Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you
sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.
This week we look at the Disney version of Cinderella.
It would make sense chronologically to do the animated film first, but I want to
save it until last and so I will be discussing the live action today.
I remember when this film came out in 2015. It was
directed by Kenneth Branagh and featured some impressive names-- Lily James as
our heroine, Cate Blanchett as the Stepmother, Derek Jacobi as the old king,
Richard Madden as the prince and Helena Bonham Carter as the fairy godmother. I
recall reading an article at the time about how Lily James had to eat a liquid
diet to fit into her dress and how impossibly tiny her waist looked in the trailer.
It seems that she did not need the liquid diet to fit into the dress, but once corseted
could not eat solid food which if I am honest, is not much better. Branagh
attributes her tiny waist in the dress to her naturally slim waist, but I still
have visions of her internal organs being displaced while she sipped clear
broth through a straw.
I was pleasantly surprised by the film. The costume
design (despite the agonisingly tight corset on Lily James) was impressive. The film received a
nomination at the 88th Academy Awards, 21st Critics' Choice Awards and 69th British Academy Film Awards,
all for costume design. I can see why. The choice was made not to have
Cinderella in a dress with a ragged hem and contrasting patches but to be in a dress that had
once been new and beautiful and had faded over time. There were also so
inspired choices for the stepsisters played to perfection by Sophie McShera and
Holliday Grainger as silly, talentless (but vain enough to believe they were
genuine prodigies) who were constantly squabbling and disappointing their very
cool (in every sense of the word) mother. Their costumes mimicked the clothing
of the day bit with just an edge of wrongness—colours a little too bright, just
a few too many shiny sequins, slightly too fussy. Cate Blanchett looked like
she should have been in a 1940s film with her Veronica Lake wavy hair and icy flint
like demeanour. The dress for Cinderella at the ball was made with layers of
blue and purple gauzy silk which succeeds in giving her a look like a watercolour
painting in motion. It was not just the women’s costumes with their extreme
corsetry that were difficult to wear. I read that the prince’s trousers were so
tight they kept showing an unsightly bulge that was unsuitable for a family
film. They kept giving him tighter and tighter jock straps to press down the
bulge—so tight that it made him nearly cry. But enough about the costumes.
If there was one thing I could say about this film
that sets it apart from other versions it is this. This is the film of
backstories. We see WHY characters are the way that they are. Cinderella is
shown to have a happy “modest” upbringing with parents who love each other. Her
parents teach her to revel in nature and look after animals. On her deathbed,
her mother urges Ella to “have courage and be kind” which becomes her lifelong
motto.
Later when she meets Prince Kit in the woods while he is hunting a stag,
she is angered by him hunting a defenceless creature. He replies “But we're
hunting, you see. It's what's done.” She retorts, “Just because it's what's done, doesn't mean
it's what's should be done.” He later takes on this philosophy himself having seen
her kindness and wisdom. When they meet he claims to be an apprentice (well, he
is a prince in training) and she says she is a servant. When he asks if they treat
her kindly she replies that they treat her as well as they are able.
We also see backstory of the Stepmother. She does seem
cold, but it could just be self- protection. As we have discussed with this
story, there was not much a woman could do in this time when this story was
written to better herself than marry well. The Stepmother was married before to
a successful merchant. She is widowed. She has no means of her own as women
cannot own property or run a business. She has two unmarried daughters and mounting
debts. She remarries to keep a roof over her head and to have enough dowry for
her two disappointing daughters. She is continually reminded that her husband
loved and treasured someone before her and has a beautiful, accomplished kind
daughter to prove it. She sees his warmth with Ella, and it reminds her of
everything she has lost. Even though she went into the marriage as a business arrangement
that has to hurt. Then Ella’s father dies, and she is saddled with a second man’s
debt. She must harden herself like flint if she is to survive.
She makes a
speech to Ella late in the film after she has found the glass slipper about how
her own happiness has been crushed. She says:
Very well, I shall tell you a story. Once
upon a time, there was a *beautiful* young girl who married for love. And she
had two loving daughters. All was well. But, one day, her husband, the light of
her life, died. The next time, she married for the sake of her daughters. But
that man, too, was taken from her. And she was doomed to look every day upon
his beloved child. She had hoped to marry off one of her beautiful, stupid
daughters to the prince. But his head was turned by a girl with glass slippers.
And so, I lived unhappily ever after. My story would appear to be ended.
The fairy godmother deserves a paragraph to herself despite her tiny screen time. Helena Bonham Carter does what she does best---ham it up with glee. She gets ten minutes of film time but gets top billing and it is no wonder. We first see her doing the standard Cinderella test where our heroine has to prove her worth by being kind to a helpless old lady in disguise (HBC in full age makeup.) Then she transforms herself into a slightly dippy (possibly tipsy?) fairy godmother who says things like "I'm your hairy dogfather!"
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