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Elizabeth
Before we delve into the mess that is Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth, we have to announce that we're not going to do "Shakespeare in Love". We're really sorry about this because so many of you asked for it, but we gave it a try, and it just doesn't work – since this movie has so many parody elements, it's impossible to say which things were deliberate and which are actual historical mistakes :-(
We present another foray into Elizabethan England instead...
Opening titles
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
fourth_rose: The music sounds more like Carl Orff than some 16th century composer...
Title card: King Henry VIII is dead. Queen Mary rules.
cutecoati: Poor Edward VI never existed, obviously.
fourth_rose: Well, everyone knows Henry, and no one knows Edward, no?
+++
fourth_rose: Only once I'd like to see a movie set in the Renaissance period that does not open with a burning scene.
cutecoati: It's necessary to make sure the audience understand right away that these were baaaaaad and daaaaaaaark times!
fourth_rose: And now they seem to have poured petrol into the flames, too!
+++
First appearance of Durham Cathedral, poorly disguised as Some Palace.
Queen Mary: Norfolk!
cutecoati: Norfolk???
fourth_rose: Which one?
cutecoati: The old one who died in 1554 or the young one who wasn't even twenty then?
fourth_rose: A mixture, it seems. Plus a role at Mary's court that neither of them ever had.
Mary and advisors discuss the Wyatt plot.
Sussex: Madam, they want to put your sister on the throne!
Arundel: There's no proof!
Sussex: She's clearly guilty, who needs proof?
fourth_rose: Every court in England?
cutecoati: Remember, they need to show how arbitrary and backwards those times were!
fourth_rose: And besides, what's up with Sussex? Wasn't he one of those who kept speaking for Elizabeth throughout Mary's reign?
cutecoati: Which Sussex is this, by the way? I suppose he's meant to be Thomas Radclyffe, who was quite an important figure at Mary's court...
fourth_rose: ...but who didn't become Earl of Sussex until three years after the Wyatt plot when his father died.
Mary: My sister is a bastard! She will never rule!
cutecoati: I believe this is what you'd call "famous last words".
+++
Elizabeth and her ladies-in-waiting are dancing around on some meadow. Enter Robert Dudley on horseback, bringing back one of the ladies.
Lady: It was so fast!
fourth_rose: No wonder Elizabeth didn't marry him...
cutecoati: May I just say that casting Robert "The Gypsy" Dudley with puppy-eyed Joseph Fiennes is the miscasting of the century?
fourth_rose: In my head, I keep casting Dudley with a young Jonathan Frakes, never mind the accent.
Sussex: Princess Elizabeth! To the Tower!
fourth_rose: I may be mistaken, but didn't Elizabeth lose her title as princess royal when she was declared a bastard?
cutecoati: And when she was imprisoned, Dudley had been in the Tower for quite some time and wouldn't be prancing around in the fields.
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Interrogation chamber.
Gardiner: You are guilty, Madam!
fourth_rose: I like Gardiner's and Arundel's "tough cop, nice cop" approach!
Elizabeth's ladies start bitchslapping the guards who come to take her away.
cloudlessnights: They didn't give her any proper clothes, but they left her her personnel?
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Queen Mary: *hysterics*
cutecoati: That scene is spot on.
Mary: Wah, I shall not have a child! They say that it is a tumour! They say I have cancer!
cutecoati: "They" being today's medical history scholars.
fourth_rose: Besides, is there a reason Elizabeth keeps wandering around with loose hair? Is that a way to appear before one's queen?
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Norfolk: The Protestants return from abroad to murder all Catholics! Walsingham returns from France!
cutecoati: From Switzerland, you mean. Besides, who'd have cared about him at this time?
fourth_rose: And if Walsingham returns, we're in 1558 now, and Elizabeth is queen.
+++
Walsingham: *is Macchiavelli reincarnate*
Boytoy: *whips out dagger*
cloudlessnights: Doesn't look like he really knows what he's doing.
Walsingham: Innocence is the most precious thing you possess.
fourth_rose: I rather doubt that at this point.
Walsingham: *cuts boytoy's throat*
Boytoy: *refuses to bleed*
cloudlessnights: Bit bloodless, that guy!
cutecoati: Apart from the timeline issues, may we just state for the record that this person has nothing to do whatsoever with Francis Walsingham, Puritan Extraordinaire?
+++
Date in the confessional.
Elizabeth: Cecil!
cutecoati: Cecil???
fourth_rose: Man, time has really been unkind to him!
cutecoati: The guy was only twelve years older than her, not 120!
Cecil: Lady, you are most innocent in the ways of the world.
fourth_rose: AND obviously he has never met the real Elizabeth Tudor.
De Quadra: Hey, fancy marrying your brother-in-law?
fourth_rose: I believe Philip of Spain delivered that message himself, what with him being in England and meeting Elizabeth in person and everything.
cutecoati: Besides, what is De Quadra even doing there? He was Spanish ambassador at Elizabeth's court from 1559-1563.
fourth_rose: You expect a movie audience to tell three different Spaniards apart?
+++
First appearance of Elizabeth the Damsel in Distress.
Elizabeth: Oh noes! Cecil says my life is in danger!
Dudley: Who are you and what have you done with the tough girl I grew up with? You know, the one with the brains?
Elizabeth: Robert, you know you are everything to me!
cloudlessnights, cutecoati, fourth_rose: *eyeroll*
+++
Mary: *dies*
cutecoati: Look how all those Catholics are being cold-blooded bastards!
Elizabeth receives the news plus coronation ring.
cloudlessnights: What's with all these dense shots?
Elizabeth: This is the Lord's doing. And it is marvellous in our eyes.
fourth_rose: She isn't allowed to quote Latin, either.
+++
Elizabeth's coronation.
cutecoati: This cathedral looks strangely like the one in York.
fourth_rose: At least it's not Durham again.
cutecoati: By the way, why is this coronation a one man-show of Norfolk's?
fourth_rose: And we've got another case of Not Very Contemporary Music. Plus, the ceremony was held in Latin.
cutecoati: But at least her dress is right out of the coronation portrait.
After the coronation...
Cecil: Let me tell you you're in deep shit, Madam. Which you know, but the moviegoers don't. Mary of Scots wants your throne, and Norfolk covets it!
Elizabeth: Don't we have another ten years before we have to deal with this?
Cecil: Not in this movie. Look at me, do you really think I've got that much time?
+++
Party at court.
fourth_rose: Shall we discuss the costumes at some point?
cutecoati: They're pretty and shiny... and all over the place, period-wise. Can we leave it at that?
cloudlessnights: But I won't forgive them for leaving out the codpieces.
De Quadra: *is Latin lover*
fourth_rose: You're a bishop, man!
Walsingham: *is from the future*
French ambassador M. de Foix: King Henry of Anjou sends his greetings!
cutecoati: Who??
fourth_rose: My best guess would be King Henry II of France, from the Valois family. Henry of Anjou would be his son, the later Henry III, but he was made Duke of Anjou in 1566 and became king in 1574!
cutecoati: And his younger brother, the next Duke of Anjou, who later came to England to woo Elizabeth was four years old at this time.
fourth_rose: It's all moot anyway since de Foix only became ambassador at Elizabeth's court in 1561.
Elizabeth: Let me insert some exhibition about Mary of Guise which no-one will notice so that everyone will still be really confused later on when all the people in Scotland speak French! Btw, STFU, Mister Ambassador.
fourth_rose: Because the real Elizabeth had nothing better to do than alienate all the other European powers right after her coronation...
cloudlessnights: And I doubt any Englishwoman would be this impolite to a star football player.
cutecoati: Btw, I just bet that party hall is another church in disguise.
+++
Robert: Watch me strut right into the Queen's bedroom, ladies! You're blushing, Miss Knollys!
fourth_rose: Lettice Knollys? His future mistress and second wife? Mother of Elizabeth's last lover, the Earl of Essex?
cutecoati: Ohhhhhh, foreshadowing!
Cecil: *tries to kill the mood*
Ladies: *fight for looks through the peepholes*
Elizabeth & Robert: *shag*
cutecoati: *facepalm*
fourth_rose: Right, because that would have helped her prospects of securing her reign by marrying one of Europe's princes!
+++
Norfolk: *waltzes into the Queen's bedroom unannounced*
fourth_rose: Men get executed for High Treason for something like that!
cutecoati: Besides, does she have guards for the decorative factor or what?
+++
Royal council.
Lords: Let's go to war against Scotland!
Elizabeth: Watch me being a helpless babbling girl!
cloudlessnights: Sorry, but aren't they behaving a bit too casually in the royal presence? Arundel all but has his feet on the table!
Walsingham: *is cryptic*
Cecil: You are not a member of the Council!
cutecoati: Right, but then what's he doing here?
Elizabeth: I don't like wars.
fourth_rose: Yes, we know you'd rather have a Barbie doll.
+++
Battlefield. The English got their butts kicked by the Scots.
fourth_rose: Dead Marshes, anyone?
cutecoati: No wonder they were all killed, none of them is wearing any kind of armour!
Mary of Guise: Watch me being French without giving you any explanation! And I'm pretty, too, although I was suffering from dropsy and swollen up like a balloon at the time!
+++
Durham again.
fourth_rose: Not only are they trying to make us believe that a Romanesque cathedral is a Renaissance palace, they also seem to think the Queen of England stayed put in one palace all the time.
Elizabeth: *hysterics that would have made Bloody Mary proud*
Walsingham: It is my business to protect your Majesty.
fourth_rose: Not until fifteen years later, and not in person, either! You're going to be the head of a spy network, not a bodyguard!
Elizabeth: Wah, we lost against the Scots! I'm clearly unfit to rule although I've been fighting tooth and nail for it ever since I was fifteen!
Walsingham: In this movie you haven't. And besides, it was the fault of the bishops who did not let us send reinforcements!
fourth_rose: England, the famous Early Modern Theocracy.
cutecoati: Wasn't it rather because you're totally broke?
+++
Cecil: Marry the Duke of Anjou!
cutecoati: I've given up figuring out who they're talking about at this point.
Elizabeth: Wah! Ok, let me take a look at him.
Robert: *pouts*
+++
Elizabeth's speech to the bishops.
fourth_rose: Is that the Chapter House in York?
cutecoati: Psst, she's finally showing some backbone.
Elizabeth: You want to stay loyal to the pope? Can one man serve two masters?
Bishop: This is heresy!
Elizabeth: No, it's common sense!
fourth_rose: Actually, it's a bible quote.
Elizabeth: Therefore, I ask you to pass the Act of Uniformity.
fourth_rose: I'm being nitpicky here, but since they keep wailing about their allegiance to the pope, it seems they're actually discussing the Act of Supremacy.
Some bishop: Where's Gardiner, dammit?
fourth_rose: Er – dead since 1555?
cutecoati: In this scene, not in reality.
Bishop Gardiner and his supporters have been locked into the cellars.
fourth_rose: How did they get them in there?
cutecoati: Telling them it was the wine cellar?
Elizabeth: Bishops! In your hands lies the future of my people. And the peace.
cutecoati: And the freedom?
+++
Elizabeth & entourage are awaiting the Duke of Anjou.
fourth_rose: Ok, since he's actually coming to meet her, this would be Francois of Alecon.
cutecoati: And the year would be 1581, and he'd be more than twenty years younger than her.
Anjou: *is a clown* *is also French and therefore starts talking dirty to the Queen immediately – in public for the kink factor*
English aristocrats: *are shocked*
cutecoati: I'd have expected Elizabeth's reaction to be a bit more along the lines of 'We are not amused' here.
+++
The deepest pit of hell Vatican.
cutecoati: Someone's really having issues with Catholics here.
Head Demon Pope: Let's get rid of this heretic whore on the English throne!
fourth_rose: So he's Pius V, excommunicating Elizabeth in 1570?
cutecoati: Never mind, the only thing that counts is that he's Teh Evol.
+++
Partying on boats.
Elizabeth & Robert: *flirt*
Anjou: *pouts*
Robert: My true love hath my heart...
cutecoati: Someone tell him he's not playing Shakespeare in this one!
fourth_rose: Besides, he stole that poem from Philip Sidney, his own nephew!
Robert (to De Quadra): Alvaro, are you not a bishop?
fourth_rose: Finally, someone remembers!
cutecoati: But why is he on first name basis with the Spanish ambassador?
Robert: Marry us?
De Quadra: Marry you?
cloudlessnights, cutecoati, fourth_rose: *die*
+++
Assassination attempt.
Robert & De Quadra: *plot* (in Durham, of course)
fourth_rose: Hey, they really seem to be best buddies all of a sudden!
cutecoati: Perhaps Dudley really meant that proposal?
Walsingham & new boytoy: It was totally Norfolk. We've no real reasons to assume this, but we just know it was.
+++
Cecil: Madam, I thought it was a good idea to drag the French ambassador into your dressing room five minutes after an attempt at your life. Will you marry the guy he's trying to sell?
Elizabeth: ...
Cecil: You can't marry Robert Dudley, you stupid bint, he's already married!
Elizabeth: ...!
fourth_rose: Ok, if she just discovered he's married to Lettice Knollys, then at least this is the same timeframe as Anjou coming to England.
cutecoati: But whatever happened to Robert's first wife Amy Robsart? The one Elizabeth totally knew about because she'd been a guest at the bloody wedding?
fourth_rose: The one who died mysteriously in 1560, leaving Robert looking like a murderer and therefore no longer eligible for marriage with the Queen?
cutecoati: I'm quite surprised they left that out.
fourth_rose: Well, no one would ever buy Joseph Fiennes being suspected of murder.
+++
Elizabeth: *waltzes into Anjou's crossdressing orgy* Ok, the marriage's off!
fourth_rose: It's a cute moment, but she knew he was gay before she even met him.
cutecoati: And I doubt very much that would have kept her from marrying him.
+++
The deepest pit of hell Vatican. Someone's sealing a papal charter.
cutecoati: That thing's a forgery, people! Papal bulls have seals made from lead, dangling from a silken chord!
Pope (to demonspawn priest): Go to England and murder the heretic whore, my son.
Norfolk: *meets assassin priest at English coast*
Priest: *clubs Walsingham's boytoy spy to death with a stone*
cloudlessnights: Why is he using a stone if he's got ten people with swords standing around?
+++
Secret meeting of Robert with one of Elizabeth's ladies in one of Elizabeth's dresses. In Durham cathedral, of course.
fourth_rose: Seriously, is the aisle of a church a proper place for shagging?
Lady dies gruesome death from poisoned dress.
cutecoati: I half expected it to be an apple.
Robert: *runs*
Elizabeth: *wanders around all alone*
Priest: *approaches, cloak billowing, in dramatic slo-mo*
cloudlessnights: The Black Riders can't even afford horses in this movie.
+++
Walsingham flirts with Mary of Guise.
Anjou: How can I marry your queen? They say she's really a man!
fourth_rose: Shouldn't that idea rather appeal to him?
cutecoati: Besides, is he implying she hasn't behaved girly enough up to now?
Mary of Guise (purring): I hear you are a creature of the world like me, Sir Francis.
fourth_rose: Both Walsingham and Mary of Guise are rolling in their graves now.
Walsingham: My queen rules with her heart, not her head.
cutecoati: Must. Kill. Scriptwriter. NOW.
fourth_rose: This depiction of one of the cleverest female rulers in European history as a brainless swooning girl is starting to get really annoying.
+++
Walsingham: *has murdered Mary of Guise in her bed*
Cecil: I'm shocked! Swear to me you had nothing to do with this, bitch!
Elizabeth: I've had enough, old man. I'm now going to emancipate myself and start using my own head, and everyone knows the best way to do that is to start murdering people left and right.
Cecil: Madam, what's come over you?
Elizabeth: I hereby create you Lord Burghley. Oh, and you're fired.
Cecil: Well, the second part is a bit... unexpected.
fourth_rose: Since he became Lord High Treasurer the year after he became Lord Burghley...
cutecoati: ...and remained Elizabeth's most trusted advisor until his death!
fourth_rose: Btw, we're now in 1571 again.
cutecoati: I'm starting to get dizzy from all these time jumps.
Waslingham: Now you've got it, Madam. Now go and murder all those scheming ambassadors because the 16th century, although being a Golden Age of diplomacy, clearly couldn't have had any regard for diplomatic immunity. Oh, and get rid of Norfolk.
Elizabeth: Fine, let's rumble. OMG I feel so bad-ass suddenly!
+++
Walsingham: *arrests Arundel and the assassin priest in the Chamber of Secrets*
fourth_rose: Which plot is this supposed to be?
cutecoati: Looks like the Ridolfi plot – only without Ridolfi, but with some parts of Norfolk's rebellion mixed into it.
fourth_rose: Never mind that there was a whole year in between these two – and Arundel wasn't openly involved in either of them!
cutecoati: Could it be they're mixing up Henry FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, and his grandson Philip Howard, who inherited the Earldom of Arundel in 1580?
fourth_rose: It's possible since the latter was Norfolk's son, died in prison and was declared a catholic saint later. Besides, this movie clearly has a thing for merging grandfathers and grandsons into one person.
+++
Scene of upside-down torturing of assassin priest.
Walsingham: These are the traitors: Sussex, Gardiner, Arundel, Leicester.
fourth_rose: Sussex never was accused of treason, Gardiner died before Elizabeth's accession, Arundel died in his bed in 1580, and you've failed to tell us that Robert Dudley has been made Earl of Leicester in 1564. Besides, he never was accused of conspiring against Elizabeth, either.
cutecoati: They were really thorough there, weren't they?
Walsingham: And there's a letter from the pope to Norfolk, proposing a marriage between him and Mary Queen of Scots.
fourth_rose: Ok, at least that part is true.
cutecoati: And we're obviously back in 1569...
fourth_rose: ...the year before the pope excommunicated Elizabeth and called for her assassination!
cloudlessnights: What a mess.
Elizabeth: Great. Now let Norfolk sign it, because in contradiction to what was said in one of the opening scenes, you do need proof to have someone condemned for High Treason.
+++
Norfolk's mistress: *gives the signed letter to Walsingham*
Night of merry butchering. Queen Elizabeth has all the foreign ambassadors murdered, accompanied by tragic 18th century music.
Bishop Gardiner: *is still alive* *flagellates himself*
cutecoati: Man, this movie really has a problem with Catholics.
fourth_rose: The fact that the director wanted a cameo appearance as the man who stabs the bishop backs up this assumption.
Walsinham: *arrests Norfolk in his mistress' bed*
Elizabeth: *prays*
+++
Arundel: *grovels*
Elizabeth: I'm touched. You'll still be killed because a) I need to demonstrate that these were Dark and Bloody Times and b) the best way to show I've become a great ruler is wanton bloodshed, but I'm touched.
Robert: What about meeeeee? Btw, when did I become a traitor, dammit?
Elizabeth: That's what I'm asking you.
Robert: The script says I did it because I love you. It doesn't make sense to me either.
Elizabeth: Shame on you! No more naughty scenes with you from now on! I'll keep you around just to remind me!
cloudlessnights: Is she going to put him into a show-case or something?
+++
Meeting between Elizabeth and Walsingham. In the Galilee Chapel... in Durham.
fourth_rose: She must really like it up there on the Northern fringes of her kingdom.
Walsingham: Well done, Madam. And now for some PR suggestions.
Elizabeth: *has her hair cut by a weeping lady-in-waiting*
cutecoati: Please tell me the music in the background is NOT Mozart's requiem!
fourth_rose: I'm afraid it is.
cloudlessnights: I fail to see what's so tragic about a haircut.
fourth_rose: Especially since she was going bald in reality.
Elizabeth: Kat, I have become a virgin.
cloudlessnights: By cutting your hair???
fourth_rose: Besides, that girl is supposed to be Kat Ashley, her nanny and surrogate mother? Man, age has been a lot kinder to her than to poor Cecil.
cutecoati: Especially given that she died in 1565!
+++
Elizabeth's great entrance at court.
fourth_rose: For the first time, her dress looks actually Elizabethan.
Elizabeth: I am married to England.
cutecoati: And no-one knows why she needed to wear geisha make-up to prove it.
Elizabeth: *freezes*
Closing text: Elizabeth reigned for another 40 years. Walsingham remained her most faithful advisor. She never married and never saw Dudley in private again. On her deathbed, she was said to have whispered his name. By the time of her death, England was the richest and most powerful country in Europe.
cloudlessnights: After the history lesson you just put me through – it seems to me that almost none of this is actually correct?
fourth_rose: I'm not even going there.
cutecoati: I really wonder how they're going to go about the sequel, seeing that they killed off the better part of the necessary personnel before their time.
fourth_rose: And squeezed two thirds of the things that happened throughout her reign into the first five years!
cloudlessnights: Let's hope that they'll at least not call the sequel "Elizabeth II".
FIN
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The next instalment will, by popular demand, be Robert Wise's Sound of Music. We hope you really appreciate what we're willing to do for your entertainment ;-)
