 Starring: Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush, Samantha MortonDirector: Shekhar Kapur Year Of Release: 2007 Plot: Years after the events of Elizabeth, the Queen is now well into her reign and slightly feeling the pressure of being the iron back of England. However the Catholics still want her throne, and via complicated machinations that pretty much back Elizabeth into executing the Catholic Mary, Queen Of Scots, Philip Of Spain gets the vindication he needs to set his Armada sailing for England. Meanwhile Elizabeth develops a complicated relationship with Walter Raleigh. |
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Ever since the early day of moving pictures, Elizabeth I has been a popular person to depict. Her iconic status has ensured that from her first appearance in a 1912 silent filmed play, in which she was played by the iconic Sarah Bernhart, the Virgin Queen has held a strange fascination over film.
While there arent that many images from the earliest of movies about Elizabeth I (most of which, oddly enough, were French), I thought it might be interesting to take a brief visual tour through the 16th Century Queens movie appearances, which range from Bette Davis Private Lives Of Elizabeth and Essex, through to Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, taking in the likes of Glenda Jackson, Judi Dench and even Quentin Crisp along the way.
So here they are, the Queen Elizabeths of the silver screen…
Fire Over England (1937)/The Sea Hawk (1941)
Played By: Flora Robson
While she was only in her mid 30s when she first took on the role, Flora Robson definitely gave a rather matronly air to the steel of The Virgin Queen. Such was her success in Fire Over England, which looks at the period surrounding the Spanish Armada (although largely remembered now as the first film starring a pre-marriage Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh), Robson was asked to return to the role for a cameo appearance in the Errol Flynn swashbuckler, The Sea Hawk.
The Private Lives Of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)/The Virgin Queen (1955)
Played By: Bette Davis
Davis actually played Elizabeth twice, and did it in a similar way to Cate Blanchett, with 1939s Private Lives Of Elizabeth and Essex focussing on her supposed relationship with the Earl Of Essex Errol Flynn) in the early days of her reign, while 1955s follow-up, The Virgin Queen, looked at Elizabeth and Walter Raleigh (Richard Todd) later in her life. The heavy make-up may have made her look like she was sculpted out of plaster, but Davis is very good.
Young Bess (1953)
Played By: Jean Simmons
Rather as Keira Knightley is now, in the 40s and 50s if a film needed a young British actress in a corset, they called on Jean Simmons. Young Bess looks at Elizabeth before she becomes queen, dealing with her difficult father (Charles Laughton), who did, after all, have her mother beheaded, as well as engaging in an unhappy love affair with Thomas Seymour (Stewart Granger).
Mary, Queen Of Scots (1971)
Played By: Glenda Jackson
After a bit of a break on the cinema screen, with Elizabeth I largely confined to TV during the 60s, she returned again in Mary, Queen Of Scots. While Glenda Jacksons take on Elizabeth I is best remembered from the classic 1971 six-part mini-series, Elizabeth R., the very same year she played the queen in a movie that focussed exclusively on her fractious relationship with Mary, Queen Of Scots, who Elizabeth eventually had executed.
Jubilee (1978)
Played By: Jenny Runacre
Due to the fact Elizabeth has become as much metaphor and myth as real person, it means shes a popular target for those looking for a symbol of what it means to be a woman in a mans world. That was certainly the case with Derek Jarmans Jubilee, where Elizabeth time-travels from the 16th Century Golden Age to late 20th Century, and finds a bleak, depressing Britain, where three post-punk girls wile away a vacuous existence, occasionally killing people to pass the time. Its weird but oddly interesting.
Orlando (1992)
Played By: Quentin Crisp
While the 1980s brought Blackadders Queenie (Miranda Richardson), the monarch didnt pop up on the big screen again until 1992s Orlando which gave the iconic figure possibly her strangest form ever. Sally Potters odd film sees Elizabeth commanding young nobleman Orlando (Tilda Swinton) to stay young forever. He does just that, living numerous lives over the next four centuries and even changing sex. However its not just the title character who does a bit of gender-bending, as Elizabeth is played by a then 84-year-old Quentin Crisp.
Shakespeare In Love (1998)
Played By: Judi Dench
1998 was a bit of a battle of the Queen Elizabeths, as while Judi Dench only had a small role in Shakespeare In Love, she towered over the movie, while around the same time the little known Cate Blanchett arrived in Elizabeth. Both women ended up with Oscar nominations, although it was Dench who became the first woman playing Elizabeth to pick up a little golden man. Its the only time two actresses have been nominated in the same year for playing the same person in different films, and Denchs role is also the second shortest performance ever to win an Oscar, beaten only by Beatrice Straights two scenes in Network (1976).
Elizabeth (1998)/Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)
Played By: Cate Blanchett
With a star-making turn, Cate Blanchett blew away thoughts of Bette Davis and Glenda Jackson with a very human portrayal of an innocent young woman who must learn how to be a steely queen very quickly. With plots and intrigue surrounding her, many in England doubt her right to rule, while both internal and external powers put in place plans to replace her with a Catholic monarch. Blanchett returned to the role of Elizabeth nearly a decade on with The Golden Age, and while the movie itself, about the time of the Spanish Armada, was less successful, shes still remarkably good in it.
TIM ISAAC
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