D.‘suddenly, Queen Elizabeth closed her eyes. That instant becomes photography. If you think about it, there is nothing less imperial than a sovereign who closes her eyes and becomes a person like all of us again. Inspired by the homonymous book by Paola Calvetti, Portrait of a queen is the beautiful docufilm by Fabrizio Ferri awaited in cinemas from 21 to 23 Novemberafter the preview at the Rome Film Festival.
Queen Elizabeth II. Photo: CAMERA PRESS / Richard Slade. Her majesty the queen at a polo match at Smith’s Lawn at Windsor Great Park in 1980.
Ferri is a photographer who questions other photographers. And those who are no longer among us are told, in the meetings with Elizabeth II, through the diaries, returned with the voice of the actor Charles Dance. The shot with eyes closed (entitled Lightness of Being) is due to Chris Levine, one of the many star photographers who have had the privilege of portraying the sovereign, “Who reacted differently with each of them.” Levine works and experiments with light. While he told her about her project – to create a “stylized image” with a simple crown and a single string of pearls – Elisabetta “remained impassive, it was a surreal situation, perhaps it was a defense mechanism”. Levine explained her process to her, how she used technology by projecting her gaze “not towards the camera but towards the future”; he talked to her about complicated things, about meditation and the centrality of breathing functional to his holograms and stereograms of her. “Then I asked her if she would like to rest and she closed her eyes. It was the image with the deepest impact, it was what I was looking for: stillness makes you enter a deeper realm ».
The real Queen Elizabeth
Other images refer to a completely different idea of Elizabeth II. For example, when, overturning Buckingham Palace’s no that he considered it inappropriate, he gave permission to publish a photo taken by Brian Aris. It was on the occasion of the Jubilee, she portrayed next to her campaign boots: “That shot was so successful that it became a postage stamp in Canada.” Or when Aris dropped her camera, she was caught on the fly by her assistant, the queen burst into laughter, the photographer instinctively immortalized herportraying it in an unusual way, out of protocol.
The challenge of photographing Queen Elizabeth
The challenge for all these protagonists of the image who have alternated in the 96 years of the queen’s life was to reconcile formality and spontaneity, having memorized the Word: respect. It is about capturing the soul sometimes in a simple way, behind the apparently inaccessible expression. Here is the shot of the exultation on his face after the victory of his horse, the binoculars in his right hand. Photographer and director Antony Armstrong-Jones (he became the Earl of Snowdon, known for being married to Princess Margaret, the Queen’s younger sister) aimed for intimacy, the “more human and ordinary” aspect. So at Balmoral Castle, Scotland, he asked his Majesty about her where he spent most of his time. They went to the fireplace which, however, had no firewood, it worked with a shabby electric mechanism; she wanted to change her dress and went up the steps two at a time. Antony began to shoot, but did not have time to focus the lens and those photos of the queen eating the steps, so hazy, have “an air of mystery.” But on that occasion the most impressive moment could not end in an image. It was when Antony heard a very loud whistle: it was her Elizabeth calling her horses, her whistles were for them, who recognized her and “they rubbed against her to have her cuddles.”
Queen Elizabeth II wearing the sash of the Order of the Star of the Garter, at Buckingham Palace in 1975.
Cecil Beaton, his first photographer
The Queen held the reins of the United Kingdom, the glue that united everything. Like this in the docufilm, Fabrizio Ferri interviews subjects or followers, famous and not famous. Susan Sarandon met Elizabeth “thanks to my little son, who was invited to work in Windsor. I met her after a polo match. Her friends advised me not to bow, because she is out of fashion. And not to talk to her unless asked. But I had to bend down, otherwise I couldn’t have shaken her hand. The newspapers wrote that I had not respected the protocol. She was very kind to me. It was not a long conversation: nice to meet you, the pleasure is mine. She didn’t have the luxury of making mistakes when she spoke. ‘
Isabella Rossellini says it instilled strength and remembers “her spontaneous smile”. Fabrizio Ferri and Paola Calvetti recall that she was the subject of paintings and murals, depicted on coins, printed on t-shirts and tea cups, represented in countless collectibles and souvenirs: “There is also a Barbie with her likeness”.
His way of speaking and moving has been studied by sociologists and historians, they tell in the films. “But it is above all the process of building her image of her that has made her enter the hearts of millions of people around the world.” The perspective of Ferri and Calvetti is unprecedented, telling the life of the queen through the great photographers. Nobody had thought of it, not even the BBC. “This Lady has never given interviews in her life, only official speeches. We thought we knew everything about her and we didn’t know anything“. Here are the first images of Cecil Beaton: on 2 June 1953 Princess Elizabeth is crowned and becomes Queen Elizabeth II. Photographer Henry Cartier-Bresson, “the eye of the century”, sought the reflection of events on the anonymous faces of the cheering crowd. Beaton wrote in his diary: «He entered with her ladies, calm and smiling, in control of the situation, but tired. I told her to sit in front of the Westminster Abbey backdrop. Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and her husband, made sharp jokes, he would have preferred another photographer, Baron, who was a friend of hers ».
Queen Elizabeth is in the history of photography
Ferri reconstructs the emotion, the nervousness, the embarrassment of photographers. The relationship was reversed: it was the one who was portrayed, the queen, who had to reassure the photographer. Once the photographer John Swannell asked her to smile, she did not speak and did not smile; Swannell asked him another two, three times, he did not know how to do it, until Elizabeth’s assistant told him: «Her she Majesty of hers does not smile on command». On the ramparts of Windsor she was portrayed at sunset, she had an unusual pose, leaned forward, the assistant said: the photos are beautiful but they could not be used, the queen would never go to the ramparts in formal dress. They reported the photographer’s displeasure to the queen who gave him a second chance, taking him to a magnificent room in the castle where she could wear that dress.
Emma Blau, photographer and co-owner of the Camera Press Agency (founded in 1947 by her grandfather), holds 12 million images and takes care of those of royalty. She says that the queen was portrayed “for ninety years, which is half the history of photography”. There are the images of Elisabetta in the 1950s, «more glamorous, like a movie star»; in the ’60s you feel the influence of photojournalism, and of a “more relaxed and intimate” style; in modern portraiture the styles have amalgamated. Ferri’s biggest regret is that he did not have the opportunity to photograph Elisabetta: how would she have stopped her in an instant? “A portrait must look at you. I would have liked to be looked at by her, to feel called by her eyes ». Her style is a language and the closest and most congenial means to her, the one that made her love her father, was her camera. Elisabetta has been the subject of image reports which, somehow without her permission, have transformed her into an icon.
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