Elizabeth: The Golden Age

It is never a good idea to approach a biopic expecting anything that resembles serious historical inquiry, so I went into Elizabeth: The Golden Age expecting a mishmash of myth, fabrication, and the random fact, all cloaked in pretty costumes.  And that is exactly what the film delivered--although, alas, I forgot to allow for the script, which was apparently borrowed from a daytime soap opera in the throes of a massive budget crunch. 

In a span of about two and one-half hours, Elizabeth jams together three historical plotlines: the queen's relationship with Walter Raleigh; the Armada; and the undoing of Mary, Queen of Scots.  (The timeline has about as much to do with reality as the rest of the film, as all of the action apparently takes place in 1585; I'm not going to itemize the pretty spectacular chronological contortions required to make these events occur at the same time.)  The film adheres to the rules of the monarchical/political biopic by dramatizing the clash between the protagonist's private desire for love and his or her public obligations.  Here, Elizabeth's illicit and unconsummated longing for Raleigh, which repeats her illicit and consummated longing for Leicester in the first film, threatens to undermine her strength just when she needs it most.  The film adds even more sexual frisson in the form of Elizabeth's homoerotic attachment to Elizabeth Throckmorton, whose own passion for Raleigh leads to a domesticity conspicuously denied the purportedly virginal queen.  (Director Shekhar Kapur ends the film with a Madonna-like image of Elizabeth cradling Raleigh's and Bess' son.)   At one point, Mary Stuart wryly asks if she is to have no "privacy," and Elizabeth suggests that that is entirely the wrong question for a monarch to ask; as per the usual, the monarch's strength resides in her decision to marry the English public instead of the man she loves. 

While Elizabeth is lusting, the entwined political plots set supposedly fanatical Catholics against supposedly moderate Protestants.  But while the fanatical Catholics have a bad habit of trying to assassinate people, the moderate Protestants have an equally bad habit of torturing people by hanging them in chains and suchlike.  In fact, Elizabeth's proclaimed allegiance to "toleration" and freedom of conscience contrasts starkly with her cabinet's fear of Papists; it is not immediately clear how the cabinet's desire to somehow eliminate all Catholics from the realm differs from Philip II's goal to reinstate Catholicism in England.  The film does its best to distinguish the Queen's refusal to engage in the politics of fear with Francis Walsingham's no-holds-barred methods, although it's not clear if such a distinction can hold up under close scrutiny.  Notably, what sets the Armada in action is the collapse of the supposedly omniscient Walsingham's intelligence-gathering: he fails to see that the Spanish  have botched Elizabeth's assassination deliberately, thereby provoking the English into executing Mary.  (That scritchy sound you hear comes from legions of early modernists, scratching their heads in bafflement.)  Philip II forces matters in such a way that Spain's pre-existing motives for war are made to appear after-the-fact.   

Most of this action takes place inside, either in vast, often brightly-lit spaces defined by columns and arches that stretch to infinity, or in claustrophobic, dark, candle-lit rooms, sometimes filled with clutter and oversized furniture.  Kapur loves overhead shots that make his characters dwindle into tiny dolls; they look sadly adrift in the echoing rooms of the English and Spanish castles.  This emphasis on the interior reinforces one of the film's themes--namely, that the Queen is entrapped by her own power.  The Armada scenes, sadly, are obvious and rather cheap-looking CGI, although the too-symbolically stormy clouds overlooking both the ships and Fotheringay Castle contrast nicely with England's sunny meadows (glimpsed briefly during a riding scene, always de rigueur in a historical film). 

Kapur only sporadically addresses the question of queenly performance.  The queen's dressing room, for example, is clearly that of an actor, complete with a lifetime supply of wigs.  Elizabeth is the most "womanly"--that is, the most offstage--in those moments when she is virtually or entirely undressed: contemplating her naked body in a mirror, bathing with only Bess Throckmorton for company, or watching the destruction of the Armada while barefoot, wigless, and without makeup.  But such moments are not for men to share.  Potentially more provocative is the film's interest in the Queen watching other people, from behind an imaginary "pane of glass" (as she tells one would-be suitor) that renders her supposedly untouchable.  As we see in the case of Bess and Raleigh, however, such supposedly disinterested watching actually shatters the glass; watching Bess and Raleigh dance, Elizabeth imaginatively projects herself into the scene, dancing in the other Elizabeth's place.  Kapur does not pursue this idea or any other idea at much length, however. 

The actors do the best they can with the dialogue.  Most of them appear sincere, at least, while mouthing depressingly cliched platitudes about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness.  (Or something of the sort.)  At times, Cate Blanchett seems to have only one volume setting, and she is occasionally overwhelmed by her costumes.   Geoffrey Rush, who provided most of the fun last time around, spends much of this film glowering.  Clive Owen adequately swashes his buckles as Raleigh, while Jordi Mollá glumly prances about as a weak-legged (literally) Philip II.  Nobody else manages to make much of an impression.   Overall, this is standard-issue costume drama, amusing enough after a few days spent grading papers. 

Comments

[John Thomas McGuire]

I saw the film last week, and tend to agree with the general tone of your review. Too many fancy camera angles, too much pompous dialogue, and too much glowering from Geoffrey Rush. The miniseries with Helen Mirren, which I just saw, was about three hours longer, but MUCH better.

[Rich Puchalsky]

See here.

[Jeff]

I haven't seen the movie (or the first one, for that matter, although I'm pretty sure it's somewhere in one of my Netflix queues), but it sounds like it tries to do a lot of the same stuff as Benjamin Britten's opera "Gloriana"--based at least partly on Strachey's "Elizabeth and Essex"--which he composed for the current Elizabeth's coronation. It didn't go over very well, as I understand it.

The opera is very much about queenly performance, including the requisite dressing-room scenes with maids brushing her hair while she highlights the distinction between public and private personas. The most memorable scene (for me, anyway) comes when Penelope, Lady Rich, outdresses Elizabeth at a ball. Elizabeth makes her take off the dress, then disappears from the celebration so that she can make another entrance, this time in Penelope's dress. She knows she looks a fool (different sizes, etc.), and she reflects the humiliation back onto Penelope. Vicious stuff, and it plays as a weird mix of catty and imperiously un-feminine.

[george]

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