Anne Boleyn

I'm loving Lady Rochford. She's such a great character for an actor. Jessica Raine was brilliantly poisonous playing her in Wolf Hall.

I’m not going to bother to watch it after so many negative reviews.

The multi racial casting isn’t a problem for me, it adds something positive. I haven’t watched it yet though and given the comments here, about poor acting and dialogue, may give it a miss.

The awful Lawrence Fox is rambling on again. He says it’s racist to have a black actor play Ann Boleyn. Hopeless

Perhaps there will be a surprise ending tonight; the rowing boat royal barge sent to convey Anne Boleyn to the Tower didn't look as though it would make it to the middle of the river before capsizing.

The entire cast, with the notable exception of Anna Brewster as Lady Rochford, are lacklustre. She would have made a far better Anne Boleyn.

I think I'm finding the dialogue poor because the dialogue in Wolf Hall was so beautifully written.

I noticed they were calling Henry Your Highness tonight. Henry had started using the title Your Majesty by now but used it interchangeably with Your Highness and Your Grace.

we don't seem to have had any of the new insights into Anne that we were promised.
No, it has been disappointing in that respect.

I think Henry and Cromwell are pretty much in the background as it is Anne's story, but you are right that we aren't seeing her in much of a new light.

The cast is multi-racial, so Anne being black doesn't make a statement, which I'm pleased about.

The dialogue is pretty poor too. I'll stick with it, as there's only one episode left, but I'm quite disappointed in it.

Dialogue is poor and people who don't know the history must be wondering who half the characters are. Henry is still disappointing or as Anne said tonight "pathetic" I was thinking that if they had chosen to do an all black production Lenny Henry would have made a good Henry. He's got the height and the presence to be really scary. What I have noticed is that Anne being black isn't bothering me at all now I'm much more annoyed by the whole production - that woman with the fringe for a start. Nobody had a fringe then, women were plucking their hair out to get a high forehead, not covering it with hair. Cromwell is coming across as an ineffectual idiot instead of the most powerful man at court and we don't seem to have had any of the new insights into Anne that we were promised.

No, eazybee it wasn’t good at all, I’m afraid. Hammy and poorly directed, don’t you think?

Re what Terribull^ refers to as " the disconnect between blaming the Jews for everything and our saviour Jesus being a Jew hence trying to eliminate what surely would have been his ethnicity" and most artists depicting him as a rather feminine-looking european, Max Liebermann, a German Jewish artist painted him in 1879 as a distinctly Jewish 12-year-old urchin confronting the learned Temple leaders. The reaction to the painting was so hostile that he changed it..
This is the work that survives -. arthive.com/maxliebermann/works/402129~Twelve_year_old_Jesus_in_the_temple

And this a preserved sketch of the original work - arthive.com/maxliebermann/works/402130~Twelve_year_old_Jesus_in_the_temple_Sketch

"Impressed by the strong negative reaction to his work, Max Liebermann changed the figure of Christ. However, to get some idea about the original intention we can. Preserved sketch looking at which, you can imagine why so outraged the guardians of morality and supporters an extremely Patriotic spirit. In addition, there a photocopy of the original. No emotion of the Central figure of Christ in this embodiment does not cause. Before us, barefoot, in rags, leaving no doubt the nationality of the nose of a rascal. Tense hands and angular, sharp posture clearly indicate that he entered into a bitter dispute with the Church elders. " Author: Alain Esaulova

I have just watched the first episode.
It wasn't very good, was it.

Lin52

The Kell theory has been known and talked about amongst Academics for a while, there is also a huge following of Boleyn on You tube, run by an expert and author of books on the Tudor period. It doesn’t take the playing of her by Smith to define her, and tell us differently. Apparently it is historically inaccurate too. Still a bit of fantasy is all too quickly counted as fact. Not many will check them, just believe it.

I'm not sure of your point in this post, Lin52.

There is a link to an article on Kell theory at the start of this thread, and yes, there is the Anne Boleyn Society on YouTube (which is very interesting), as well as numerous other sources of information.

Are you saying in the second half of your post that because of this the new portrayal is not going to define Anne, or that it will, because people will take it as Gospel and believe it as 'fact' without checking the events portrayed?

IMO, it's just a drama. I have a particular interest in AB, for reasons I don't want to go into on here, but I would never take the portrayal of her (or anyone else) in a TV drama as 'fact', and I doubt that anyone with a knowledge of History would do so. And if people do believe the story in the series as being definitive, why would it matter? TV is not intended as exclusively educational, is it?

I do wish that media studies were a compulsory subject at school, so that people were taught the difference between documentary and drama, education and entertainment, and also the difference between received wisdom and fact.

I'm not saying that you don't understand the difference between these things, by the way - that is a general observation - I'm just struggling to understand what point you are making in your post.

Chestnut

Whitewavemark2

Chestnut

Terribull - your last post was spot on. I have been joking around about what Jesus looked like, but we all know he was Jewish and unlikely to be blonde with blue eyes. He certainly has been depicted over the decades with a northern European appearance in books, paintings and movies. This was to appeal to the people (or audience) for whom they were intended. Movie makers want a big audience and maximum profit, so they will cast people who they feel will achieve that. They also need someone with superb acting skills and great screen presence, and maybe the person chosen fitted that bill.

Just like the Anne Boleyn actress?

It's highly likely 'the Anne Boleyn actress' (her name is Jodie Turner-Smith by the way) was chosen because she was black. She is a very beautiful American actress and model, so the question you should be asking is whether she was chosen not only for being black, but for her beauty. Are there no English actresses, black or white, not quite so beautiful, who could play this part equally well?

No I was asking about her acting ability. “Superb acting skills, great screen presence”

Are we not supposed to say actor now. Well I have to say I was a bit disappointed with the programme last night. Nothing to do with Anne/Jodie, just that it came across as a bit clunky. I thought it was going to be dynamic and no idea what else but it didn't light my fire. I don't think we'll be bothering tonight. Shame really.

Can Scottish actresses apply?

Or is the rule very strict indeed?

Whitewavemark2

Chestnut

Terribull - your last post was spot on. I have been joking around about what Jesus looked like, but we all know he was Jewish and unlikely to be blonde with blue eyes. He certainly has been depicted over the decades with a northern European appearance in books, paintings and movies. This was to appeal to the people (or audience) for whom they were intended. Movie makers want a big audience and maximum profit, so they will cast people who they feel will achieve that. They also need someone with superb acting skills and great screen presence, and maybe the person chosen fitted that bill.

Just like the Anne Boleyn actress?

It's highly likely 'the Anne Boleyn actress' (her name is Jodie Turner-Smith by the way) was chosen because she was black. She is a very beautiful American actress and model, so the question you should be asking is whether she was chosen not only for being black, but for her beauty. Are there no English actresses, black or white, not quite so beautiful, who could play this part equally well?

I think this excerpt from "An Education" personified that uncomfortable feelings Christians sometimes have with Jesus' Jewishness. Not verbatim, but it went something like this.

Head teacher played by Emma Thompson to pupil played by Carey Mulligan.

"Whatever would Our Lord think, you are going out with a Jewish man"

reply "Our Lord was a Jewish man"

Head teacher looked stunned as if she'd been smacked around the face with a wet kipper! but that scene summed up that subliminal uneasy discomfort that I think has been around for centuries the disconnect between blaming the Jews for everything and our saviour Jesus being a Jew hence trying to eliminate what surely would have been his ethnicity, as you also say Chestnut in all forms of art.

Just my theory anyway!

Wasn't the best of write-ups about the drama was it ?
I watched a brain and heart operation---far more entertaining.

Chestnut

Terribull - your last post was spot on. I have been joking around about what Jesus looked like, but we all know he was Jewish and unlikely to be blonde with blue eyes. He certainly has been depicted over the decades with a northern European appearance in books, paintings and movies. This was to appeal to the people (or audience) for whom they were intended. Movie makers want a big audience and maximum profit, so they will cast people who they feel will achieve that. They also need someone with superb acting skills and great screen presence, and maybe the person chosen fitted that bill.

Just like the Anne Boleyn actress?

Terribull - your last post was spot on. I have been joking around about what Jesus looked like, but we all know he was Jewish and unlikely to be blonde with blue eyes. He certainly has been depicted over the decades with a northern European appearance in books, paintings and movies. This was to appeal to the people (or audience) for whom they were intended. Movie makers want a big audience and maximum profit, so they will cast people who they feel will achieve that. They also need someone with superb acting skills and great screen presence, and maybe the person chosen fitted that bill.

Of course black makes sense in the Christian religion as the first homo Sapiens originated in the African continent, and apparently man was made in the image of god ergo God is black.

Much art in the Coptic orthodoxy has Jesus as black.

oops sabres Sabras

I always wondered about the very fair haired, blue eyed Jesus complete with pulsating heart that hung in the hallway of my close friend's very Irish. Catholic parents house whenever I went round there, which was quite often when I was a child. My parents had told me that Aryan image of Jesus often depicted in religious art was completely false, maybe because my dad's family were dark, swarthy and southern European. I imagine Jewish men living in Palestine 2000 years ago to be very dark and quite Arabic in appearance, quite like the Jewish Sabres who don't have that fairish diluted look that some of the Jews that emanate from European communities and emigrated to Israel have.

Sometimes I am prone to think that Jews have been so vilified over the centuries in almost every European community, it seemed as if that Jewishness was deliberately being airbrushed away in artistic representations of Jesus. Most paintings of him, as far as I am aware were painted by Europeans and that is how they represented him, as a European, not an Arab, as that was the ideal and far more palatable but it wasn't the truth!

Greta

I wonder whether a black actress was ever considered for the role of Queen Elizabeth II.

To play that role requires the heavy use of white make-up as that is what the women wore. Probably not considered pc!

I wonder whether a black actress was ever considered for the role of Queen Elizabeth II.