wondered hard about what it would be like to be a youngster watching this awesomely executed motion-capture movie. Would I be inspired by that sense of cinematic wonder? Or would I have already been bludgeoned into submission by all the technology about me? Just to wonder about wonder was enough for me in a world that persists in keeping us in a box - albeit a very shiny one for some.