ELIZABETH (1998)

Turns out, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE wasn’t the only award-winning Elizabethan pic of 1998 to date badly.  Director Shekhar Kapur & scripter Michael Hirst not far behind with this posh, deceptively traditional view of a young queen’s unsentimental on-the-job education.  Glamorously cast (note last calls for Richard Attenborough & John Gielgud) with Cate Blanchett retreating into Virgin Queen persona when public & private disappointments prove friends, lovers & statesmen all unworthy of her affection.  Merely using her to leapfrog to power or take her down; flip the Church back to Catholicism or form one-sided alliances; siphon royal funds or stay in the Royal Renaissance sexual closet.  (That’s a new one!)  Only loyal/clever statesman/diplomat Walsingham (actual three-years age difference with Eliz stretched to 30 by a good, if miscast Geoffrey Rush) around to act as truth-teller/mentor.  The film is handsome to look at, especially if you have a tolerance for swirling cameras and high-angle shots, but the plotting turns progressively turgid (and frankly hard to follow) as Hirst works too hard to pull off a fugual climax with more public & private executions & assassinations than THE GODFATHER.  Anachronistically underscored with a vocalize based on Elgar’s Enigma Variations (‘Nimrod’) and, appallingly, the Mozart Requiem.  A shame, since, faults & all, the first half is a damn good show.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Much the same crew got back together for the less well received ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE/’07 (not seen here), scuttling plans for a third helping.   OR: You could say Elizabeth Tudor ‘built’ Hollywood since it was Sarah Bernhardt’s British-made four-reeler on QEI that convinced the ‘respectable’ trade to go see a movie when Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players (later Paramount) distributed it in 1912.  Later, Golden Age Hollywood saw Flora Robson & Bette Davis each play her twice (try THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX/’39) while the most underrated is M-G-M’s YOUNG BESS/’53.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-private-lives-of-elizabeth-and.html   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/05/young-bess-1953.html