Historicism is a critical movement which stresses the importance of historical context in interpreting any literary texts. This movement has a long tradition and unlike other literary traditions it has experienced a revival recently.
Historicism assigns importance to historic context in terms of geographical place and local culture. Historicism has influences literature and art but it is interesting to note that it has had an impact on film historiography.
Thus Philip Beck writes in his work “Historicism and historism in recent film historiography” that “over the past decade film historians have become increasingly self-conscious about what they do when they write film history and self-critical about their results.
It is interesting to investigate how historicism comes to the foreground in the film Elizabeth released in 1998 as a beiographical film directed by Shkhar Kapur. It is based on the portrayal of the early years of Elizabeth’s reign, namely the elevation of Elizabeth to the throne on the death of half-sister Mary I. The reign is threatened by the invasion of Early Modern France and absburg Spain. In order to maintain stability Elizabeth is advised to by William Cecil to marry . However, she has an affair with Robert Dudley (Fiennes).
Moreover, Elizabeth has to cope with other threats such as the army of Mary Guise and 4th Duke of Norfolk. Additionally, there are plots of Pope Pius V. Elizabeth managers to execute the plotters and end her affair . The final of the film is connected with Elizabeth assuming the name of “Virgin Queen” who makes a decision to mar y nobody but England which marks the beginning of the Golden Age of the English History.
The reaction towards the film in terms of historical adequacies and historicism was immediate.
Thus, Kirby Farrel writes that “mass media performances of Elizabeth entail major critical shifts in how we define censorship. It is stressed in the writing “The mysteries of Elizabeth I: Selection from English Literary Renaissance” that presentation of Elizabeth is “narrowly domestic” in comparison with the image of Elizabeth presented in the earlier film fire Over England who makes decision about sending to war and executing aristocrats and princes.
Kirby Farrell claims that “… recent films assimilate the Victorian tendency to represent Elizabeth as a woman whose domestic aberrancy reflects a repressed spinster and whose personal suffering is the price she pays for political power and makes her unfit for rule”.
At the same time the film Elizabeth has some violent aspects which are connected with the Protestant and Catholic disagreement where the Protestant Christians finally take over the throne.
Works Cited
Beck Philip. Historism in recent film historiography: Journal of Film and Video. Vol. 37, No. 1, Film history (Winter 1985), pp.5-20.
Kirby Farrell, Kathleen M. Swaim - 2003 - Biography & Autobiography
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