The King's Speech

[blamebrampton]

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!

Comments

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I suspect the campaign was inspired by a competitor...

Had you read the excellent review of the movie by Anthony Lane?

[drgaellon]

So, because someone doesn't like what George VI did 70 years ago, THIS film, now, today, the actors in it and the auteurs who made it should be discounted from the awards? That's lunacy, even by Hollyweird standards.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

(On the campaign: it comes especially out of left field, because surely Edward & Wallis would have been far, FAR worse?)

[tomatoe18.livejournal.com]

Oh no. Not you too. Already? Ack!

I don't know how I can watch this movie legally. I just refuse to download the movie and/or buy a pirated dvd of it. I want to see it in the big screen!

It has to sweep the Oscars so we can all watch it in a proper cinema.

[jigglykat.livejournal.com]

I adored this movie, but I wasn't aware of the campaign! Fail, Hollywood. Fail.

Have you read up about the writer? His story about writing this movie is fascinating all by itself.

[nenne.livejournal.com]

It is a really, really good movie and Colin Firth is brilliant as always, but they were all good. I hope for lots of Oscars!

[chantefable.livejournal.com]

Now I want to see this film. :) Glorious reviews tend to do that.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

irony is my favourite

Anzac day 1993. I arrive at Melbourne airport with my shiny new class 100 Resident Visa, breeze through Immigration , walk out the front and hail a cab. The driver is Turkish.

[auntpurl.livejournal.com]

I cannot wait to see this film.

Americans are idiots.

[alex-s9.livejournal.com]

I especially hope Tom Hooper gets an Award for directing - it was brilliant. Although one for Seidler wouldn't hurt as well, the dialogues were brilliant. And one for cinematography is earned, I was almost positive the film was done by Idziak, the way filters on camera were used.

[hollyxu.livejournal.com]

Um, because the English royal family ruthlessly suppresses any sort of actual emotion in PR reports and because I am actually not all up on Edward & Wallis except their wikipedia articles - are they really very odious? (In comparison to the Mitfords, who were... very special.)

I have a cinema gift certificate, I just have no time! D:

[shocolate.livejournal.com]

If there is a beter film this year, I'll eat a 1930s hat!

Colin Firth was, of course, complete perfection, and if he doesn't win the BAFTA, Oscar, and the Team Gold for Synchronised Swimming at next year's Olympics, then hats will be in very short supply.

I particularly enjoyed how foul David and Wallis were. And Derek Jacobi dissaproving of ruling with a stammer...

To campaign against this speific film, even if George VI had gone on to eat babies, is petty.

[winstonmom.livejournal.com]

I have a date with the husband to see this movie on Friday. I even hired a baby sitter and that says a lot.
I am really in love with Colin Firth and have told the husband that if he comes to my house looking for me I will go.(nothing personal)

[inamac.livejournal.com]

I think it was Colin Firth on BBC Radio5's Mayo and Kermode film programme - podcast here who pointed out that had George become King 20 years earlier, there would have been no problem since the monarch made very few public speeches - and no radio, 20 years later and technology would have been able to edit out his stammer. Truly a man born at the wrong time.

[mrsquizzical.livejournal.com]

oh, simplistic campaigns for the lose.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

It's a lovely, lovely film, and the wankers who are trying to jettison it's well deserved awards should open up some history books and see what sort of anti-semetic fervor stoked U.S. politics during the same period. Based on that rationale, perhaps the entire Oscars should be boycotted.

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