The Queen on screen: A fascinating glimpse into the life of late monarch

Her discretion and the propensity to swim beneath the surface made her a favourite icon in Western cinema

Elizabeth II, the world’s longest-serving monarch, was also a character — or several. As a Bond Girl, she jumped out of a helicopter with James Bond and landed at the London Olympics stadium. As an animated character, she TKO-d Stuart the Minion. To Paddington Bear, she revealed that she carried a marmalade sandwich in her handbag for emergencies.

Helen Mirren, whose portrayal of the former monarch in The Queen (2006) is one of the most acclaimed, once described her as a submarine. “The Queen’s feelings, her history, and her emotions — everything she was as a human being — remained underwater. And the queen that we see is like the periscope that comes up and looks around.” Perhaps it was this discretion, this propensity to swim beneath the surface that also made her a favourite icon in Western cinema. Directors and writers have taken various degrees of creative freedom imagining the Queen, churning out an abundance of caricatures and satires.

Nor was Elizabeth II solely confined to British and American pop-culture texts. In India at least, I have the not-so-fond memory of Hrithik Roshan dressed as “the Queen” and sand surfing in Dhoom 2 (2006). There’s also Samantha Glendinning, as a stiff-upper-lipped Elizabeth who is almost offended by Krishnamachari Srikkanth’s face twitching in 83 (2021). However, while commercial ventures have mostly achieved lampoons, a more colourful study of the Queen’s connection with the Commonwealth can be found in documentaries.

There’s the Reuters-Gaumont British Newsreel documentary of her 1952 trip to Kenya, where Princess Elizabeth became the Queen. Five years into her marriage with Prince Philip, the future Queen was at her Kenyan home Sagana Lodge when she received the news of her father’s demise and her accession to the throne. The film is rife with all the usual “Royal Visit” flavours — parades and polite smiles, garland and handwaves from open-top cars. But tucked away amidst these are a few amusing scenes meant to document the royal couple’s personal moments at the Treetops Hotel. One wonders what brief the filmmakers must have received, for filming these scenes. As the Prince and Princess marvel at Kenya’s wildlife reserves, engrossed in private conversations, the camera obstinately holds on to long or medium-long shots, as if the viewers are themselves spying two exotic creatures in the safari. One almost expects David Attenborough’s voiceover to boom out, goading us to silently observe their “regal restrain.” While the production mostly holds the mould of state-sponsored documentaries, the setting of the African savannah and the peculiar cinematography presents a unique post-colonial commentary on the eve of King George VI’s passing. Incidentally, though, these shots also provide a rare glimpse at the queen as a young woman, in equal parts curious and apprehensive as she traverses new terrains, both literally and metaphorically.  

Two years later, Queen Elizabeth would star in the first feature-length documentary made in colour in Australia, documenting her first visit as the reigning monarch in 1954. The Queen in Australia is a very different, very extravagant affair. Kevin Murphy, director of the News and Information Bureau, Department of the Interior, had decreed that the film should “present Australia against a royal background, rather than royalty against an Australian background.” As if on cue, the 1-hour film lays out elaborate panoramic shots of Australia’s cricket grounds, tennis courts, beaches, safaris, and broad streets thronged by its masses as they wave to the Queen. There are multiple scenes of Australian people listening to the Queen’s speech on the radio. This is not in fact a film about her, but about a nation in thrall of her, hungry to prove their Britishness. Here, the Queen is but a catalyst for Australia to precipitate on screen.

The images aren’t always as flattering, however. Amidst the several horse races, rose-garden tours, or the visits to the Victoria Memorial and the Taj Mahal, that mark the Queen’s three trips to India (1961, 1983, and 1997), lies hidden yet another piece of amusing documentary filmmaking. In a short clip from the ’83 trip, available now on the Royal Family’s official YouTube channel, is a snide piece of commentary on India’s then-prime minister Indira Gandhi’s adherence to astrology. The narrator observes that while “the queen is almost never late,” she is five minutes behind her schedule because Mrs Gandhi “takes advice from astrologers.” The voiceover goes on to explain that the original published time of noon was deemed inauspicious by a “very eminent astrologer.” Even as the scene quickly resumes a more formal tone, the momentary sharpness remains as a punctum.

It’s a fascinating canvas, overall. From an unwitting object of spectacle to a catalyst of national pandering or casual prejudice, the documentary avatars of Queen Elizabeth II are perhaps also the starkest reminder of Mirren’s submarine — a metal cocoon of official narratives that inadvertently politicised her interactions with the world.