Elizabeth: The Golden Age
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| Not included in the Golden Age of Costume Dramas. |
Continuing the Tudor costume drama theme "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" should have successfully filled in the gap between episodes of BBC's Wolf Hall. It should have also, having a budget of $50-60 million dollars, been a considerably more upscale production- both in its ambitions and mise-en-scène. Futhermore, in 2007 when Cate Blanchett reprised the role, she had not been in a "bad" film.
Not that "Elizabeth is a "bad" film, it is just not particularly good.
I feel I might also need to qualify that Cate Blanchett had been in "Babel", which I am confident is not as good if I watched it the second time and I am pretty sure has Brad Pitt as a sniper or something like that and he kills an Arabic child (he may have been a hunter) but I am very blank and Blanchett's role; Little Fish, which I am definitely iffy on; and the Good German, which despite being a costume drama and about WW2, or at least the immediate aftermath, I fell asleep in both times I have tried to watch it.
As Cate Blanchett made the original "Elizabeth" in 1998, the ten years that had passed between the two films produced an sequel that was over stuffed and fussed over every detail. Perhaps it wasn't the ten years, but something had happened to the director and writer between the two films. By 2008, a new co writer had been brought on to patch up the myriad plot lines. William Nicholson had helmed "First Knight", a terrible Sean Connery film, and co-written Gladiator.
The dense plotting that "Wolf Hall" achieves over the course of six episodes is crammed into the run time of "The Golden Age". Perhaps over the ten years, Michael Hirst had written a range of possible options, and Hollywood decided to ram them all into one endless succession of bewigged and beruffed actors quickly edited together to fit in the big Armada sequence at the end.
We have Elizabeth dealing with middle age, flirting with Clive Owen, getting unsuccessfully wooed by a range of suitors. Mary Queen of Scots in prison machinating with Catholics, Prince Philip whose insanity is underlined and highlighted every time he is in shot, the construction of the Spanish Armada; Catholic plotters, an assassination attempt; the impregnation of one of Elizabeth's chambermaids and finally, in one of the most anti climatic naval sequences since Hornblower (which at least had the defense of having no budget), the demise of the Spanish Armada.
This was definitely the low point, as it was confusingly edited and was a mess. Pretty sure the reason the English won initially was the fast moving smaller ships versus the Spanish slow moving galleons; also the massive storm that scuppered the Spanish proving that God was actually Protestant after all. "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" controversially posits the fireships being the real deal breaker because they I guess are easier to film than the complicated naval tactics of the English navy. Also has this fucking bullshit shot of Clive Owen clinging to the side of the fireboat before he leaps into the sea.
Everything seems to be moving at an unnecessarily brisk pace, like when Clive Owen puts his cloak down so Blanchett doesn't have to get her feet muddy. We don't see the mud, we have only the most cursory of glances between the characters and then Clive Owen is essential to the narrative. I guess I should be grateful, as the pace meant the film ended sooner than it should have. But it definitely savoured somewhat of an anti climax, especially in comparison with the first film. But then I haven't really watched the first film since about 1998, and it probably isn't actually that good.
The film's subtitle "The Golden Age" hints at the prosperity that lay within England's grasp, but it took the second Armada for Raleigh to really claim dominance over the Spanish. Elizabeth never really sorted out the Catholic problem in the film, or many of her problems- like creating an heir or sorting out the mechanisms of finance for England's beleaguered coffers and life seems pretty shit for most people in the Golden Age aside from Elizabeth's immediate circle. The price of food went up 75% during her reign, not that this film cared. The only thing it cared about was making Elizabeth look pretty in her big dresses, which it achieved.
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1. Babel involves a chicken being murdered, one cannot forgive such things.
ReplyDelete2. First knight is great.
3. Agree on all points. I mean fire ships were used to good effect at battle of gravelines, but when Clive Owen single handedly destroyed the armada it filled me with such an irrational rage I almost walked out of the movie on the spot. And where the Fuck is the mention of the statute of charitable uses, clearly the most significant outcome of her reign. Unless...Elizabeth: the statute of charitable uses. The epic finale to the trilogy. It's true what you say though, it's a weird historical blindness that paints Elizabeth so positively considering her financial stewardship essentially acclerated the civil war by more than a century. maybe who knows. But I mean why do we love our female queens so much when we spend the rest of our civilization carefully ensuring they are kept under the thumb of the patriarchy? Seriously.
Yes this one probably isnt worth the effort.
ReplyDeleteThe original was good but this was ponderous and historically inaccurate.
Clearly the victor in the armada was the weather.