The Golden Age - Interview with Shekhar Kapur

Excerpt from Shekhar Kapur's interview with moviesonline.com Q: Would you define this Elizabeth as historical fiction or historical fantasy or a combination of the two? SHEKHAR KAPUR: I would describe all history as fiction and interpretation. When I just finished this film, somebody sent me a script of Mary Queen of Scots. And I read it just for the interest of it, and it was a completely different interpretation of history. Elizabeth is an absolute bitch, and Mary of Scots is this great romantic noble being. Now you ask the Irish, and they have a totally different aspect of it; ask any Catholic and they’ll give you a totally different aspect of history. Imagine that Spain actually – the Armada had succeeded, and the history books would have been written in Spanish and we would have been talking in Spanish, but now try to imagine how Philip would have narrated history. History has always been an interpretation. So what makes it valid to us is to tell a contemporary story and use history as a moral story that is more relevant to our times, because I do believe that civilizations that don’t learn from history are civilizations that are doomed to make the same mistakes again and again, which is why this film starts with the idea of fundamentalism against tolerance. It’s not Catholic against Protestant; it’s a very fundamental form of Catholicism. It was the time of the Spanish Inquisition and against a woman whose half her population was Protestant, half was Catholic, and there were enough bigots in her Protestant Parliament to say, "Just kill them all. Go on a pogrom.” And she was constantly saying no. She was constantly on the side of tolerance. So you interpret history to tell the story that is relevant to us now. I used to hate history when I was a kid, couldn’t handle it until somebody made it entertaining for me, so it’s my job as a filmmaker also to make it entertaining. Read the full interview here.