"The Queen" (2006) - Film about Elizabeth II and the Death of Diana

[Toledo]

'The Queen' to debut at New York Film Fest

NEW YORK, July 19 (UPI) -- A controversial new movie about the royal family's reaction to the death of Princess Diana will premiere at the New York Film Festival Sept. 29, 2006.
...Frears said that the script of the movie is based on interviews with insiders and royal watchers.

link with picture of the actress playing Elizabeth II: North American Premiere of Frears' "The Queen" To Open 2006 New York Film Festival

another link with a picture: Frears Pic to Open NYFF

...First of all, its title -- The Queen -- is just vague enough to be intriguing: The movie could be about anyone from, like, Isabel of Spain to Liberace. So there's some built-in suspense there.

...the film is set within England's royal family immediately after the death of Princess Diana, which could potentially be incredibly interesting. Finally and most importantly, it stars Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II. Actually, just that would sell me -- Mirren is a staggeringly talented actress who gets more interesting and more impressive as she gets older...

This link has the lead actress without the movie makeup, I have to say she makes a dashing Queen Elizabeth:
NY fest to open with film about week after Diana's death

...In an interview with the BBC, Mirren said she plays the Queen as a woman who is "steady, true, honest and British." Mirren played Elizabeth I in the HBO miniseries about the life of the monarch...

'Queen' Rules New York Festival Opening
July 19, 2006 By Gregg Goldstein
..."It's a beautifully pitched script with darkly comic undertones that gives amazing insight into what went on behind the palace gates," said Miramax president Daniel Battsek.
The studio will start releasing "Queen" in early October...

 

[CrownPrinceLorenzo]

I think it's cool that Helen Mirren played both Elizabeth I and II lol.

 

[Toledo]

I don't know her work but I think she was on TV doing a version of an old movie where she plays a rich american woman in Rome, titled something like Mrs....Roman holiday? or something like that. There was a young homeless (?) man after that at the end of the movie goes to the hotel she is staying and that's how the movie ends. Maybe based on a play by Tennesse Williams or Capote?

 

[Lady Marmalade]

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is the cable movie. It is a remake of the one with Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty.

 

[Warren]

Wer'e not discussing Helen Mirren's previous roles here. This thread is about the new film.

 

[Toledo]

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is the cable movie. It is a remake of the one with Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty.

That's the title!!!! Thanks!!!

I wrote it down on my DVD must-have list for the weekend. And guess what, I was reading this morning an old New Yorker Magazine from April that has her being advertised in a two part HBO movie about Queen Elizabeth I. Imagine the coincidence! This actress should make a career playing all English Queens.

Wer'e not discussing Helen Mirren's previous roles here. This thread is about the new film.

Okay, arfter that stick of the tongue reaction to our pal Warren, I'll get back on track. Here is my new favorite actress of the week, Helen Mirren's Royal character Elizabeth II, the buzz is now about an Oscar nomination so I guess the movie has been previewed already

Mirren's 'Queen' may be royal pain
one quote from the above link:
...Hollywood courtiers are already flattering Helen Mirren with Oscar buzz for her performance in "The Queen," which will open the New York Film Festival. But it seems unlikely the real queen - Her Majesty Elizabeth II - will be amused....

 

[ysbel]

This is old news. The studio announced it a couple of months ago. Its supposed to tell the events from the Queen's point of view. Helen Mirren is a good actress and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

You can catch up on the old discussion in this thread.

 

[Kelly]

So has this film been approved by the BRF?

 

[BeatrixFan]

I think this film will be interesting to watch but it's like any other film of this nature - it's fiction shaped on the bones of fact and that gets slightly dangerous. It's like the objections to the Da Vinci Code - it's fiction presented as fact and so people may see this film and believe that is actually what the Queen said or did and I worry slightly that this could be a disaster. However, Helen Mirren recently gave an interview about playing the Queen and we know Dame Helen is a Royalist. She said she wouldn't do anything to hurt the Queen and I tend to trust Helen's acting capabilities. She was wonderful as Elizabeth I and I'm sure she'll be brilliant at Elizabeth II but I'll be interested to see just how it's presented.

 

[ysbel]

Its on the first page of the thread. Here's the link to the original article in the Sun.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005430724,00.html

 

[Lady Marmalade]

Wer'e not discussing Helen Mirren's previous roles here. This thread is about the new film.

I was just trying to be polite by answering Toledo's question. I know what this thread is about. I just doing an act of kindness by helping another poster out.

I apologize to all for that.

 

[Toledo]

According to this link, the actress playing The Queen, Dame Helen Mirren, descends herself from the Russian aristocracy but the article does not elaborate more into it. This and another site says her father was a driving instructor and musician and her grandfather stranded in England after the Russian revolution. But Hello Magazine is a little more brutal with her ancestry and calls her the daugther of a Russian taxi driver: Ouch!
http://www.hellomagazine.com/profiles/helenmirren/

Come to think of it, I don't remember any other actress who has played both Queens ever. Dame Helen Mirren has just gone to the record and trivia books with this achievement.

This other link talks about her characterizations on both Elizabeths:
For Mirren, there's nothing easy about being a queen
quote from the above link:
...After wowing audiences earlier this year in HBO's four-hour telefilm "Elizabeth I," Helen Mirren exhibits a regal bearing again in Stephen ("Mrs. Henderson Presents") Frears' "The Queen," a controversial drama about Queen Elizabeth II's inability to comprehend the depth of a shocked public's response to the death of Princess Diana....

Can't wait for the film to open for all of us in October. I guess in the USA it will be one of those limited screening films in artsy movie theaters, nothing major. I'll see it and tell you my impression then.

Ysabel, you are in NY, any way you could get to go to that film festival?

 

[Elspeth]

So has this film been approved by the BRF?

I very much doubt it. Wonder if they're going to watch.

I noticed that Helen Mirren got her damehood before essaying the role of HMQ in a touchy situation.

 

[Toledo]

'Diana crisis' film in the running at Venice festival
By Hugh Davies
(Filed: 28/07/2006)

...A film in which Dame Helen Mirren depicts the Queen in the days after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, will compete at this year's Venice film festival.
The Queen, directed by Stephen Frears, will dramatise the monarch's struggle between private grief and the public's demand for an overt display of mourning following the princess's death in Paris...

I very much doubt it. Wonder if they're going to watch.

I noticed that Helen Mirren got her damehood before essaying the role of HMQ in a touchy situation.

The above link has this quote that answers some of your concerns:

...Dame Helen said: "I'd be devastated if she feels that I've betrayed her in my portrayal of her.
''I find her duty and self-sacrifice incredible virtues.''

 

[Thomas Parkman]

Dear Members,

It should certainly be interesting. In the first place, there was a dark side to the Diana saga of which the members of the royal family were far more aware than the general public. The good princess was by no means the shinning icon that many believed her to be. Her story is one of human beings, flaws, foibles, egos and all in the pressure cooker of royalty and how it all played out. there are no heros in it. And no martyrs or victims either.

Diana was certainly not the fairy princess that the public saw in her. And the good queen simply could not understand that the British poeple at the death of Diana basically had a collective nervous breakdown. So the movie should be a sight to see. Cheers. Thomas Parkman

 

[redfox6]

What nonsense. It is a film. Who really knows how accurate it is. The British people did not have a "collective nervouse breakdown" there is no such thing. They recognized that had she been treated with decency and love from the prince, this young, lovely, troubled woman would still be alive. The villifying machines could not work as well when she was alive. She could answer. They had to wait until her death. Then they spewed as much muck as they could, so as to build up the prince's tarnished image. The Queen was totally out of touch with her subjects on this, as demonstrated. It was a time when the sacrosanct BRF had to answer to a very distraught public. They did not like it. Their more open attitudes today, stem from that very time.

 

[BeatrixFan]

With all due respect, thats quite incorrect redfox6. The majority of British people went to pieces and showed how an increasingly secular society vested their emotions in a celebrity. They didn't blame Charles for anything - she died in a car crash. It was an accident and she died. You can make your excuses but at the time of her death, Diana's public image was slipping. She was a problem to everyone but the gossip columns. The Queen wasn't out of touch with her subjects. The atrocious display of hysteria that was displayed was not the sort of display her subjects puts on. She refused to change the way Royal deaths have been handled since for generations and certainly not for a woman who had publicly humiliated her family and personally insulted her. You're making sweeping statements about our Royal Family redfox6, and it's insulting.

 

[redfox6]

I, personally, appologize to you, as I wouldn't wish to hurt your feeling. I, too, feel that the Princess was trying very hard to find something I think had eluded her. More's the pity. Mr. Fayed was hardly good company, but she was obviously, still idolized by her public, right or wrong. Charles wasn't responsible for her death directly. Heavens, no. I don't buy that tale. But he was a philanderer, if anyone uses that word any more and before that a cheat, as he slept with the wife of his friend. Hardly credentials to look up to. A lot of the Princess' woes stemmed from his lack of caring. I think, both Charles and Diana humiliated the family. Let's face it, they both made a mess. The Queen is a good woman. She has very rigid ideas,as those were the traditional ways things were handled. You were correct. But things and times change. Events change things, too. It is your opinion that the public acted atrociously. Perhaps, they reacted to the death, as they would have to someone in their family, because of the constant exposure to this person. They also felt, I am sure, by and large, that she was wronged. She was young, beautiful and vunerable. The vast majority that publicly mourned reacted to that. It is not "a mass nervous breakdown" or acting atrociously, it is emotionally venting feelings that they could not otherwise express.

 

[lord_rankin]

The Queen (The movie)

I have read a couple articles today regarding Stephen Frears new movie The Queen, about the Royal Family and the days after Diana was killed. The photos of Helen Mirren who plays QEII are eerily similar to her Majesty. If anyone has been able to see it let me know how it is It won't be released in the States until September so I'll have to wait

 

[hayz64]

It isn't released here until the 15th september anyway i don't think. I don't think you will have to wait much longer to see it than we do.

 

[*SofiaM*]

Has Helen Mirren played The Queen before? I'm sure she has..

 

[Toledo]

The Movie 'The Queen' received national attention yesterday in the USA because it was shown as an article in the USA Today newspaper, and not only that, the cover of the Newpaper had a picture of Dame Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II:
Mirren mirrors the queen and here is the USA Today photo gallery on Mirren in costume compared to the real Queen Elizabeth II


these are some recent mentions in other news:
Dame Helen Mirren has slammed criticisms a bedroom scene in her controversial new movie is a "cheap shot" at British monarch Queen Elizabeth II
2006-08-09 14:21:28 - PR Inside News

Blair shown calling Charles a creep in new Diana film
By BAZ BAMIGBOYE, CHIEF SHOWBIZ WRITER 21:41pm 9th August 2006

Mirren, Bening taking star turns on the big and little screens
Liz Smith
Originally published July 31, 2006

 

[MihoshiMarie]

The trailer has been posted on Apple.com:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/thequeen/

You can even watch it in high definition. It looks really good.

 

[Incas]

My web browser was shut down when I tried to open the link.

 

[Madame Royale]

I think its important to remember that this film isn't so much about Diana, as it is about the Queen. Yes, the film is set around the tragic circumstances of 1997 but it is, primarily focussed on the sovereign and the circumsatnces of the situation that Elizabeth II as Monarch, mother and grandmother had to face. The highest lady in the land who's upbringing was to remain 'utterly oyster' (QM) in most (if not all) aspects of expression.

It was no doubt the most challenging experience she had faced, after the death of her father and I really felt for her very deeply. I also think that it was one of the biggest learning curves Elizabeth has ever had to endure and it is horrible that it had to come at the price of such a treasured life.

Dame Helen only used a wig for her role so the likeness cant be all that similar and her voice was her own (no trainning to sound like the Queen - I think?).

Apprently her demeanour was very much Elizabeth, as would be expected.

 

[norwegianne]

I have to admit, I was sceptical about this film - but after watching the trailer, I've changed my mind. It looks interesting. Of course it is just speculating as to the dialogue and whatnot in the film, but it looks like a film I'd like to watch. Now, here's to hoping the cinemas in Copenhagen will see it as a movie of interest, instead of having it go straight to DVD.

 

[WindsorIII]

I wonder what Queen Elizabeth will think of this movie about her and her family set to be released in theaters in Canada in 6 weeks. It sounds like a good cast in the movie.

"It was the most intimidating role I have ever played," she says of her portrayal of Elizabeth II in The Queen, a film that depicts the British royal family in crisis following the death of Princess Diana.

The Queen gives a dramatic glimpse into what happens in the corridors of power when tragedy strikes and shows how the tradition-bound world of the Royal Family is abruptly brought into conflict with the country's brand-new, image-conscious Prime Minister Tony Blair, played by Michael Sheen.



The movie is slated to open in Toronto theatres Oct. 13.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1157061022813&call_pageid=968867495754&col=969483191630

 

[WindsorIII]

Film suggests Queen was baffled by grief over Diana

Sat Sep 2, 2006 9:04am ET

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=filmNews&storyID=2006-09-02T130507Z_01_LA720100_RTRIDST_0_FILM-LEISURE-VENICE-QUEEN-DC.XML

 

[BeatrixFan]

I'm sure Dame Helen is going to give us another magical performance. She is one of Britain's best actresses and she's a Royalist too. When Jonathon Ross criticised the Queen on his show and Helen was a guest, she pretty much launched an attack on Ross saying that he was totally wrong and defended the Queen. I'm 100% certain that Mirren wouldn't have had anything to do with the film if it was anti-Queen.

 

[WindsorIII]

I agree, I am sure it is not anti-queen, but it will reveal the thought/emotional process she went through when dealing with the death of Diana and the reality of how much people around the world loved her. To me that will be most interesting.

The movie has an incredible cast. I can't wait until it is released.