Abstract
In 1912 Sarah Bernhardt was the first actor to portray Elizabeth I on the big screen in a film entitled The Loves of the Queen (1912). Despite its age this film anticipates many of the key issues that reappear in latter films depicting Elizabeth I. Bernhardt’s Elizabeth is a woman torn between her duty as a queen and her love for the earl of Essex. The film opens with Essex bringing news of the Armada’s defeat to the English camp at Tilbury. It then moves to court and becomes a complicated story of personal and political intrigue. Essex’s fate is sealed when the husband of his lover, the countess of Nottingham, finds out about their relationship and gets Essex sent to Ireland. After 11 years away Essex returns to the court. Nottingham, however, tricks the queen into thinking Essex is a traitor. After his trial and execution Elizabeth pays Essex one last visit as he lies in state, discovers that she has been deceived and dies of melancholy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
On gender as performance, see Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (New York, 1990).
Arthur D. Innes, England Under the Tudors (1911), 427.
G. R. Elton, England under the Tudors (1972), 262.
Sue Harper, Picturing the Past: The Rise and Fall of the British Costume Film (1994).
Teresa de Lauretis, ‘Desire in Narrative’, in Susana Onega and José Ángel García Landa, eds, Narratology (1996), 262–72, especially p. 265.
Renée Pigeon, ‘Gloriana Goes to Hollywood: Elizabeth I on Film, 1937–1940’, in William F. Gentrup, ed., Reinventing the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Constructions of the Medieval and Early Modern Periods Amazon Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 1 (1998), 107–21, at p. 117.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2003 Thomas Betteridge
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Betteridge, T. (2003). A Queen for All Seasons: Elizabeth I on Film. In: Doran, S., Freeman, T.S. (eds) The Myth of Elizabeth. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-21415-6_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-21415-6_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-93084-7
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-21415-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)