A Queen Is Crowned

Sir Laurence ends his narration of this official record of the Coronation with the stirring admonition "May the Queen live forever!!". She didn't of course, but had a jolly good try, and Channel 4 have thoughtfully shown the official record without ad breaks immediately after today's two minute silence.

There had already been a film of George VI's coronation in Dufaycolor in 1937 but 1953 proved a particularly fortuitous moment as it coincided with the final flourish of glorious Technicolor. The process's limitations denied the makers modern luxuries like zooms, so the whole spectacle for the most part looks like the viewer is up in the Gods, but it has the advantage of making tangible the size of the spectacle.

Similarly fortuitous was that it rained that day, which mayn't have been much fun for the participants and spectators but that and the constantly changing light provides visual interest (likewise the unfortunate placement of the camera at a point in the parade when the troops marching down the Mall constantly had to skirt a jutting kerb).

With Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee almost upon us the film of her coronation in 1953 has been restored and given a limited cinema release.

I had the opportunity to see "A Queen is Crowned" in a cinema.

It jaw dropping. The brilliance of the ceremony at Westminster Abbey is shown in its full glory.

Never have I seen such extraordinary images on screen.

The sheer power of Great Britain's history is on show. But the star must be Technicolor at the very end of the Technicolor era.

The beauty of the young Queen, the deep reds, gold, blues and greens that only Technicolor can offer are contrasted with grey exterior shots of a cold and wet London warmed by huge crowds and a massive military parade, perhaps the last flickering of an imperial Britian.

This not a film for everyone and as others have noted the slightly over the top commentary is jarring to modern ears but nothing can take away from the immense power of the event.

This is a film to be seen on a huge screen. The colour and detail is simply not visible on DVD even on a large television.

This event, the coronation of the British monarch happened only three times in the previous century. One of the British monarchs, Edward VIII had a funny thing happen to him on the way to his coronation, but that's another subject. The last time this happened was 1953 because the present monarch is a bit of living history herself.

What can you say about A Queen Is Crowned except that you are watching history unfold. Traditions that date back to almost a thousand years unfold before your eyes. Makes no difference that the current monarch is a constitutional one or has real ruling power. It's the spectacle that counts.

From the first ride to Westminster Abbey to the coronation ceremony itself and ending with the royal family's return to Buckingham Palace you don't want to blink. This current Queen is the glue that holds the British Commonwealth together by tradition. How long will this tradition be kept, who can say. Some over across the pond want to dispense with the royals. Then we'd miss something special as we see here, a people truly united in respect and love for their ruler.

Laurence Olivier's narration is part of, but never intrudes in what you are watching as all good documentary narrations should be. Color which was not as often used in Great Britain as in America is well photographed both inside the Abbey and the streets of London.

Elizabeth II will shortly be 92 the oldest monarch the United Kingdom ever had and the longest reign. Many more to you old, you are a class act as the role of Queen calls for you to be.

God Save The Queen.

The Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II is a fit moment to reappraise this pioneering feature-length Technicolor newsreel/documentary of her Coronation in 1953.

A fruity commentary written by Christopher Fry, whose post-war vogue as a poetic playwright was just beginning to fade, is delivered with too much ham by Laurence Olivier. He is in "Henry V" mode but without the material- his final words are "May the Queen live for ever!", which sums up the poignantly over-optimistic mood of Britain as she struggled out of austerity and socialist government, hoping that the 27 year old beauty would lead her people to prosperity while retaining great-power status.

Unfortunately the day of the Queen's crowning dawned overcast and rainy, as if to dampen such hopes. Nor were the London crowds helped by a bus strike. This must have taxed the Rank Organisation, throwing every cameraman it could muster into the fray to film the procession and service in Westminster Abbey from a host of angles. A film had been made of the previous Coronation in 1937, in monochrome; but the fairly new one-strip colour cameras, light enough to be manoeuvrable, required blazing lights in the murky Abbey which made guests feel uncomfortably hot. They also had to be heavily blimped to pick up live sound without motor noise, but the track is often slightly fuzzy, and the Abbey interiors can be too dark for the viewer's comfort.

In today's prints the film looks a little drab for the brilliance of its jewels, costumes and banners. But in other ways, technical limitations aid the effect. The zoom is not yet in use, so there are no close-ups of sweat beads, whiskers and open pores, trivialising what is at heart a religious rite with the "personal touch" so tempting to outside broadcast directors. Time and again we see personages from a distance or from overhead, which makes their interaction and the meaning of the ritual clearer, beside imposing a sobriety which suits the dignity of the occasion: the cameras are privileged spectators, not interlopers.

Deference and solemnity were more customary then. However far the British have shifted towards intimacy and exposure in half a century, the aesthetic imposed on Castleton Knight's team by technology fitted the spirit of the "Second Elizabethan Age" in its idealistic beginning. At the time the film was cited by those who wanted commercial television in Britain: J Arthur Rank had proved that a profit-minded tycoon could turn out as handsome a souvenir as the BBC's epoch-making television relay.

It's hard to imagine anyone but Sir Laurence Olivier providing the commentary for this frankly spectacular documentary that presents in glorious technicolour the epitome of pageantry and circumstance that was the Coronation of Elizabeth II. Bedecked in all of it's golden finery, Westminster Abbey provides a fitting - and reasonably well lit - setting for this astonishingly comprehensive coverage of a ceremony that had never before been covered for television. The narration is, as you might expect, suitably theatrical but it's never fawning. The use of poetry and history effortlessly and potently mixed together by a man who does really appear to be as steeped in the event as those inside this ancient church. It's also quite impressive how rousing and emotional a choir can be when in full flow within a building with such almost perfect acoustics. There are long periods without commen. The images and music doing the heavy lifting before the new Sovereign heads back to Buckingham Palace, in the rain, to throngs of people cheering, and with a few of her senior officers less adept on an horse than they might have wished! . Watching this, you realise quite quickly that though it symbolises a new, post-war, age of optimism and colour; it also sends a signal that the days of empire are finished. There are way more "guests" here whom her father might have considered "subjects" - and the whole thing leaves you with a sense, however anachronistic, that this ain't broke, so doesn't need fixing. That these colour images exist in such a complete fashion is remarkable, and regardless of any political views that might exist about the rights and wrongs of moncarhy, this is as close to a photographic work of art as I've seen.