The Queen
The other day, I went to see The Queen. This is a movie that everyone expected me to rush to see, but, perhaps for that very reason, I was dragging my feet. I'd concocted a perfectly good excuse - prophetic, really. "I'm going to like it so much that I'll want to watch it again and again, right away." True. I can't wait for the "window" - the gap between the release of films in theatres and their release on DVD - to close. But really, if I didn't rush to see The Queen the minute it came out, that was only because there were good movies opening in my neighborhood, where The Queen isn't showing.
I went the other day because an old friend wanted to see it a second time, and I owed him big-time for having brought a copy of Les Bienveillantes back from Paris, sparing me oodles of shipping charges and Amazon.fr's somewhat elevated price. We went to the first showing, at 11:20, and had lunch afterward. That was my treat, too.
Reviews of The Queen seem to me to have taken a strongly anti-monarchical edge, seeing the film as an argument in favor of abolition. Helen Mirren's Elizabeth II, never much of a fan of Diana Spencer to begin with, wants to regard the princess's death as a private matter. In her view - correctly, but only in the worst sense - Diana was no longer a member of the royal family at the time of her death; ergo, no fuss. Elizabeth is convinced that seclusion at Balmoral is best for her grandsons, and in this she is backed up by her dimwitted husband and her reactionary mother. It takes all of newly-elected Tony Blair's tact (Michael Sheen) to order her to come to London and make contact with Diana's mourners. For the first half of the film, Blair rolls his eyes and asks, rhetorically, how he can save "these people" from themselves.
He winds up a staunch admirer and a defender of the Queen. He talks to his entourage about her stoicism, and about the diligence with which she has done her job for nearly fifty years. What he does not express is any regret that the Queen's model - respectable dependability - has been junked in favor of Diana's - charming hedonism. I do not suppose that the princess was a tireless visitor of hospitals only because she knew that grim settings would transform her into a radiant, healing angel. Whatever one's motivation, it is always good to visit the sick. As a woman, however, Diana appears to have been little more than a classier Paris Hilton, living her life on remote beaches and private jets when she wasn't at Kensington Palace. Whatever gave anyone the idea that she was a "people's princess"? She was a celebrity who proved that she was not up to the job of princess, which, in England at least, is a matter of grinning and bearing.
What the outpouring of "grief" that flooded London during that week in 1997 speaks to me about is resentment. People whom Diana wouldn't have looked at in private, much less spoken to, could seize her extinguished life as an icon for the ordinary, and then project their own self-pity as a simulacrum of sorrow. Looking at the televised throngs that are clipped into The Queen, I was seized by a horror of the mob, stupid as a cow and dangerous as a bull. But I was not surprised when Her Majesty shows up at last and turns the tears into smiles.
The Queen is a smart, sophisticated movie that is stuffed with great performances and food for thought alike. It is greatly enlivened by Alexandre Desplat's formidable sound track.
Comments
Telling it like it is! I imagine that if you'd dared proffer this analysis of Diana's royal role any sooner than this, it would have been off with your head. (Although I'm sure you've never hidden your views, and the DB didn't exist then, fortunately for the Paris Hilton of Westminster! Zap!) Having also been swept up in the throb of grief upon Diana's death, I now feel a little sheepish and taken in. The tsunami of shameless public grief swamped me along with the masses; I also got wet. Though I forgive myself, do consider me properly chastened (head bowed). I can't wait to see the film, having been one of your urgers.
Posted by: Nom de plume | October 18, 2006 11:35 AM
I thought the film was excellent, the performances superb.
I think your remark that the Queen Mother was 'reactionary' a bit harsh: she was 97 after all, had lost her husband due to the perfidy of her brother-in-law, and had devoted her life to the people. The family's example of stoicism during WWII has always been cited as a rallying point for the British people during grim times.
And it is precisely that stoicism that brought the Crown to the brink. Blair, as portrayed in the film, gets it exactly right about EII: it was her world view, honed during the the period of Edward's abandonment of throne and country, the war and then the loss of her Father.
The world was ready for a cinderella story 25 years ago, and Diana was its heroine. I have always had mixed feelings about her but was not surprised about the outpouring for her at the time of her death: Charles had made a perfect ass of himself and was held in very low esteem by his people. And they had suffered during the Thatcher years, thus the massive rejection of the Tories. It was a time of national catharsis for alot of reasons, to me at least, not just Diana. And that was the part that the Family could not come to grips with.
In the same way JFK escaped scrutiny of his shenanigans because of his office, the Crown for years had been given a pass. Our rapacious desire to tear down those who are exalted has led us to a place where no one and no institution is sacred. I think that is a shame.
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October 18, 2006 01:35 PM
I found the movie to be marvelous; spot-on performances. The drubbing Her Majesty endured at the time of Diana's death belonged more on the shoulders of her son, who was a major ass regarding his marriage and its dissolution. Diana was no innocent but at first, was sold a bill of goods by a gutless Prince who could not stand up to his overbearing father regarding a proper choice for a bride. In a sense, you could say that Charles actually created the later Diana, sowing the seeds of the monarchy's near-miss with destruction. The outpouring of grief displayed in the movie only reminded me of how I felt at the time of her death. I was sorry for Diana and her children and felt, despite her many peccadilloes, that she had been dealt a raw deal; however viciously she ending up avenging herself on the Crown. I could not help feeling though that the crowd's response was more a symptom of our times than any genuine feeling; we mourn and rend our clthes publicly as we become less and less able to feel privately, a sort of Orwellian push of the button to make people feel as we want them to, if only to sell newspapers and fill airtime.
Posted by: LXIV | October 18, 2006 03:36 PM
"Diana appears to have been little more than a classier Paris Hilton..."
The "people's princess" remains the icon of superficial popular culture. But the Royal family knew a very different character -- the one behind the facades of glamour and pseudo-compassion.
Both Diana and her brother, Charles Spencer, suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder caused by their mother's abandoning them as young children. A google search reveals that Diana is considered a case study in BPD by mental health professionals.
For Charles Spencer, BPD meant insatiable sexual promiscuity (his wife was divorcing him at the time of Diana's death). For Diana, BPD meant intense insecurity and insatiable need for attention and affection which even the best husband could never fulfill.
Clinically, it's clear that the Royal family did not cause her "problems". Rather, Diana brought her multiple issues into the marriage, and the Royal family was hapless to deal with them.
Her illness, untreated, sowed the seeds of her fast and unstable lifestyle, and sadly, her tragic fate.
Posted by: redtown | December 22, 2006 02:15 AM