Monday, April 11, 2016

From Elizabeth to Queen Elizabeth

After watching Elizabeth there were some interesting parts that stood out to me.  In the opening credits it pulled in my attention right away with the music.  The music starts off kind of slow then progresses to get louder and kind of seems dark.   Then Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth faces pop up and the background is red with crosses floating around.  I think that the credits alone tell a lot about Queen Elizabeth’s reign.  Elizabeth’s reign started kind of slow and she did not want to do anything to fast, and then things started to take a turn and started to do some dark things.  I think that the crosses symbolized the religion and the large impact that it was during this time especially since it was changing so much.  I believe that the red symbolized the blood of those that Henry VIII, Mary, and Elizabeth killed during their reigns.


The next thing that I noticed is that when Elizabeth was crowned queen, she looked just like the picture we looked at on Thursday in class.  As Elizabeth is being crowned we are below her showing us that she has power, but also that she has already embraced it.




Lastly after the meeting with the counsel and deciding to go to war with Scotland, there is some dark music, thunder, and Queen Elizabeth did not have a pleasing face.  I thought that this showed darkness and defeat, since England had lost the war.  Elizabeth to me seemed to get persuaded into a lot of things if it helped her to keep her power.  This can be seen with the war with Scotland because Elizabeth was against war, but she agreed with counsel and it did not pay off in the end.  Also when Elizabeth was told that the church was against her, she quickly went to them and changed the religion back to Protestant.  Maybe Queen Elizabeth was just insecure.  Queen Elizabeth seems to think that she can make decisions on her own but all the major ones to keep her power came from someone else telling her what is best for her.  At the same time Queen Elizabeth does show that she is powerful since she does not marry and that she stood up to many men.  After finding out that the Robert was married I think that Queen Elizabeth became a more confident and powerful queen!  Queen Elizabeth was definitely an interesting person and made me wonder what she was going to do next.

2 comments:

  1. Gril! We are on the same page!!

    Okay so the opening with the creepy music and crosses and paintings and stuff completely set the mood. It told the story of the nation's problems with religion in recent years, telling the viewers that this is what the entirety of Elizabeth's reign was about - religion. The music has a lot to do with the tone of a scene, or even a film altogether. At the end of the movie, for example, Mozart's Requiem is sung as Elizabeth cuts her hair and applies all the lead makeup, becoming a whole new person. Though it is sung in French, the song is about asking God to bless the land and the people - EXACTLY WHAT ELIZABETH WANTED ALL ALONG!

    You also talked about the scene when she became the painting we looked at in class, but did anyone else notice that when Elizabeth and Robert were getting freaky, the sheets hanging from the bed posts had the eyes that we saw on Elizabeth's dress in one of the paintings? Cause I did...I'd post pictures here but it's not letting me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I noticed that about the credits too! After the credits were pointed out about Rome I really paid attention to these credits. The picture of her in the background of all the crosses, I think really showed that she become one with her religion and that was her one true love. Which she did when she claimed at the end when she became a virgin and said that she was married to the Church.

    ReplyDelete