“Remember, remember the fifth of November.
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.”
I knew nothing about the film V for Vendetta going into it. Ideally, you shouldn’t either, so I’ll warn you before I get to any spoilers. You must see this film. It is the most interesting, subversive, and important film I’ve seen in decades.
When this English child’s rhyme was uttered by the lead character, known only as V, early in the movie, I sat upright, alert, because I suddenly knew what this movie was going to be about. 9/11. Metaphorically at least. How did I get that from a reference to the Gunpowder plot? Read on, MacDuff.
Most Americans don’t know the story behind the Gunpowder plot. It is surprisingly relevant to our time. It was a huge event, one that continues to echo to our present, as this film ably demonstrates. And like all important events that change the course of history, there is a measure of controversy as to what we really happened. Who were the plotters and who were the victims?
According to the official account prepared for the King (i.e.., the Warren Report of its time), on the fifth of November in 1605, a team of conspirators planned to blow up the House of Parliament in London on opening day of the new session, killing King James in the process. The plot was foiled by the November 4th arrest of Guy Fawkes (pronounced “Fox”), a hapless conspirator found in a cellar under the House of Lords while guarding thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. Under torture, Fawkes gave up the names of his co-conspirators.
The episode became known as “The Gunpowder Plot” and is marked every year with fireworks and bonfires in which, on occasion, Guy Fawkes is burned in effigy. For a few hundred years, the government required that its citizens celebrate the exposure of the plot and the protection of its government. The law requiring celebrations was repealed in 1859, but ad hoc celebrations continue to this day every November 5, although some revelers will tell you they are celebrating the planning of the plot rather than the foiling of it.
So why was the plot hatched? Therein lies the rub. To understand the plot, and the controversy, we need to examine a brief part of English history.
The Gunpowder plot was born, ultimately, from the hubris of King Henry VIII, or the rigidness of the Pope – take your pick. This is a complicated chain of events, but bear with me. As Stephen Rea’s character voiced in V for Vendetta during a particularly brilliant sequence, “everything is connected.”
In his search for a male heir, Henry VIII married and divorced six women. When the Catholic Church would not grant him his much needed divorce(s), he split with the Roman Catholic Church and set up the new Church of England with himself as head. One of his wives, Anne Boleyn, bore him the daughter Elizabeth. When Anne, like his other wives, fell from the King’s favor, he had her beheaded and stripped of her title. By that action, he bastardized his own daughter, and she was declared illegitimate. After Henry VIII died, Elizabeth’s half-sister Mary took the throne. Mary was a Catholic who wanted to reverse what Henry had done. When she died, Elizabeth, herself a dedicated Protestant, took the throne. Technically, the position should have gone to her cousin, the granddaughter of her father’s sister, a different Mary, called commonly “Mary, Queen of Scots” since she was from the age of six days old the Queen of Scotland by birth. Mary should have been Queen of England too, through the rules of succession. Elizabeth, however, had a will from Henry VIII, the authenticity of which was questionable, in which she was named the preferred heir to the throne. More importantly, Elizabeth was in town and Mary was in Scotland. Thus Elizabeth became the Queen of England.
Mary was accused of murdering her husband, and married the man accused of being her co-conspirator a couple of weeks later. This infuriated the Scots, who locked Mary up. She managed to escape, and sought the protection of Elizabeth. But Elizabeth saw in Mary a threat to her rule, and locked her up for 19 years. During this period, Elizabeth’s advisors repeatedly suggested Elizabeth kill Mary, but Elizabeth was satisfied with keeping her from the throne, and feared perhaps a Catholic rebellion if she killed the woman they believed was their true leader.
So Elizabeth’s chief of security devised a way to get rid of Mary. He set Mary up in a purported assassination plot. Through manipulations and machinations, Mary was ultimately presented a letter from Anthony Babington, in which the assassination of Elizabeth was suggested. Mary did not condone the plot, but that didn’t matter. It was argued that she had foreknowledge of the plot and had done nothing to stop it. She was eventually tried and convicted by the English court, and beheaded. Ironically, her son, James, would ascend the throne when Elizabeth, “the Virgin Queen,” died heirless.
King James was raised Protestant, but had sympathies for the Catholics, like his mother. (Curiously, the man who gave us the King James bible may have been bi-sexual!) He adopted a liberal policy towards religion. But he was surrounded by the same forces that had worked with Elizabeth. They wanted to get rid of the Catholics, and there is quite a bit of speculation that one close advisor in particular was involved in setting up the Gunpowder Plot, and then exposing it. James feared a violent end, and when he heard of the plot, he was, naturally, terrified, and supported actions that would have been unthinkable before the discovery of the plot. Was that, perhaps, the point?
The official story of the Gunpowder plot has Guy Fawkes interacting with a set of Catholics who wished to overthrow a government increasingly hostile to their religion. Ostensibly, they wanted to set events in motion that would restore Catholicism to what they felt was its rightful place in England. But some, including Webster Tarpley and Barrie Zwicker, fellow speakers from the 9/11 tour I participated in last summer, believe that the plot was a false flag operation set up by the Protestants to discredit the Catholics as a justification to going to war with Spain, which was, in any case, the result.
Zwicker, in an article for Canada’s Globe and Mail on November 5, 2005, quotes from Adam Nicolson’s book God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible:
The fallout from the plot is uncontestable. “The English became fixated on homeland security,” Mr. Nicolson writes. “An inclusive, irenic idea of mutual benefit (between Spain and England, which had recently signed a peace treaty and between which trade was growing) was replaced by a defensive/aggressive complex in which all Catholics, of all shades, never mind their degree of enthusiasm for the planned attack, were, at least for a time, identified as the enemy. . . . The state had invaded and taken over the English conscience.” War with Spain ensues. England’s course is set for a century of wars against the Spanish and Portuguese empires, out of which the British Empire emerges. In 1917, the British add Iraq to their empire after the defeat of the Ottomans. Neo-colonial turmoil in Iraq continues to this day. The official story of “gunpowder treason” set much in motion.
The parallels from that event to 9/11 resound. Whether or not 9/11 was a domestically inspired plot, the result was that the Bush Administration seized that event and made it the cornerstone for launching the very “Pax Americana” President Kennedy and his brother Bobby refused to pursue. Bush starting running the playbook written by PNAC – the Project for a New American Century. The result: a horror story of unprovoked aggression in Iraq in the guise of stopping WMD. When no WMD were found, Bush invoked that old fallback position: we went into Iraq to spread Democracy, a move which has produced to date not democracy, but civil war.
At home, people handed over their freedoms for a measure of protection, a gift which has already been criminally, impeachably, abused. As Joyce Appleby, professor emerita of history at UCLA, and former Senator Gary Hart co-wrote:
When President Nixon covertly subverted checks and balances 30 years ago during the Vietnam War, Congress passed laws making clear that presidents were not to engage in unconstitutional behavior in the interest of “national security.” Then, Congress was reacting to violation of Fourth Amendment protections against searches and seizures without judicial warrants establishing “probable cause,” attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, and surveillance of American citizens.
Now, the Iraq war is being used to justify similar abuses. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, providing constitutional means to carry out surveillance, and the Intelligence Identification Protection Act, protecting the identity of undercover intelligence agents, have both been violated by an administration seeking to restore “the legitimate authority of the presidency,” as Cheney puts it.
The presidency possesses no power not granted to it under the Constitution. The powers the current administration seeks in its “war on terror” are not granted under the Constitution. Indeed, they are explicitly prohibited by acts of Congress.
So take the events of the recent past, fast forward a few years into the future, and you’re smack in the middle of “V for Vendetta.”
If you haven’t seen the film, get thee to the theater; do not pass go, and DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The movie presents a parable for our times, a post-9/11 world in which freedoms have been traded for security with disastrous results. The “former United States” is a mess. The UK has become a fascist regime enforced through the near-total surveillance of its citizens. One man, a literate, intelligent, but vengeful man, who goes by the name of “V” for reasons revealed as the film progresses, has a vendetta, indeed, but it’s much more than a personal one. Knowing that he has the power to change things, possibly for the better, he decides to take matters into his own hands. V cloaks his identify behind a Guy Fawkes mask, and becomes a terrorist.
Or is terrorist the right word? He isn’t trying to terrorize the citizens of London. He’s trying to rouse them from their fear-induced slumber. He tells them that if they are unhappy with the way things are going, if they are looking for people to blame, they need to start by looking in the mirror, as they were the ones who stood by complacently as their world disintegrated. He invites them to join him at Parliament a year from that date, the next November 5, so that they can witness the act Guy Fawkes never got to finish. Why? Because there’s something wrong with the country, and everybody knows it.
Natalie Portman portrays the character Evey (“E V”, V articulates with relish, noting that there are no coincidences). Throughout the film, after every new revelation about V, Evey asked my own questions. Was V a good guy or a horrible guy? Should one support his choices or not? Would I choose his path, given similar circumstances? At what point is the law the problem, when the law is used to justify heinous deeds? At what point is one justified in breaking it?
As someone who believes in the power of nonviolent, legal, collective action, the film was both disturbing and intriguing in its implications. The act of blowing up Parliament in the film had nothing to do with violence, and everything to do with symbolism. As Evey noted, the people needed hope more than they needed the building. And the blowing up of Parliament was a show of strength. As V had said early in the film, “People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.” Blowing up Parliament was a way for the people to reclaim their power. And feeling that power, they might yet right the wrongs that had been done in their name.
I loved the story and movie on so many levels. The writing was brilliant, even Shakespearean at times. (Indeed, the Bard was nearly a character in the film, so often was he quoted.) The images were sleek and dark and sterile, like the world in which the story takes place. V’s underground home was strange yet inviting, and warmed considerably by the slow jazz emanating from his jukebox. And everything had a meaning, including the signature roses V left with each of his vendetta victims.
The acting was compelling. You wouldn’t believe a man in an immobile mask could make you feel so many emotions. Through his voice, his body, and somehow through that masked face, I felt every joy and anger and pain that V did. I will be forever in awe of Hugo Weaving’s impeccable, faceless performance, as well as Natalie Portman’s moving portrayal of a woman who came to discover ultimate freedom by choosing integrity over fear. And the love story between them was incredibly compelling. I was falling in love with V too, even as I deplored some of his actions.
It’s remarkable to see any interesting movie made in the age of cookie cutter remakes of shows that weren’t that good the first time around. But what really sparked my interest was the way this film melded the real past into an all too scary near future. I was surprised at the fairly overt parallels to the 9/11 controversy, especially given that the graphic novel on which the film is based was written in the 1980s, well before the attacks. In the film, the big “terrorist attacks” that resulted in the newly fascist society came in the form of a virus unleashed in the UK which wiped out hundreds of thousands of people. At one point, one of the government investigators searching for V, portrayed by the always interesting Stephen Rea, starts to open his mind. He asks his fellow investigator a question to which he requires no answer. In his world, the act of asking the question was itself a very bold step: “If our government was behind the attacks, would you really want to know?”
My personal conclusion, after years of such discussions, is that a lot of people don’t want to know such truths. They don’t mind believing them. Belief does not require action. But true knowledge does. And most people don’t want that burden. And yet, by not taking action, we are still responsible, and for things we wouldn’t support, if asked. V is right, in that regard. To find the villains, we need only look to our own inaction.
Perhaps my favorite sequence was the one in which Rea suddenly starts seeing all the puzzle pieces fall into place, how “Everything is connected.” In a brilliant series of intercuts, he glimpses the past, present, and future–the throughline of history. As V says, “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” That’s a well known principle of physics. But it goes for government and personal actions too. Everything we do–and don’t do–has a consequence. And we have to be aware of those so we can choose more wisely. Interestingly, the future Rea envisions in that moment does not entirely come to pass, but might have, had he been successful in his effort to capture V. Ironically, his failure to stop the “terrorist” ends up saving an untold numbers of lives.
The most thrilling part of the film, for me, came at the end, as masses of people come out to stand in support of V’s actions. There’s something about people taking massive, collective action that inspires me to no end. We have the power to do amazing things, together. No force on earth can resist the masses when we act righteously in unison. As V said, in a quote I’m badly mangling, you can kill people. But you can’t kill ideas. And ideas carry tremendous force.
But ideas need advocates, and outlets. Ideas need to be shaped into words that people can read, hear, and understand. And that is the reason bad governments turn repressive. Controlling the media, controlling the publishing houses, controlling the distribution of films and books is the goal of every illicit government. It is the only way they can stay in power. The degree to which those efforts succeed or fail depends on the integrity of the people working in those systems. Good governments do not need to resort to control. Only bad ones do. But bad ones are aided by people who refuse to see the implications of the small steps they allow to be taken. And one day, we find ourselves past the tipping point, with no way out but armed rebellion.
Our nation, at its founding, was, I believe, one of the greatest ideas of all time. Just imagine. At a time when most people were still answering to a monarch, the people rose up, threw away their wealth–in the form of tea–into the harbor, declared they would no longer tolerate taxation without representation, and fought their way to freedom. They created, by means of the Constitution, laws designed to guarantee a place where people could be free from tyranny and prejudice. That the initial drafting allowed for slavery and kept women from voting is more a reflection of the time than a lack of vision of the founding fathers. For its time, it was revolutionary, and the language of the Declaration of Independence still moves me. In that moment, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and John Adams created a new form of government, one answerable to the rule of law, and not the whims of man.
Or so our founding fathers envisioned. Today, we have a president hell-bent on extending the power of the president far beyond the checks and balances so carefully provided for by the Constitution. The president is attacking the very idea of who we are as a nation. As this article by Joyce Appleby, professor emerita of history at UCLA, and former Senator Gary Hart states:
When President Nixon covertly subverted checks and balances 30 years ago during the Vietnam War, Congress passed laws making clear that presidents were not to engage in unconstitutional behavior in the interest of “national security.” Then Congress was reacting to violation of Fourth Amendment protections against searches and seizures without judicial warrants establishing “probable cause,” attempts to assassinate foreign leaders and surveillance of American citizens.
Now the Iraq war is being used to justify similar abuses. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, providing constitutional means to carry out surveillance, and the Intelligence Identification Protection Act, protecting the identity of undercover intelligence agents, have both been violated by an administration seeking to restore “the legitimate authority of the presidency,” as Cheney puts it.
The presidency possesses no power not granted to it under the Constitution. The powers the current administration seeks in its “war on terror” are not granted under the Constitution. Indeed, they are explicitly prohibited by acts of Congress.
So what are we going to do about it? Are we going to sit silently and watch as our country becomes distorted into something we no longer wish to support? Do we resort to violence? Or do we simply, as a people, stand up and march? The immigrants recently gave us a demonstration of what real power looks like. 500,000 people marching in unison in downtown Los Angeles is no small thing. When will America experience its first general strike to protest the destruction of our Constitution? We still have the power, should we decide to use it.
As some reviewers have noted, with a sentiment I want to echo, we should all take heart in the fact that a major studio (Warner Brothers) backed and released this film. If we were truly living in V’s world, such would not have been possible.
The movie is a warning, not a reflection. But we would do well to examine the road we are on.
And then do something about it.
Remember, remember the fifth of November….
[Note: in an earlier edition of this, I mistakenly wrote that James was raised Catholic. He was sympathetic to the Catholics, but his mother fled to England before he was 2, and he was raised Protestant.]
I just saw that it is playing here and wondered about it – sounded uninteresting, but now I just may go see it. thanks
I didn’t read all the way through as I’ve been told by so many people now that I MUST see this movie that I’m going to have to. I’ll probably buy the DVD, too.
Some young guys from an indy web stream media told us the same thing, too.
Then I’ll come back and read the rest of your great diary.
Thanks 🙂
Glad you stopped where you did, but yes, please come back and discuss after you see it. Much to talk about!!
It’s excellent! Be sure to pay close attention to the speak V gives on TV. Brilliant!
I wish I had the script! That and just about everything he said was brilliant. Loved where he said something like, “What’s a revolution without dancing” or something like that.
not actually the script, but . . .
Voila! A vichyssoise of verbiage that veers most verbose . . .
It’s the Wikiquote page for the movie. It doesn’t have everything, but it has the tv speech he gave an a lot of other wonderful lines.
Of course, it’s Wikiquote, which means it might not be entirely accurate. But if you notice errors you can correct them, and you can add lines they don’t have yet.
There is also the imdb quote page. Probably less accurate than the Wikiquote page, but helpful.
thanks for that. wikis are good for things that are not controversial. Wikipedia, however, is a pretty bad source for history on controversial topics. I have tried several times to add to or correct the topic on the Kennedy assassination, but others consistently edit out the truth. That the Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy is fact, not theory. WHO, exactly, killed Kennedy, is what remains in dispute.
posted here at Booman on March 20th.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/3/20/64651/0764
i loved the film and love to see any and all posts on it!
Me too. Going to check it out right now!
Wonderful diary! You are so right – this was an incredibly powerful movie, and very well made. It was operating on so many levels at once that I plan to go see it again, because I know there are things I missed, or only half-caught.
WARNING – SPOILER ALERT
Like the connection between the background music V plays when fixing breakfast for Evey, and the music playing when Evey’s friend who stars in the TV comedy show is fixing breakfast for her (both Bossa Nova tunes by Jobim) – and the identical way they fixed the eggs – as a subtle way of telling us that the reason V was originally arrested was for being the lover of the TV star (which ties right in with V’s telling of the story of the lesbians who were arrested).
And the way V in telling his story to Evey indicates how he lost his memory of his pre-imprisonment life, thus literally becoming “everyman,” and how he got his name from the Roman numeral for 5 on his cell door.
Another thing that really got to me was the point at the end where the people in the crowd are taking off their masks. What made it even more powerful was that, if you watch closely, among the faces panning by in the crowd are the little girl who was killed earlier, and the lesbians.
On a lighter note, was it just me or did the TV comedy show-within-the-movie remind you of the best of Laugh In and/or Benny Hill?
END OF SPOILERS
While the questions you raised about whether there is a legitimate role for violence in times of political extremity are valid, I tended to approach the question more from the perspective that you mentioned of “for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction,” or, from Eastern thought, the balance of the yin and yang, or – perhaps the best way of expressing the idea in this instance – the ancient Greek concept of how every act of hubris creates its own nemesis, called forth to restore balance and justice to the world. Or as the folks in my old rowhouse neighborhood in Philly where I grew up would express the same idea in four words: “They had it coming.”
If, as folks from Jung through Joseph Campbell to George Lukas has thought, that Hollywood captures something of the zeitgeist or collective unconscious of the time and brings it to the surface for all of us, I would say that the tide has turned on this administration as far as the American people are concerned. Oh, they can still generate plenty of mischief for a bit, but their moment is passing; they have outrageously overplayed the hand history dealt them. I am less afraid of them now than a year ago, and – and this is perhaps the most important thing to come out of this movie – I left the theater definitely less afraid and more angry than I was when I went inside.
This movie is empowering – not because it condones violence; that is far too superficial a reading of it (although the superficial pseudointellects on the right have portrayed it that way). It is empowering because V is also for Voice – returning the voice to those who would just keep quiet to get by – like the citizens of England watching their tellies (watch how their facial expressions change over the course of the movie!) and will add to the momentum for political change, starting here, starting now.
SPOILERS WITHIN
I saw that too, on the second viewing – the girl in the crowd, the Lesbians. I loved that. As if an act of insurrection was in a way a resurrection. I’m glad you noticed that!
It was a resurrection – of the freedoms they died for.
As a gay man i can’t say i support the idea that V and the Talk Show Host were lovers. How about brothers?
The V we meet is obviously played as a heterosexual (the big romantic kiss with Evie) so there seems to be a message, drug a gay man to amnesia and they become heteros. Not very soothing, what does that say to the foolish Exodus crowd who want to ‘change’ us?
Huh??
You clearly haven’t seen the film.
SPOILERS
huh? I’ve seen the movie twice. I’m gay. V wasn’t gay in the film. Has anyone read the graphic novel? As far as I know (having read about the novel on Wikipedia–making me, naturally the world’s expert on it–it’s here if you want to join me in pseudo-Wikipedia-expertdom–if expertdom is a word, which I doubt), the identity of V is a mystery. Alan Moore never revealed V’s identity, and there was a scene in the novel, after V’s death, where she chooses not to remove his mask, because who he is is less important than what he does.
I thought the eggs and music was one of the many coincidences in the film. Take the scene when Evey was a little girl, and her mother was arrested. It was EXACTLY like the scene when Gordon (the tv comedy guy) was arrested. She’s asleep, mother/Gordon rushes in and says, “Evey, Hide!” She jumps under bed. men burst in, mother/Gordon knocked to floor, Evey watches terrified from under bed, black bag, etc. The only difference is that that she doesn’t scream when Gordon is arrested (she covers her mouth to prevent it).
Those coincidences were intentional. The movie kept talking about coincidences, so I don’t think there’s much of a case for V being Gordon’s lover on that grounds.
I haven’t read the novel – and there’s no real kiss in the film, save her lips touching a mask.
Is V gay in the novel? He’s not in the film.
Haven’t read the novel.
Evey gave him as real a kiss as she could. It was slow, it was sensuous. Yeah, he was wearing a mask, but come on, that was about as romantic a kiss as you can give to a guy in a mask. It wasn’t just a peck on the cheek. The doctor (Diana Stanton) said that after the fire V didn’t have any eyes. He probably didn’t have much of lips left either. V would have considered this a kiss.
Wilfred was objecting to Knoxville’s suggestion that V was Gordon’s former lover because that would mean that he went from gay to straight–which really is not a good suggestion, considering so many out there think you can just change if you want to. I was just backing Wilfred up on that. Knoxville’s evidence for the former-lover meme was the identical way of fixing eggs. I’m saying that the way of fixing eggs was a mere coincidence, one of many–like the identical arrest scenes. It was probably not supposed to clue the audience in to some connection between Gordon and V.
In some ways (and I’m going way out on a limb here), when Evey is with Gordon, many important events of her past are relived. The arrest of her mother = the arrest of Gordon. Gordon fixes eggs the way V does. All of this happens just before she is “arrested” and tortured. So it is all fresh in her mind when she is thrown in jail, all of these events of her life, all of these most important people in her life.
Oh! I see what you’re saying now. And no – I don’t think they were lovers.
I think the parallels were there because we had just gotten a little creeped out by V, and here’s someone we think is “nice and normal” (in a non-V way, I’m not saying in a non-gay way!) who is doing the same things, harboring similar subversive thoughts, and Evey starts to realize everyone but her is paying attention, and having the same reaction. That was my take on that, in any case.
And btw – as much as I loved the love story, the kiss felt weird do me. I wish she could have kissed the back of his head, some skin-to-skin contact somewhere. I agree it was as romantic a kiss as you could get in a mask, I just can’t find anything romantic at all about kissing a mask! ;D
Yeah, I’ll grant you the kiss was strange in many ways. I thought it had a strange one-sided aspect (emotionally it was mutual, but physically it was one-sided). Physically he couldn’t kiss her back, even when he wanted to.
What I thought was romantic about it was the connection between the two people, despite all . . . er . . . obstacles. Despite the mask and despite the fact that she didn’t know his real name or anything about him, she loved him. She knew what was really important about him.
Isn’t that the kind of love we all hunger for? Something that is far beyond what we look like, how our lips feel, or what we “do” for a living? I’m a sucker for that kind of love, in a movie or novel or in real life.
It wasn’t strange at all. And no, V didn’t turn from straight to gay. He made quite clear he was in love with Evey and I highly doubt a film that sensitive to homosexuals would have made the main character “reformed” by torture.
V wasn’t wearing a mask. Society was. V was a real person and it personified that whatever our outward appearances are we are all human and deserving of love, whatever form that may take. I’d rather love a man whose flesh I could never touch, but whose soul I could than vice versa. But that’s just me.
Good to hear you liked the movie although your descriptions of English history are not entirely agreed upon by historians in terms of who had right of succession etc.
England already had an ‘us against them’ mentality. Until Elizabeth it was the Catholics vs. the Protestants (ie. Mary and her marriage to Spain. Or Henry and his renunciation of the Pope). After E, it was reversed. So drawing the conclusions about American life from that period of time alone is a bit convenient. It has happened always. In all places. And it continues. It is humanity and the parrallels are shocking. I probably would have just set the stage and let the facts speak for themselves.
Also, the quote is: “THE Gunpowder Treason & Plot”. A small word, but one which makes it lyrically flow. 😉
Thanks. I copied the rhyme from somewhere online, but upon seeing the movie again I noticed the missing “the” too. Makes it hop along more quickly.
And yes. History is always a difficult subject. There’s what really happened, which no one ever knows entirely. Then there are all the different versions of what happened, one usually being as correct as possible, not knowing people’s inner thoughts, etc. But sometimes, and sadly, often when it comes to important events that change the balance of power, the official history is sometimes more the convenient history than the accurate one. I should have footnoted this with the pages on the ‘net where these bits of data came from. But I can see why the official story would back Elizabeth. Otherwise, they’d have to admit to an illegitimate monarchy and who would do that? That would be like admitting we have an unelected president, and we see how much trouble historians at home have with THAT one…
um lisa, i saw the film twice.
were you getting popcorn when Evie gives him the big mouth to mask kiss telling him she loves him? And he stating afterward about his feelings for her?
He and the talk show host weren’t lovers – is that in the novel too? I was only discussing the movie. I don’t know the graphic novel’s story.
Fascinating. Very nicely written. You did a remarkably clear job of describing the dynastic intrigues in England and Scotland.
Thanks. I’m continually amazed at how the histories of whole countries are swayed by coups and assassinations, and not deliberate or democratic progress.
Very great write up on this movie. I have a “must” feeling I will see it for sure! Good bring of history together. Thanks for the review. Job well done.
Thanks, Brenda and others who are now planning to see this movie. I wouldn’t have gone either if I hadn’t been told something similar. I’m not into violence and comic books. But this is so far from that, and so much more!
Did you catch StevenD’s frontpage post from opening week? Or Madman’s post? did they infulence your decision to see it? They were quite well done.
I recently saw the film as well. I read the graphic novel a year ago, I highly recommend you take a read of the graphic novel by Alan Moore [who wanted nothing to do with the Wachowski film].
I honestly got a little choked up at the end. Because I was afraid that it would take such a catastrophic event like that for people to wake up here in the US.
I was happily surprised with Portman’s acting. I previously felt that her acting career peaked as a 13 year old in The Professional, she was great in this film. And you’re right on with Hugo Weaving. It was amazing the range of emotions he put forth with a gigantic mask on his face. What Andy Serkis did in LOTR with Gollum, but they added in a CGI face to match the physical movement and the vocal range. Here, it was a single smile on the face to work with. I want to go see it again.
I do want to read the graphic novel. The libraries here aren’t carrying it (although they have other works by Moore, darn it) and even the local bookstores are out. I’ll resort to Amazon if I have to. Would love to see the differences between the original story and the film.
And yeah, I’m planning a third viewing any day now..! Anyone in LA want to join me? 😉
I just bought The Watchmen and finished it very quickly. I plan on reading some others soon as well.
the wingnuts are boycotting it?
all the more reason to go!
Their ignorance will be the death of this country. Drag them along to see it!