50th Anniversary: "Anne of the Thousand Days"

Anne of a Thousand Days (1969) was released 50 years ago today.

by Cláudio Alves

Even before her famous death, Anne Boleyn had become a legend. I don't say this to aggrandize the historical figure, but to explain that the second wife of Henry VIII had transformed into something not quite human. Legends aren't people so much as abstractions of them, told and retold, morphed by cultural shifts and the interest of those who tell them. 

With the birth of cinema, Anne Boleyn would come to be one of the stalwarts of the historical drama on the big screen. Unfortunately, the cycles of empty mythologizing wouldn't end with the advent of new technology. As a character, Anne Boleyn is more often than not a symbol. She's a monstrous harpy or she's a martyred victim, she's a seductress who brought disgrace upon herself or she's an icon who died at the hands of a perfidious tyrant. Even on the rare instance when she gets to be protagonist, rather than a supporting player in another's tale, she's not allowed to be a person with a full characterization. For what it's worth, 1969's Anne of the Thousand Days, at least, tries to do right by Anne Boleyn.

I'm unsure if this is the filmmaker's doing or the singular feat of Geneviève Bujold...

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"The Crown" S3: An Acting Showcase

by Cláudio Alves

Why do we, as an audience, love to see celebrities playing other celebrities? Just look at the acting categories of the Oscars to see this love in full bloom. Every year, they are invaded by biopics with famous actors imitating the look and feel, the ticks, the sound and the accents of other figures in the public consciousness. Perhaps it's got something to do with the juxtaposition of two famous personas, none of them fully erasing the other. It’s a palimpsest of acting.

We know the Queen of England, how she sounds and how she looks.  When an actress plays her, their transformation becomes obvious because it calls attention to the art of pretending, but also to what is specific about the pretender in the first place. By watching Olivia Colman play the Queen in The Crown, it becomes obvious what makes Olivia Colman so special.

Of course, in this instance, the comparison isn't just to the Queen herself, but also Claire Foy's version of the role…

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Oscar Trivia with the 91st Annual Academy Awards now a wrap

Now that the big show has ended let's talk trivia. Please do share any cool things you noticed in the comments.

PICTURE & DIRECTING

• With Alfonso Cuarón's win we are reminded that Mexico is completely dominant for Best Director prizes in Hollywood of late. Five of the past six winners have been Mexican directors (Damien Chazelle for La La Land being the lone non-Mexican winning). The US is really lagging, and not behind Mexico -- in the ten past ceremonies only two American-born directors have won: Chazelle and Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

• Alfonso Cuarón is the first and ONLY director to win for directing a foreign-language film. Some trivia listings suggest he's the second after Michel Hanavicius for The Artist but that was a silent film, so language isn't relevant...

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Interview: Screenwriter Deborah Davis on her 20 year passion project "The Favourite"

by Nathaniel R

Deborah Davis, first time screenwriter, is up for an Oscar this weekendDeborah Davis recently took home the BAFTA for her work on the screenplay to Yorgos Lanthimos's stunning tragicomedy and Best Picture hopeful The Favourite. Though Lanthimos has previously co-written his own features this time was attached to a project already in progress. Davis and cowriter Tony McNamara than retooled the screenplay to match Lanthimos's vision. The results were magic, as has long since become obvious.

Before the hardware started arriving we hopped on a cross Atlantic phone call with Deborah Davis briefly. We couldn't find much info about her at the time and were reeling from the realization that the dearth of info came from the fact that The Favourite was her very first movie. As it turns out she became a screenwriter specifically to tell this story. And what a story it is.

Our interview, edited for length and clarity follows...

NATHANIEL: I'm still gobsmacked that this is a first screenplay!

DEBORAH DAVIS: That’s correct, yes. By training I'm a lawyer, but I’ve done quite a lot of journalism. I started to research The Favourite 20 years ago, and I was actually convinced that this story about women in power and the female triangle would make a wonderful film, so I went and learned how to write a script...

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Queen Ingrith Tease

Since it's only (haha) 477 days until Maleficent 2 hits theaters, Michelle Pfeiffer gave us a sneak peek of her character Queen Ingrith on Instagram. We don't know if she's a fairy queen or just a regular queen yet but we hope a fairy queen because how many actresses can say they've played fairy royalty twice? (see also: Titania, Queen of the Fairies, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1999)