Dignity and Choice of A Queen: The Movie The Queen
By Jiayi Sun
As a queen, “Duty first, self second. ”
Background
The Queen is a 2006 British biographical drama film, the story was set in 1997, Tony Blair won the general election, becoming the first Labour prime minister in 18 years. A few months after, Princess Diana was killed in a car accident, and the whole country was in grief.
The British royal family’s indifference and evasive attitude made the public very dissatisfied, and therefore the British royal family felled into a crisis of trust.
The conflict between monarchy and modernization
The film shows the delicate position of constitutional monarchy in contemporary British society. British society is no longer the era when the queen appointed Churchill as her first prime minister, but the queen and the royal family behind her apparently ignored it. As a legacy of the class revolution, isn’t the queen’s role, and all she represents, represent not only noble blood, the ever-strong growth point of tourism GDP, the inspiration source of movies and TV series, but also the Revelations eagerly sought by the entertainment gossip media…
The death of a woman reminded the queen and the royal family that age had changed, that this is a age of drama, of people who like to act and speak in public, and that even the queen had to get used to acting.
Vivid details and engaging emotional expressions
The scene that impressed me the most was when queen Elizabeth ii drove out to the countryside after the royal family’s prestige was in crisis due to pressure from the public. When the jeep broke down and was parked by the river waiting for help, the queen finally showed a fragile look and cried like a little girl.
I have to say that Stephen is a good director. He is good at depicting details. In this part of the plot, the camera is pushed very close, the queen’s fragile tears and her usual elegant, inviolable form a particularly big contrast. The expression is vivid and infectious.
The graceful, noble deer seemed to symbolize the queen and the royal family behind her, and the gunfire symbolized their dangerous situation. And then the death of the deer suggested to me that the queen would do the same if she did not bow to public opinion, monarchy would eventually lose out to modernization.
Great actors and great movies
Helen Mirren, who plays the queen, and Michael Sheen, who plays Tony Blair, give us their best performances. The audience is presented with a noble, dignified, weather-beaten but helpless queen and a worried prime minister who is Labour’s champion of the queen. The play between the two is also very wonderful.
The other actors in the film are also wonderful, but my favorite part is the queen. Helen Mirren is obviously a very good actress, and her portrayal of the characters is very vivid, whether it is the face of the prime minister, dignified, or vulnerable to frustration can very affect the mood of the audience.
Responsibility and weight bearing
When the little girl said that the flowers were for the queen, it seemed that the relationship between the queen and the public had finally been eased. But for a woman who had lived her whole life in the profession of “queen”, it was humiliating to submit to the idea of not supporting her people for the sake of a woman who did not know them well and who had passed away. Her time is gone, her traditions are seen as cold-blooded, and the last bit of British culture, like the setting sun, is slowly fading away.
Things are back to normal, but only the queen knows she will never be back before the incident. At the end of the film, the queen walks with the prime minister, but the conversation is rather cryptic. The contradiction between monarchy and modernization still exists. People cannot choose what they think, but they can choose their attitude. Even the queen can’t do what she wants, but People always carry some heavy burden to live.
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The Queen Review: Queen Elizabeth II’s change of heart after Diana’s death
Yirugui (Irene),film critic
Dir: Stephen Frears; Starring: Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Helen McCrory, Alex Jennings, Roger Allam, Sylvia Syms. 103 mins.
The development of the plot is based on the appearance of a beautiful deer king, which appears together with the turning point of the plot and is endowed with new meaning. Queen Elizabeth II’s mental activity also changed with the fate of the Deer King.
Brief Introduction
The death of Princess of Wales(Diana) in 1997 shook the divide between the royal family and the public, leading to a rare crisis of credibity in the British monarchy. Faced with the royal family’s inaction and non-statements after the death of Diana, the public became increasingly complained and disappointed, the anti-royal voices became louder and louder. The Queen was also disheartened, doubted herself through a series of events and almost abdicated, experienced tortuous, difficult psychological process. The film is based on this story. It tells the story that after the death of Diana, British royal family gradually solved the trust crisis and won back the trust of people with the cooperation and communication of prime minister Blair.
The film won the 79th Academy Awards for best actress and other international film awards. This film released in the UK in 2006, is a biographical movie that combines fictional images with real video documentary to enrich the comprehensiveness of the matter, deepen the sense of reality and substitution in watching the film. Moreover, the characters in the film also greatly restored the personality and characteristics of real people. For example, Cherie Booth Blair’s hostile attitude towards the royal family was widely reported by the media, prince Philip called the queen “cabbage” and so on.
The Significance of Deer King
In the movie, The His Royal Highness Prince Philip give praise to the deer how beautiful and how to capture it, for him, the deer king had long been the target of the royal family, it represented the repudiation of Diana’s rebellious ways by old traditional values. Then, after the Diana’s death, the public was distraught and dissatisfied with the indifference and avoidance attitude of the British royal family, whether the royal family will break through the old system has become a thorny question. The anti-constitutional monarchy and anti-royal sentiment rose, leaving the British royal family in an unprecedented crisis of credibity. In this process, Blair in the face of the mourning of the British public anger and couldn’t avoid the British royal family, communication with royal family under pressure, maintaining the popularity of the royal family, smoothing the discontent and anger, made the queen’s relationship with the people back to the harmony of the past, and established their own reputation and credibility.
The appearance of the deer in the film reflects the change of the Queen’s psychological activities, as well as the Queen’s disappointment and helplessness to the whole thing. On the mountain, the Queen and the deer king looked at each other, so that the Queen found they are so similar, elegant arrogance, polite alienation and temptation, arrogant affinity. The Queen let the deer go. She smiled as it left. When the Queen had to return to London after an argument about public opinion, she was shocked to hear of the death of the deer king. The deer would have been the prey of the royal family, but accidentally entered another territory and became the prey of the civilian population. It seemed to point the way and the status quo for the Queen: not showing up and not happening doesn’t really solve the problem, and the power of democracy is so strong that it could topple the monarchy, which has always been so powerful. In the face of buck’s body, she did not know whether her people and bankers would have a day to force her in the same cruel way. The vacillation of the monarchy was the Queen’s reluctance to see, and she had to seek an appropriate way of compromise, with public opinion better with sovereignty and democracy, which prompted her to follow a public statement and a series of responses. The queen began to take the public stage. The deer king also exists with a sense of warning, warning the Queen and pushing her into a different fate from the deer king.
Conclusion
The story itself may be boring, but it enriches the meaning behind the event through various means of presentation and expressions of meaning. Although the film depicts the events that began with the death of Diana, it is all objective and true, and does not discuss right or wrong. As a symbol, deer king conveys more meanings along with the development of the story, changes the Queen’s heart, then gradually pushes the British royal family to be more modern and popular.
The Queen review: An inevitable “change”
Dir: Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Alex Jennings, Helen McCrory, Mark Bazeley, Roger Allam, Sylvia Syms,Earl Cameron. 103 mins.
The whole story is built around the word “change”. With the changes of the times, the support and trust of the people are gradually lost, and the authority of the royal family faces enormous challenges. The queen must saying goodbye to the old days. She must face reality, listen to reality, reflect on ourselves, and then change.
The film, written by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Frears, was released in the UK in 2006. Ten years after the death of Princess Diana, the film calmly tells the history that was difficult for the British people to forget.
Authority
As a veteran monarchy in the United Kingdom, even if a political party leader wins a general election, he still needs to be instructed by the Queen and to be officially appointed. In the film, the Queen said that she envied that others could participate in the voting because such behavior made her feel that she could enjoy the sheer joy of being partial. The higher the position, the more free she wants. The seemingly supreme authority has long since become a bubble
Blair’s glimpse of the Queen also requires observing every process stipulated on the etiquette, and fine-tuning every step of the action. The Queen said to the new Prime Minister, ” Well, you are my tenth prime minister. My first of course was Winston Churchill. He sat in your chair in a frock coat and top hat.” However, her dignity is just based on the cumbersome etiquette and long ruling time left over from history.
Struggle
The Queen believes that “quiet and private living” is very important to the royal family. This is also the viewpoint she received when she is a girl. But since Diana’s divorce, she has been constantly talking to the media about her problems with Charles and the royal family. The Queen felt that this made the royal family shameful. But people like this kind of princess. Because she actively participates in charity work in a high-profile manner. She does not evade the mass media about her own confusion about life. It makes people feel that she is also an ordinary person. She has the same inner fragility and distress as ordinary people. Her kindness makes her people call her “People’s Princess.”
When Blair asked the Queen if he could make a public speech on the matter, the Queen replied, “Certainly not. This is a private matter. This is a family funeral, not a fairground attraction. I think the Princess has already paid a Good enough for exposure to the press” However, in the face of the pressure from the British and even the world media, the Prime Minister’s firm demands and the expectations of the people, the Queen’s heart had to start to shake.
Compromise
And this kind of shake, let the queen change the original intention in a driving experience. She saw a deer. It stood quietly under the tree. Tears flowed out of the Queen’s eyes. This wonderful animal has lived in the forest for thousands of years. It is so beautiful, but her husband, Philip, is trying to hunt it. Is this not similar to her situation? She also belongs to a very old system, a tradition that dates back more than a thousand years. This tradition is now at risk.
“Can you and I survive in this modern world?” she asked herself.
However, the Queen with her inner doubts, returned to London with the royal family members. She looked at the words of the attack on the royal family. She tried to control her emotions. She saw a little girl holding flowers in the crowd, “These are for you.” The little girl presented flowers to her. The Queen relieved. This is also the real relief of her heart. And the heavy history has given her authority which seems to be less important.
“Cold-blooded” queen has to change the way she deals with problems——People prefer an actress than a queen
Dir: Stephen Frears; Starring: Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Helen McCrory, Alex Jennings, Roger Allam ,Sylvia Syms. 103 mins
When she married prince Charles in 1981, Diana was only 20 years old. Many girls once envied her good fortune. But years later, it turned out to be the worst choice of her life.
In fact, Charles was in love with Camilla, but the queen wanted to break up these two people, so she ordered Charles to get married. And finally, he chose Diana. They divorced in 1996 after a painful 15-year marriage. The following year, Diana died in a car crash while she trying to get away from the paparazzi while dating with her lover in Paris.
The film’s story is from here. Prime minister Blair had just taken office, and Diana dead.
Obviously, it was an embarrassed tragedy to the queen. The queen chose to keep silence after this accident, but people don’t want to be peace and quiet. They went on the street, stood in silent tribute, and protested.
They demanded a response from the British royal family. The front page of the newspaper put pressure on the queen. And even the homeless on the street were also crying on TV, against the royal family’s cruelty.
Britain is a constitutional monarchy. The most powerful person in the country is the prime minister. But the country continues a tradition left over from history, which the queen is still the head of the state.
Therefore, Blair had to get down on one knee at the prime minister’s appointment. Even during ordinary times, he could not turn his back on the queen. From the first meet of these two people in the film, we can feel the delicate relationship between our two leaders.
After a couple of rounds, Queen compromised. She pulled down the flag, attended the funeral and gave her live speech to the world. In the end, the last bit of royal dignity was trampled. There is a feature in the film——the newspaper headline reads “Palace bends knees to Blair.”
It was like a knife cut into the reality that the queen cared most about, defended most vigorously, and was least willing to admit.
The film was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, and the actress in the film also won the Best Actress Oscar for her excellent performance.
But I still have reasons to suspect that this film is pro-British royalty. I had ever seen the documentary about princess Diana before, so I didn’t like the royal family at all. But this film made me review that history from the royal perspective.
And in that sense, I have to say it is a successful movie.
At the end of the film，the queen said to Blair . As a monarch, one has to hide his feelings. Responsibility first, personal second.
It is a behavior that she had been taught since she was a child. Just like the queen in the film, even if she saw that killed deer, she still can’t show that she met it before. But This is no longer appropriate for this era. People like fussing, like making public statements, like putting it on a show, like acting.
Face of the power of the modern media machine, all concepts had already changed. In fact, maybe people like leaders like trump. The queen was not allowed to deal with the domestic affairs alone, because there was a high probability that “calm” and “silence” would be treated as “cold-blooded”.
We would rather to say it is the fall of principles and ways of acting in an introverted manner that she represents than to say it is the fall of the royal family and royalty.
Even the queen, has to adapt to the times, to be an actress.
The queen: Identity and responsibility, which means pay and endure
Scarlett, film review
26 NOV 2019
Dir: Stephen Frears;Starring: Helen Mirren, Michael sheen, James Cromwell, Sylvia Syms. PG cert, 103 mins.
Real events: Diana’s death
The queen was based on real events of the end of 20th century. It tells the conflict between the British royal family and the public after the death of Diana, as well as the communication between prime minister Blair and the queen.
At this very moment full of drama and emotion rendering, the film presents a British society, the complexity of the contradictions between the royal family and the government, the symbiotic relationship between the nuanced characterization, film has been hailed as “a private, revealing, often humorous British royal portrait”.
The news that Diana died in a car accident in Paris twenty-two years ago has shocked the world and caused much grief in Britain. The grief-stricken public is not satisfied with the indifference and evading attitude of the British royal family led by queen Elizabeth. For a time, the public is angry and anti-royal sentiment runs high.
The death of Diana has plunged the British royal family into an unprecedented crisis of confidence. And prime minister Tony Blair has just took office is facing such a tricky situation, one side is the British people mourn anger, on the other hand is trying to maintain traditional and couldn’t avoid the British royal family.
Tony Blair must find a solution as soon as possible to smooth over the grievances of the people, restore harmony between the queen and the people, and establish his reputation and authority.
The most important feature of the movie is the combination of real news footage and story shooting. In 1997, not long after Tony came to power, there was the fatal accident of Diana’s death in a car accident in Paris.
Responsibility government
According to the British constitution, the prime minister is nominally appointed by the king/queen, and cabinet members are nominated by the prime minister and approved by the king/queen.
In the film, the queen instructs Blair when she meets him for the first time, saying: I authorize you to form my government. But in fact, according to Britain’s unwritten constitution, the prime minister is to win the election of the house of Commons party leader, he and his cabinet is not responsible to the king, but is responsible for the house of Commons, this is the so-called “responsibility government”.
Due to the indifferent attitude of the royal family, 70% of the British people think that the Queen’s practice shames the British royal family, and the poll shows that a quarter of the people want to abolish the constitutional monarchy.
This makes the British royal family encounter an unprecedented public opinion crisis. The death of Diana, the promotion of mass media and the mindlessness of the people have forced the queen to make a public speech under pressure, accept the prime minister’s proposal and finally compromise with the public opinion.
Duty first, self second
The dignity of the portrait, the fragility in front of her mother in the face of public pressure, the sad and indifferent appearance when she saw the flowers and messages, but what shocked her most was the monologue.
The Queen’s car broke down in the stream, and her emotion broke out in a flash. Although it was only the back, it was more powerful. Then she turned around and saw the beautiful elk, unable to help it. Say run, run to it.
When she was reminded of the accident, the expression on her face was just shock. The first thing she thought about was how to comfort the two little princes who lost their mother. There was almost no trace of sadness.
How can a woman who has compassion for elk not care about his family? This is because she chose to grieve and mourn in silence. She felt that this was the consistent way of their nation’s behavior, which the public could fully understand. Unfortunately, her subjects chose the people’s Princess and expressed great indignation at the low-key treatment of the royal family.
She naively thought that as long as she adhered to the tradition and maintained the royal style, the subjects would love her and support her as always. But in this era of publicity and equality, the royal family itself is a very disharmonious thing.
With the help of the media, everyone lamented the death of Diana, and at the same time, they lost all their emotions to innocent women On the king’s body. Recognizing this situation, she reluctantly chose the prime minister’s proposal.
In the end of the film, the queen said to Blair “Nowadays, people want glamour and tears, the grand performance.I’m not very good at that. I never have been.I prefer to keep my feelings to myself,and, foolishly, I believed that was what people wanted from their Queen -not to make a fuss, nor wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve. Duty first, self second.”
Identity and position bring honor and responsibility, and responsibility, means pay and endure.