Love's Labour's Lost

Costard is a comic figure in the play Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare. A country bumpkin, he is arrested in the first scene for flouting... the king's proclamation that all men of the court avoid the company of women for a year. While in custody, the men of the court use him to further their own romantic endeavors. By sending love notes to the wrong women and blurting out secrets , Costard makes fools of the royal court. Along with Moth the page and Jaquenetta, a country wench, Costard pokes fun at the upper-class. While mocking a pedantic schoolmaster, Costard uses the word honorificabilitudinitatibus, the longest word by far from any of Shakespeare's works. He makes many clever puns, and is used as a tool by Shakespeare to explain new words such as remuneration. He is sometimes considered one of the smartest characters in the play due to his wit and wordplay. Costard's name is an archaic term for apple, or metaphorically a man's head. Shakespeare uses the word in this sense in Richard III. Costard is also noted in Vikas Swarup's novel Q & A .
more

Release date:March 31, 2000

Directed by:Kenneth Branagh

Rated:

Runtime:93 minutes

Love's Labour's Lost is a 2000 adaptation of the comic play of the same name by William Shakespeare, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh. It was the first feature film to be made of this lesser-known comedy. Branagh's fourth film of a Shakespeare play , Love's Labour's Lost was a box-office... and critical disappointment. Branagh's film turns Love's Labour's Lost into a romantic Hollywood musical. Set and costume design evoke the Europe of 1939; the music and newsreel-style footage are also chief period details. The cast includes Shakespearean veterans such as Timothy Spall, Richard Briers and Geraldine McEwan, alongside Hollywood actors Alicia Silverstone and Matthew Lillard and Broadway and West End stars such as Nathan Lane. As a result of its poor commercial performance, Miramax shelved its three-picture deal with Branagh, who subsequently returned to Shakespeare with As You Like It in 2006. The King of Navarre has vowed to avoid romantic entanglements in order to spend three years in study and contemplation.
more