Elizabeth: The Golden Age

"I like her not!" - Henry VIII

Elizabeth: the Golden Age (2007) was my first theatrical viewing in college. It was quite a hectic day: class on the butt-end of campus, losing my watch and getting a haircut from some weird Italian guy. Riding the bus to the theater, I got off at the wrong stop, was stranded in Squirrel Hill and had to wait for a very kind woman to guide me into town. Finally staggering into the theater, the projector broke down three times in the film's first ten minutes. Oh, and the movie sucked.

Sadly, the intervening years haven't improved my opinion. Elizabeth (1998) is historically murky but very entertaining, Shekhar Kapur showing a flare for period pageantry and classy melodrama. This belated sequel is a misbegotten farrago, recycling well-known history in a manner boring, offensive and ostentatious.

In 1585, Elizabeth I's (Cate Blanchett) throne is still threatened from within and without: Spain's Philip II (Jordi Molla) is preparing an invasion of England, while English Catholics under Anthony Babington (Eddie Redmayne) conspire to kill Elizabeth and place Mary Stuart (Samantha Morton) on the throne. But Elizabeth is too concerned with dashing explorer Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen), who simultaneously charms the Queen and lady-in-waiting Bess Throckmorton (Abbie Cornish). Spymaster Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush) slowly unravels Phillip's scheme, forcing Elizabeth's understrength navy to square off against the Spanish Armada.

The Golden Age gets off on the wrong foot by covering well-trodden ground. Its subjects certainly could make interesting films, and individually they have: The Sea Hawk, The Virgin Queen, Mary, Queen of Scots. Just two years prior, in fact, Tom Hooper's Elizabeth I miniseries covered the same events. It's a bad sign when you immediately invite comparisons to other, better movies.

Nor is the execution better. Michael Hirst and William Nicholson's script is a mess, introducing multiple subplots without giving any of them breathing room. Kapur focuses on a silly love triangle that mines every imaginable cliche. Setpieces (an assassination attempt, Mary's execution) seem self-contained, the build-up so cursory they don't register at all. When the Armada finally arrives, we get a shockingly generic Henry V speech from Elizabeth and an effects-laden montage of exploding warships. Yawn.


A low point is some shockingly blunt anti-Catholic bigotry. Scenes of Philip scheming, conspirators plotting and Mary pouting are crammed with priests, rosaries, crucifixes and Latin chanting. Characters constantly call Elizabeth a whore and bastard. At one point, Philip chortles "Elizabeth is darkness, *I* am the light!", somehow stifling maniacal laughter. If read for contemporary parallels, the film's message is just depressing: Catholics (Muslims?) are unreasoning monsters, so why not kill them all? Good luck with that.

Golden Age is certainly a spectacle, all sumptuous costumes, ornate set design and crazy lighting. This culminates in a jawdropping scene where Elizabeth, branded a whore by a would-be assassin, stands bathed in radiant, heavenly light. Ordinarily I'd praise Kapur's efforts, but the imagery is baldly ostentatious, as if enough pretty pictures compensate for other deficiencies. Who cares about plot? Here's a shot of a horse swimming through a shipwreck, and a camera spinning around Elizabeth! Spinning!

Cate Blanchett is captivating as always. She's good as a monarch forced to reap the consequences of a loveless life and difficult reign. On the other hand, she doesn't go the extra mile like the best Elizabeths. Where Bette Davis smeared herself with fright makeup and Glenda Jackson shaved her head, Blanchett remains strikingly glamorous for a 50-something woman. Not that I'm complaining.

Geoffrey Rush is strangely watered-down, lacking his delicious deviousness from the first outing. An attempt to flesh out Walsingham with a treacherous brother (Adam Godley) amounts to little. Clive Owen mixes smug posturing with silly ramblings and Abbie Cornish is bland. Samantha Morton gets so little screen time she doesn't register. Tom Hollander (Land of the Blind) has an inconsequential bit.

All signs indicate Elizabeth: The Golden Age should be a good film. Unfortunately, it's a near-complete failure, buoyed only by pretty pictures and Cate Blanchett.

The Four Feathers (2002)

Another lousy remake of a classic movie, The Four Feathers (2002) is a woeful miscalculation. Shekhar Kapur's take on A.E.W. Mason's book is handsomely mounted, but warps everything that made the 1939 Korda production so enjoyable into wretched nonsense.

British Army officer Harry Faversham (Heath Ledger) resigns his commission after becoming engaged to Ethne (Kate Hudson). Unfortunately, Harry's decision comes on the eve of the Mahdist War, when Muslim fanatics threaten to overrun Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Harry's friends (Michael Sheen, Rupert Penry-Jones, Kris Marshall) and Ethne deem him a coward, giving him feathers to symbolize his shame. Only Jack Durrance (Wes Bentley) sticks up for him, even though he has eyes for Ethne. A chastened Harry must redeem his honor, joining friendly native Abou (Djimon Hounsou) on a death-defying mission into enemy territory.

The Four Feathers certainly looks good. Kapur and photographer Robert Richardson deliver a visually lush film, every frame a delight. The period detail is perfect, the costumes beautiful (though inaccurate - the Brits had switched to khaki uniforms by 1885), the Moroccan locations breathtaking. Best of all is the set-piece battle towards the halfway point (supposedly Abu Klea, though not very accurate). Despite some egregious slow-motion, Kapur stages it with verve, excitement, and a genuine sense of scope. The lack of obvious computer effects is really refreshing in a modern film. Aesthetically, it's an accomplished film.

Otherwise, the film gets everything wrong. Kapur queasily vacillates between modern sensibility and imperial adventure, satisfying neither approach. A particularly stupid scene features Jack trying to disarm a Mahdist sniper, a bit more appropriate to modern policemen than Victorian soldiers. The racial politics are all over the place. The '39 film's charming Arab doctor is replaced with a sleazy slave trader. Abou comes from the original book but seems dumb for helping Harry; all he gets for his trouble is repeated beatings. The Brits treat their servants harshly, but since most of the non-white characters are murderous fanatics who cares?

There's also a baffling lack of context. Having read Michael Asher's Khartoum: The Ultimate Imperial Adventure I know the rough outline of the Mahdist Wars. Can most audiences say the same? Will they have seen earlier Four Feathers films or Khartoum as a guide? Even I had a hard time following what the hell was going on. A single fleeting reference to General Gordon is all we have to go on. Geography and strategy are a complete mystery: what are the British doing in Sudan? Where are they going and what do they hope to achieve?

Harry's heroics are toned down considerably. He's an inveterate coward in this version and frankly, we feel his peers right for judging him. Nor is his redemption very convincing. In the '39 film, he goes deep cover as an Arab, singlehandedly saves his friends and helps rout a Mahdist army at Omdurman. In this version, he more or less blunders into the Sudan and achieves little beyond his own survival, needing Abou even for that. Instead of an improbable hero, we get a sunburned git wandering around the desert.

Worst of all, though, is Kapur's unaccountably somber tone. Earlier versions knew the material was ridiculous and had fun with it. The remake's seriousness is wholly inappropriate for such lightweight material, lacking the original's humor or flare. Moving the story to the Gordon Relief Expedition allows Kapur to depict the British expedition as a failure. This bleakness jars badly with the story: Harry is redeemed, most of the protagonists survive and all should be right with the world.

The cast is the final insult. Heath Ledger showed some talent in his later films but he's an unemotive stump here. Wes Bentley made a splash in American Beauty before mostly disappearing, while Kate Hudson vanished into Romcom Hell by mid-decade. Both make game tries at English accents but can't overcome weak characters. Djimon Hounsou (Gladiator) seems lost in a pointless role, lacking his usual intensity. Pros like Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon) and Tim Piggot-Smith (V for Vendetta) don't fare much better.

More than anything, The Four Feathers seems superfluous. True, the 1939 film's unabashed imperialism wouldn't go over well with modern audiences. But when a perfectly good version exists already, why bother?

Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth I is one historical figure well-served by cinema. A plethora of talented stars have provided memorable portrayals of Good Queen Bess: Bette Davis, Flora Robson, Jean Simmons, Glenda Jackson, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren. She's definitely a choice role for actresses, the complex monarch who brought England into the modern era, stared down its enemies, juggled myriad "favorites" and proved a woman could indeed rule with "the heart and stomach of a King."

Then there's Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth (1998). The film received an armful of Oscar nominations but lost out to another Tudor piece, Shakespeare in Love. It's a mixed bag: visually ravishing and well-acted, but soap operatic and historically suspect. At the very least, it has Cate Blanchett's marvelous performance at its center.

Elizabeth Tudor (Cate Blanchett) lives under house arrest, suspected of treason and heresy by her Catholic sister Queen Mary (Fanny Burke). Elizabeth takes the throne after Mary's death in 1558, and must navigate extremely treacherous waters: the King of Spain and the French Duke of Anjou (Vincent Cassel) want to marry her, Franco-Scottish troops led by Mary of Guise (Fanny Ardant) threaten England's border, Pope Pius (John Gielgud) sanctions her assassination and the Duke of Norfolk (Christopher Eccleston), a Catholic nobleman, plots to seize the throne. She carries on a bold affair with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (Joseph Fiennes), which earns the disapproval of her chief minister, William Cecil (Richard Attenborough). The initially naive Elizabeth must learn statescraft in a hurry, enlisting the help of her ruthless spymaster Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush) to secure her throne and neutralize her opponents.

No one will mistake Elizabeth for A Man for All Seasons. Writer Michael Hirst went on to create Showtime's The Tudors, which depicted Henry VIII's reign as a soft-core soap opera. Elizabeth has the same MO, amping up the sex, violence, sex, intrigue, sex, speculation, and did I mention sex? Hirst's work titilates its audience with bare chests and heaving bosoms while convincing viewers they're learning something.

History buffs will quibble with more than gratuitous sex. Various anti-Elizabeth plots are conflated together, which is forgivable for dramatic economy. The movie oversells Elizabeth's naivety: surely the "consummate actress" who escaped implication in Thomas Wyatt's plots against Mary wasn't a complete babe in the woods? Additionally, Elizabeth's "Can't we all just get along?" speech during an interrogation is ridiculously anachronistic. Dudley and Cecil are ill-served, with life-long friend Dudley betraying Elizabeth and the ruthless administrator Cecil portrayed as a doddering old man. The movie borders on anti-Catholic, but I'd argue the subject makes it difficult to be otherwise.

Still, Elizabeth has enough virtues to overcome its pulpy nature. If the depiction of events is inaccurate, the complicated conspiracies and plot twists make for gripping, deliciously complex drama. The movie's sense of danger, from the burning of heretics to the endless backroom plots and lurking armies, is palpable from beginning to end. To his credit, Hirst does an excellent job drawing Elizabeth's transformation from waif to ruthless queen, and she's a mostly credible and always compelling protagonist. Elizabeth is certainly more sophisticated than your average bodice-ripper.

Shekhar Kapur's direction is ravishing. He mixes the scope and pageantry of Hollywood epics with the stylization of Indian cinema, making striking use of shadow, color (Elizabeth is constantly shot through "filters" of curtain and fabrics) and impeccable art direction creating a foreboding, gloomy atmosphere. David Hirschfielder's extraordinary score, with heavy use of portentious chorus, adds immeasuribly. A few bits don't come off well: Elizabeth practicing her speech to Parliament is unbearably cheesy, and the plot culminates in a trite Godfather-lite murder montage. Otherwise, it's a first-rate job.

Cate Blanchett is one of Groggy's favorite actresses, and this is among her best performances. Extraordinarily radiant, Blanchett captures Elizabeth's transformation perfectly, giving her the perfect mixture of vulnerability, confusion, dignity and strong will. Blanchett nails all of Elizabeth's sides, whether addressing Parliament, flirting with Dudley or scheming with Cecil and Walsingham. Blanchett reprised her role in 2007's Elizabeth: the Golden Age, but sadly that film was worthless junk.

Geoffrey Rush is superb, exuding craft, quiet menace and twisted Machiavellian genius. Joseph Fiennes has little to do besides smolder and pout. Richard Attenborough (10 Rillington Place) won't make anyone forget Trevor Howard's vicious Cecil in Mary, Queen of Scots. On the flip side, Christopher Eccleston's Norfolk is a bit too obviously evil. An interesting array of actors fill out supporting roles: Kelly Macdonald's (Gosford Park) flirty lady-in-waiting, Daniel Craig's (Munich) demonic assassin, Kathy Burke's (Nil by Mouth) ferocious Mary, Vincent Cassel's (Black Swan) effete Anjou. John Gielgud (Becket) makes his final film appearance as Pope Pius V.

Elizabeth isn't for anyone hoping for a serious history lesson. For those hoping for a sexy, well-plotted period film though, it's definitely worthwhile.