3 PM – Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire. Back in the nave of Winchester cathedral for a sequence in which Elizabeth gives her orders to make England ready for the imminent Armada. England at the time had no standing army but relied upon the system of commissions of array. In theory all her major lords were required [...]
Wednesday 17th May, 2006
9 AM – ‘J’ Stage, Shepperton Studios. J stage is transformed this morning into a torture chamber in the Tower of London. There are a lot of common misconceptions about crime and punishment in the Tudor period. Despite the ‘chamber of horrors’ image we have of this time, executions were rarer than in the following [...]
Monday 15th May, 2006
Today we’re in the nave of Winchester cathedral, magnificently remodelled by William of Wykeham in the early 15th century. Not surprisingly however this is not Winchester for us, but St. Paul’s cathedral in London. St Paul’s – old St. Paul’s that is – was gutted in the great fire of London in 1666 and then [...]
Thursday 11th/ Friday12th May, 2006
Shooting in Winchester cathedral, one of my favourite buildings in England, dating in part from the late 11th century. For most of these two days we’re in the Lady chapel where we meet Anthony Babington – I won’t say in what context as it’s a pivotal moment in the film. The Babington plot against Elizabeth [...]
The Editor of Bandit Queen
Renu Saluja, who edited Bandit Queen died a few years after, still very young. She was one of the best editors in India. The Film and Television Institute of India is paying a tribute to her. Here is mine ... For me it is difficult to separate the person from the work. I have fought [...]
History’onics’
There was hue and cry in the British Press when I made Elizabeth. She was called the Virgin Queen and I showed her in bed with Robert Dudley. How, I asked the Historians, do you know ? She had a number of liasons. Because she declared herself so, was the most stock answer, and because [...]
The Void
Those of us that carry inside us an immense darkness are blessed by God for we have been given the choice to fill the void with what we chose it's an empty vessel waiting to be filled with love do not deny the need the craving the fear the longing for love or else the [...]
Where did time go ?
Yesterday was the first day of the shoot. And on paper it says I have shot for three weeks Which is true time ? my emotional time or the percieved one ? Has the world changed in the meanwhile ? Am I like an intergalactic traveller that came back to earth and found that time [...]
Wednesday 10th May, 2006
2 PM Hatfield House, Hertfordshire. The whole of today is set aside to shoot a scene of Walsingham and his brother in the study in his London house on Seething Lane. There are books everywhere, on row after row of oak bookcase, on tables and desks. Here too are the possessions of gentleman of his [...]
Thursday 4th May, 2006
3.20 PM Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield, London. One of the pivotal moments in the film is being shot today in this beautiful 12th century church - the execution by beheading of Mary Queen of Scots. Mary was executed on the morning of 8th February, 1587 at the now ruined castle of [...]