(By Hugo F. Sánchez).- On February 6, 1952, the British princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was proclaimed queen after the death of her father Jorge Vl and a year later she was crowned as Isabel ll, in a royal assumption in the abbey which was broadcast live on television for the first time, while a team from The Rank Organization film studios also filmed the event that later became the Globe-winning “A Queen is Crowned.” Gold for Best Documentary Film.
Monarch of the United Kingdom since she was 25 years old, with 70 years on the throne -the longest in history-, the representation of Isabel ll in the cinema (documentary, fiction and also animation), television and even in commercials, with the As the years went by, he comfortably transcended his figure to become part of globalized popular culture.
Although there is no biopic on Elizabeth II to date, her figure, influence and significance permeate numerous films and series that deal with English royalty.
Among the amount of audiovisual material on the Windsors, the British royal family in power since 1917, there are two large groups that deal with the figure of the queen: the productions focused directly on her figure and others, where her influence determined the destiny of numerous figures.
Of course, the first group corresponds to “The Crown” (2016), the series by Peter Morgan that was seen on the Netflix platform and became an audience success in the world, reflecting in each of its first four seasons -that there will be six-, the different aspects of the queen’s life through the protagonists of Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and as planned for the last two installments, Imelda Staunton, the remembered Dolores Umbridge of the “Harry Potter” saga .
And in the cinema, also with Elizabeth ll as the protagonist, we can quote the naive “Royal Night” (2015), by Julian Jarrold (2015), which places the young Elizabeth with her sister Margaret on May 8, 1945 , when Nazi Germany surrenders to the Allies and the two princesses leave Buckingham Palace to enjoy the Victory Day celebrations as ordinary citizens.
And of course, you can’t ignore “The Queen” (2006) by Stephen Frears, with a magnificent Helen Mirren, giving life to the queen and the strategy that she puts together with Prime Minister Tonny Blair to cushion the devastating effects of the death of Lady Say in the royal family and before the public opinion.
Film critic and theorist Bill Nichols in his book “The Representation of Reality,” the appeal of documentary films lies “in their ability to make timeless issues seem literally burning issues to us” and added, “the link between the documentary and the historical world is the most characteristic feature of this tradition”.
In this sense, from the moment of her inauguration, with the television broadcast and then the success of the documentary “A Queen is Crowned” (narrated by Laurence Olivier and with the soundtrack recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra), the queen intuitively understood that one of the primary missions of his mandate was to preserve and project into the future an outdated institution such as royalty, and cinema, television and any mass communication instrument would be essential to fulfill that objective.
Thus, the timelessness that Nichols speaks of is applied to the need for the crown to preserve its status quo, placing it as a priority issue on the English agenda, such as the unprecedented special -addressed by an episode of “The Crown”- of the Public Service of Radio and Television of the United Kingdom (BBC) of 1969, where the “everyday life” of the royal family was shown to a certain extent “stripped down” and closer to the “people”.
The truth is that already in the eighties, fiction set its sights on the Windsors, with a succession of titles where the queen adds a few minutes of screen time but where her shadow is projected on different characters from the royal house.
Among the most important productions are “The Real Romance of Carlos and Diana” (1982) by James Goldstone, which recreates in a pasteurized way the love affairs of Carlos and Diana of Wales; and “The Iron Lady” (2011) by Phyllida Lloyd, a portrait of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher starring Meryl Streep.
And also “Diana” (2013) by the German Oliver Hirschbiegel with Naomi Watts as the Princess of Wales and her scandalous romance with a surgeon of Pakistani origin; the telefilm “King Charles III” (2017) by Rupert Goold, nothing less than an uchrony that speculates on a possible reign of Charles of Wales after the death of the monarch; and the recent “Spencer” (2021), by Chilean Pablo Larraín, which shows Lady Di (Kristen Stewart) and her psychological collapse during her three-day stay with the royal family.
But in addition to the palace intrigues, the politics, the desire for preservation and the attempts to remain current beyond all time reflected in fiction and documentaries, the figure of the British queen was also taken up by other formats such as satirical comedy and down to the animation.
In strict chronological order, David Zucker’s “The Naked Gun” (1988) is perhaps the most ruthless look at Elizabeth II, with a number of elementary, but effective, physical gags starring the incompetent Lieutenant Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen). , in charge of guarding the queen (Jeannette Charles) during her visit to the city of Los Angeles.
Along the same lines is Jay Roach’s “Austin Powers in Goldmember” (2002), again with Jeannette Charles as the long-lived sovereign.
And in the case of animation, just to name two examples, there is the inescapable chapter “The Queen’s Monologues” from “The Simpsons” (2003) by Matt Groening, with a furious Isabel who condemns Homer to death for having collided his royal carriage. To this “participation” can be added “Minions” (2015, by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda, which in a hilarious scene set to music by “You really got me” by The Kinks, the queen beats up one of the protagonists yellows.
The validity and willingness to actively participate in the events of the present through the media, is verified with “London 2012: Olympic Ceremony” (2012), by Danny Boyle, where even with his 86 years at that time, he gave his consent. so that through a double, starring in the opening short of the Olympic Games, parachuting with James Bond (Daniel Craig). You can’t get more British. (Telam)
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