Wolf Hall: The Favourite
Dec. 16th, 2024 07:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessWolf Hall – The Mirror and the Light 2.3 Defiance
From the off, Cromwell was in a shaky position, what with the rebels blaming him for destroying their traditional ways of worship, and associating him with the devil; the rumour that he wanted to marry Mary growing in strength; and the exasperated King declaring him such a favourite that it could be interpreted (and was by Cromwell’s rivals) that Henry made him and his family his heirs. Very pointed jabs from the restored fool at one dinner party. And being Henry’s current favourite was an extremely uncertain place to be, especially if you weren’t bumping off the cousin he wanted you to, and always bringing bad news. (Poor little tyrant, it’s not all going your way, what with some nobles surely being behind the rebellion.)
For much of the episode, Jane was still not pregnant, but daring to speak for the people and ask for the old religion/Pope to be reinstated, which Henry did not take well. Popes = princes for him, and the self-appointed Shepherd declaimed that only God could judge him, and it felt like Henry didn’t really believe that God had any business doing that. (Well, in daytime, anyway.) Meanwhile Henry’s gammy leg was gammy, and others in the court had babies. BUT he knocked his wife up. She was allowed to get a portrait taken! Everyone hoped it wouldn’t be a girl! Henry had a bit of a funny turn while getting his portrait taken.
Cromwell was both conniving (for one thing, he came up with using winter to outlast the stronger rebel army) and failboaty. I thought Mary was very regal when she warned him off (calling him fatherly in an interview that could have appeared like an amorous assignment, meeting alone in her bedroom at night.) Then he outsmarted the plot for the Spanish diplomat to pass on a secret later in the guise of courting her for one of his royal family. Mary looked less regal when she was busted for that.
The ghost of Wolsey was still snubbing Cromwell, while the ghost of his brother Arthur was haunting Henry, and then Cromwell got visitations from Anne’s ladies in waiting, carrying her severed head, bundled in cloth. Consciences!
Cromwell decided now was the time to sort out marriage…for his son, which he failed to mention at key times (and Gregory’s cynicism was entirely right. Cromwell was able to say what he meant to to French ambassadors, his staff, whoever, except younger ladies on matters of the heart. The way he spoke to Seymour when he asked for Bess’s hand did feel like a Freudian slip) so the Seymours thought he wanted to marry Bess himself. The lady seemed very willing (don’t know whether there were quite as many decades between the characters as the actors, and hey, the fact that they filmed the first series a decade ago confuses matters further, but the main man in this social sphere definitely had a habit of marrying much younger women) to marry the powerful Lord Privy Seal. She was also quick enough to realise what the misunderstanding had been, and wise enough to make the best of it. Thomas realised he’d done Gregory an injury, and got emotionally poleaxed by his son after the wedding, when he was warned off Mrs Gregory. ‘But I’m an honourable man, a man of my word!’ he yelped, and, even allowing for his seeming attempts to blunt Henry’s instinct to kill anyone who defies him, that’s not what it looks like. The fact that the attack came from his own son, who had the just complaint of his father taking up all the space and power and air (on top of the reveal that his master blamed him) must have hurt.
In the middle of all this, we had a flashback (and I don’t remember if it was shown in the first series) that revealed that it wasn’t Bess that Cromwell had wanted about a year ago, it was her sister Jane. But his king got in first.
And then we had one last reveal, with Cromwell inviting a lady petitioner indoors. She seemed very composed (there are really so many conversations with women on this show) and dropped the news that she was the daughter of the lady in the tapestry AND Cromwell’s own child. Can’t say I spotted the resemblance, but he should know whether he slept with Tapestry Lady at around the right time. Should also note that she looked like could have been the same age as the women Cromwell has been proposing to of late.
I’m going to put this out there, the race-blind casting is driving me spare. I am extremely sceptical that there were so many people from ethnic minorities around in Henry VIII’s court as there are among the background actors, (I could be wrong, not having done all the research Mantel did, but I doubt it.) It begs the question of why they’re bothering with verisimilitude like locations, costumes, instruments and so on. Why not dress everyone in boilersuits of different colours? Why not film it all in a warehouse and have graffiti up on the wall to tell us where it’s set? (It’d be cheaper!) Why not have Rylance play Henry and Lewis play Cromwell or have women play some of the king’s advisers? At least ‘My Lady Jane’ was anachronistic in other ways.
And, like the Royal Shakespeare Company, having race-blind casting for people who are playing characters related by blood (especially for a text obsessed with having heirs) is both ridiculous and distracting. It’s even worse in the mostly realistic medium of tv than in theatre. Last week it was, ‘Yeah, totally buying that Cardinal Wolsey had an affair with a South Asian woman in Tudor England.’) This week, it was ‘So, Bess Seymour is either younger or older than the other two and Daddy Seymour married twice, once to a Black woman, OR he was fine with his wife cuckolding him with one of the many Black men around in Tudor England. (If you’re going to ignore that the historic character was white, at least do the same for the characters they’re meant to be related to by blood.)
Yes, question assumptions about why a character has to be played by an able-bodied white actor in general, but not in realistic historical dramas. Creative choice when all your other choices lean towards accuracy? Distraction, more like.
(I picked the film title for the entry title after writing that.)
From the off, Cromwell was in a shaky position, what with the rebels blaming him for destroying their traditional ways of worship, and associating him with the devil; the rumour that he wanted to marry Mary growing in strength; and the exasperated King declaring him such a favourite that it could be interpreted (and was by Cromwell’s rivals) that Henry made him and his family his heirs. Very pointed jabs from the restored fool at one dinner party. And being Henry’s current favourite was an extremely uncertain place to be, especially if you weren’t bumping off the cousin he wanted you to, and always bringing bad news. (Poor little tyrant, it’s not all going your way, what with some nobles surely being behind the rebellion.)
For much of the episode, Jane was still not pregnant, but daring to speak for the people and ask for the old religion/Pope to be reinstated, which Henry did not take well. Popes = princes for him, and the self-appointed Shepherd declaimed that only God could judge him, and it felt like Henry didn’t really believe that God had any business doing that. (Well, in daytime, anyway.) Meanwhile Henry’s gammy leg was gammy, and others in the court had babies. BUT he knocked his wife up. She was allowed to get a portrait taken! Everyone hoped it wouldn’t be a girl! Henry had a bit of a funny turn while getting his portrait taken.
Cromwell was both conniving (for one thing, he came up with using winter to outlast the stronger rebel army) and failboaty. I thought Mary was very regal when she warned him off (calling him fatherly in an interview that could have appeared like an amorous assignment, meeting alone in her bedroom at night.) Then he outsmarted the plot for the Spanish diplomat to pass on a secret later in the guise of courting her for one of his royal family. Mary looked less regal when she was busted for that.
The ghost of Wolsey was still snubbing Cromwell, while the ghost of his brother Arthur was haunting Henry, and then Cromwell got visitations from Anne’s ladies in waiting, carrying her severed head, bundled in cloth. Consciences!
Cromwell decided now was the time to sort out marriage…for his son, which he failed to mention at key times (and Gregory’s cynicism was entirely right. Cromwell was able to say what he meant to to French ambassadors, his staff, whoever, except younger ladies on matters of the heart. The way he spoke to Seymour when he asked for Bess’s hand did feel like a Freudian slip) so the Seymours thought he wanted to marry Bess himself. The lady seemed very willing (don’t know whether there were quite as many decades between the characters as the actors, and hey, the fact that they filmed the first series a decade ago confuses matters further, but the main man in this social sphere definitely had a habit of marrying much younger women) to marry the powerful Lord Privy Seal. She was also quick enough to realise what the misunderstanding had been, and wise enough to make the best of it. Thomas realised he’d done Gregory an injury, and got emotionally poleaxed by his son after the wedding, when he was warned off Mrs Gregory. ‘But I’m an honourable man, a man of my word!’ he yelped, and, even allowing for his seeming attempts to blunt Henry’s instinct to kill anyone who defies him, that’s not what it looks like. The fact that the attack came from his own son, who had the just complaint of his father taking up all the space and power and air (on top of the reveal that his master blamed him) must have hurt.
In the middle of all this, we had a flashback (and I don’t remember if it was shown in the first series) that revealed that it wasn’t Bess that Cromwell had wanted about a year ago, it was her sister Jane. But his king got in first.
And then we had one last reveal, with Cromwell inviting a lady petitioner indoors. She seemed very composed (there are really so many conversations with women on this show) and dropped the news that she was the daughter of the lady in the tapestry AND Cromwell’s own child. Can’t say I spotted the resemblance, but he should know whether he slept with Tapestry Lady at around the right time. Should also note that she looked like could have been the same age as the women Cromwell has been proposing to of late.
I’m going to put this out there, the race-blind casting is driving me spare. I am extremely sceptical that there were so many people from ethnic minorities around in Henry VIII’s court as there are among the background actors, (I could be wrong, not having done all the research Mantel did, but I doubt it.) It begs the question of why they’re bothering with verisimilitude like locations, costumes, instruments and so on. Why not dress everyone in boilersuits of different colours? Why not film it all in a warehouse and have graffiti up on the wall to tell us where it’s set? (It’d be cheaper!) Why not have Rylance play Henry and Lewis play Cromwell or have women play some of the king’s advisers? At least ‘My Lady Jane’ was anachronistic in other ways.
And, like the Royal Shakespeare Company, having race-blind casting for people who are playing characters related by blood (especially for a text obsessed with having heirs) is both ridiculous and distracting. It’s even worse in the mostly realistic medium of tv than in theatre. Last week it was, ‘Yeah, totally buying that Cardinal Wolsey had an affair with a South Asian woman in Tudor England.’) This week, it was ‘So, Bess Seymour is either younger or older than the other two and Daddy Seymour married twice, once to a Black woman, OR he was fine with his wife cuckolding him with one of the many Black men around in Tudor England. (If you’re going to ignore that the historic character was white, at least do the same for the characters they’re meant to be related to by blood.)
Yes, question assumptions about why a character has to be played by an able-bodied white actor in general, but not in realistic historical dramas. Creative choice when all your other choices lean towards accuracy? Distraction, more like.
(I picked the film title for the entry title after writing that.)
