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Posts tagged ‘Elizabethan’

Shakespeare in Love (1998)

shakespeare in love posterDirected by John Madden

I hadn’t seen this movie when it first came out, so all I really knew about it was that according to everyone, it stole the best picture Oscar from Saving Private Ryan (which I also hadn’t seen). I think I was half expecting it to be terrible after all the outrage. And I know I am about to damn this movie with faint praise, but it was cute. There was nothing really wrong with it.

So what’s the story? Shakespeare, a young playwright with a good reputation, is struggling to write his next play. He finds a muse in Viola De Lesseps, a young woman so obsessed with the theater that she is willing to break the law and perform on stage disguised as a man. There are some misunderstandings and mishaps, but eventually Shakespeare writes his masterpiece Romeo and Juliet.

The Good: I loved the production design. I felt like it was a very full picture of Elizabethan England, from the formality of the court to the disgusting dirtiness of the streets. It felt very alive. It almost made me want to live in those times. Well, no. Really too dirty for my taste. But maybe visit!

The music! It was fun and upbeat and just…fit. Loved it.

The supporting cast was great. I’m not a huge fan of either Gwyneth Paltrow or Joseph Fiennes, but I loved everyone else. Imelda Staunton as the nurse was a huge favorite of mine, as was Geoffrey Rush in his role as a befuddled producer. Colin Firth was surprising as a slightly evil stuffed shirt nobleman, and I loved Mark Williams as the tailor who wanted to be an actor. Judi Dench was good in her expanded cameo as Queen Elizabeth, even though I don’t think that eight minutes of a movie is enough to count as a supporting role. I even liked Ben Affleck’s egotistical actor. The cast was really just stellar.

The Bad: The writers played around with history a little too much for my liking. Romeo and Juliet was written in the 1590s; no one was settling Virginia until the early 1600s. But since I feel like the filmmakers weren’t trying to make any kind of serious movie, but just present a fun alternative backstory to Romeo and Juliet, I suppose I can forgive them.

The Ugly: There’s nothing really ugly about this movie. It’s just cute and sweet. But I do have a little rant. Everyone thinks the ending of this movie is so sad. But guess what? It wouldn’t have lasted. And no one seems to understand that. Whatever the real Shakespeare was like, the character in this movie was a philanderer who fell in and out of love with ease, just like Romeo. Which has always bugged me about Romeo, incidentally. I guess I just have never felt that Romeo and Juliet was a particularly romantic play, so I carry those feelings over to this movie.

Oscars Won: Best picture; best actress in a leading role; best actress in a leading role; best writing, screenplay written directly for the screen; best art direction-set direction; best costume design; best music, original musical or comedy score.

Other Oscar Nominations: Best actor in a supporting role (Geoffrey Rush); best director; best cinematography; best sound; best film editing; best makeup.

Category:

Best Picture, Comedy, Historical

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Elizabeth (1998)

220px-Elizabeth_PosterDirected by Shekhar Kapur

I am not a historian, let alone an expert on the Tudor era, but I do flatter myself that I know a little bit more about history than the average American (which, sadly, is not that difficult because very few people here understand the value of history. But that’s a whole nother topic.). Having said that, nothing annoys me more than a movie that pretends to be historical, but is riddled with inaccuracies (*cough* Ever After *cough*) or has added made-up events because it makes a better story. If the original story isn’t interesting enough, why are you making a movie about it at all?

So what’s the story? Elizabeth tries to find her place as queen amid the danger and intrigue of the Tudor court.

The good: The costumes were gorgeous. I felt like they did a good job of showing the shifting of the fashions over time. The makeup was also well done. The makeup artists did an excellent job of making Cate Blanchett age just a few years, making her look older, but still young. They also avoided the problem that plagues so many historical movies; the actors did not look like 20th century people dressed in costume. I’m not sure what they did differently from some of the other movies of 1998, but somehow it worked.

The bad: The first time there is a shot looking down into a lofty stone hall from above, it’s really awesome. By the twentieth time, I feel like the director and/or cinematographer is saying, “Look at these cool shots we can do! Aren’t we awesome?” I was also annoyed by the martyr scene in the beginning. I felt like it was only included so that it could foreshadow the ending, which felt really heavy handed.

I didn’t much care for the production design, either. It has always seemed to me that this time was rather alive and noisy and messy, but everything seemed to be so…sterile. Too perfectly posed, maybe. It just made me feel more disconnected from the movie, rather than drawn in.

The ugly: The movie starts off with a definite date: 1554. And that is the last date we see in the movie. Although Elizabeth looks subtly older as the movie goes on, the viewer is left with no idea how much time has passed. Is it a matter of months or years? Considering that specific places are labeled, this lack of dates is disconcerting. Of course, since so many things in the movie didn’t happen anyway (a poisoned dress?), I guess they couldn’t have done dates. It annoyed the crap out of me, though.

Oscar Wins: Best makeup

Other Oscar Nominations: Best picture; best actress in a leading role; best cinematography; best costume design; best art direction-set direction; best music, original dramatic score.

(Random thought inspired by this movie: If Elizabeth had married the Duke of Anjou, her mother-in-law would have been Catherine de Medici. This is the only circumstance in which I can accept the poisoned dress as a possibility, because Catherine de Medici was CRAZY! I would totally watch the alternate history movie of this story if it existed.)

Category:

Drama, Historical

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