blamebrampton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blamebrampton) wrote2011-01-26 11:58 pm
blamebrampton) wrote2011-01-26 11:58 pm
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The King's Speech
Like every woman and her corgi, I've been wanting to see The King's Speech for some time. Finally managed it tonight, as my way of celebrating Australia Day -- irony is my favourite! It is every bit as good as people say.
The script in particular was wonderful. Certainly there were many nods to the modern audience, but there was also a real recognition of historical mores and concerns. The sketches of Edward and Wallis were brief but perfectly venal, while the Archbishop's sense of social order was splendidly stiff (and even more splendidly poked by Princess Elizabeth). I loved that they included the fact of Edward's popularity for a little while after the Abdication, too, which made poor stammering Bertie's life even more awkward.
The costumes are brilliant, and no one will be surprised to hear that I am now desperate for a 1930s coat and hat. The children's outfits are terrific, too, and took me straight back to my own childhood which contained an enormous numbers of pleated skirts and jumpers, when I wasn't wearing muslin embroidered hippie frocks.
As to the cast -- I loved them all. Firth and Rush are never less than engaging and I could watch the two of them for hours. The women were also terrific, especially Helena Bonham Carter and Jennifer Ehle, and bloody hell that Queen Mary was scarily accurate! The kids were delightful – Ramona Marquez is a terrific little actress, and the one who played Elizabeth was suitably grave.
I was happy to see this morning that it has attracted a long list of Oscar nominations. It is such a beautifully made film that I would love to see it awarded in every category.
However ... Apparently there is a campaign against it in Hollywood because the real George VI did not want Jewish refugees fleeing Germany for Palestine and also allegedly stopped them coming to Britain. This is a bit astonishing. On the one hand, it's a staggeringly simplistic interpretation of events: Britain at the time was only just recovering from a massive Depression and was moving onto a War footing, so it could ill-afford to bring in more than the 100,000 Jewish refugees it did take in the lead-up to the war. Similarly, Palestine was a delicately balanced state that could not absorb a massive refugee population without severe unrest (for proof of which, note the entirety of the last 70 years). This is not to say it was well done, nor that people may not have acted very differently if they could have foreseen the future, but despite having some lovely crowns, exactly none of the British Royal Family is now, nor has ever been psychic. Not even Edward.
But the thing that baffles me most about this campaign is that it wants members of the Academy to not vote for the film in any categories. Including Best Script. Which was written by a British/American Jew whose paternal grandparents were killed in the Holocaust.
I hope it sweeps the whole bloody Oscars!
PS And the decision to use real locations while hiding the modern background in fog is GENIUS!
The script in particular was wonderful. Certainly there were many nods to the modern audience, but there was also a real recognition of historical mores and concerns. The sketches of Edward and Wallis were brief but perfectly venal, while the Archbishop's sense of social order was splendidly stiff (and even more splendidly poked by Princess Elizabeth). I loved that they included the fact of Edward's popularity for a little while after the Abdication, too, which made poor stammering Bertie's life even more awkward.
The costumes are brilliant, and no one will be surprised to hear that I am now desperate for a 1930s coat and hat. The children's outfits are terrific, too, and took me straight back to my own childhood which contained an enormous numbers of pleated skirts and jumpers, when I wasn't wearing muslin embroidered hippie frocks.
As to the cast -- I loved them all. Firth and Rush are never less than engaging and I could watch the two of them for hours. The women were also terrific, especially Helena Bonham Carter and Jennifer Ehle, and bloody hell that Queen Mary was scarily accurate! The kids were delightful – Ramona Marquez is a terrific little actress, and the one who played Elizabeth was suitably grave.
I was happy to see this morning that it has attracted a long list of Oscar nominations. It is such a beautifully made film that I would love to see it awarded in every category.
However ... Apparently there is a campaign against it in Hollywood because the real George VI did not want Jewish refugees fleeing Germany for Palestine and also allegedly stopped them coming to Britain. This is a bit astonishing. On the one hand, it's a staggeringly simplistic interpretation of events: Britain at the time was only just recovering from a massive Depression and was moving onto a War footing, so it could ill-afford to bring in more than the 100,000 Jewish refugees it did take in the lead-up to the war. Similarly, Palestine was a delicately balanced state that could not absorb a massive refugee population without severe unrest (for proof of which, note the entirety of the last 70 years). This is not to say it was well done, nor that people may not have acted very differently if they could have foreseen the future, but despite having some lovely crowns, exactly none of the British Royal Family is now, nor has ever been psychic. Not even Edward.
But the thing that baffles me most about this campaign is that it wants members of the Academy to not vote for the film in any categories. Including Best Script. Which was written by a British/American Jew whose paternal grandparents were killed in the Holocaust.
I hope it sweeps the whole bloody Oscars!
PS And the decision to use real locations while hiding the modern background in fog is GENIUS!
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I have a cinema gift certificate, I just have no time! D:
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Be careful of broad statements about the Mitfords, they were a very mixed bunch indeed. Unity was a massive fan of Hitler, Diana married a fascist, Jessica was a communist of the non-Stalinist variety and a lifelong campaigner against fascism and for human rights, Nancy a brilliant satirist who seems to have thought most politics open to corruption, and Pamela and Deborah were/are both perfectly normal if well-off countrywomen who were famous for treating their livestock well and being pleasant to humans. There was a brother, but he died young.
David (Edward) and Wallis on the other hand were self-centred lumps who never did a thing for anyone but each other and would have seen all of Europe fall to the Reich if it meant they could live in luxury. They had strong Nazi connections before and during the war and she at least was wholly unsympathetic of Britain during the Blitz, not to mention a racist twat when they were installed in the Governorship of the Bahamas.
There are quite a few areas on which I will criticise the royal family, but their dislike of the Windsors has my full support!
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I just meant that the Mitfords were an interesting case of a truly diverse family, intellectually speaking. I wonder what the parents were doing, or if it was a matter of their political climate.
Weren't the Windsors prohibited from the usual things royals do (i.e. charity) because of the abdication? I always thought people didn't like them much and thus the family decided not to trot them out at public functions and the such.
... the Nazi connections thing is just hinky.
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That's the only thing that really bothers me about the whole issue. Otherwise I am on the side of the establishment.
So Bermuda was a very public, very roundabout way of putting the Windsors under house arrest? Huh. Only the royal family.
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Not so much House Arrest as Very Hard to Meddle From There Detention ;-)
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Certainly Edward and George's father, George V, was known for disliking toad-eaters; it's not hard to see a dislike for Wallis based on the notion that she was chasing a crown, whether that was true or not.
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