History Is What You Can Remember

Rating: 7/10 (19 November 2007)

The original "Elizabeth" from 1998 told the story of the first fifteen years or so of Elizabeth's reign and of her progress from a frightened young princess to the "Virgin Queen". "The Golden Age" moves the story on to the 1580s. Despite her success in dealing with domestic opposition, Elizabeth is still not completely secure on her throne. English Catholics dispute both her legitimacy and her right to rule, and many regard Mary Queen of Scots as their rightful sovereign. King Philip of Spain, Elizabeth's former brother-in-law, threatens to invade.
Cate Blanchett returns as Elizabeth, as does Geoffrey Rush as her Machiavellian counsellor Sir Francis Walsingham. The most important new character is Sir Walter Raleigh, portrayed here as the new great love of the Queen's life, and also as the mastermind of the defeat of the Armada. The film deals with the supposed love-triangle between Elizabeth, Raleigh and her maid-of-honour Bess Throckmorton, which also formed the basis for the 1955 film "The Virgin Queen".
Like its predecessor, the film takes liberties with history. Although it takes place in the years 1585 to 1588, King Eric XIV of Sweden is shown as one of the suitors for Elizabeth's hand in marriage. He was in fact deposed in 1568 and died in 1577. Raleigh did not marry Bess until 1591, three years after the events shown in the film. He does not appear to have played any part in the defeat of the Armada; the real heroes of that engagement were Lord Howard of Effingham and Sir Francis Drake. The film also takes liberties with geography. In real life Elizabeth's speech to her troops was made at Tilbury, a town in the low-lying Essex marshes, but here it takes place on high chalk cliff-tops. We see the Queen sail past the New Building and Bridge of Sighs at St John's College, Cambridge, although these buildings were not built until the nineteenth century. Mary Queen of Scots was not imprisoned in a castle on an island in a Scottish loch (she was, of course, in exile from Scotland) but in one on the flat plain of the English Midlands. The real Fotheringhay Castle could not have been used for the film (it was demolished in 1627), but no doubt a closer equivalent could have been found.
The film, however, is not overly concerned with historical accuracy. Like the earlier film, it is a stylised pageant very different in style to the traditional English costume drama such as "Anne of the Thousand Days" or "Mary Queen of Scots". These differences may reflect the fact that the director, Shekhar Kapur, is originally from India and has worked in the Indian cinema both as actor and director. Although it was made by a foreign-born director, the film is quite unashamedly patriotic (and therefore something of a rarity in the modern British cinema). As in the first film, cathedral interiors (Wells, Winchester and Ely) are used to represent Tudor castles and palaces. The idea is to present not so much a biography of Elizabeth the real woman as one of Elizabeth the myth, the iconic "Virgin Queen" who plays such an central role in England's National Legend. (Each country has its own National Legend- a selection of stories from its past which define its idea of itself and its place in the world).
"The Golden Age" has been accused of anti-Catholicism, a criticism which in my view seems unwarranted, although it has given rise to a good deal of debate on this page. (One thread on the message board, in particular, displays remarkable amounts of bigotry on both sides). Although the film undoubtedly portrays the events of the 1580s from the English perspective, and therefore shows Philip II as the villainous aggressor, the Catholic Church of today is a very different institution from the one which existed 400 years ago. Criticism of the sixteenth century Church, therefore, should not be seen as reflecting badly on the modern Church, any more than war films which portray the Nazis as villains should be seen as anti-German or as attacks on the democratic Germany of today.
The stylised, symbolic nature of the film becomes particularly clear when Cate Blanchett (as good here as she was in the original film) is addressing her troops. At 38, Blanchett is much younger than the historical Elizabeth was during this period (she was 55 at the time of the Armada). For most of the time, this discrepancy is hidden by the use of make-up, but in this scene Blanchett appears, not as a middle-aged lady who hid her greying hair beneath a wig, but as a beautiful young warrior-maiden in armour, her long red hair flying in the wind behind her. The cliffs used were actually in Somerset, but they are doubtless intended to represent the White Cliffs of Dover, a powerful symbol in English history and folklore. This scene has little to do with historical reality, but it is one of the most memorable images in the film. This is the sort of folk-history which remains in the mind long after the schoolroom version has been forgotten. And, as Messrs Sellar and Yeatman reminded us in "1066 and All That", history is what you can remember. 7/10