Bonfire Prayers
Remember, remember the Fifth of November The Gunpowder Treason
Bonfire Anthem
Now is the time for marching Now let your hearts be gay Hark to
Good Movies To Watch : Bonfire Costume
A few movies here that I like and endorse for several reasons, costume, history and atmosphere.
V FOR VENDETTA
Be ready for the first real movie that requires you to engage your brain in order to fully absorb the experience. V for Vendetta is in a league of its own. Sure to rile up those who don’t believe films should delve into politics, V for Vendetta is an explosive, timely political thriller that presents an ideology sure to provoke thoughtful conversation from an audience not normally fed such high calibre intellectual fare. A brilliant film with an explosive end ! , reminded me of the Phamtom of the Opera though.
GUNPOWDER, TREASON AND PLOT
Robert Carlyle leads a prestigious cast in this lavish production. People with infamous characters, driven by compelling drama and life with love, lust, politics and prejudice, you will be offered a gripping ride through a fascinating period of history, set against the brutal landscape of rebellion against religious repression.
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Gunpowder, Treason and Plot dramalises the short reign of Mary, Queen of Scots and the extraordinary battle of her son, James I, with the Catholic conspiracy against him. Guy Fawkles’ Gunpowder Plot became one of the most scandalous events in English history, and remains so to this day. Loved this movie, its the nearest you are going to get, to learning the truth and I used the costumes in it for ideas for one of my own bonfire costumes.
ELIZABETH I
Helen Mirren plays the lead role of Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth I, written by award-winning screenwriter and acclaimed novelist Nigel Williams (The Wimbledon Poisoner, Bertie and Elizabeth and Uncle Adolf). The drama begins in 1579 and portrays Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII during her later years. It exposes the conflict between her sense of duty and the instincts of her heart, her doomed affair with the Earl of Essex, and the struggles of a powerful and independent woman battling to survive in a male-dominated world.
During her reign, Elizabeth became one of England’s most admired monarchs, having resisted the Spanish Armada and having reunified the nation after it was divided by religious factionalism. Her successes and popularity led to the creation of the ‘Virgin Queen’ legend, but this drama, for the first time, delves beyond this myth and attempts to uncover the real woman behind the crown. This movie goes hand in hand with the above for bonfire costume ideas and history reality.
MRS BROWN
A romantic drama, this John Madden film looks at the relationship between Queen Victoria and John Brown, a commoner who, though a servant, becomes her closest friend and confidant, as such, he proves the catalyst to bring her back into public life and out of her private mourning for the late Prince Albert. But the closeness of their friendship sets tongues wagging about the impropriety of what appears to be an affair between queen and commoner.
Mrs Brown’s charm lies in the flinty give and take between the wonderfully starchy Judi Dench as Victoria and the robust Scottish comedian Billy Connolly, here playing it straight as a strong willed Scotsman who comes to enjoy the power he wields by virtue of having the queen’s ear. Antony Sher is also striking as Prime Minister Disraeli, in a performance that all but shimmers with unspoken malice. I like this movie for the costume drama mainly, but it has a feel for the troubled years of Guy Fawkes and the Martyrs etc.
VAN HELSING
It’s the end of the 19th century, and monsters are slowly overrunning the world, luckily for the unsuspecting public, the Vatican (that’s right, the Vatican) has trained and dispatched its own professional monster killer, Gabriel Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman, X-Men, Swordfish), to protect the world from the ever-growing threat. it is a silly hero type of movie really and has nothing to do with Guy Fawkes etc, but it is a wicked movie. It shows the darker side of bonfire night at times in my mind also there are some brilliant costume ideas.
AMADEUS
In a lavish 18th Century parlor in Austria, an elderly man is found, by his servant, with his throat slashed. The wound is self-inflicted, and the man is the little known composer Salieri, contemporary and adversary of the now-famed, but once reviled, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Later, from his cell in an insane asylum, Salieri tells a priest the story of his association with Mozart, confessing that he actually killed the brilliantly gifted but troubled young man. Actually a sad film once understood, but a great costume drama of which I based my Mozart Bonfire Costume on.
THIS IS ENGLAND
A story about a troubled boy growing up in England, set in 1983. He comes across a few skinheads on his way home from school, after a fight. They become his new best friends even like family. Based on experiences of director Shane Meadows and myself.
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