October 22, 2007
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Dear Mr. Kapur—we are formal where I come from,
As an art historian, artist, and writer I looked forward to and loved your new Elizabeth. I quickly realized that beyond the fascinating period details, a sea of colorful wigs, dramatic music, and powerful acting lays the shocking thought that we people never learn from our past.
Lust for power, wealth, all in the name of God.
Whose God and what’s new?
While the Spanish Armada is crushed a mere decade after the naval victory at Lepanto, a battle that took some thirty thousand Moslem and Christian lives, the Elizabethan world is bathed in peace and prosperity. In the new century, again the Catholics fight the Protestants, while the militant Turks gather at their doorsteps.
Is America, or the world in fact, heading in the same direction—is that what your movie is about? Or is Elizabeth: The Golden Age a prayer for peace and tolerance—in a world far from utopia? I can think of several Verdian operas with a new setting, to escape the contemporary references.
A tolerant queen of all Christian souls. I loved the movie full of symbolism, fascinating angle shots, deep thought. But I ask: why do authors, writers, and brilliant movie directors turn again and again to the same subjects? Is it because the world of entertainment can’t birth a new idea, or is it fear of an untried story?
Maddalena, my novel set in roughly the same period, focuses on Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the rich grandson of Pope Paul III. I took a decade to glue the story with 24 illustrations. Each man took several decades to take his sacred vows, a mere gesture to keep the wealth and retain power! The two great supporters of the newly-founded order of Jesuits never knew the meaning of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the humble motto of Christ’s soldiers. The real cardinal, like his grandfather, was a womanizer and the fictional love for a Jewish woman of Arab origin who converts to Christianity unfolds in the same turbulent era as in your movie. I do wonder so what you’d do to the setting.
Thanks for the new Elizabeth. A vision that moves.
Posted by Eva Siroka at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)