Elizabeth (film)

''Elizabeth'' is a 1998 British biographical period drama film directed by Shekhar Kapur and written by Michael Hirst. It stars Cate Blanchett in the title role of Elizabeth I of England, with Geoffrey Rush, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Fiennes, John Gielgud, and Richard Attenborough in supporting roles. The film is based on the early years of Elizabeth's reign, where she is elevated to the throne after the death of her half-sister Mary I, who had imprisoned her. As she establishes herself on the throne, she faces plots and threats to take her down.

''Elizabeth'' premiered at the 55th Venice International Film Festival on 8 September 1998 and was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 23 October. The film became a critical and commercial success. Reviewers praised Kapur's direction, costume design, production values and most notably Blanchett's titular performance, bringing her to international recognition, while the film grossed $82 million against its $30 million budget.

The film received three nominations at the 56th Golden Globe Awards, including for the Best Motion Picture – Drama, with Blanchett winning Best Actress. It received twelve nominations at the 52nd British Academy Film Awards, winning five awards, including Outstanding British Film, and Best Actress (for Blanchett). At the 71st Academy Awards, it received seven nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Actress (for Blanchett), winning Best Makeup. In 2007, Blanchett and Rush reprised their roles in Kapur's follow-up film '' Elizabeth: The Golden Age'', which covers the later part of Elizabeth's reign.

Plot

In 1558, Catholic Queen Mary ( Kathy Burke) dies from a cancerous tumour in her womb. Mary's heir and Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett), under house arrest for conspiracy charges, is freed and crowned the Queen of England.

As briefed by her adviser William Cecil ( Richard Attenborough), Elizabeth inherits a distressed England besieged by debts, crumbling infrastructure, hostile neighbours, and treasonous nobles within her administration, chief among them the Duke of Norfolk (Christopher Eccleston). Cecil advises Elizabeth to marry, produce an heir, and secure her rule. Unimpressed with her suitors, Elizabeth delays her decision and continues her secret affair with Lord Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes). Cecil appoints Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush), a Protestant exile returned from France, to act as Elizabeth's bodyguard and adviser.

Mary of Guise (Fanny Ardant) lands an additional 4,000 French troops in neighbouring Scotland. Unfamiliar with military strategy and browbeaten by Norfolk at the war council, Elizabeth orders a military response, which proves disastrous when the professional French soldiers defeat the inexperienced, ill-trained English forces. Walsingham tells Elizabeth that Catholic lords and priests intentionally deprived Elizabeth's army of proper soldiers and used their defeat to argue for Elizabeth's removal. Realising the depth of the conspiracy against her and her dwindling options, Elizabeth accepts Mary of Guise's conditions to consider marrying her nephew Henry of France.

To stabilize her rule and heal England's religious divisions, Elizabeth proposes the Act of Uniformity, which unites English Christians under the Church of England and severs their connection to the Vatican. In response to the Act's passage, the Vatican sends a priest to England to aid Norfolk and his cohorts in their growing plot to overthrow Elizabeth. Unaware of the plot, Elizabeth meets Henry of France but ignores his advances in favour of Lord Robert. William Cecil confronts Elizabeth over her indecisiveness about marrying and reveals Lord Robert is married to another woman. Elizabeth rejects Henry's marriage proposal when she discovers he is a cross-dresser and confronts Lord Robert about his secrets, fracturing their idyllic affair and banishing him from her private residence.

Elizabeth survives an assassination attempt, whose evidence implicates Mary of Guise. Elizabeth sends Walsingham to meet with Mary secretly in Scotland, under the guise of once again planning to marry Henry. Instead, Walsingham assassinates Guise, inciting French enmity against Elizabeth. When William Cecil asks her to solidify relations with the Spanish, Elizabeth dismisses him from her service, choosing instead to follow her own counsel.

Walsingham warns of another plot to kill Elizabeth spearheaded by the priest from Rome carrying letters of conspiracy. Under Elizabeth's orders, Walsingham apprehends the priest, who divulges the names of the conspirators and a Vatican agreement to elevate Norfolk to the English crown if he weds Mary, Queen of Scots. Walsingham arrests Norfolk and executes him and every conspirator except Lord Robert. Elizabeth grants Lord Robert his life as a reminder to herself how close she came to danger.

Drawing inspiration from the divine, Elizabeth cuts her hair and models her appearance after the Virgin Mary. Proclaiming herself married to England, she ascends the throne as "the Virgin Queen".

Cast

Production

The costuming and shot composition of the coronation scene are based on Elizabeth's coronation portrait.

Kapur's original choice for the role was Emily Watson, but she turned it down. Cate Blanchett was chosen to play Elizabeth after Kapur saw a trailer of '' Oscar and Lucinda''.
According to the director's commentary, Kapur mentioned that the role of the Pope (played by Sir John Gielgud) was originally offered to, and accepted by, Marlon Brando. However, plans changed when Kapur noted that many on set would probably be concerned that Brando would be sharing the set with them for two days. Later, when Gielgud had taken the role, Kapur at one point suggested (in vain) that the Pope's accent should be Italian; he added that every British actor within earshot was horrified that any director was asking Sir John Gielgud to speak in an accent that "wasn't John Gielgud".

A large proportion of the indoor filming, representing the royal palace, was conducted in various corners of Durham Cathedral—its unique nave pillars are clearly identifiable.

Historical accuracy

''Elizabeth'' received some criticism for factual liberties it takes and for its distortion of the historical timeline to present events which occurred in the middle to later part of Elizabeth's reign as occurring at the beginning. In his entry for Elizabeth I in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Patrick Collinson described the film "as if the known facts of the reign, plus many hitherto unknown, were shaken up like pieces of a jigsaw and scattered on the table at random." Carole Levin, reviewing the film in 1999 for ''Perspectives on History'', criticized the movie for portraying Elizabeth as "a very weak and flighty character who often showed terrible judgment", in contrast to historical descriptions of her as a strong, decisive, and intelligent ruler. In particular, Levin scrutinized the movie's portrayal of Elizabeth as dependent on Walsingham, in addition to the completely inaccurate portrayal of her relationship with Robert Dudley, as being instances in the film where the character appears weak and overpowered by the men around her.

There are inaccuracies in the timeline of events prior to her accession. The film depicts Mary I of England as being pregnant prior to Elizabeth's imprisonment. In actuality, Elizabeth was imprisoned on 18 March 1554 and released in May; it was not announced that the Queen was believed to be pregnant until September of that same year.

Elizabeth was put under house arrest at Woodstock Palace, not Hatfield House, but did not remain there until her sister's death. On 17 April 1555, she was summoned to Hampton Court to be with Mary during the Queen's delivery. When the Queen did not deliver, Elizabeth remained at court through 18 October 1555 until after it had become apparent that Mary was not pregnant and after the Queen's husband Philip II of Spain had gone abroad. It was only after this time that Elizabeth was finally able to return to Hatfield.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester is wrongly depicted as having been a co-conspirator in the plot against Elizabeth. In fact, he remained one of Elizabeth's closest friends until his death in 1588, long after their romantic relationship had ended. The movie portrays Elizabeth as being ignorant of the fact that Dudley is married; it is her discovery of this fact that contributes to the breakdown of their relationship. In reality, Elizabeth was fully aware of Dudley's marriage to his first wife, Amy Robsart, who lived in isolation in the country suffering from breast cancer. Robsart died from a fall down the stairs in 1560, two years into Elizabeth's reign, a fact never mentioned in the film. He never converted to Catholicism either, remaining a staunch Protestant and Puritan all his life.

In the film, England is forced to send young and untrained soldiers, including children, to fight in Scotland against the French Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, who is said to be plotting to invade England, because the Catholic bishops spoke in the pulpits against raising a professional army. In truth, Mary of Guise was not planning on invading England, but was crushing a Protestant revolt amongst the Scots. Elizabeth had also had all the English Catholic bishops thrown in prison before the conflict even began, and the English actually did send professional soldiers to fight in Scotland. They were defeated in battle not because they were untrained children sabotaged by traitorous Catholic clergy, but because they were simply outfought by the French. The Act of Supremacy 1558 and the Act of Uniformity of 1559 are shown taken place after the Siege of Leith, however, the Acts took place before the Siege ended in 1560.

Mary of Guise was not assassinated by Walsingham, but died naturally from edema on 11 June 1560. She was not the aunt of Francis, Duke of Anjou nor was she ever related to him as the House of Valois family and the House of Guise family were two different rivalling families.

Sir Francis Walsingham did not have a significant role in Elizabeth's reign until 1573 and wasn't knighted before her reign. He did not meet Mary of Guise nor was he a sceptic towards religion.

William Cecil, Baron Burghley was portrayed by the 75-year-old Richard Attenborough in the film, but the real Lord Burghley was only 38 years old when Elizabeth was crowned, thirteen years older than she. Likewise she never compelled him to retire, as is depicted in the film. He remained her chief advisor and was Lord High Treasurer from 1572 until his death in 1598. Similarly, the film depicts Cecil being given the title Lord Burghley before the Northern Rising of 1569. In fact, he was given this title two years after this in 1571.

The film portrays Kat Ashley, head lady-in-waiting to the Queen, as being the same age as Elizabeth, but in reality, at the time of the then-25-year-old Elizabeth's coronation, Ashley was around 57, and she died six years later in 1565.

Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk was not a cold and calculating power-hungry mastermind, but a gullible co-conspirator in a couple of assassination plots.The first was the Northern Uprising, which alone was enough to get him jailed for nine months in the Tower of London, before Elizabeth released him to house arrest. The second, the Ridolfi plot, was a plot to assassinate Elizabeth, place Mary, Queen of Scots on the English throne, and have her marry Norfolk. Norfolk was beheaded for his role in this plot as he had been bankrolling the conspirators. He is also seen to have one mistress, the fictitious Lettice Howard. During Mary's reign he was married to Mary FitzAlan and when the movie ends(1563) he was married to Margaret Audley but because the actual Ridolfi Plot was 10 years after the film's timeline, he had three wives with his third wife being Elizabeth Leyburne.

The character of Isabel Knollys was inspired by Lettice Knollys portrayed by Kelly MacDonald, Elizabeth's lady-in-waiting who married Lord Robert Dudley in 1578. She did not die by a poisoned dress and died in 1634. Their romantic connection is shown on screen. It was her marriage to Lord Robert which caused Elizabeth's anger towards Robert and her banishment from court. However, the anger in the film was towards Lord Robert is due to his marriage between him and Amy Robsart.

Bishop Stephen Gardiner died in 1555, before Elizabeth came to the throne and thus cannot possibly have been involved in the Ridolfi plot. The Earl of Arundel was not executed for his role, but was instead imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he died as a political prisoner, and the Earl of Sussex was actually a loyal supporter of Elizabeth who would not have tried to overthrow her. Arundel is shown to have a wife, a son and a daughter, however, his son died in 1556, his first daughter, Jane Lumley was born in 1537 and his second daughter was Mary FitzAlan who was born in 1540 and died in 1557. He had two wives, Lady Katherine Grey and Mary Arundell both of which never saw Elizabeth's ascension to the throne. Alvaro de la Quadra died in 1564 and therefore, did not participate in the conspiracy of the Ridolfi Plot.

John Ballard is introduced beating the young Sir Thomas Elyot to death with a rock, an event that cannot have occurred because Elyot died in 1546, before Elizabeth even came to the throne, at the age of 55 or 56. Elyot was a diplomat and not a young spy working under Walsingham. Ballard was not in England to assassinate Elizabeth, although he did initiate the Babington plot to overthrow her (the movie treats both this and the separate Ridolfi plot as one scheme). He also had the cover story of being a soldier and well-dressed swashbuckler, while the movie portrays him as merely a drab, humourless fanatic. His death—he was hanged, drawn and quartered alive, along with some of the other conspirators in the Babington plot—was also so shocking and brutal to witnesses that Elizabeth forbade that method being used again.

Although the idea of marriage to Henry, Duke of Anjou (who was actually not Mary's nephew but the son of Henry II) was briefly entertained, Elizabeth never actually met him, and moreover there is no evidence that he was a cross-dresser, as depicted in the film. This is possibly a misinterpreted reference to the fact that Henry did not like hunting or wars which was contemporarily considered as effeminate and cowardice for a man in those days. Further, the movie portrays the courtship as occurring at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, when in fact it occurred in 1570, twelve years into her rule. The film also glosses over the considerable real-life age difference between the Queen and Henry (in 1570 she was 37 years-old and he 19). It was Henry's younger brother Francis, Duke of Anjou, 22 years younger than Elizabeth, who seriously pursued the English queen beginning in 1578, when she was 45 years old and he was 23.

At the end of the film, Elizabeth is shown as having decided against marriage. In fact, she entertained the idea of marriage with several European monarchs well into middle age. Candidates included her former brother-in-law, Philip II of Spain; Archduke Charles of Austria; Eric XIV of Sweden; Adolphus, Duke of Holstein; and the Valois princes Francis and Henry (later King Henry III of France and Poland).

Soundtrack

Release

''Elizabeth'' premiered in September 1998 at the Venice Film Festival; it was also shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. It premiered in London on 2 October 1998 and it premiered in the United States on 13 October 1998. It opened in the United Kingdom on 23 October 1998 and opened in limited release in the United States in nine cinemas on 6 November 1998, grossing $275,131. Its widest release in the United States and Canada was in 624 cinemas, and its largest weekend gross throughout its run in cinemas in the US and Canada was $3.8 million in 516 cinemas, ranking No.9 at the box office. ''Elizabeth'' went on to gross $30 million in the United States and Canada, and a total of $82 million worldwide.

Reception

Critical response

The film was well received by critics. It holds an approval rating of 83% on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 63 reviews, with an average score of 7.30/10. The site's consensus reads: "No mere historical drama, ''Elizabeth'' is a rich, suspenseful journey into the heart of British Royal politics, and features a typically outstanding performance from Cate Blanchett." Metacritic reports a score of 75 out of 100 based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Accusations of anti-Catholicism

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights accused the film of anti-Catholicism, stating that the film gives the "impression that the religious strife was all the doing of the Catholic Church", noting that the review in ''The New York Times'' considered it "resolutely anti-Catholic" complete with a "scheming pope" and repeating the charge made in the ''Buffalo News'' that "every single Catholic in the film is dark, cruel and devious.""''Elizabeth'' is 'resolutely anti-Catholic
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, January–February 1999

Awards and nominations

See also

* BFI Top 100 British films

References

External links

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Shekhar Kapur in Interview with 99FACES.tv
*https://www.moviemistakes.com/film407

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elizabeth
1998 films
ARIA Award-winning albums
Anti-Catholicism
British biographical drama films
British epic films
British historical films
1990s biographical drama films
1990s historical films
BAFTA winners (films)
Films about Elizabeth I
1990s feminist films
Films critical of the Catholic Church
Films directed by Shekhar Kapur
Films featuring a Best Drama Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films set in the 1550s
Films set in Tudor England
Films that won the Academy Award for Best Makeup
Working Title Films films
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment films
StudioCanal films
Film4 Productions films
Films scored by David Hirschfelder
Best British Film BAFTA Award winners
Films produced by Eric Fellner
Films produced by Tim Bevan
Films produced by Alison Owen
Cultural depictions of Mary I of England
1998 drama films
1990s English-language films
1990s British films