cleolinda | Saturday evening, working (Reply)

Since I had The Golden Age on my mind after that bootleg trailer, I went and watched the Elizabeth director commentary Friday morning. It's actually a really good, thoughtful, intelligent commentary--not as dry or technical as a lot of director commentaries tend to be. Shekhar Kapur doesn't tell the kind of on-set anecdotes I usually live for, but he does something I wish directors would do: he talks about how fantastically talented everyone is, of course, but he actually points out specific moments in the performances that he loves--this look, that nod of the head, "You have to watch, it's about to come up right here." I love that because I microanalyze performances that way myself, and it's great to have a director back the usual S/he Is Such a Brilliant Actor lovefest up with actual evidence. (By contrast, Kapur also mentions that Vincent Cassel, the crossdressing Duke of Anjou, was "full of chaos"--something Kapur really likes--but kind of unsettled the other actors. He basically says, in the most diplomatic way possible, that everyone else was really glad when Cassel left, which cracked me up for some reason.) Kapur also talks about some really interesting ideas he had about the characters in particular--I think he said he told Geoffrey Rush that Walsingham was like Krishna?--but above all, he walks you through pretty much every single frame of film and tells you what the framing and camera movements are trying to achieve. Mostly, it's to give you a conspirator's-eye view of the entire film--constantly moving, in the shadows, looking through windows, that kind of thing--but by the same token, early scenes where Elizabeth is happy with Dudley are filmed very still and close, "like a cocoon." It's really interesting to hear about all the thought he put into all these things that might, might, register with you on a subconscious level. Also, I'm really excited about The Golden Age now.

There's something else in the commentary that's worth mentioning. There's a priest-assassin who stalks Elizabeth for a scene or so in the second half of the film--flowing slo-mo black robes, very badass. When he first shows up--disembarking from a boat--he drags some traitor kid out to a tidepool and proceeds to beat him to death with a rock. Kapur spends this whole segment somewhat in awe of the actor playing the priest, who apparently showed up with this wonderful, brutal physicality--I can't remember if Kapur said that the actor actually improvised something or came up with the idea for something, but the actor apparently contributed a lot to the character, who really has very little screentime, and Kapur particularly appreciated the contradiction of having this big scary guy as a priest.

That actor? Daniel Craig. Dude.