Question for the costume geeks....

[ellid]

Is anyone else as nervous about Elizabeth: The Golden Age as I am? I'm not a costuming expert by any means, but what I've seen is bothering the heck out of me, especially some of the stuff in the image gallery.

I'm also very bothered by the director saying that the part is written as dealing simultaneously with the Spanish Armada (1588) and Elizabeth's "realization" that she was too old for love and children. It seems to have escaped his attention that Elizabeth was fifty-five at the time of the Armada, well past childbearing age, and that many scholars believe she never married because she saw the disaster a husband could bring to a queen regnant in her cousin Mary Stuart's fiasco of a reign.

Opinions?

Comments

[arionrhod.livejournal.com]

Okay... the weird feathered headpieces or the armor?

I don't know that there is any historical evidence that Elizabeth EVER wore armor. As far as I know the last queen of England to wear armor was Isabella of France when she was waging war on her husband. Ah, well. I've given up hoping for any historical accuracy in most of the period dramas. At least this doesn't seem as bad as, oh, say Braveheart (see the aforementioned Isabella, if I'm not mistaken)

[ellid.livejournal.com]

The feathered headpieces, the armor (worn with her hair down, which is just plain wrong, especially since Elizabeth was partially bald by then), and especially the bright, bright, purple that is so clearly a modern silk that it gave me a headache.

However, she doesn't seem to get pregnant, nor does she have a romance with William Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe. Nor do they seem to disembowel anyone on screen, so it could be a lot worse.

[crazykimmy.livejournal.com]

LOL I think that would have been a threesome I'd pay $11.50 to see.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

It's a movie. I enjoyed the first one very much, so I'm looking forward to this one.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

Haven't paid a huge amount of attention to the costumes (I know, **gasp, shock, horror** ;-p) just hasn't percolated through yet.

I do think that she saw a husband as a serious liability to her ability to rule, not to mention that childbearing in eras other than the 20th century was an incredibly risky undertaking. This is a woman who had 5 stepmothers. Her own mother and one stepmother were beheaded and a second died due to complications from childbirth. Any one of those may have well put me off of the whole wife/mother thing. All three and I'd've stayed a virgin queen, too.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Based on "Elizabeth", I don't expect this movie to have much adherence to historical fact on either costumes OR history.

What I DO expect is that the acting will be good given the cast (Blanchett, Rush, Owen, etc.) - this is why I'll see it, not because I think it's going to have that much to do with the Elizabethan era!

[chrisilin.livejournal.com]

Regardless of whether it was period or not, I see nothing wrong with a few more strong female role-models, and if that means Elizabeth in armor - I have no complaints. Except that I want to try on said armor at least once. *grins sheepishly*

[briony530.livejournal.com]

A friend sent me a link to a very telling article. To paraphrase it said "This movie is about image, those picky details of actual history and clothing are of secondary importance to us". I'll see if I can find it.

[briony530.livejournal.com]

Well, if we are to believe the first movie, her reasons for being single were to set herself up as an alternative to the Virgin Mary, so I don't know that we should be comparing this one to what scholars say anyway... ;)