The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018)

[domino harvey]

Lanthimos directs and photographs Emma Stone's photo shoot for W

[mfunk9786]

From the look of that one, of course he did

[BenoitRouilly]

Spoiler

Did anyone think the film overstated Abigail's villainy? Not that she isn't nasty, narcissistic, conniving, and whatever else––but who in this film isn't?

The biggest offense she commits, almost killing Sarah, was mostly an accident (she neither knew how strong the poison was, nor that Sarah would promptly go riding), and other than that, all she really wants is to be reinstated to her former rank. Her villainy consists of personal backstabbing and emotional manipulation, but rarely does she actually care about maliciously hurting other people (even her final acts to assure Sarah's expulsion are motivated by self-defense rather than any contempt for Sarah).

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Abigail even tears up when she burns Sarah's last (intercepted) letter to Anne. So she's not painted heartless, and is sincerly moved by their affair.

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Likewise, it's a key ambiguity of the film about whether Sarah explicitly loves Anne, or if she loves the power that Anne provides. The burning of the letters suggests the former, but not strongly enough to eliminate the latter from consideration.

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Sarah gives up trying to return to her position as soon as the Queen turns her down in the secret corridor, behind a closed door after she handed over her key. She moves to her estate and even welcomes her fate when the exil is pronounced. Only if she was in love and betrayed would she accept her fate like that.

Spoiler

Anne is oblivious for the most part, a truly pathetic (in its original use) individual who is haunted by dead children and plagued by gout. Her scene with Abigail where it is revealed she keeps the rabbits for each dead child is the strongest moment in the film by far, perfectly understated.

Spoiler

The rabbits metaphor is subtle and tacit. Showing more than telling. One of the first scenes Sarah is repusled by the idea to pet the rabbits. It's "macabre" She says I believe. But we don't know why yet. Then Abigail connects with Anne through the rabbits. And lastly, Abigail is shown stepping on one rabbit as the Queen sleeps. Always the attitude toward the rabbit informs the thinking of the characters.
Now, I have no idea what to make of the rabbits multitude superimposition...

[domino harvey]

Spoiler

I don’t think she’s a villain either. I’ve been deeply disappointed by all the responses I’ve read to this movie (here and elsewhere) that ignore (or are ignorant of) what it says about the importance of class and social mobility in the society of the film. Stone is really the protagonist here and the film tracks how she uses all methods at her disposal to first reachieve her former status and then surpass it, only for the film to damn her to a not dissimilar fate as that which awaited her whoring on the street regardless. It’s a variation of the film’s basic All About Eve riff but in many ways crueler since there’s no Addison DeWitt or a fan club booster to single out as the vehicle of vengeance but the non-corporeal class system itself.

[dda1996a]

Spoiler

I don’t think she’s a villain either. I’ve been deeply disappointed by all the responses I’ve read to this movie (here and elsewhere) that ignore (or are ignorant of) what it says about the importance of class and social mobility in the society of the film. Stone is really the protagonist here and the film tracks how she uses all methods at her disposal to first reachieve her former status and then surpass it, only for the film to damn her to a not dissimilar fate as that which awaited her whoring on the street regardless. It’s a variation of the film’s basic All About Eve riff but in many ways crueler since there’s no Addison DeWitt or a fan club booster to single out as the vehicle of vengeance but the non-corporeal class system itself.

Interesting read, which made me realize Weisz's character is also lead into a very similar situation in a way.

[TMDaines]

Can we rethink spoiler policy in films' own threads? The last few posts are laborious to read!

[BenoitRouilly]

Anyone knows how accurate are the characters and events portrayed in the film? The whole tone of the film feels very modern, especially the attitudes of the protagonists...

[MichaelB]

Here’s one of Queen Anne’s biographers (and, crucially, someone very familiar with the source letters that inspired the script) on the subject.

Incidentally, there’s at least one graphic lesbian scene in John Cleland’s Fanny Hill, written only a few decades later. (I’ve spoilered it for the prudish, but it’s unlikely to trigger any NSFW filters.)

Spoiler

”No!" says Phoebe, "you must not, my sweet girl, think to hide all these treasures from me. My sight must be feasted as my touch. I must devour with my eyes this springing bosom. Suffer me to kiss it. I have not seen it enough. Let me kiss it once more. What firm, smooth, white flesh is here! How delicately shaped! Then this delicious down! Oh! let me view the small, dear, tender cleft! This is too much, I cannot bear it! I must! I must!" Here she took my hand, and in a transport carried it where you will easily guess. But what a difference in the state of the same thing! A spreading thicket of bushy curls marked the full grown, complete woman. Then the cavity to which she guided my hand easily received it; and as soon as she felt it within her, she moved herself to and fro, with so rapid a friction, that I presently withdrew it, wet and clammy, when instantly Phoebe grew more composed, after two or three sighs, and heart-fetched Oh's! and giving me a kiss that seemed to exhale her soul through her lips, she replaced the bed-clothes over us. What pleasure she had found I will not say; but this I know, that the first sparks of kindling nature, the first ideas of pollution, were caught by me that night; and that the acquaintance and communication with the bad of our sex, is often as fatal to innocence as all the seductions of the other. But to go on. When Phoebe was restored to that calm, which I was far from the enjoyment of myself, she artfully sounded me on all the points necessary to govern the designs of my virtuous mistress on me, and by my answers, drawn from pure undissembled nature, she had no reason but to promise herself all imaginable success, so far as it depended on my ignorance, easiness and warmth of constitution.

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

Even closer to Queen Anne's date––in Daniel Defoe's novel Roxana (1720s), there's a sequence where the (priorly married) narrator states that she openly watched a suitor of her's have sex with her maid (indeed, the narrator also suggests that she pushed her maid to do so). Regarding sexuality, The Favourite is not anachronistic.

Edit: Here is the actual passage, courtesy of Gutenberg (sadly, without all of the unruly texture of the initial text).

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At night, when we came to go to bed, Amy came into the chamber to undress me, and her master slipped into bed first; then I began, and told him all that Amy had said about my not being with child, and of her being with child twice in that time. "Ay, Mrs. Amy," says he, "I believe so too. Come hither, and, we'll try." But Amy did not go. "Go, you fool," says I, "can't you? I freely give you both leave." But Amy would not go. "Nay, you whore," says I, "you said, if I would put you to bed, you would with all your heart." And with that I sat her down, pulled off her stockings and shoes, and all her clothes piece by piece, and led her to the bed to him. "Here," says I, "try what you can do with your maid Amy." She pulled back a little, would not let me pull off her clothes at first, but it was hot weather, and she had not many clothes on, and particularly no stays on; and at last, when she saw I was in earnest, she let me do what I would. So I fairly stripped her, and then I threw open the bed and thrust her in.

I need say no more. This is enough to convince anybody that I did not think him my husband, and that I had cast off all principle and all modesty, and had effectually stifled conscience.

Amy, I dare say, began now to repent, and would fain have got out of bed again; but he said to her, "Nay, Amy, you see your mistress has put you to bed; 'tis all her doing; you must blame her." So he held her fast, and the wench being naked in the bed with him, it was too late to look back, so she lay still and let him do what he would with her.

Had I looked upon myself as a wife, you cannot suppose I would have been willing to have let my husband lie with my maid, much less before my face, for I stood by all the while; but as I thought myself a whore, I cannot say but that it was something designed in my thoughts that my maid should be a whore too, and should not reproach me with it.

[MichaelB]

And anyone familiar with the writing of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (several decades before Queen Anne’s reign) will know that the language isn’t out of step either.

Here’s a sample, but this really is NSFW:

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The Imperfect Enjoyment

Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms,
I filled with love, and she all over charms;
Both equally inspired with eager fire,
Melting through kindness, flaming in desire.
With arms, legs, lips close clinging to embrace,
She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face.
Her nimble tongue, love’s lesser lightning, played
Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed
Swift orders that I should prepare to throw
The all-dissolving thunderbolt below.
My fluttering soul, sprung with the pointed kiss,
Hangs hovering o’er her balmy brinks of bliss.
But whilst her busy hand would guide that part
Which should convey my soul up to her heart,
In liquid raptures I dissolve all o’er,
Melt into sperm, and spend at every pore.
A touch from any part of her had done ’t:
Her hand, her foot, her very look's a cunt.
Smiling, she chides in a kind murmuring noise,
And from her body wipes the clammy joys,
When, with a thousand kisses wandering o’er
My panting bosom, “Is there then no more?”
She cries. “All this to love and rapture’s due;
Must we not pay a debt to pleasure too?”
But I, the most forlorn, lost man alive,
To show my wished obedience vainly strive:
I sigh, alas! and kiss, but cannot swive.
Eager desires confound my first intent,
Succeeding shame does more success prevent,
And rage at last confirms me impotent.
Ev’n her fair hand, which might bid heat return
To frozen age, and make cold hermits burn,
Applied to my dear cinder, warms no more
Than fire to ashes could past flames restore.
Trembling, confused, despairing, limber, dry,
A wishing, weak, unmoving lump I lie.
This dart of love, whose piercing point, oft tried,
With virgin blood ten thousand maids has dyed,
Which nature still directed with such art
That it through every cunt reached every heart—
Stiffly resolved, ’twould carelessly invade
Woman or man, nor ought its fury stayed:
Where’er it pierced, a cunt it found or made—
Now languid lies in this unhappy hour,
Shrunk up and sapless like a withered flower.
Thou treacherous, base deserter of my flame,
False to my passion, fatal to my fame,
Through what mistaken magic dost thou prove
So true to lewdness, so untrue to love?
What oyster-cinder-beggar-common whore
Didst thou e’er fail in all thy life before?
When vice, disease, and scandal lead the way,
With what officious haste doest thou obey!
Like a rude, roaring hector in the streets
Who scuffles, cuffs, and justles all he meets,
But if his king or country claim his aid,
The rakehell villain shrinks and hides his head;
Ev’n so thy brutal valor is displayed,
Breaks every stew, does each small whore invade,
But when great Love the onset does command,
Base recreant to thy prince, thou dar’st not stand.
Worst part of me, and henceforth hated most,
Through all the town a common fucking post,
On whom each whore relieves her tingling cunt
As hogs on gates do rub themselves and grunt,
Mayst thou to ravenous chancres be a prey,
Or in consuming weepings waste away;
May strangury and stone thy days attend;
May’st thou never piss, who didst refuse to spend
When all my joys did on false thee depend.
And may ten thousand abler pricks agree
To do the wronged Corinna right for thee.

[Magic Hate Ball]

Here’s one of Queen Anne’s biographers (and, crucially, someone very familiar with the source letters that inspired the script) on the subject.

"If everyone was like you, society would disintegrate" is a line good enough to launch a Sarah-focused sequel.

[BenoitRouilly]

Thanks for the interview link, (and for the quotes) that's quite illuminating. Despite what he set out to do, without a care for historical reconstitution, Lanthimos' film is rather accurate in the spirit and in the period sets and costumes.

We could cite as well Le Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) for his crude language and liberine sexual fantasies.

Spoiler

What surprises me most is the relationship between Abigail and her soon-to-be husband, who is quite patient and subdued by her, in a time when men of the nobless had "droit de cuissage" (as we say in French), the feudal right of sexual abuse of women be it servants or vassals's wives. (Although it might be a different story in England). It seems incredible that he would not have her his way as she was just a servant, and instead develop a kind of galant courtship that only existed between royalties...

[domino harvey]

Spoiler

I assumed that’s why he caught Stone’s eye in the first place, because he’d be a gallant pushover and she needed the marriage to someone above her station to make her social rise possible. As we see on their honeymoon night, this isn’t a conventional romantic endeavor, at least for Stone!

[BenoitRouilly]

Sorry for another round of spoiler...

Spoiler

But was his nature that of a pushover when we first meet him? He looked like an agressive womanizer on a prowl. He was after an easy prey, a servant, and finds a lady in disguise. But I don't think his Casanova nature would change even with a lady. He's a lady-killer. He doesn't look clever enough to be interested in a strong woman (who would push him over).
So is it the power of seduction of Abigail that tames him like a nice dog, because she's different from the other women? Should we credit her for this sudden transformation?
Abigail reverses the gender roles, and acts out like a heartbreaker for men, which is contrary to the rule of the epoch. She's the man. And women who behaved as such were defamed at the time. Even Sarah who has a powerful man-like personality is a nice little wife at home.
The scene of Abigail teasing/assaulting him in the woods is funny indeed, but is it realistic? She seems to overstep her position and gender, in this push-pull relationship that used to be the prerogative of men only back then.
But maybe that is the key of her role in the film, to be this one-of-a-kind almighty creature who transcends gender and social stature to dominate even the most powerful protagonists be it men or women or queen.

[mfunk9786]

This is on sale for $9.99 in 4K digital (and is MoviesAnywhere eligible so if you buy it in one place it'll be available cross-service)

[domino harvey]

Lanthimos reteaming with Stone for an installation piece that will play to live orchestral accompaniment this spring in Greece

[therewillbeblus]

Lanthimos reteaming with Stone for an installation piece that will play to live orchestral accompaniment this spring in Greece

Plane tickets from Boston to Greece that weekend ~$800 8-[

[therewillbeblus]

It seems there hasn't been much or anything written about Hulu series The Great on here, but I'd encourage those who enjoyed McNamara's satirical wit of overemphasized indulgences and attention to absurd anachronisms in The Favourite to check it out. This kind of histrionic material is often best dished out in small doses, and I had to take a long break after binging most of season one, but it falls into a light rhythm of amusing dynamic shifts and smart narrative turns that pays off well, and Hoult and Fanning are fantastic in their respective parts - Hoult clearly cast to heighten his established capacity to be an oblivious dick to a whole new level. What I didn’t expect was for deliberate focus to land on a developing dysfunctional relationship between the two leads, and I appreciate how the show gives us sturdy bites of this whilst committing to other elements worthy of our attention, and never assuring us with where these explorations will end up - highly fictional historical fiction is the best kind. Sadly this has been cancelled after three seasons but hopefully they wrapped it up nicely

[The Curious Sofa]

I really tried to get on board with The Great due to the almost universal acclaim but bailed half way through season 2. You are right about 'small doses', I think the show would have worked far better as half hour episodes. Eventually the back and forth between Catherine and Peter got too repetitive

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(he is eating her out..... again! and she enjoys it and is confused by it....again !)

and the jokes too predictable for me. I didn't outright dislike it, I just felt I had gotten the point. I wasn't the least bit curious about where it will go next and at an hour, every episode of what is a rather lightweight show and which so often runs in circles, became a drag and I never went back to it.

I think Sophia Coppola did this type of thing best with Marie Antoinette, which despite the anachronisms, connects with history and the psychology of the characters in a more meaningful way, while being both funny and tragic.

[MichaelB]

I watched the first couple of episodes and enjoyed them well enough, but, as ever with me and television, I took a too-long break, never got back to it, and now probably won’t.

[colinr0380]

I like to think of The Great as having the same relationship to The Favourite as Downton Abbey has to Gosford Park, and could be seen as Channel 4's 'shockingly boundary pushing' (but not really) raunchier take on an ITV period series. Broader (in all senses), more sprawling for the television format, and with all the pluses and minuses (grander scope, but less targeted focus) that go along with that.

[therewillbeblus]

All good points, it’s nowhere near as focused and brilliant as The Favourite and inevitably has to repeat material - but I was grateful it stopped going for gags built solely around the shock possible in language, which is an annoying writer-y thing to do. Honestly it feels like three seasons is probably long enough, and surely overstayed the welcome of McNamara‘s source play! I wonder how that would compare to the Lanthimos scripts

[Mr Sausage]

I think Sophia Coppola did this type of thing best with Marie Antoinette, which despite the anachronisms, connects with history and the psychology of the characters in a more meaningful way, while being both funny and tragic.

Which anachronisms do you mean?

[The Curious Sofa]

I think Sophia Coppola did this type of thing best with Marie Antoinette, which despite the anachronisms, connects with history and the psychology of the characters in a more meaningful way, while being both funny and tragic.

Which anachronisms do you mean?

Rather than focusing on the political context, Coppola is interested in drawing parallels to contemporary celebrity culture, a central theme in most of her films. She frames Antoinette as the Paris Hilton of her day. This was a main criticism of the movie at the time, but of course is what makes it a great Sophia Coppola film. There are contemporary props in the movie, like the famous pair of Converse sneakers among her shopping bounty, Marie Antoinette is listening to New Order and The Strokes. She will never fit in, because she is a hip, young woman trapped in a rigid, outdated system and Coppola underlines this by placing her ahead of her times.

The use of modern pop music in period pieces has been much imitated since, by the time of The Great, what once felt fresh, has become a cliche.