Kate Williams, author of a book on the young Victoria, welcomes the new film on the early life of the queen, but says historical cinema should portray politics as well as romance
‘Utterly gorgeous’, declares the advertising for the new film The Young Victoria. Queen Victoria ruled a quarter of the world’s souls, and saw the world change immeasurably during her 64-year reign. As a biographer of Victoria’s young life, I relished the film’s investigation of the power struggles of her marriage with Albert and her battle for self-determination. But the review quoted might refer to a dress, not a film about the life of our longest-reigning monarch.
We are obsessed with the minutiae of modern politics, speculating endlessly on who said what at Granita, and relishing the replay of the fall of the Iron Lady in Margaret on BBC2. And yet when it comes to history, producers tend to emphasise romance, seemingly concerned that audiences have little interest in the political struggles and in-fighting of the past.
In 2008, The Other Boleyn Girl was indeed gorgeous. But Henry VIII’s dilemmas seemed to be reduced to a decision between blonde (Scarlett Johansson as Mary Boleyn) and brunette (Natalie Portman as Anne). Thomas Cromwell was relevant only to the extent that he administered Henry’s love life; the religious schisms that rocked the country and consequences of the severing of relations with Europe were forgotten. Eric Bana as a virile Henry was part of an eternal triangle, an erotic threesome with two pretty sisters, and kingship seemed to be a case of presiding over glittering parties. ‘Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart’, Lord Byron might have claimed, but this is not so in the historical film.
Whence this belief that the modern audience shies from politics? Sofia Coppola’s 2006 Marie Antoinette was a riot of pastel colours, semi-improvised party scenes, and strident pop music. Antonia Fraser, in the bestselling biography on which the film was based, highlighted how very young Marie Antoinette was when she arrived at Versailles, and Coppola illustrated this brilliantly, portraying a youthful Marie Antoinette throwing a birthday party that resembled a teen sleepover. And yet Coppola was much less sure than Fraser at exploring how the Queen’s gilded world was shattered by demands for equality. The film suggested the demands of the mob by depicting angry scribbles appearing on a portrait of the Queen — and a viewer unversed in history might believe that the royal family was forced to quit the palace because the Queen overspent on dresses. Fraser gave a detailed account of Marie Antoinette’s trial and execution. But the film closed with Marie Antoinette taking her last look at Versailles from her carriage.
Our best biographies reveal how the personal and political intersect in historical lives, but producers of modern films seem concerned that they must choose one or the other. Amanda Foreman’s magnificent Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, explored Georgiana’s enthusiastic support for the Whig party but the recent film of the book, The Duchess focused upon her love affairs. Dominic Cooper’s Lord Grey was a tormented lover, a foil for Ralph Fiennes’s staid Duke, but it was easy to forget that he was a future prime minister, and there was little indication of the importance of the Whig principle of the expansion of the electorate. Keira Knightley made an engaging Duchess, for whom one wanted to weep when she gave up her illegitimate child. But I felt a little wistful for Foreman’s vigorous representation of political activity and her portrayal of Georgiana as craving intellectual satisfaction just as much as amorous fulfilment.
A film-maker might argue that if we freely alter novels and plays, history is fair game. For indeed the life of a monarch or the course of the important episodes of his or her reign may not correlate to the requisite Hollywood structure of an arc with a short downward slope after an emotive scene of confrontation. Yet it is surely wrong to suggest that films do not have responsibility to their subjects. And most importantly of all, they lose much richness with the cuts. Scenes of Marie Antoinette’s trial could have only enhanced the film, and The Other Boleyn Girl would have been more vibrant with a more detailed depiction of the religious debates.
In Mrs Brown, the focus was on Queen Victoria’s broken heart and the political significance of her self-isolation at Balmoral was glossed over. Conversely, The Young Victoria does consider politics, crucially the complicated Bedchamber Crisis. When Lord Melbourne’s Whig government lost its majority and Robert Peel was called to form a government, Queen Victoria sabotaged her relationship with Peel by refusing to replace any of her Whig ladies-in-waiting with Tory supporters. But what most viewers will take from the film is the representation of her passionate affair with Albert.
It was not ever thus. Perhaps the most successful historical film was the 1966 A Man for All Seasons, in which Paul Scofield as Thomas More played the ultimate man of conscience, refusing to yield to Henry VIII’s demand that he facilitate his divorce from Catherine of Aragon and his desire to be head of the Church of England. Based on the play by Robert Bolt, the film won six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and a Best Actor for Scofield. Fred Zinnemann, director of From Here to Eternity, emphasised the ethical battle between More and the King, to the extent that the role of Anne Boleyn, taken by Vanessa Redgrave, was a non-speaking cameo. The film ended with More’s trial and execution — a triumphant and deeply moving conclusion.
We live in intensely political times and seem increasingly to want films to engage with the abuses of power in dense and often obscure ways. George Clooney’s Syriana prided itself on a labyrinthine plot, and even superhero films such as The Dark Knight and the newly released Watchmen (which Alan Moore, author of the original graphic novel, suggested was unfilmable) teem with convoluted themes that demand a double viewing, in which sex and politics intertwine. History on film, however, often has to be more straightforward, veering close to costume drama: romantic, colourful and patently appealing.
Many more historical films are set to come to our screens — including a Mary Queen of Scots with Scarlett Johansson. Apparently concerned that audiences eschew political detail, producers show the lives of kings as close to that of modern actors or pop stars, with a pristine parade of handsome houses, beautiful dresses and tasteful conversations. We could easily forget that our ancestors were as dirty, violent, prone to bad taste and obsessed with politics as we are. Every day, we give thought both to our personal lives and the wider political world in which we live, and we discuss the actions of our government on a regular basis. And yet we seem wary of accepting that our historical predecessors behaved similarly. The corset is clearly an alluring thing. One glimpse of it and we forget what lies beneath.
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