Stylised Historical Pageant

Rating: 7/10 (13 November 2007)

"Elizabeth" deals with the early years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. We first see her as a frightened young princess learning to survive at the court of her dangerously unpredictable sister Mary, who comes close to having Elizabeth executed because of her supposed involvement in the Wyatt Rebellion and because of her ambivalent religious loyalties. Even when Mary dies and Elizabeth succeeds her on the throne, her position seems hardly easier. At the age of 25, Elizabeth has inherited a near-bankrupt kingdom, threatened from outside by powerful foreign rivals and from within by religious dissensions between Catholics and Protestants. The Duke of Norfolk, a powerful Catholic nobleman, threatens Elizabeth with open rebellion. The film tells the story of how she overcame all these challenges to make herself the unchallenged ruler of England.
Elizabeth is often regarded as a Protestant ruler, but this is perhaps an oversimplification of her religious position, which was closer to that of the Vicar of Bray. Under her Protestant brother Edward VI, she was a Protestant. Under Mary she was, at least outwardly, a Catholic. When she inherited the throne herself, she formulated the concept of a single Church of England, independent of the Papacy, to act as a broad church for all English Christians. (The Anglican Church has never declared itself to be exclusively Protestant, and since 1559 no English ruler, except Cromwell, has tried to make it so). In this she had the inadvertent support of Pope Pius V, whose bull "Regnans in Excelsis", declaring Elizabeth a heretic and calling on her Catholic subjects to assassinate her or rise up against her, had the unintended consequence of driving into the Church of England all those who were in their hearts loyal to the Old Faith but who had no wish to see their Queen dead and their country racked by religious warfare.
The film explores the way in which Elizabeth created a ruling ideology for herself and her kingdom, an ideology of which the Elizabethan Religious Settlement was only one element. Apart from Mary, who only reigned for five years, no woman had previously succeeded in establishing herself as Queen Regnant of England. The advice from all her male counsellors was to marry as soon as possible, preferably to a powerful foreign prince, just as Mary had allied herself to Philip of Spain. Elizabeth, however, realised that such a marriage would be unpopular with her subjects as it could have made England subordinate to a foreign power (the Wyatt Rebellion was inspired more by fear of Spanish domination than by objections to Mary's Catholicism). The alternative of marriage to an English husband was rejected because Elizabeth did not want to surrender her power to any man, who would have become king in all but name. Historians have differed over whether Elizabeth was literally a virgin (the film takes the view that Robert Dudley was her lover physically as well as emotionally), but her solution was to reinvent herself as the Virgin Queen, married to her country rather than any earthly husband, and began a brilliant propaganda campaign to promote herself as such. (The only male European monarch who managed to create such a brilliant persona for himself was Louis XIV, "Le Roi Soleil").
Cate Blanchett gives a superb portrayal of Elizabeth, and was unlucky to be overlooked for the "Best Actress" Oscar which eventually went to Gwyneth Paltrow for "Shakespeare in Love". (An entertaining film, but hardly a great performance). The other performances which stood out were those of Geoffrey Rush as Elizabeth's devious, Machiavellian adviser Walsingham and Christopher Eccleston as the arrogant, treacherous Norfolk. I did not, however, like the portrayal of Elizabeth's sister Mary; she may have been cruel and callous (her nickname of "Bloody Mary" was well-deserved) but she was the daughter of Henry VIII and doubtless far more regal and dignified than the demented fishwife played here by Kathy Burke.
The film is not altogether historically accurate. Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk (who crushed Wyatt's Rebellion and died of natural causes shortly afterwards) is conflated with his grandson, the 4th Duke, also named Thomas, who was executed by Elizabeth for treason. The Scottish Regent Mary of Guise was not poisoned by Elizabeth's agents. (She had many enemies, but none of her contemporaries regarded her death as anything but natural). Lord Burghley, a much younger man than the character played by Richard Attenborough, was not dismissed by Elizabeth early in her reign; he remained a trusted adviser until his death in 1598. Henri d'Anjou never visited England. Events are not shown in the sequence in which they occurred in history.
None of this, however, matters. The film was not conceived as a strictly accurate period drama but rather as a highly stylised historic pageant about the life of one of England's greatest monarchs. This stylisation is emphasised by the locations; mediaeval cathedrals such as Durham and York Minster stand in for Tudor palaces. The use of these buildings is hardly naturalistic, but it adds to the film's sense of grandeur and majesty. We hear music by Mozart and Elgar, neither of whom would be born until many years after Elizabeth's death. Cate Blanchett's costumes and appearance are modelled upon portraits of Elizabeth which were never meant to be realistic, but rather iconic propaganda images. As a historical textbook of Tudor England, the film is of little use, but it succeeds well in conveying Elizabeth's personality and her central importance in English history. 7/10