Dr Kat Reviews The Favourite with Jamie

hello and welcome back to the channel if you're new here hi you're very welcome this is reading the past and I'm dr. Katz and as you may be able to see we are in a new filming location in fact we have finally moved house it's official it's done you may also notice that I seem to be off center and has very good reason for that because for today I have got a very very special guest who's going to be joining me and that it's gonna happen I hope through the aid of movie magic it's my husband Jamie I was making tea two seconds ago well of course but what you don't know is that when you get conferred with a doctorate you also get given special magical powers so I can just summon you so your witch but you already knew that didn't want to say in public so in addition to being hilarious my husband is also incredibly patient and long-suffering and he is also a film buff so I thought that for a new series we could start talking about films that you've been to see me as a historian and him as a film buff and we recently went to go and see the favorite which is about the reign of Queen Anne and it has been out for a while so I haven't gonna put a spoiler alert on this but I think we're okay cuz it has it was out from December so it's been going on for quite a while and I just thought we'd talk about what we thought of the film so let's go [Music] [Music] you've seen four more films in your life than I have when we were first dating we used to play the game of he'd say have you seen that and I say well are we really going to play there have you seen that game because chances are I have not seen that film so you have seen a enormous catalogue of films in terms of the cinematography the costume the casting how effective did you find the favorite in its I suppose storytelling is that what you're looking for when you go and see a film kind of I found the costume in particular fascinating I worship explain this by saying I don't usually look at periods dramas okay it's not a subject matter that I would choose to go watch cinema I had the opportunity to see on DVD or on a flight yeah 40 words maybe effort but it's not so long as I go to cinema for you gave me no choice so I went and I'm glad now coming back to the costumes and what they try to get away with and that was maintaining fine decorating maintaining the silhouette of women over time mm-hmm but doing that might cost effective way yes from what I'm saying there are actually really great articles on the choices that made in costuming the companies behind the favorite chose to film in incredibly prestigious location so there's Hampton Court Palace Hatfield House these are all places that frankly require a big budget and from what I understand the decision was made to create the correct barak silhouettes but in a way that was I suppose cut price without reducing quality so the silhouettes to me sir I'm not an expert in costume and it's detailing but certainly the silhouettes look pretty spot-on to me but what I thought was really interesting was for the servants and those of the lower orders the costumes are made out of denim and I believe that actually they were sourced from kind of pre worn or used jeans so that's what that's made out of so they went to a thrift shop and cut up jeans whereas the court is in a monochrome palette so it's blacks and whites and it's these large elaborate prints so it's incredibly differentiated between high and low in a way that I actually think the cost saving aside I think to a modern audience we can read that we know what denim is and then we look at these elaborate other fabrics and we can recognize what they are - and actually you've told me before hands it was dead yes and knowing that you could see it I'm not sure if you didn't know that's everybody belowstairs was wearing denim mm-hmm would you have picked up on a way of watching the film always you just said well they've been kind of blue uniform dress yeah so it didn't detract from it in any way at all you did mention a really interesting thing that you that you sort of noticed about the costume choice particularly for Sarah Churchill character yes as Sarah Churchill's relationship with Queen Anne it seems to deteriorate hmm face the first time we see a Sarah Churchill character who begin the film is almost schooling a lot of those lessons take place whilst they're shooting we see Sarah Churchill's character wearing trousers and what appears to be like a riding jacket now she she's only seen wearing those in Abigail Hills come company until we see at the relationship between Queen Anne Churchill starts to deteriorate and then we said so Churchill in the Queen's presence wearing those clothes as well is she then trying to state I should be the man you're like yeah by wearing what could because his male clothing yeah I mean there were some choices that I don't know if it's this if it's the script writer or the director made but for example why we see Sarah Churchill's husband he is present we don't see Anne's Anne is married she does have a husband but he has been erased from this film now what I think is quite clever about that was that doesn't offer a date we we know that we're moving through a reign because time is elapsing but we're never given a specific date as to when we are seeing these characters in action but certainly at the early part of the rain so in history for example abigail hill enters Queen Anne's bedchamber as a woman of the bedchamber just after her coronation in 1702 so presumably what we are seeing then if Abigail Hill is making her way up from kitchen maid which she never was but never mind if she's making her way up into the bedchamber then it must start at the beginning of Anne's reign well her husband George Easton alive then but he does not feature at all and I have an idea of why that may be happening but I wonder I suppose cinematically why might that choice have been made this is a story about women told through trial free women mm-hmm and men complicated it complicated matters there are four male characters who do appear quite frequently in the film mm-hmm and they appear quite frequently with a degree of ridicule and they are they have us five cific purposes yes and they are very much exploited yeah they they the opposition's be incredibly effeminate they are heavily made-up be waked in these incredibly flamboyant costumes there is a pared back minimalism in the female representation that isn't present in the male representation the the men are almost clownish yes which put alongside the very serious win yes yes just goes again to demonstrate the fact that those very clear female message to be told him yes very female story to be told and I personally find that incredibly powerful and evocative for me there were moments that were potentially more questionable than others I just say now that I really enjoyed the film I would recommend it what do you think yes I recommend it if you enjoy seeing creative film work create film work yes this is a great example of what you what imagination can do with what is actually a fairly straightforward story it's it's by no means exceptional there's no superhero feat to it but the story turning makes it a story what oh yes and I also think that actually the superhero feat is taking somebody who is arguably being a forgotten monarch we all hear about the Merrie Monarch Charles a second he's returned from the continent and then something something happens and there's a revolution but nobody dies and there's no bloodshed and there's you know there's some kings and queens but at the Hanoverians and then it's all Georgians and everybody hates each other and I think that between charles ii and the Hanoverians we sort of lose that history and Queen Anne is almost completely forgotten it is precinct of a footnote in now primary school study of children's jurors yeah absolutely because I think that's the telling thing is that when Queen Anne comes to throne she must be on some level aware that she is the last of her house unless her exiled half-brother is to come back on the throne she is the last Protestant offering from the House of Stuart that could possibly sit on the throne of England and I wonder what that does to a person um in terms of the history of what did you know before I suppose I started talking to you about the film Jesus - I should point out that my husband was actually educated for the majority of his teenage years in France now do they do they cover the Stuart's in French no we did history what did you cover I take you to cover English monarchs in France not really it was all a bit revolution right yeah we did to love our revolution so your knowledge of history despite the fact that you learnt it it's French history that you know the best probably yes my knowledge of French history stopped in year 7 Wow okay so your knowledge you knew that Queen Anne was a Stuart anything else opera she was followed by own Hanoverians yes Georgia she had lots of children but no survived yes and they all looked pretty ridiculous ridiculous it's the wigs the clothes the way okay okay that's the pageantry the statements they all look very ridiculous and they built a lot of West London once they came afterwards oh you know lots of West and lots of West London that is um that's George the fourth us the whole kind of Regent Street and all of that stuff the part on the way I just don't go right okay a little bit you avoid so that was actually that's a fairly fairly good knowledge of of Queen Anne before going that's probably actually quite a lot higher than a lot of people she I think she has been one of I suppose history's losers when it comes to being remembered and talked about she doesn't have the same I suppose murderous quality as a Henry the eighth or that sort of rabble-rousing that an Elizabeth the first generates or you know the millionaire's widow that was Victoria that these these are queens and monarchs that stick in the memory and I think for some reason Anne has been somewhat forgot I hope actually that the favorite move some way to changing that now it's not historically perfect as we mentioned the costumes are using different fabrics they do add in bits and pieces that aren't accurate or that there aren't any evidence for for example there is a lot made of Queen Anne's bunny rabbits in the film we have no evidence that she kept cages full of bunny rabbits and had she kept these cages of bunny rabbits in the film she has 17 rabbits now they claim this because she lost 17 children well as far as I'm aware from the records she may have had 17 pregnancies but in those seven teen pregnancies 19 children were produced well at the end of film it does appear to be a lot more days yes but she's quite specific that they are 17 for her lost ones well they should have been 19 which only because I'm a parent I find problematic but they also did things for example there was a moment where there is some duck racing which is apparently supposed to replace a planned cockfighting because they were told that was too cruel and what cockfighting is historically accurate and from what we know duck racing almost certainly isn't I think in it you get a sense of the hysteria the almost ridiculousness that I think comes at the end of an era when it's the dying moments of the house of stewards on the throne of England and there is something I think much since much you were seeing sort of just pre-revolutionary France where everything becomes incredibly over-the-top because people have this sense of something coming to an end so I suppose my question is because I knowing what I know about the period there I find it quite easy to go okay well that's fact and that's made up and conjecture maybe that happens there's no proof oh but I could enjoy it I'm not one of those people necessarily that will sit and watch something and go well that's wrong that's wrong that's wrong unless it is such a leap that I can't understand why that choice has been made so for example in the Tudors I don't know why Henry's sister is married to the aging King of Portugal in the Tudors when in real life Henry's sister was married to the aging king of France I don't see the necessity of exchanging France for Portugal it it didn't make any sense in the narrative it was just incorrect history for and I just felt poorly research I don't know what I did that I think it's some sort of telling about the choose to be an interesting I think it's interesting he made last two seasons well they have to get through they had to go through to the bitter end because unfortunately as I said earlier no spoilers but frankly I think when we talk about historical films it's like if you watch the Titanic and someone tells you the boat sinks that isn't a spoiler that's history but I wonder as somebody who isn't as immersed in history as I am coming away from that film what is the story of Queen Anne who is Queen Anne in your mind having watched that film just on that film alone yeah what if if you knew nothing about Queen Anne if this was your learning because I suppose that's a thing that the historians say is that if people only encounter a character or an event through a certain film and it is incorrect or just flat-out wrong from start to finish what is the effect on how people view history so if you only have that film what assumptions or what would you take away is being facts about Queen Anne and her England she was a very tragic woman I said she as I tried your woman in a very complex time where there is so much change going on mm-hmm it's a very male-dominated world yeah and yet she was a woman with pretty much unrivaled power certainly in her surroundings and you're drifting into the gray of absurdity which is only a burka no end in tears but then their story had already been contracted by tears because of we know that civil war had occurred yeah and they do make reference to our relationship with France mm-hmm so yeah Queen Anne is a very tragic woman in a very tragic world that is surrounded by the absurd when actually what I think she probably needed was some normalcy thank you I suppose it's interesting to me that you talk about Queen Anne as a tragic figure that's your that's your take away from the film and I think that actually for me there's an element to which the film does am a disservice because I think when you look at Abigail Hill or Sarah Churchill they don't it interested me that you didn't pin them down it wasn't like Abigail's a schemer Sarah's a megalomaniac those those that wasn't the way you saw it no and I think that's what makes it funny more interesting conventional history yeah people are not just one thing no as much as Sidora likes to sometimes to try and convince us yeah that people are these are incredibly complex times and times I make context by complex people yeah I suppose my concern is that the least complex of them is the figure of Queen Anne and I understand because she isn't the cultured woman that Sarah Churchill is who read Shakespeare and Dryden and speaks Latin and is overtly political and has her fingers in all of the pies so she's moving in party politics she's trying to steer the war effort she sees herself as Prime mr. general chief confident and all of these things are factually accurate Sarah Churchill certainly does do this thing she also had an explosive temper there was a time where she fell out with her husband he didn't think she didn't like and so to spite him she cut off all her hair in front of him and threw it on the floor and stormed out of the room I this may be apocryphal but it has been reported to me and it has been in quite a lot of sources that apparently after his death she opened his cabinet and she found that he'd collected up all the hair and tied it in a bow to keep it I would collect your hair it's incredibly sweet but I don't think I would ever be moved to the sort of fit of pique where I'd literally cut my hair off to spite my face but that is that is an element of the woman that Sarah is like that those kinds of moments of just unbridled fury but also political composure she is all of these things in real life and I think it comes across in the film that she is prone to these outbursts of passion but also has the clear-eyed political mind to move in quite scheming ways I suppose my concern is that are in some ways is the most fundamental of the characters and yes she has this incredibly tragic life that we don't think she ever really completely gets over the guilt of what happens to her father during the Glorious Revolution but he is removed from his throne and exiled her sister and her and her sister's husband when they are on the throne treat her quite poorly she is overridden and overshadowed by Sarah Churchill he's constantly barking orders at her and insulting her and telling her in public some pumps to shut up and she has all these pregnancies that don't result in a child that lives past ten I believe in fact she comes throw in 1702 and her last surviving child had died in 1700 and he had reached the age of 10 she suffering from gout she's quite overweight and I think it's the portrayal of her as being somebody who collapses in Parliament and who is it's all just a little bit too much and that she's not quite clever or quick enough I don't think she had Sarah Churchill sharp tongue and capacity to think on her feet verbally but she is a woman who is interested and she's a woman who cares about her nation Queen Anne I don't think you know this Queen Anne went to more meetings with her political counselors than any other monarch any other Stuart monarch she is at all of these council meetings she isn't somebody who is uninterested in political events she is at all of them she wants to remain informed she also finds the notion of party politics the Whigs and the Tories at the time she's deeply suspicious of this partisan split in government and she also thinks it's ridiculous that when she is selecting her Council of advisers she can't select the best people and if that's half wig half Tory if they're the best people with a job that should be who's advising her she can't understand why just because somebody's in power she has to change the people that's been advising her she also is concerned that if men are part of a party of course it's all men at this time that they will put party before nation which to me with what we're living through yeah Queen Anne and actually had it right that party politics can become a great evil of the nation and the one criticism that I have of the thumb because I do think it was beautiful and I'm so pleased that I saw it and I also think that it's a film that it's gonna be one of those films about historical period that's gonna be constantly referred to as or if you're studying the Baroque period what's the favorite but my one caveat is that Queen Anne is more than this fainting hysteric that she's presented as and and with knowing what I've just told you there do you think that the films a bit unfair to her quite possibly yes she is she has come across as by tragic character yeah and very much at the mercy of these two other women as well as obviously all the men who are trying to manipulate her into doing what they want her to do is she does she come across as the most tragic of the free yes is it as simple as that no no thankfully helps that too always a very very enjoyable film yeah I think I think that's a really good point I think that a lot of times where historical films go wrong is they attempt to oversimplify they attempt to create heroes and you can't do that because historical figures are real people and real people are neither heroes no villains and everybody nobody thinks themselves as a mustachioed twirling villain everyone thinks they're doing the right thing so I really enjoyed making this video I certainly enjoyed going to see the film with you because we got to have burgers in the everyman it was fun times yes and so that's of course a bonus for next time it's great date night out go cinema so we'll certainly do that again and you're gonna come back and help me review Mary Queen of Scots right yes I will come back thank you very much and I do hope in fact we both hope that you've enjoyed this video if you have please do click the like button so we know that you've liked it and also remember those comments in the comment section down below about other films that you'd like us to review if you've got a hot tip of one that's coming up in the near future let us know down there also please do subscribe to the channel and click the bellow icon so that YouTube tells you when I've next uploaded and I will look forward to seeing you all in the next video you look forward to seeing them all in the next film review video yes perfect and I hope you have a great day whatever you're doing and that you look after yourself do take care but bye for now [Music] [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 17,823

Rating: 4.9645758 out of 5

Keywords: Film Review, History, The Favourite, Queen Anne, Baroque, Education, Culture

Id: Jg0thSuLW9E

Length: 26min 12sec (1572 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 25 2019