Elizabeth (film) essay

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To what extent does Shekhar Kapur use the construction of character to explore ideas about freedom in his film Elizabeth?
Composers create characters in order to explore ideas about freedom through gendered language construction, performance and concealment to a significant extent. Freedom refers to the power or right to act, speak or think as one wants, which can ultimately lead to the expression or escape of contextual values and attitudes. Elizabeth, a 1998 film, successfully explores ideas of freedom through the composer, Shekhar Kapur, constructing a variation of characters that both explore and escape strict limitations of their context in order to achieve personal liberty. Characters such as the protagonist, Elizabeth, show individual freedom of expression over the restraints of tradition and custom.

Shekhar Kapur uses Elizabeth, as a character, to a significant extent to explore ideas about freedom by showing a progression in her character through the development of her language. By representing her as innocent and politically naïve in the beginning of the film, a contrast soon prevails with her transformation becoming evident through her challenging of strict contextual limitations. By shifting her language to conceal female identity, she is able to become a wilful strategist due to the patriarchal nature of the 16th century. Her political freedom is not obvious in the opening of the film as she is intelligently represented by Kapur as inferior to her male counterparts through the use of natural lighting, suggesting her soft, feminine nature. However her romantic freedom is made obvious with her relationship with Robert Dudley, a childhood lover. When responders are first introduced to the couple they are shown dancing in a field, Elizabeth wearing a flowing dress that highlights her romantic freedom. Her language during the opening further emphasises her performance of female language and identity, this can be seen through the statement “I don’t like wars, they are uncertain”, which reinforces the weak nature of a stereotypical 16th century female.

As the movie develops, a further shift in language and identity can be seen in Elizabeth. Her previous performance of female language is soon replaced by a more powerful, stronger individual. As this occurs, Kapur portrays her romantic freedom as detrimental to her position as a Monarch, thus her freedom in that regards is limited. Despite this romantic freedom diminishing, she begins to experience and explore a new found political freedom. Kapur uses shots from lower angles to emphasise the power she has obtained, but still places males in more dominant positions to suggest her transformation is not yet complete. The direct statement, “I do not see why a women need marry at all” challenges patriarchy, however, the use of the person pronoun
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