Elizabeth: The Virgin Queen, Liz I, the heretic Queen or, more intimately, Bess.
By any handle, Her Majesty has never been sexier. This week Helen Mirren infuses the pasty monarch with humanity and sensuality in a stunning new HBO miniseries.
Elizabeth has never lacked for screen attention. More films celebrate her, over more decades of filmmaking, than any woman in history. Joan of Arc can’t touch her credits. Only Napoleon, FDR and the Kennedys claim more celluloid. Her appeal is complex, but easily grasped. As woman and symbol she serves myriad functions: feminist icon to some, avatar of duty and sacrifice to others, and all-around embodiment of royal glamour.
Mirren rules in “Elizabeth I,” a lavish miniseries production premiering in two parts, Saturday and Monday at 6 p.m. on HBO. Her Liz is older, wiser and lustier.
This is the Queen in the second half of her 45-year reign. Staking her territory, Mirren’s Elizabeth modestly describes herself as “late fruit of the tree a breath away from withering.” In fact, even stiffly masked in white paint against flaming red hair with drop pearl earrings, this late fruit still has plenty of juice.
Bette Davis played her twice, in 1939’s “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” opposite Errol Flynn, and in 1955’s “The Virgin Queen.” Jean Simmons played “Young Bess” in 1953. Glenda Jackson offered what was considered the definitive version in the 1970s, “Elizabeth R,” a six-part miniseries that now looks rather wooden. Judi Dench had a minor part as the Queen in 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love” and Cate Blanchett created a memorable, more human version the same year in “Elizabeth.”
The most recent take is a terrific reworking of the story, from a more mature perspective, in what is destined to become a favorite exploration of the character. In “Elizabeth I,” the woman is a savvy statesman, a brilliant conversationalist, a moody lover and a jaw-droppingly elegant sight in thick white pancake makeup.
Director Tom Hooper (who directed Mirren in “Prime Suspect 6”) evokes two sides of the enigmatic Queen: Elizabeth the emotional female and Elizabeth the figurehead whose very body is England. (The story opens with a royal gynecological exam to determine that the monarch is still able to bear an heir.) We see the public image of the queen as icon, plus the private, animated and feminine – even feminist – side of Henry VIII’s offspring.
This Elizabeth dared have meltdowns in front of her councilors, batting away demands that she marry, and carrying on a scandalous affair with the Earl of Leicester, played by Jeremy Irons. Later, her equally passionate love affair with the earl’s stepson, the young Earl of Essex, played by Hugh Dancy, similarly unhinges her inner circle.
“Do you think the queen is mistress of her feelings?” she asks a roomful of dour male advisers. “No, she’s a helpless fool for love.”
Where Blanchette embodied the juvenile royal, thrust into the spotlight and struggling to find her footing, Mirren excels as the adult queen. Her Elizabeth makes stirring speeches, shares intimate moments and reveals insecurities and passions as a world leader from midlife unto death. Blanchette was Liz finding her destiny; Mirren is Bess flaunting her sensuality.
The stiff and scary Glenda Jackson version of Elizabeth, the bald crown of her head an unforgettable trademark with makeup seemingly applied by trowel, rendered her ultra-formally. She might have stepped from a portrait in London’s National Gallery. The confident Mirren wears the requisite costume, hair and makeup but seems more contemporary and accessible as a head of state.
Famously “married to her country,” Elizabeth (1533-1603) refused to take a husband, never producing an heir. The new miniseries lingers over her connection to her people. In a rallying speech before fighting the Spanish, Mirren’s queen has a Scarlett O’Hara moment, grasping a fistful of earth and swearing, as God is her witness, to “live or die among you … to lay down my honor and my blood even in the dust!”
Pageantry and palace gossip resonate, along with the Protestant-Catholic divide. While historians say Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots, never met, they do here. And the gruesome depiction of Mary’s beheading takes full advantage of the freedom of cable TV.
The four hours fly as the period is lovingly re-created through lavish sets, gorgeous costumes and rich language. Mirren reigns supreme.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
