Les amours de la reine Élisabeth

With this other movie from 1919, i discovered French history with an English production and it was about the favorite girl of a king. Here it's the opposite: it's about the favorite boy of a queen and it's a french production about English history! As i don't know the historical facts, i can't comment the story but there is a great dramatic tension: the love triangle (or even square), the ring artefact. Some find useless the captions that explain the scene BEFORE however for me they were essential and without them i would have been lost in the story. From a production point of view, i'm a bit disappointed: sure the period wardrobe looks cute as well the props but honestly they look like more spanish than british. About the big diva Sara Bernhardt, she left me cold: she was OK with pantomimes but what an awful make-up! her white head with a neck piece looks like she was wearing the Halloween mask, no kidding! And indeed the camera is still and it looks like a taped stage play. In a way, less stupid than King John from 1899 (a silent Shakespeare, appreciate the paradox!) but not a classic as the loves and hates of the mighty bores me ... deeply!

Much as I enjoy silent films I was disappointed with this famous early feature, although it provides a rare glimpse of a legendary actress. Sure, it's interesting to see Sarah Bernhardt in the role of Elizabeth I, but it's also frustrating to find that the people who adapted the stage play 'Queen Elizabeth' to the screen had no affinity for the cinema. Compare this to the exciting, comparatively fast-paced films D.W. Griffith had already been making for Biograph for several years, or to the innovative work others were doing at Vitagraph and elsewhere, and you'll realize that the producers of this costume drama were old-fashioned even for their time. Unfortunately, this is one of those slow-moving, stodgy efforts that give silent movies a bad name, especially with viewers who haven't seen better examples of the medium.

That said, one can be grateful that the film was made at all, and that it survives, because it does afford us a look at a major personality of the era, and also gives us a sense of what the theater-going experience was like at the time. 'Queen Elizabeth' is very much a filmed play: each scene is arranged for the camera as it would have been performed in a traditional theater on a proscenium stage. The camera sits back along about the fourth row of the orchestra section, and although it pans slightly once or twice it never takes the viewer into the action among the performers. We are forced to sit back and watch the pageant from a respectful distance. The third scene, which involves a fortune teller, appears to have been shot outside under natural lighting, but otherwise the actors declaim before obviously painted sets. (Griffith, meanwhile, was racing his camera alongside speeding trains -- real ones, that is.) We never get a close look at Madame Sarah, but she attempts to compensate with occasional sweeping arm movements, trembly hands, etc., for the folks in the balcony seats. There are no dialog titles, though documents are shown. Otherwise, as in the "Prince Valiant" comic strip, historical title cards tell us exactly what is going to happen prior to each scene -- an annoying device one finds in other early silents, but which happily disappeared a few years after this film was made. The actors, decked out in Elizabethan finery, strike appropriate poses. For the modern viewer, the experience feels like a school-sponsored trip to a wax museum.

Theater historians might be interested in the second scene, when the Queen and her courtiers enjoy a performance of 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' after which the young playwright William Shakespeare is brought forth for a royal audience. There's also a nicely staged sequence towards the end, when the Queen watches through a picture window as her former lover, the Earl of Essex, is brought back to the palace under arrest. Unable to bear the sight, she has a servant close the curtain, then collapses. It's the dramatic peak of the story, but there's nothing cinematic about the way it's presented: the scene could have been done precisely this way on stage, and no doubt was. And therein lies both the strength and the weakness of this particular piece of celluloid: it's an important document of a legendary actress, but we're left with only a pale shadow of what made her great. It's more than we have of, say, Edwin Booth or Sir Henry Irving, and it's certainly better than nothing, but imagine what a more skilled director could have accomplished with this material and this star.

Perhaps Sarah Bernhardt was a great theatre actress, but she was an awful film actress. As ignorant are the filmmakers who made this rubbish. Of course, the idea behind these productions from Adolph Zukor's Famous Players in Famous Plays, Pathé film d'art, or spectacles from Italy was to associate the new medium of film with the established art of theatre (often literature, too). The only decent legacy these films have is that they ushered in the age of feature-length films, but stagnating motion pictures to the grammar of the stage was of more consequence. The camera is stationary, the narrative is ridiculous and the acting is artificial and pretentious.

(Note: The version I saw was approximately 50 minutes and appeared to be at proper projection speed.)

This is a curio, a filmed play which is silent, but retains Miss Bernhardt's bow at the end, a film which tells you what is going to happen in the scene before it does (in case you didn't get it), and which takes enormous liberties with fact as historical films always do. This is the story of Elizabeth and Essex, so those of us who are familiar with Davis and Flynn and their version can have some fun drawing comparisons ... it's not without its unintentionally amusing moments (just how, when Elizabeth visits Essex's body after his execution, has his head been put back on his body without leaving a scar, and why, when Elizabeth dies, does she fall on some conveniently placed cushions?) but these aside its an entertaining 40 minutes, well acted by all concerned and not as stilted as I thought it might be. Miss Bernhardt comes across as something special even in silence and something is better than nothing. If you like silents and can give old ones a chance, you'll probably like this. The picture quality wasn't great on the copy I saw but it is nearly 90 so I think we can make allowances ... one I'll happily watch again.

This film is a curiosity. I saw a snippet of it in an exhibition on Sarah Bernhardt and was glad that the whole story was captured on film. The movie is actually the filming of a play, or that's what it looks like, and in that respect it is more 19th Century than 20th, as it shows the acting style of the theater, with no real adaptation at all to the range and variety of film. There are no closeups, for example. No doubt, it could have been much better directed, even at that time there was already a lot more talented work around that would make this material look old fashioned. The attraction here is to see the great Sarah. She is indeed a strong presence, and we perceive she is quite accustomed to being at the center of attention, but we don't at all get a sense of what made her the great actress-legend that she was. I have heard recordings of hers and I understand that the declamation (as taught in the Comedy Française) was a great part of her appeal, which of course we don't get on a silent film. Here her 19th Century interpretation of the Renaissance Queen is very grand, her costume and crown very similar to the ones she used to score one of her greatest theatrical triumphs as the queen in Victor Hugo's "Ruy Blas". Her gesturing is very over-the top Diva, which certainly matches the image of her legend. The surprise is the strong performance of Robert Devereux, who looks very attractive, virile and decisive in the role, though not particularly expressive. Her death scene is based on historical fact, as the Queen refused to go to bed during her last days and slept on cushions in the floor. However the death itself was more comical than tragic. I think this has largely to do with the fact that what looks good on theater does not necessarily translate well in the camera, specially a steady, primitive camera that is merely recording and not actively integrated in filming. As a curiosity though, and as a record of 19th Century style, aesthetics and theater, it is a unique testimonial and we are lucky that it has survived. As a precursor in the creation of "star' image, and the development of modern iconography of glamor, Sarah also holds a special place. Her identity as an iconic emblem of Parisian Belle Epoque is part of her legend and it also served as inspiration for the paraphernalia, wardrobe and decor surrounding early movie divas, such as Theda Bara and Gloria Swanson, all of which ultimately influenced the aesthetics of kitsch and the appreciation of camp in later generations.