June 14 movie: Elizabeth R. The end of the miniseries: Part 5, dealing with the attack of the Spanish Armada, and part 6, dealing with Elizabeth's relationship with the Earl of Essex, and the end of her life. Essex comes off really badly. He's no Errol Flynn in this version!
The Elizabeth movies I've seen before, Young Bess and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, portray Tom Seymour (here shown as a ruthlessly ambitious sleaze who nearly gets ER killed) and Essex (here a sniveling weasel who kisses ER's ass then plots her overthrow) as the loves of Elizabeth's life. In Elizabeth R, the love of her life is definitely Robert Dudley, though they portray her as never consummating the relationship. I haven't yet seen the one with Cate Blanchett but I heard that Dudley is the love interest there too. I don't know whether Blanchett's ER is a virgin queen or not.
I'm amazed at Glenda Jackson's ability to portray the stages of Elizabeth's life, from youth, to middle age, to old age and death. (Trivia note: in that photo of ER's death scene, I noticed that her hands were extremely smooth and thought that was a make-up error. But then the historical commentary mentioned that just before she died, her fingers had swollen so much that her coronation ring had to be cut off her finger. So I guess that was actually extreme attention to detail with the makeup.) The makeup in the final episode is amazing, because she has to play "old Elizabeth wearing bright red wig and heavy white makeup" and "old Elizabeth without makeup or wig." The effect is shocking.
The special features DVD was kind of disappointing. Not surprising, considering that the miniseries was made in the early 70s, when no one thought of filming "making of" specials for the DVD.
It did include an interview with Glenda Jackson, who gave up acting in 1992 to become a member of Parliament. (And who also looks nothing like the "older Elizabeth" they made her up to be in the movie.) It was a good interview although she does get off on a lengthy rant about Margaret Thatcher at one point. I guess the interviewer must have asked her to compare Thatcher to Elizabeth I. Which didn't sit so well with a member of the Labour Party.
There's also a nice interview with the historian who did the commentary for the miniseries.
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