The Big Picture - The Royal Movie Hall of Fame and ‘Spencer’

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

Kristen Stewart’s much-anticipated role as Princess Diana in ‘Spencer’ has finally arrived. We discuss Stewart’s performance, as well as the larger successes and failures of the film (1:00) before building a 10-movie Hall of Fame comprising the best films about royals (34:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

60 songs that explain the 90s are back and in their final stretch. The Ringer's music critic Rob Harvilla curates and explores 60 iconic songs from the 90s that define the decade. Rob is joined by a variety of guests to break it all down as they turn back the clock. Check out 60 songs that explain the 90s exclusively on Spotify. I'm Amanda Dobbins. I'm Sean Fennessy. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about kings, queens, and pretenders to the throne. That is right. I finally saw Spencer.

And so Sean and I are going to talk about the much-anticipated, at least by me, Pablo Lorraine biopic of sorts of Princess Diana. And we will also attempt to build a hall of fame or like maybe a pantheon. What's like the royal term for a hall of fame of royal movies? We're going to try to build 10. Yeah, a gallery of observance. This is where you can go and look at the royal movies

as if they are great works of art. Yes, exactly. So this is very exciting for me because Princess Diana and content around Princess Diana and royals in general, but the specific British royal family is sort of like my Marvel, if we have to be really honest about it. And the way I interact with it is different than I would say Marvel fans interact with things. And the way that I have been be really honest about it. And the way I interact with it is different than I would say Marvel fans interact with things. And the way that I have been served the content is different than the way that Marvel fans have been served content, at least until the past couple years. But it's sort of my time. I'm very excited to talk about this with you.

We'll start with Spencer, the movie itself, which Sean, you saw it at Telluride. I did see it at Telluride. So as the non-obsessive, how would you describe Spencer to people? Certainly not what I was expecting, which was something a little bit more state and historical. And instead, I think what I saw was a horror movie, really. I think a movie that reminded me a lot more of The Shining than, say, The Young Victoria. Obviously, I knew that this was a sort of a snapshot of a window of time in Princess Diana's life. And I knew that there was a lot of anticipation around Kristen Stewart's portrayal of Diana. But aside from that, I didn't really know what to get. I had seen Jackie, of course,

and I like the films of Pablo Lorraine. And so I know that he has a kind of tone and a kind of approach to these biopics, which are somewhat fictionalized, somewhat based on true events. But this is an anxiety-provoking movie. And I felt very engaged by it because, of course, I love horror movies. I will say, we recently talked on a pod about thinking, how much do you think about your podcast co-host's opinions about a movie? I have never been more fascinated and intrigued by my podcast co-host's opinion than after I saw Spencer. So, you know, I'm here with bated breath.

It's been months. Do you want me to give a verdict up top? Or do you want me to, like, work through my feelings over the course of a podcast episode? I mean, the people are listening, you know, you got to at least just give me one word. Give me one word to describe how you felt. Bored. Like respectfully. And that's really unfair.

And so I did this outline. That's why I'm like sort of quasi hosting this podcast, but not really, because the natural order always takes over. But, and I tried to write different sections about this movie as a movie, about Kristen Stewart's performances, about this as a Diana movie.

There are a lot of different ways to look at this that I think are interesting. And me just being like, I was bored is a reductive statement. About the experience of this filmmaking. And also even it's ideas about. Princess Diana and biographies. Or biopics.

And royal movies. But I did just kind of. Find my mind wandering. Because. I'll give the basic outline. Which is that this is is as we said directed by paula lorraine a script by stephen knight who is responsible for some great movies and also uh serenity is that what that was called yes not a great so sure it is a biopic of princess diana

but as sean said it's like biopic as horror movie psychological psychological thriller slash horror movie. And so it's set over three days, Christmas Eve, Christmas day and boxing day in, um, in the early nineties, if I had to guess based on cues that are not laid out, it's 1991 because Diana and Charles get separated the next year. And it's at Sandringham, which is the royal family's traditional Christmas place. And Diana shows up and she's just like trapped in a castle with all of these complete royal loony tunes for three days. And that's it. That's the, and it's just, as you said, it's a woman trapped in the house, horror movie

of sorts. In this style of certainly Jackie and Pablo Lorraine in general it said there's minimal dialogue a maximum expressionistic feelings and people running down hallways and a lot of shots of the camera swirling around as someone is unraveling in real time makes a lot of use of the johnny greenwood score makes great use of all the visual elements in a in a royal movie and certainly in a diana movie the the costumes the clothes that is an emphasis of the script as well but the idea of appearance that was so essential to diana's existence and to an extent the royal family's existence is like both on display and interrogated in this movie and it is it is similar to Jackie

I would say even in the idea of this woman that you know in a very public way and who who's like creation of an image was in a lot of ways, her existence and certainly the relationship that we have with these women and then sort of pulling the curtain back and also sort of just showing how that creation of image actually drives people to the edge. I would say that this has a slightly different lesson than Jackie did about the creation of that image and someone's involvement in it. But what would you say that lesson is? Well, you know, what was so interesting about Jackie, I mean, there are two significant differences. One is that Jackie Kennedy and especially Jackie in the movie is focused on her time in the White House. So that's the 60s. So you and I were not alive for that.

A lot of people seeing the movies were not alive for that and only know her through the images that she created. Whereas Princess Diana, I was alive for it. You were alive for it. Maybe we weren't as media conscious or skeptical of it. But, you know, like I remember where I was when she died. You have some firsthand experience. So even the extent to which you're interrogating celebrity and image and the mediation of that image, it's the audience makeup is a little different. The other is that Jackie has a whole subplot about the Jackie character played by Natalie Portman meeting with a journalist played by Billy Crudup and is really and and her control over that image and her creation of Camelot. that this sort of perfect public image that we're all familiar with was like a purposeful response to a lot of her personal experience. Yeah, a movie about a woman in control in some ways. Yes, or finding control or responding to a lack of control by trying to place some boundaries around it and regain it. And I guess in a way that is what's happening

in Spencer as well but it's more a classic woman on the edge and and woman kind of unraveling and for a lot of different reasons that are sort of hinted at at the movie but that was kind of an interesting thing that I wanted to ask you about. There is a lot implied in this movie. And if you're looking for Easter eggs as a royal watcher, you can get them. Like, I was able to identify times and places and people. But nothing is very explicit, including, like, much of the character motivation. And so I was wondering as someone who doesn't know as much about like Diana as I do. No offense. How much is anyone on earth know as much about Diana as you?

Yeah. I mean, a few Tina Brown among them. I am like, I'm a student of Tina Brown. So everything that I know comes from her wonderful biography of Diana and also celebrity, the Diana Chronicles, which I recommend. I don't want to pretend that I'm some expert, but yeah, you know less. What did you take away from this as a biopic versus a horror movie? Well, it's hard because I don't know how much I don't know. You know, I feel like Diana was very much akin to someone like Elizabeth Taylor in that they were just sort of a part of the present publicity onslaught of the 1990s.

And as fame kind of evolved and changed in our country and overseas, when we were coming of age ourselves, you couldn't escape her. And yet I was never drawn to her. So I never sought out information about her. I haven't read any books about her. I haven't read any books about the royal family you know I kind of sort I'm gonna whisper this don't give a shit about the royal family even to this day it's just not in my interest set and yet by osmosis you you you get things like I of course I know that that Camilla Parker Bowles and her affair with with Prince Charles is kind of animating some of the anxiety

that Kristen Stewart's character has in this movie and that Diana was going through at that time, which sets off some of that. But that's not the whole story. That's not the entirety of what's motivating her necessarily. The thing I didn't know is this film is dotted with all of these quasi-anonymous, somewhat serially fictionalized figures that feel similar to this Billy Crudup character in Jackie. They're sort of like devices that open a portal to let a character speak in a way that maybe they never actually could speak in their life. So I found myself looking at, say, the Sean Harris character who plays a chef, who is also a kind of confidant and mentor to diana i was like is that a real guy i don't

know if that's a real guy sally hawkins plays a critical character in this film both of whom by the way i think are wonderful i love sean harrison sally hawkins as actors and i think they're great in this movie but um is that like are those real people like do you know who those people are if they are i have i have no idea i mean there are cooks and dressers and all sorts of servants essentially assistants and then stooges depending on how they execute that role for the royal family like throughout there is like a second and a third and a fourth layer of people who are always around but those aren't like you know no I don't know about Maggie which is the Sally Hawkins character. And I think that those are probably composite imagined characters. You know, as this movie is introduced as a fable from a true tragedy,

and I don't really think that they're going for total recreation. This isn't The Crown very purposefully. But to your point about not like really caring about the Royal family, it doesn't really seem like this movie, like honestly really cares about Diana and the Royal family as Diana and the Royal family, which is not a nag on it at all. That's actually an interesting approach, but it doesn't, it's, this isn't for people who are like, you know, did Diana like actually go see Phantom of the Opera in 1984 and make a tape or whatever, which is a crown reference. Not that you know it.

It's not the recreation of history and seems pretty disinterested in the recreation of history, which I think is cool. I think that's a cool way to look at the royal family. I think that's a cool way to look at Princess Diana. I think that's a cool way to look at the royal family I think that's a cool way to look at princess Diana I think that's a cool way to look at a biopic you and I have talked about how we like it when biopics um play with the form because the form itself is quite rote at this point I'm just not sure it had enough to say about the character that it created in in the world of Spencer itself it was a little bit just like, oh, this lady doesn't have anyone to talk to

and so she's shivering a lot and things are going bad. And that is what I found a little limiting. Well, I'll say, obviously as a fan of the genre, I thought it was at its best when it was at its most claustrophobic and kind of nauseating. There's this somewhat infamous sequence now featuring the pearl necklace and sort of like eating the pearls and this you know this figure

who is kind of battling with bulimia but also has this kind of like um forced pain anxiety that everything that she does has to be like the sense of suffering that she has to endure in order to get through her life and when it's intense and shrinking and those strings are at a high pitch from Greenwood, I think the film really works. I think it's frankly not sort of loyal enough to that approach. I think too often it kind of like floats off into the fable part of the story and away from the kind of tragic part of the story in a way that I found a little bit odd. Like there are times, particularly like in the final moments, there's a sort of key scene with Sally Hawkins's character near the end of the film. There's a kind of exaltation near the end of the film with her children that like maybe makes us feel better about Diana and what her life represented to us.

But doesn't really seem like consonant with the rest of the movie. And I found kind of odd, like, I don't really know what the movie was trying to say to your point about who she was and what kind of a life she lived because when we're at the depths of her pain, that seemed to be what it's most interested in. No. Yeah. I think it's more interested in recreating that, that energy and frankly frankly the terror of the royal family and this ridiculous absurd terrifying situation than in the person itself or at least that i think that was the most effective part of it i think this is probably like a pretty good movie about the royal family or like an interesting take on something that is so often described or like that that various books and people try to impart about this completely like archaic cold weird institution

that is a group of people who are related by blood who think that they are ruling the United Kingdom by divine right like that I mean that's insane and it's like crazy it's so weird that like people are still like yeah he's gonna be king like what are you talking about like what like yeah just like William the Conqueror it's it's deranged it's 2021 and that there is this whole group of flunkies who are there to enforce when you bow and when, you know, the rites and the rituals and the completely alienating, chilling, just fantasy horror land that it creates. This communicates that pretty well. And I think that is pretty interesting. But it definitely also spends time introducing the ghost of Anne Boleyn for reasons that I thought was pretty hacky. Yeah, I agree. That was a little bit overwrought. I think Pablo Lorraine is obviously on a knife's edge in terms of the kinds of stories that he likes to tell.

And sometimes he tips over the edge of the knife and the Anne Boleyn part in particular the idea of just having her reading a book about Anne Boleyn and directly correlating her experience Anne Boleyn is like a little much now obviously they both lost their life while a part of about being a part of the royal experience but beyond that it's a little bit a little bit of a stretch to yeah correlate them one to one one was about the reformation and power struggles and the other is about i mean the other is about power struggles in its own way but i i don't know i would recommend people read uh wolf hall and hillary hillary mantel's trilogy for like a probably more nuanced investigation of of anne boleyn and her role in the in royalty we should talk about the Kristen Stewart performance.

Because that's the thing at the center of this. And obviously, she is in the Oscar conversation. Seems like she's pretty much going to be nominated for an Oscar. She's certainly running. Congratulations to Kristen Stewart, by the way, who's engaged. That's great news. I'm a huge fan of hers. We have not had an opportunity to talk about her very

much on this show over the last few years because she's been making movies like charlie's angels which we've hardly even covered but um did you even see it i i saw no i never saw it i and you know me i've seen i've seen 700 movies this year and i it's like how do you see every movie under the sun and then somehow i wind up alone at like a promo screening of charlie's angels where they're giving away free haircut coupons and like the local radio dj is playing like i don't you know not even bts like whatever the bad pop is right now yeah that's why this show works you know the alpha and the omega of movies we've seen them them all collectively. 700 to 1. What choices? I mean, I'm trying to make better choices.

And I just somehow that always ends up happening. Anyway, she was pretty funny in it. But that was a movie that we should never talk about again. We're huge fans of hers. I think she absolutely deserves an Oscar at some point. And it might be for this. But again, what did you think of the performance of someone who has like a memory of diana but no real relationship so i have no idea what diana princess of wales's voice sounded like i've never heard her speak it's possible i've seen an

interview on television but i can't conjure it in my mind's eye my mind's ear as it were and uh so i i'll just say that i find kristen stewart be one of the, if not the most captivating young actors on screen. I think she like, and she is very good at these kind of quiet, meticulously arranged performances. Like this reminded me a little bit of her work in Personal Shopper. This sort of like another movie where her character is haunted. There's a lot of, she's on screen almost the entire time, but she's not speaking very often. You know,

she's kind of like coping with her demons in real time. I think she's very gifted at that kind of work. I think she looks enough like her. I think she's styled the hair. Like, I don't know that you may quibble with the hair or the fit or whatever, but for someone like me, for a lay person like me with the Royals, I bought it, I would say.

But I think it's actually more important what you think since you have more engagement. I mean, it is and it isn't because at some point you become too, you know, too much, you know? And so an interesting thing about Diana that was also true of Jackie Kennedy is, as you said, I do know what her voice sounds like, but she was not a person that you heard speaking a lot, even like that was not her job. And that was not the coverage of her. It was very like photo tabloid forward. There, you know, was like a pretty sexist image, like seen and not heard aspect to it. And, and she, you know,

and part of that was, she was such a fashion icon. And so people were just pouring over what she was wearing. But I, like I, I actually, for as familiar a character as she is to a lot of people and as famous as she is like princess Diana was so famous, like literally I think billions of people watched her funeral.

She was a, a, a monumentally like well-known figure, but her, like her voice her physicality like what she was as a as a person was not really part of the equation so on the one hand that gives an actor a lot of room right because you can invent some things on the other hand getting the image and what physicality is known right becomes really important and or can teeter into SNL impersonation territory really quickly. Which is why Natalie Portman made a choice in Jackie, as Peter Sarsgaard so famously said.

But she's at least reinventing it this I thought the voice was close enough you know for an American doing a very obscure British accent and I'm not like really a British accent expert because I'm American you know but all the Brits say that the way the royals speak is very strange and kind of that I mean there's an upper class accent and then there's a royal accent but you don't really hear those anywhere else. So you're recreating something that like most people don't have a ton of familiarity with or don't encounter every day. For me, the thing that stood out was her physical presence because Diana was really, first of all, she was very tall. She was like 5'10", 5'11 11 and Kristen Stewart is a smaller person um and there was just something

about the like the way that she occupied space and movement itself and I think she's trying to do the horror movie thing but it was a lot of sort of like listless wandering around that didn't really that that stood out to me and was like not it's not even that it doesn't match with diana of my memory but i was kind of like i don't really think i don't know what's happening here i can i can see the acting sort of yeah i think that that's what lorraine wants you know i think the word that we haven't used thus far we keep pointing out sort of like horror movies and psychological horror but the other thing is melodrama like he makes melodramas that's his that's his chosen form and this isn't necessarily a Douglas Cirque movie but

it's kind of like if Douglas Cirque got really into Stanley Kubrick movies you know that's kind of what it feels like where every emotion is felt at the highest pitch and every color is at its most popping you know that there's a sequence in which um the diana character maybe she's dreaming maybe she doesn't goes down into a a walk-in refrigerator um at sandringham and and is is surrounded by these sort of pastries and this beautiful christmas dinner the night before and you know part of that is a little bit about this concept of her eating disorder and kind of being faced with that and this concept of binging and doing things in secret. But part of it is just like a showcase for Lorraine to create this popping experience and showing like how lavish this lifestyle is.

So I think that with a movie like that, there's a certain kind of performance style that is needed. You know, this is not the world of naturalistic Marlon Brando-esque method acting necessarily. It is a different kind of performance needed. Now, Kristen Stewart does not usually use that style of acting. Right. She's actually more of a traditional brooding type. So it's interesting to thrust her style into a movie that demands something bigger. The way that Natalie Portman really kind of rose to the challenge.

Whether you like Jackie or not, she went for it. And went for it and whether Kristen Stewart is kind of going forward enough, I think is an interesting talking point. And in her defense, I think the movie is still positioning her. She's got a lot of problems, the Diana character, but she's supposed to be the, like the normal person or the person who is being provoked by all of the

irregularity and, you know, horror basically around her. And so a little bit, they use the more Christians who are down to earth energy and then start kind of turning it up as she gets further and further into this madhouse. But so you also are watching her kind of try to negotiate like where to you know how much to turn the dial up in each scene which is interesting and cool in a way

because it's someone who we know pretty well at this point stretching and then also sometimes you can just kind of i felt like i could at least see everyone like searching in real time which is you know maybe the point of the movie, as you say, but I also, yeah, no, I was just going to say,

it's interesting that this is an awards movie though, because it's basically smashing together two forms that don't usually get recognized by awards. Of course, biopics do, but melodramas and horror movies are kind of persona non grata at the Academy Awards. Now, movies that are sort of like self-consciously aping melodramas,

like Far From Heaven, are rewarded. But this is like a pretty unnerving at times, and maybe perhaps a little bit boring at times movie, as you say. And so obviously Kristen Stewart, I think, is the primary beneficiary of the awards chatter around this one, because she's very good and very committed and it's transformational. But this doesn't strike me as the kind of movie that, especially in a year of King Richard or Belfast, this is going to knock the socks off of voters. It's an arthouse movie for sure. Yes. um yes i would say the counter to that is that it's a movie about the royals and it's a movie

about princess diana at a time where like the diana economy is just like exploding and listen it's always been a major thing that was part of her uh her fame and depending on who you speak to kind of her struggles in the royal family was that she like was a light that shined so bright that everyone else couldn't get their time in edgewise. But, and she always sold newspapers and obviously her dad, her tragic death and funeral were like huge international events. But in the last few years,

like especially post crown, you say Diana, you say William or Harry, who are the sons of Diana and there's just a lot of audience to be found and money to be made and it really brings a lot of people in who are probably not expecting a Pablo Lorraine you know horror psych thriller take on a biopic I I. I would say I saw it, the average age of my screening was 60 and up. And that's even with me in the mix.

So I'm curious how those people felt with their expecting kind of like the crown in an off season year, because the crown is having its bye year. They'll be back next season with the second half of Diana's the the crown is having its buy year they'll be back next season with with the second half of diana's life this is kind of perfectly nestled in between the two diana seasons of the crown you know and they're like lifetime movies or it's like been a whole boom of diana documentaries like the fashion world has really gotten into it

and you know you can see like a lot of dianainspired looks, both the Peter Pan collars and also the bike shorts, which is just a major thing. Some might argue that Harry and Meghan are participating in the Diana economy in their own way. To me, that makes sense as the reason it's in the awards conversation. How people will react when they actually see the movie, I'm not really sure. But I also sort of think we're so familiar with these types of performances. You know, famous person you like as other famous person you're interested in. The performance itself doesn't really matter. It's just kind of like, oh, sure. Yeah. Oscar nomination. Here you go. I think you might be slightly

underestimating yourself in a way, because I think is falls into a very defined kind of stand economy that only a precious few women over the last 40 years occupy like Madonna for a period of time in the 1980s had a kind of fandom that people were actively trying to emulate her style and her attitude and obviously we see people like Beyonce or Lady Gaga now like have this sort of thing maybe to a lesser extent like Adele Taylor Swift Olivia Rodrig. These are all musicians that I'm talking about. But I think Diana had a kind of rock star quality to her. And even if you didn't hear her voice that often, you saw her and she was so striking and she had such great style and she was, you know, kind of commoditized as this rebel figure. And so I think that there is like a young,

a younger audience for this movie. I will say, just kind of like straw polling on Twitter, a lot of people were like, where the hell is your Spencer pot over the last week? You know, one, obviously they really want to hear you talk about it because they know how much the Royals mean to you. But I think also because it is,

it's not a Flashpoint movie necessarily, but it's an interesting piece of, relatively uncovered in the world of film. I think because the crown is so dominant in television, this story has not been rendered on the big screen very many times. And when it has been, it's often been through the eyes of, say, the queen. You know, we'll talk about the queen when we do the Royals Hall of Fame. And also Pablo Lorraine is really like actually one of the

kind of biggest arthouse indie filmmakers around. When Tom Quinn, who runs Neon, introduced the film at Telluride, really like actually one of the kind of biggest art house indie filmmakers around when tom quinn who runs neon introduced the film at telluride i obviously he is incentivized to celebrate and promote his filmmaker but he was like this is this is like one of five guys that matters basically um which is is big praise now he's also having like a huge year you know jackie was 2016 but he made a movie called emo which um was was, I think, released overseas in 2019, but ultimately released here this year. He also directed the entirety of Lisey's Story on Apple TV+. Starring Julianne Moore.

Yes. Which no one talked about. No one saw. And I confess I haven't seen. Our friend Gilbert Cruz and I talked about it a little bit at Telluride, actually. And he was kind of like, maybe you don't have to finish it, I don't think. But Pablo, he's a big deal. And so I think that this movie is maybe more of an event than we're suspecting.

But you're right that the kind of person that would open up the newspaper and say, like, what's playing at the local arthouse cinema is like 65 years old and checking this movie out. So it's this interesting contrast of like an achingly hip filmmaker who, you know, is working for a very hip studio with an incredibly hip young star, but also making a sort of like borderline stodgy form of film, but trying to like thrash that up and mess it up. And so it's a, it's a, it's a bit of an odd duck ultimately. Um, I think I liked it a little more than you did, which I find fascinating. Yeah, probably you did. I think that I'm underselling some of the,

just like the visual and technical accomplishments of it. Like it's beautiful. And they do, you know, 90 minutes in, shoehorn in just like a montage of Diana in various clothes dancing around, which is a thing that she loves loves to dance and you do see some of the physicality and I like I was both amused I was like well you like are trying to subvert every aspect of this movie and the royals but you couldn't get away from like the fashion show and the dancing but also like but like who cares like sure I I enjoyed it and And the pastries and the, it's like the atmosphere of it all is very impressive.

And as you mentioned, there's a chef character and they spend a lot of time in the kitchens and there's a sign in the kitchen that says something to the effect of keep your voices down. But what it does say is like, they can hear you, you know, they um and they like they show diana's clothes and they're that they show the the clothes like the the clothes tags and the assignment of you know this is christmas brunch and this is christmas whatever but um they they are also identified by person but instead of saying princess of wales which was diana's title they say pow it's like it's clever there's attention to detail there there's there is a lot

to like i think the johnny greenwood score is very effective at being a johnny greenwood score i i think my main qualm is not about it as a royal film but as it as a just like a a woman who's like can't handle it anymore and kind of like freaking out, which as you pointed out is not really my preferred genre of movie anyway. I'm kind of like, I get it. Okay. Yeah. I think the problem with it too, is that it wants to have it both ways, you know, it wants to be a woman in peril story, but it also wants to have this kind of vivacious ending. And it wants you to walk out feeling great about Diana and about her life, even if it ended so tragically too young um i don't know it's it's it's an unusual movie it's not a movie that is bound for mega box office mega box office success and in a different time in hollywood history probably would have done better yeah but it's

also a movie that probably would be streamed a lot um and so we'll see in probably a few weeks it'll be available to rent on pOD and more people will see it. It's been so amazing just watching like the shrink, like the window of time when people are able to see movies shrink. Like there was another, I don't know what movie it was. So maybe there's a release just a few weeks ago that is already on. Oh,

no time to die. Like no time to die is like available for rent. Now it's like, how did, how did this happen? How did we get here? I, when I was 12 years old,

I felt like I was waiting five years for die hard with a vengeance to come to blockbuster and you know it literally takes three weeks to watch it in your house it's bizarre now i'm just imagining you camped out at the blockbuster i mean i seriously i was like mom we have to get there at 8 59 a.m it's very important i have to be the first one in this in the store on like a thursday anyway uh that dire with the vengeance by the way is my spencer just for the record okay that's well that's great as far as royals movies go yeah you think this is a good one a bad one mediocre mediocre i think it's interesting it's and i think as a royals, what it's trying to reinvent or examine is more interesting than as a woman in peril movie.

It has a lot of the things that you want from a Royals movie, specifically just opulence everywhere. Palaces, pastries, gowns, just lots of rules that don't make any sense. But it just has to be that way. Okay. Sort of like podcasting with me yes exactly wow we just had a major breakthrough um and then it has some well it has high stakes because that's the other thing about what i think is appealing about the royals and royal movies is like they're essentially like our modern history place, right? It's like Shakespeare level drama. There's power.

There's duty, sex, sometimes love, like least a long time ago, world historical implications. Whether Spencer has world historical implications is really TBD. It depends on how much you believe in the power of media versus the power of everything else. But like high stakes and, as you said, sort of melodramatic stakes a lot of the time, right? So this is leading into some of that melodrama, not some of the other melodrama. But what it is creating in terms of how weird and terrifying it all is, is to me interesting. I think a really good royal movie also has a larger idea about either the royal in question, if it's a biopic, and or the function of royals and or our image of them. And like I said, I think this one, it's not really what it's interested in. And that's okay. It's interested in other things. So I gave it a mediocre, but it certainly illustrates a lot in a useful way. I think it's an impressive kind of recreation of the grandeur of the lifestyle.

So in that respect, I feel like it's effective. The one thing is that Diana, she was called the people's princess, right? That was sort of like one of her monikers. Yes. Yes, it was invented, I believe, by Alistair Campbell, who is the foul-mouthed Tony Blair aide that In the Loop is based on. Ah. But yes, that was in Tony Blair's eulogy for her. Oh, interesting. of renders the film on different terms because the film is kind of constantly reminding us that she is more likely to relate to the people who work for her than she is to relate to her own

family and so this isn't in that sense like ultimately about the royal lifestyle it's about somebody who's trying to escape the royal lifestyle now honestly like that is kind of the subtext or maybe even the text for a lot of royal movies, because there's nothing interesting about a royal family that's kind of operating healthily in power. You know, that's not, that ain't going to work. What we need is intrigue. Right. This is sick. Our lives are awesome. We have palaces and people who wait on us, and we've never had to deal with any real consequences in our entire life. Yeah. But all these people, you know, they're just syphilitic inbreeders too. So that's the

other thing to consider is they're all damaged in their own way. Yeah. That's actually true. Good luck to them. So like, what are the best ones? Because I've seen most of these movies and we talked about, should we do top five? Should we do a hall of fame? Like, I feel like a hall of fame is better because one, you're more of an expert on this than i am so you can have more influence on how to identify some of these flicks and there is a probably a small coterie of great ones yeah and then there's probably like a second tier so like i want to empower you to say these are the best ones these are the best movies about royals these are the ones that summarize that

experience that you just described with relation to spencer so this is an interesting hall of fame exercise also because i i put together normally when we do this we're going through a you know a person's career and so there's like a finite number of films to talk through i put together a list that are primarily english language because that is the language that I speak and that's primarily about the British royal family um because that is where Hollywood has spent a lot of its time but it's not a definitive list so that's that's another thing to keep in mind but out of these I mean I have some clear favorites you want me to just start with like the inarguable really great ones in my opinion i absolutely do okay well number one for me always and forever is the queen which is

peter morgan's 2006 a movie about the princess diana's death and how the royal family responded and how tony blair responded basically the week after princess Diana died, which if you don't remember, it really was just a, an international event. It was obviously like a sudden and very tragic death and she was very young and no one was expecting it, but it became a full media event as well. And so the queen has a wonderful performance by Helen Mirren who like fully turns into the queen in a in a way that's like pretty astonishing and the queen is another person who is like on money and who you've seen a million portraits of but like who doesn't who and who is like not supposed to really exist as a person you know and so this

kind of starts Peter Morgan's project of interrogating Queen Elizabeth as a person which then becomes the crown which I think is a show that rules but it is just defy I two thumbs up but it is also about um public and private lives it's about the media role it is about the political ramifications of all of this because tony blair is much quicker to understand what this event is going to mean to the people of the uk but also to like his government and and and and it's about the weird interpersonal relationships when you combine family and politics and all of the above. And another interesting thing about it is there's no one playing Diana. So it's done in archival footage and done in, I think, a lot of things that really did happen. But she's this, again, this sort of mysterious figure at the center of the movie.

I think it's a masterpiece personally. Great movie. No quibble with this one. 15 year anniversary, like right now. I feel like it's 15 years since it was released. It's really good. If you haven't seen that one, check it out. Also just check out the films of Stephen Frears.

He's the man. One of the earliest guests on the big picture, in fact. Oh, that's right. He was like 78 years old, came to the office, came to Frears. He's the man. One of the earliest guests on The Big Picture, in fact. Oh, that's right. He was like 78 years old. Came to the office. Came to the chapel studio here at The Ringer. Just hung out with me for an hour. Oh, that's so nice.

Had a nice time with him. Very, very, very good filmmaker. Remember when we could do that? Yeah, that was fun. Okay, so The Queen is a lock. No brainer. I won't quibble with that. Okay.

I think, are you going to make a bid now for the number two on this list here? Because this is a film I have not seen. These aren't in order. These are just top of head. No, I was going to skip ahead because I have three that are just like inarguable for me. Go ahead. Number two, The Lion in Winter.

You just absolutely have to do this one. So this is 1968. Peter O'Toole, Catherine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, John Castle, Nigel Terry, Timothy Dalton. And it's sort of based on true people. I mean, it is. It's Henry II and Catherine Hepburn plays Eleanor of Aquitaine. And Anthony Hopkins is Richard the Lionheart.

I mean, these are like real historical people, but it's historical fiction. And it's essentially like King Lear with sons and also with a great female character and this is less about history and more about how families are really screwed up but it's about power and fathers and sons and just really awesome British actors yelling at each other a lot, which I just, again, you can't understate how awesome that is. Also a Christmas movie also set at Christmas, like sometime in the middle ages,

but definitely Spencer is borrowing that time set up at least. Also a great film. So directed by Anthony Harvey, who fun fact, sharpened his skills, his tool set as an editor. And the three films he edited before he went on to become a filmmaker himself, Lolita with Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove with Stanley Kubrick, and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold with Martin Ritt, the great Richard Burton film.

So this is an underrated filmmaker who we don't talk about too much on this show, but line of winner. Great movie. Okay, so that's two number three is obviously marie antoinette sophia coppola is marie antoinette you have pivoted away from the british royals sure and like i said almost every other one of these is going to be british royals but this is my favorite i think sophia coppola film and is re-investigating a historical figure who has a very specific brand with historical consequences and offering perhaps a different view, but is also examining like the costume drama and the opulence. I mean, so beautiful they filmed at Versailles and the just again the pastries the costumes they like really are leaning into all of it but I think it is also

a movie about that performance itself and the show and how some of these or certainly how like royalty in France and functioned at that particular time and just like a bunch of teenagers put in a room asked to do ridiculous stuff and then this is what happens so I think it has an idea as well as just being like beautiful to look at I think it has a lot uh it's a nice pairing with Spencer in a lot of ways you know a person who had everything in the world but also was misunderstood and misrepresented. And it has empathy for someone who, you know, the world does not have a ton of empathy

for royal people. You know, they kind of have the world by the balls. Let me say, with good reason. Yeah, no, I agree. You know, it's like, you know, bad shit happens to everybody. You guys get it with like a lot of macarons. So you're going to be okay.

So many macarons in all of these movies, honestly. I'm looking down the list and I'm like, I can't think of a scene featuring macarons in almost all of these movies. Okay, can I make a bid for one? Yes, go. Are we doing 10? Yeah, we'll do 10.

So we've got three. I think You and I Both Love a Man for All Seasons and Man for All Seasons has to be on the list. I think this is a similar time period as Lion in Winter. This is 67, Fred Zinman film starring Paul Schofield, Robert Shaw, Orson Welles. This is about Sir Thomas More and his battles with Henry VIII about whether or not he should be allowed to annul a marriage. And then ultimately becomes a play more about More and More's battle with the church and with the royal kingdom. But there is a case

to be made and folks like Quentin Tarantino have made it that this is among one of the 10 best screenplays ever written by the great Robert Bolt, a beautifully staged movie. I think one thing that royal films do is they are about power. And this is like the ultimate story of power. And if you do not hold the crown if the crown does not sit upon your head do you have really any power does your do your ethics or your morality mean anything to the day-to-day execution of the world um so i i would just say if you have not seen a man for all seasons i believe it won best picture um at the academy awards and uh i want to say say Fred Zinneman also won Best Director

and Schofield won Actor. So this is like one of the more hallowed Academy films. But I would ride hard for this one. What do you think? Yeah, absolutely. It was also on our courtroom dramas list, I want to say. Yes, it was. It really-

That was an inspired choice. Yeah, all quadrants, you know? But what about all the people who are big mad about no 12 angry men on that list? What would you say to them now? Make your own list, you know? Yeah, that's right. Well put. That's just, you have the power.

That's what I want to say to anybody. Like, go make your own list and that's your time. And then, you know, go do whatever you want. Okay. Pitch another one at me. What else did you put? You were hinting at the madness of King George. And I think that that should go on the list.

You've never seen this? You really just like to not see movies that I'm really interested in. I'm so happy to be here with you, Amanda. You hadn't seen Sliding Doors. You've never seen Legends of the Fall. I want you to know that, like like multiple people in our lives texted me about that being like, what's wrong with Sean. Wow.

I'm just delighted. They're listening to the pod. Legends of the fall is how have you never seen that? And also I was told that the paper is a good movie that I'm going to revisit at some point when I have time. True. Okay. Well, anyway,

I was at the Madison of King George is a film that I did not draft in the 1994 draft, but it was on my list. It is a. It's like a comedy drama. It's directed by Nicholas Heitner and adapted from Alan Bennett. It was originally an Alabama play, and it is about King George, who you guys might know as the guy who lost the Revolutionary War and who also there are there are rumors and that he had some mental illnesses and there was a regency period in the uk that you probably mostly know because of furniture um but this is a a film about him that is about the ridiculousness of royalty.

And I mean, it's funny. It's like making fun of everything while still having like a bit of empathy for this character who, and re-examining this character who has been maligned in every different way that you can be in history, probably with good reason, but great performances, very sharp. It's Nigel Hawthorne is King George III. Helen Mirren is Queen Charlotte.

Just every, you know, British character actor that, you know, from the nineties, just a host of that guys. And I think pretty smart, um, and, and a different approach as opposed to celebrating like the grandeur and the power and all, you know, it's, there's lots of costumes and wigs and everything in this, like, don't worry,

but it's about the absurdity of it all. I guess I'll have to watch it. Yeah. Shall I suggest one? Yes. How about, I feel like we, we couldn't do this without doing the last Ember,

which is Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 film. Probably, I don't know if he's most famous for, but well known for being the first film, the Western produced film shot in Beijing. The Chinese government allowed Bertolucci to travel to bring the series of actors, among them Peter O'Toole, but mostly an english and chinese cast together to tell the true life story um of the last emperor the final emperor of china puyi and this is like probably one of the more breathtakingly staged movies in movie history uh bertolucci by this point like well-known master of italian cinema and i my favorite part that's shot by vittorio stararo who's also you

know incredible uh cinematographer but um the thing that sticks out to me as i think about it was the uh ryuichi sakamoto uh david burns score which is like played in my uncle's home my uncle matt who is a big fan of uh compositions like this and sakamoto there's a great documentary actually about sakamoto that was produced last year that I recommend people check out but this is um obviously not a an English royal story it's a much more uh it's a different point of view in terms of how the Chinese government uh kind of came to be but wonderful film highly recommended also best picture winner as I recall um so let's do The Last Emperor so that gives us how many six yeah okay so let's do the last emperor. So that gives us how many? Six? Yeah. Okay.

So let's keep going. What's next? Well, so there are a lot of movies that I'm not going to put on this list, but that I think obviously Cate Blanchett was in Elizabeth and Elizabeth, the sequel. Judi Dench has played Queen Victoria in multiple movies. There is also the young Victoria starring Emily Blunt as that you referenced, which I actually think is like a pretty charming movie, but it's sort of saw it on a plane and liked it yeah it's very likable and i think challenges you know what we know about victoria as a person in portraits um who like reigned for 60 years but i don't really feel like all of those need to ascend like are

essentials on the list i think between elizabeth and the young victoria i would probably put elizabeth on um because i think that's a great kate blanchett performance and that also that's like mid 90s and starts a trend of all of these again and people like examining them seriously. But I'm not locked to it. I kind of want to put a pin in it as we go through. Should we do a Shakespeare? Yeah. My gut was to do Henry V.

Which one? The Branagh or the Olivier? Oh, interesting. I was thinking the Olivier. I haven't revisited the brand yet so i gotta do that ahead of our belfast conversation you think the olivier yeah i mean the olivier has that really cool like um that set that is like the little miniatures set that is kind of created through the opening credits that movie that i always loved and i think i watched that

in high school for the first time so you would go olivier henry v but not so do you see um do you think of hamlet as a as a a royal movie i suppose that you could but that was another interesting thing as i was putting together this list of um like possible hall of fames that most of them are based on real historical figures and then at the end we let a few non-historical figures and Hamlet didn't exist as we know him. I mean, I'm not like a huge Danish expert, but it's made up, right? I think so, but honestly, I do not know.

The other thing that I'm basing this on is that if you have not read Hamlet, the Maggie O'Farrell book from last year which talks about the origins of the play it would suggest that at least the name is is borrowed from elsewhere a tremendous book by the way I can't recommend it enough so I mean but we can count it it's really more about daddy issues which is like a core theme of all royal movies but like it's not as politically steeped in my memory as some of the other movies you know it's more about like mom and dad and everybody's mad at me i like henry v instead because it is almost about

two royal courts kind of warring with each other. You know, it's about England and France oppositionally. So also like one of the great Olivier performances, Olivier also directed this movie. Did this movie also win Best Picture? I feel like it might be the Best Picture winner from that year as well. So that'd be a lot of Best Picture wins for this list. But that tells you something about what the Oscars are interested in. It's a way to cheat the Oscars for sure. It is. I do also think Olivier doing the St. Crispin's Day speech is sort of has to be.

Yeah. That's the iconic one. Yeah. On the iconic, on the iconic list. So yeah, let's do Henry V. All right. Henry V. Can I, can I, can I pitch one more as my like final pitch? Yeah, of course. Just staying in Shakespeare, I would do Throne of Blood because of Macbeth. But is Macbeth based on anything real? It's not based on anything real? I guess we should probably do research and do more research than whoever interviewed Joel Cohen and was like, I saw that Lord Macbeth was this age

when he was born on Wikipedia. That was one of the all-time great press moments. That's tremendous. Looking forward to the tragedy of Macbeth, to be honest. Shakespeare's Macbeth bears little resemblance to the 11th century Scottish king, apparently, which is, that's unfortunate. He was born around 1005.

I mean, both Hamlet and Macbeth are like, far be it for me to adhere to like classical canon designations, but they're usually tragedies and like bracketed as the tragedies and then and you know the histories are a separate thing and when they perform all the histories together i think i mean that's also just because the histories are pretty much about british kings but okay well i feel like i feel okay with henry v and we can but so my case for throne of Blood has been weakened. Because Throne of Blood is a Japanese interpretation of the Macbeth story from Akira Kurosawa.

But that is not based on real events either. So if we're trying to keep it in the real. But I don't think we are because I think we're about to add two totally fake movies. Okay, so then I'm going to bid for Throne of Blood. This is a collaborative effort. I'm being nice to you for once. I thank God for that. I was recently on the Letterboxd show.

I saw. The podcast, which was very nice of the folks at Letterboxd to have me on. And they asked me to talk about my four favorites. So one of my four favorites on that app has long been Throne of Blood. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. We talked about Toshiro Mifune on the pod last year with CR. All I'll just say is, one, if you listen to that show, that's great. I appreciate it.

I'm sure the folks over there would appreciate it. I talked at length about why I think Throne of Blood is so special. But it's a very good movie about power and about a lot of the themes that you underline here about what make a good royal movie and why people want power, what they're willing to do to get it, and then what the ultimate consequences of that are so i'll if we if you'll allow it i would say let's put the blood on there i think it's great fantastic so that takes us to seven okay so what are your two fictionals i'm curious well you added coming to america to this list what do you think about that samunda is not real

yeah but i think it's a great addition. That's why I was like, we need to not be strict to historical. Because it's just really funny, number one. It's so funny. To this day. And also the first whatever 20 minutes in Zamunda when he's having the bath and doing all of these ridiculous things. It's a pretty good parody of pretty much every other movie on this list. It is incisive. Yeah.

It's kind of, in some cases it's not parody in some ways it's accurate, but like a film like Spencer might recreate something like this to be unfunny, but you know, it's like Eddie Murphy at the height of his powers playing five different different characters let's do it okay coming to america uh the other fictional one that i added on but and i think this is probably like a generational do it you know divide between you and me but we gotta have the princess diaries on here come on the amanda stans will appreciate

this i and listen i can't even say like i think it was hayley baldwin and justin bieber who were the princess diaries like for halloween um she made like justin bieber be whatever that weird dude is who won't go out with ann hathaway at the beginning and so it definitely like has a pop cultural reach i wouldn't say i was never uh ann hathaway princess diaries for Halloween. Just want to be really clear on that. But it is a phenomenon, a pretty funny movie. Oh, Bobby just wanted to share

that Princess Diaries is very special. Okay, good. So this is like my hello fellow, like, hey, fellow kids pick. But like, you know, Julie Andrews, like explaining the rules of inheritance in a fictional land in weird, funny ways. It fits in with the themes. And I'm really amused by it.

I get a little nervous promoting too much Princess content, but I think it has the right balance. So, Princess Diaries. I think it's an inspired choice. Thank you. I support all things Anne Hathaway, although I will admit when this movie was released, I think I was in my 20s and I was like, I would absolutely never.

And then five to seven years later, caught it on cable, just got sucked in, watched the whole thing and enjoyed myself. I mean, you know, the makeover, also did you know that Chris Pine is in Princess Diaries too? Oh, I didn't know. I have not seen that film. I would Pine is in Princess Diaries too? Oh, I didn't know. I have not seen that film. It's not as good.

I would just stick with Princess Diaries original. So I think we've got thus far with nine picks, a pretty good balance, right? We've got the sort of historical tales of the English royal family. We've got a couple of foreign films, foreign language films. We've got a lot of Oscar winners. We've got a couple of crowd-pleasing comedies. We got one more slot. It's empowered to you. What do you want to do with this? I kind of want to do the favorite. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I'm into it. Also based on real events. Yes. And some speculative historical fiction that might be true or or might not who can really know we have a lot of the older movies and so i like something that is definitely coming at a different angle both tonally and in terms of its focus it's about three women instead of men which is what most of these movies are about and is just really messed up but in a, in a way that totally lands the plane, you know, and, and upsetting and affecting. I like all of the performances a lot. It sort of cemented Olivia Coleman in our hearts, which just is, uh, as, as kind of

the number one Royal. Well, it was Judi Dench for a while and now it's olivia coleman but so we should probably have one of her films in the mix and i like again it's it's playing with the genre and has something new to say while also kind of hitting all of the the power the costumes the the historical element of it etc uh that's a, that's a pretty good one. So let's just run down the list then. Okay. Here's what we've got.

We've got the queen. We've got the lion in winter. We've got Marie Antoinette. We've got a man for all seasons. The last emperor, Henry the fifth throne of blood coming to America, the princess diaries, the madness of King George.

And what was the last one that we grabbed? The Favorite? The Favorite, if you'll allow it. Of course I will allow it. That's pretty dope. I think we did a good job with this. It's a good list.

What are the haters going to say? I have no idea. I mean, are people going to be mad that we didn't include the other Belen girl and or No. W.E. Madonna's movie? No, that's, well, the king speech i feel like people will cry about well we're not gonna put the king speech on there that's right good luck to you guys and i guess we

didn't put any of judy dench playing the queen movies on there even though she's done it more than anyone else at this point that's fine she's doing great judy might win another oscar this year yeah and she won one for playing a queen for literally nine minutes. So that's true. That's fine. She's playing a different kind of queen in Belfast. Okay. The local Northern Ireland corners. This was pretty good. I'm sorry. You didn't like Spencer more. I wish you did, but it's okay. I get it. You're too close. And it's important to know that I'm too close. I thought it was interesting. It's not the Royal parts I didn't like. And I feel, you know, ungrateful.

Because if people would like to make a movie about the royal family, like, every year and then have it be an awards consideration, as they did, it would seem, for like 30 years of Hollywood history. But if we want to bring that back, I'm open. I'm supportive. I'm grateful. I'd love to, you know, expand my blog content as the Marvel people have expanded their blog content. I'm available for this. I just, this one, you know. So we're an hour in here and everybody's been listening to this show.

And so now you can talk about the post-credit sequence of Spencer, you know, where Diana gets Diana gets the, like realizes her superpowers. If Harry Styles showed up at the post credit sequence for Spencer, I'd be like, dope. This is the best movie that's ever happened. I mean, so Sean and I saw Eternals sitting next to each other, um,

standing, sitting next to each other. Okay. So, you know, there, and that was a great experience because I got to look at you and be like, what the hell is happening multiple times during this. But one thing I knew obviously that Harry Styles was going to show up in the post-credits sequence and we were in a packed

theater and you could tell that the vibe was not what the people wanted. And I was like this close to just fully applauding when he showed up i'm like really mad at myself that i didn't do that that would have been really funny if i just started like the full cheer at harry styles two hours and however many minutes into this terrible experience i that i wish the movie that the tone that that scene had found its way into more of that movie but that's that's a whole other podcast conversation. I think it would have been great if you would have stood up and applauded. You have to appreciate the things that you love as they're happening.

That's important as a fan. And that's why I feel a little bad about my Spencer take. I'm a little ashamed of myself that I didn't start the Harry Styles movement in the Century City IMAX for Eternals. But that's okay. Well, we'll probably be talking about Spencer a little bit more in the future, right? Because we got to start talking about the Oscars soon on this show. Yes, they're happening, the Oscars.

Yeah, they're happening. Remember them? So next week, what, Belfast? Maybe a little King Richard preview? Maybe, I'm not ready to talk about Licorice Pizza yet, but just put it on the radar house of gucci this is just this is a killer month i'm just i'm really excited are really starting thank you will smith and thank you lady god i just my heart's really

open to everything that's happening um thank you to bobby wagner he's our producer uh thank you to you amanda you're back you're back on the big picture. Huge month for us on the big picture. Huge year for us on the big picture, frankly. Really exciting. And we'll see you later this week, talking about the Oscars. you