Last night I went to bed angry and this morning I woke up angry. And while making my morning coffee I mused about what happened last night on the Capitol Hill - to keep my mind off these thoughts, its better if I write about the classic black & white movie I saw. It was a continuation of what started with previous two old British movies, where I thought it might be interesting to poke my nose a little bit in a British cinematography - of course I am familiar with the biggest hits and names, but just out of curiosity I wanted to take a look into something that is not part of Hollywood machinery. Interestingly, I saw a documentary about "Dead of Night" where someone mentioned a quite common practice that US editors would often cut out completely a first two reels of UK movies because they thought they were too slow and US audience would not care for them. So even though they share the same language, it seems as we talk about two completely different branches of cinematic family: Hollywood and British.
Hungarian director and producer Sir Alexander Korda is behind this, the movie that put him on a map and in fact the very first UK movie that proved a genuine hit across Atlantic - it was also a first non-US movie that ever won Academy Award. It took me some time to warm up to "The Private Life of Henry VIII" mainly because initially it appeared so darn dated, contrived and exaggerated. It might be a little bit difficult for a modern day audiences to accept this because it was made so long ago - in the meantime we have developed so much of the cinematic vocabulary and our understanding of historical accuracy is completely different nowadays. From a modern perspective this movie comes almost like a parody with never ending mugging, clowning and big gestures: you could count on the fingers of one hand what is really true, like Tower of London and names of the characters. Everything else looks almost like a pantomime. But OK, I had to leave my complains aside and just watch the darn thing for what it is - an old-fashioned slapstick comedy.
It should be story about infamous Henry VIII and his six wives - but to be honest, it feels as one story has much more space than anybody else and that is a story about his supposedly unattractive German wife Anne of Cleves. It turns out that Charles Laughton and his real-life wife Elsa Lanchester actually had only this story in mind, but later producers expanded it on all wives. Actually the story completely skips first wife Catherine of Aragon, literally saying "oh never mind her" and goes straight for beheading of second wife. Like, really, never mind explaining who is who and why Anne Boleyn is executed - the movie is really focused on the meeting of Laughton and Lanchester, which is genuinely funny and works quite well. But really folks, it should be about much bigger picture instead of mentioning everyone else like passersby. Laughton - who was only 33 at the time of the filming - gives a wonderfully grand and boisterous performance that might influence all the subsequent portrayal of Henry. Of course he is clowning but there is a trace of humanity in the cracks of the mask. For beautiful Merle Oberon this was beginning of the stardom and later she will even marry the director. I must say that after my initial suspicion and prejudice, I eventually relaxed and even enjoyed it. It looks as this was the true start of British cinema in the international waters.
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