I agree that a level of violence and realism is acceptable. What I am saying is that this particular show has far surpassed that level. It ventured into the area of gruesome, gratuitously shocking violence on a level with some japanese horror movies I watched accidentally. In my opinion 15 and an evening screening is far too low a rating for these scenes. I usually have a fairly high tolerance level for violence, a film with a 15 or R rating is usually not going to make me have trouble sleeping or feel sick, so I expect to be able to watch a film in this genre with those ratings without worrying about that. But the only way to avoid being upset by these sort of images, I suppose, is to throw your tv out the window, you never know what lengths they will go to next.
It is possible to portray these violent scenes with a sense of realism without making your audience feel physically sick, but making the audience sick was clearly what they had in mind with this film. Elizabeth with Cate Blanchett had some scenes of violence, so did Gladiator, Band of Brothers, and a lot of other historic films and war films, but some how they managed to give a vivid and realistic sense of violence, and make compelling statements about violence, without resorting to these nauseating shock tactics. It's about the way it is done, the context, the timing, the lighting... the execution scenes in this film were done in the style of a horror film. I did not sense that it was about realism or compelling the audience's emotions, but about grossing people out, in which case it's the wrong audience, it's out of place. The violence is all the more upsetting because it's for the wrong reasons. Besides all of that, can't we leave anything to the imagination?
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NortonAddict
17 years ago
I thought that the violence in this movie was absolutely appropriate, at for the right reasons rather than the wrong. It wasn't all about grossing out the audience but more like to show what's at stake, accentuate the drama.
It shows how Essex has so little regard for other people that he would condemn the Queen's innocent doctor to such a fate, and the penalty most definitely isn't pretty for treason. It also showed how serious Elizabeth was about both the crime of uprising/treason and almost reluctant to inflict its punishment. She normally would have that done to a few people and just have the rest hung or imprisoned. How would you like to have something like that on your conscience?
Mary of Scots got off relatively lightly, and it was just bad luck that her death required two strokes. Elizabeth spent a long time agonizing over what to do with MQoS, a major problem in her reign.
Would you have had the producers give the movie a more restrictive rating and show it even later at night, or would you rather have the more tasteful scene of torture/execution that Braveheart had?
The emphasis was on meaning for the characters and plot with a side of intense realistic violence. I didn't like it, it bothered me, but I appreciated it.
Nort
"You must LOVE the little birdies to give them this to perch on."
- "Roxanne"
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