SÃO PAULO, SP (FOLHAPRESS) – “Imposing” seems to be the perfect term to describe everything to do with “The Crown”. From the way the actors speak to the costumes that adorn them, from vintage cars to yachts, everything conveys a sense of luxury and ostentation. But nothing compares to shortcomings. These, yes, give dimension not only to wealth, but also to the peculiarity of the hero’s family.
As it happened between its second and third years, the series is now undergoing a casting change and a time jump. Olivia Colman leaves and enters Imelda Staunton, the lady of the British stage, in the role of Queen Elizabeth II. For the first time, she will appear on screen without her real-life counterpart sitting on the throne – she passed away last month, ending a seven-decade reign.
Returning this week for its fifth season, “The Crown” relies more than ever on the extravagance of rooms, bedrooms, offices, gardens and facades, turning scenarios into characters to help tell the unprecedented crisis the world faces. Property in the new crop of rings.
Season 5 of “The Crown” delves into the 1990s, highlighting the marital crisis between Princess Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki, and now King Charles III, played by actor Dominic West, as well as the collapse in popularity and self-esteem. Elizabeth II, who is no longer young.
A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes, which is why the series’ artistic director Martin Childs and interior designer Alison Harvey have gone to great lengths to expose the cracks that have spread visually.
“In the early ’90s, a lot of things were falling apart. The Queen’s popularity, the British economy, and the ship she launched early in her reign. New technologies became ubiquitous, like computers, cell phones, and VHS players. We knew it was becoming obsolete,” says Childs, He won an Oscar for ‘Shakespeare in Love’ and an Emmy for ‘The Crown’.
“We refer to seasons one and two as winter, then we had spring with season three, summer with season four, and now the weather is bad again. So we use, for example, a lot of mirrors, which are a good car. To highlight this crisis .”
They claim that the presence of mirrors allows the cameras to blur the elements in the scene and frame the characters, meaning they stop in time. It is as if they are stagnant. Objects also carry the obvious metaphor of reflection, making one wonder how he sees himself, and highlighting the crisis of public and personal image that the Queen faces, for example.
The 1992 film The Crown, which was called the Queen’s annus horribilis, or “horrible year” in Latin, resumes. After the announcement of the separation of one of her sons, Prince Andrew, and her daughter Princess Anne, came the Andrew Morton biography of Diana, in which the Princess herself, as we later learned, revealed the depravity of her relationship with Charles.
Add to this the leaked phone recordings of the two with their lovers and the 15-hour fire that burned down Windsor Castle, one of the royal residences, and the result is a year that has haunted the Queen more than the wars and austerity of the past. .
One of the most emotional highlights of Season 5, the Burghley House English castle fire is recreated. Windsor, like Buckingham and other official residences, could not be used for recordings, so everything was shown in studios or historic buildings across the UK.
It has been one of the biggest challenges for The Crown’s art direction department, as the guiding principle since its opening year has been that only a third of every set is CGI-created. Everything else needs to be built, rented, or purchased, say Childs and Harvey. So smoke and bright lights had to be expelled from the windows of Burghley House, to simulate devastating fires.
However, the Queen’s “terrifying year” did not stop there. In addition to computers, were the paparazzi and their close-up cameras, which allowed the public to get a closer and voyeuristic look at the preserved life of the British monarchy, in 1992.
But there is a limit to the lens, even for what must have been the most photographed character in British newspapers of the period, Princess Diana. The intrusion of privacy, barred by doors and windows, never made it to the intimacy of his Kensington Palace apartment, one of the key scenarios for this fifth season.
It was there that Childs and Harvey had the greatest creative freedom and at the same time cautious. “When we do work that is inspired by reality, we need a lot of research, but there are things that the documentation ignores, like the tone and mood of the environments,” they say.
“Diana was confined to this place that never was hers, it does not necessarily follow her tastes, so it is possible that she lived surrounded by centuries-old furniture that reflected the apparent stability of the family, but prevented the modernity associated with her personality from appearing.”
In a world where everyone is forced to follow a complex and standardized etiquette guide, the space for characters to express their personality lies in the small details.
In Diana’s case, here and there, the duo posted tips that might go unnoticed, but revealing who the People’s Princess was, it’s worth noting, because in this case the art direction used references to pop culture, such as Lionel Richie and board game cans.
They also chose colors that brought some gloom, to reflect the sadness and isolation that Lady Di felt. Parrots appear discreet, as they are birds that suggest the possibility of flight, although they are usually in cages, as the character felt.
From the posters on the walls to the perfume bottles on the dressing table, everything is meticulously thought out to give individuality to the members of that disjointed family. These touches not only personalize the environments, but also help show that despite being a museum and office, Buckingham Palace and the like are also home.
There are people like everyone else who live there, so don’t be surprised if you see a forgotten cup of tea in a corner or a phone cord tangled on the floor.
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The Crown (season 5)
When: Premieres Wednesday (9), on Netflix
Classification: 14 years old
Cast: Imelda Staunton, Jonathan Pryce, Elizabeth Debicki
Production: UK, 2022
Created by: Peter Morgan
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