The British monarchy on screen oving images of the British monarchy, in fact and fiction, are almost as M old as the moving image itself, dating back to an 1895 dramatic vignette, The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Led by Queen Victoria, British monarchs themselves appeared in the new ‘animated photography’ from 1896. Half a The British century later, the 1953 coronation of Elizabeth II was a milestone in the adoption of television, watched by 20 million Britons and 100 million North Americans. At the century’s end, Princess Diana’s funeral was viewed by 2.5 billion worldwide. monarchy Historians have argued that the power of the image has bolstered the British monarchy as its political power has waned, but media scholars have been slow to examine how that power has been secured by royal self-promotion, entrepreneurial on screen deference, narrative sympathy, reportorial discretion and spectacular exhibition. In the first book-length examination of film and television representations of this enduring institution, distinguished scholars of media and political history analyse the screen representations of royalty from Henry VIII to ‘William and Kate’. Among their concerns are the commercial value of royal representations, the convergence of the monarch and the movie star, and the historical use of the moving image to maintain the Crown’s legitimacy. Seventeen essays by international commentators examine the portrayal of royalty in the ‘actuality’ picture, the early extended feature, amateur cinema, Edited by Mandy Merck the movie melodrama, the Commonwealth documentary, New Queer Cinema, TV current affairs, the big screen ceremonial and the post-historical boxed set. These contributors include Ian Christie, Elisabeth Bronfen, Andrew Higson, Steven Fielding, Karen Lury, Glyn Davis, Ann Gray, Jane Landman,Victoria Duckett, Jude Cowan Montague, James Downs, Barbara Straumann, Deirdre Gilfedder, Jo Stephenson, Ruth Adams, Erin Bell, Basil Glynn, Nicola Rehling and Mandy Merck. Merck A long over-due contribution to film and television studies, this collection will (ed.) become an essential resource for scholars and students of British media and political history. Mandy Merck is Professor of Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London Front cover: Spectators in London’s Trafalgar Square view the royal couple’s post-nuptial kiss on the big screen, 2011. AP Archive www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk ISBN 978-0-7190-9956-4 9 780719 099564 The British monarchy on screen The British monarchy on screen Edited by Mandy Merck Manchester University Press Copyright © Manchester University Press 2016 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors. This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND) licence, which permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction provided the author(s) and Manchester University Press are fully cited and no modifications or adaptations are made. Details of the licence can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978 07190 9956 4 hardback First published 2016 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset by Out of House Publishing CONTENTS List of fi gures vii Contributors x Acknowledgements xv Introduction 1 Mandy Merck Part I: Victorian inventions 1 ‘A very wonderful process’: Queen Victoria, photography and fi lm at the fi n de siècle 2 3 Ian Christie 2 Sixty Years a Queen (1913): a lost epic of the reign of Victoria 47 Jude Cowan Montague 3 The heart of a heartless political world: screening Victoria 64 Steven Fielding 4 Walbrook’s royal waltzes 86 James Downs Part II: The Elizabethan diva 5 Her Majesty moves: Sarah Bernhardt, Queen Elizabeth and the development of motion pictures 111 Victoria Duckett 6 Elizabeth I: the cinematic afterlife of an early modern political diva 132 Elisabeth Bronfen and Barbara Straumann 7 Queens and queenliness: Quentin Crisp as Orlando ’s Elizabeth I 155 Glyn Davis v Contents Part III: Images of empire 8 Renewing imperial ties: The Queen in Australia 181 Jane Landman 9 The King’s Speech : an allegory of imperial rapport 205 Deirdre Gilfedder Part IV: Popular participation in royal representation 10 The Queen has two bodies: amateur fi lm, civic culture and the rehearsal of monarchy 225 Karen Lury 11 The regal catwalk: royal weddings and the media promotion of British fashion 243 Jo Stephenson 12 The Queen on the big screen(s): outdoor screens and public congregations 264 Ruth Adams Part V: Television’s contested histories 13 Television’s royal family: continuity and change 291 Erin Bell and Ann Gray 1 4 The Tudors and the post-national, post-historical Henry VIII 309 Basil Glynn Part VI: Monarchy in contemporary anglophone cinema 15 From political power to the power of the image: contemporary ‘British’ cinema and the nation’s monarchs 339 Andrew Higson 16 Melodrama, celebrity, The Queen 363 Mandy Merck 17 When words fail: The King’s Speech as melodrama 384 Nicola Rehling Index 406 vi FIGURES 1 Elizabeth II is escorted to the 2012 London Olympics by James Bond (Daniel Craig), as fi lmed for the BBC by Danny Boyle. 2 2 An early image from the royal collection: Queen Victoria with four of her children, photographed by Roger Fenton in February 1854. 25 3 The Diamond Jubilee procession on 22 June 1897 provided an unprecedented spectacle for crowds lining the route, and for the many fi lm companies who had secured vantage points. 33 4 Queen Victoria (Ina Kastner) proposes to Prince Albert in a photographic illustration from the May Wynne book accompanying Sixty Years a Queen (William Barker, 1913). 52 5 A poster for Victoria the Great (Herbert Wilcox, 1937). 71 6 A poster for The Young Victoria (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2009). 77 7 Anton Walbrook as Prince Albert at the piano in Victoria the Great (Herbert Wilcox, 1937). Copyright © STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd. 93 8 Anton Walbrook and Anna Neagle as the royal couple in Victoria the Great (Herbert Wilcox, 1937). Copyright © STUDIOCANAL Films Ltd. 97 9 Sarah Bernhardt as Elizabeth I in the fi nal scene of the fi lm version of Queen Elizabeth . National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. 113 10 The Earl of Essex (Lou Tellegen) kneels before Elizabeth I (Sarah Bernhardt) in Queen Elizabeth ( Les Amours de la Reine Elisabeth , Henri Desfontaines and Louis Mercanton, 1912). National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. 120 11 Sarah Bernhardt as Elizabeth I in the fi nal scene of the 1912 stage production of Les Amours de la Reine Elisabeth . Bibliothèque national de France. 124 vii List of fi gures 12 Flora Robson as Elizabeth I addressing her people aboard ship in The Sea Hawk (Michael Curtiz, 1940). 140 13 Bette Davis as the isolated Queen in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (Michael Curtiz, 1939). 142 14 Jean Simmons as Elizabeth I in Young Bess (George Sidney, 1953). 144 15 Bette Davis as the ageing Elizabeth I in The Virgin Queen (Henry Koster, 1955). 146 16 Cate Blanchett as the iconic Queen in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Shekhar Kapur, 2007). 151 17 Cate Blanchett as the Queen astride a map of Europe in Elizabeth: The Golden Age . 151 18 Elizabeth I (Quentin Crisp) is accompanied by Orlando (Tilda Swinton) on a walk in Orlando (Sally Potter, 1993). 156 19 Cross-gender casting for the Queen (Quentin Crisp) in Orlando . 161 20 An Elizabethan progress: poster for The Queen in Australia (produced by Stanley Hawes, 1954). 182 21 Colonial mimicry? Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoff rey Rush) dares to sit on King Edward’s Chair in The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper, 2010). 214 22 The crowning of the ‘Queen of the South’ on Guid Nychburris Day 1952 in Dumfries, Scotland. 233 23 The wedding dress of Lady Alice Scott, British Pathé, 1935. British Royal Weddings of the 20th Century DVD (British Pathé, 2011). 251 24 The wedding dress of Kate Middleton, 2011. The Royal Wedding DVD (Formative Productions, 2011). 256 25 Spectators in London’s Trafalgar Square view the royal couple’s post-nuptial kiss on the big screen, 2011 (AP Archive). 265 26 The wistful senior relative? Prince Charles views Windsor home movies in A Jubilee Tribute to the Queen by the Prince of Wales (BBC, 2012). 296 27 Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) as a ‘punk-rock’ ruler in The Tudors (Showtime, 2007–10). 322 28 Creating the myth of Holbein’s Henry in The Tudors . 326 29 The mythologised pre-modern monarch: Henry V (Kenneth Branagh) in the Shakespeare adaptation directed by Branagh in 1989. 342 30 The ornamentalised early modern monarch: Henry VIII (Eric Bana) with Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman) in The Other Boleyn Girl (Justin Chadwick, 2008) 344 viii List of fi gures 31 The domesticated late modern monarch: King George III (Nigel Hawthorne) and Queen Charlotte (Helen Mirren) in The Madness of King George (Nicholas Hytner, 1994). 345 32 ‘Queen of a Nation, Queen of Hearts’: the DVD cover image for The Queen (Stephen Frears, 2006). 367 33 The monarch as the virtuous victim of melodrama: Colin Firth as George VI in The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper, 2010). 393 The images in this book are reproduced here under the fair dealing guidelines relating to criticism and review, as suggested by the Intellectual Property Offi ce (published 12 June 2014).