The White Queen: Season 1 [DVD]

Good series

I would highly recommend watching this show. It was absolutely brilliant!!

Authentic and accurate portrayal of the 1400's era. I think after Game of Thrones came along and was so popular that a lot of knock offs have begun to pop up. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing! And this series, The White Queen (so far) has been very interesting. This series is acted well. The directors got a good feel for the 1400's; because in reality, the dark ages of the 1400's were muddy, nasty, and only the Royalty and other upper society people such as priests and merchants were somewhat educated and could read, whilst the other 99% of the population living in the cities lived in squalor and were illiterate. Sicknesses and diseases were rampant because of ignorance, no one had a clue as to what a germ or virus was. The scenery that this series is being shot in is breathtaking, no fakey sets here. And the actors are all convincing, the female actors aren't bodily enhanced babes, and the truth is, most men and women of royalty (because of inbreeding) rarely looked like Brad Pit, or Angelina Jolie. So the male actors are fit and intense, but not Chip N Dale models. And everyone at least looks like they can actually ride a horse. In other words the cast was picked to portray "the reality" of the era. Okay, the cons: E gads! have you EVER SEEN so many beheadings!?!? And that crown is like a hot potato! It has been on so many heads in such a short time that it must be a "one size fits all". The plotting and deceit whirl around so fast one can hardly keep up with who is who and what is happening. Allegiances, fealty, and trust is like a whisp of smoke, there one moment, gone the next! And I hate to even mention this...REALLY I do...But, I've seen more naked breasts in six episode of TWQ than I have ever seen in my entire life! And most of them were not pretty breasts either. I would have much preferred that some of the actors kept their tops ON. BUT, once again, the wardrobe, nudity, muddy cloaks, and a fantastic understanding of armour, weapons and the horses (which were beautiful and obviously superbly trained as one would expect for a time when horses were of paramount importance) emparted a real feeling of authenticity. So all in all this is a good series. I have enjoyed it. I'm giving this a fiver because of the unabashed accuracy. The writers and directors didn't hold back. Would I recommend this to friends and everyone else, ABSOLUTELY yes. I like the grit of this series, but the plotting was just too much. If you dozed off for five minutes, the crown would he on someone else's head....and there would be another head rolling off the chopping block!

Let me say right at the outset that I am not overly concerned about historical accuracy in a TV drama series or a work of historical fiction. I do enjoy the kind of speculation that Philippa Gregory engages in when the information available is inconclusive about a certain person or event. I am happy to run with any number of theories about the fate of the Princes in the Tower, I am OK with Perkin Warbeck being Richard of Shrewsbury, I am alright with Princess Lizzie having an affair with her uncle, and I am OK with Elizabeth Woodville practicing witchcraft for real. I do draw the line at completely unattested, invented allegations like Henry VII raping his bride-to-be, but I am fine with all the rest, where there are historical rumors and allegations on which to base the speculation. If this makes your blood boil, this show is not for you.This series started out slow, but then gained momentum and finished very strongly, IMO.I've read the three books this series is based on, and other books on the Wars of the Roses, so I had no trouble keeping the characters straight. I am not sure that this is a simple task for someone who has no knowledge of the period. Things move very quickly in the later episodes.Here's my assessment of the strength and weaknesses of the show-The Bad-1) Visual anachronisms- Zippered dresses, concrete steps, men's jackets that look like they were bought from a department store, people without headdresses and such.2) Some inexplicable decisions regarding the aging of characters- This series opens in 1464. Henry Tudor would have been a boy of about 7 at the time, and indeed at this stage he is played by a kid, and we see him go through various stages of growth. He is a young man of 28 when the series ends in 1485. However, Richard III ought to have been a boy of 12 at the beginning of the series and a man of 32 at the end of it, but he is played by the same actor throughout. Likewise for the Neville sisters. Similarly, lady Margaret Beaufort looks the same from start to finish, but Elizabeth Woodville is aged a bit in the last couple of episodes .3) Some events that took place are shown differently in the series, even though they are described correctly in the books. The execution of Hastings is left out for some reason (maybe to make Richard III look better?), and his attributes are given to Anthony Woodville. The historical Anthony was accompanying Edward V on his journey from Ludlow to London, and was arrested along the way, and later executed. Here, Anthony is in London, trying to broker some sort of deal between his sister and Richard and he is sleeping with Jane Shore. In reality, it is Hastings who had Shore as his mistress. I did not see the point of this distortion.4) Budgetary Constraints - It showed in many ways. The sets and locations were underpopulated. The Battle of Bosworth Field had to be staged in a forest because staging it in a field would require more extras, horses and other props. The characters seemed to have a very limited number of outfits. The same buildings were being used to depict Westminster and Middleham and Clarence's residence. There just weren't enough guards, servants, handmaidens and suchlike for it to look authentic.5) Max Irons just isn't able to project the toughness and savvy of a monarch who lost and regained his grip on power twice during the course of the series.That's a pretty long list of shortcomings.Now, for the Good-1) The agency given to the women. They are not appendages of the men. They are movers and shakers in their own right.2) The cast- With the notable exception of Max Irons, the rest of the cast is very good.Elizabeth Woodville is one of my favorite characters from the books and Rebecca Ferguson nails her completely. She is beautiful and smart and unforgiving and tough as nails. It isn't often that a character in film turns out just as you had imagined them upon reading the book.Amanda Hale has a tough job trying to humanize a character that comes across a bit caricaturish in the books. Philippa Gregory evidently has Yorkist sympathies. The Lancastrians usually don't come across very well in her writings. Margaret Beaufort is fanatical and a bit of a hypocrite in the books, and though she retains those characteristics in the series, she also comes across as vulnerable and doubtful about the nobility of her purpose, which makes her less grating.Aneurin Barnard makes a fantastic Richard III. As a nice guy who overreaches and does some questionable things and finally sees his world disintegrate, he manages to be both morally ambiguous and oddly sympathetic. The shot of the dead staring eyes of Richard as he lies stripped at Bosworth will forever remain seared into my brain.Rupert Graves is a riot as Lord Stanley. His dynamic with lady Margaret is great. He has the funniest scene in the series where he teases his wife about how Princess Lizzie is having an affair with her uncle. The way he pauses before describing the piece of gossip as "juicy" had me in splits.3) The characterization of Princess Lizzie. Elizabeth of York is too much of a quiet, retiring, non-confrontational type in Tudor period writings. I loved that she is portrayed as a feisty teenager in this series who talks back to both her mother and future mother-in-law. She seemed so much like a regular headstrong rebellious teenager that I had no trouble forgiving her for doing inappropriate things like having a crush on her uncle and not showing a whole lot of consideration for her aunt.On balance, I liked this very much . Aneurin Barnard has a new fan. The guy has a good singing voice. If only Richard and Henry had a sing off at Bosworth, it would save Princess Lizzy a lot of heartache.

NIET LEUK, door slecht gehoor kan ik DVD niet spelen, er is GEEN ondertiteling. Site Amazon vermeldt dit wel. MISKOOP dus! bedankt AMAzon....

Je suis très satisfait de l'envoi de ce DVD neuf, comme indiqué dans l'annonce. Il est arrivé en bon état, sans aucun dommage. La livraison fut même des plus rapides. C'est avec joie que j'ai pu visionner de nouveau cette série qui nous plonge au cœur des intrigues de pouvoir à la cour des Plantagenêt, au sein des luttes fratricides intestines entre les Maisons de York et de Lancastre.

Llego mucho antes de lo programado, en perfectas condiciones, estoy muy satisfecho con la compra.

A portrait of awful people, those who constituted the English ruling class in Britain (as well as France and Flanders) in the late 15th century. They were grasping, devious, treacherous, hypocritical, vicious, vengeful, petty, spiteful, jealous, religious, superstitious, immoral and unprincipled. Power centred on the sword and in the vacillating minds of monarchs. Absolutism meant living on the edge of whims made in the royal palace and living with the consequences of these shifting moods if you were a commoner without rank and redress of wrongs done to you. In an atmosphere of fear and distrust like this there were only ever two sides to choose from. Either you were with the king and his royal house or with the next usurper of them. In the first case you were a non-entity except when exploited by taxes or conscripted to fight in battles. In the second you lived dangerously as a traitor and if caught became the headless horseman of your own apocalypse. One shrewd nobleman, Sir Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby (1435-1504), hedged his bets by playing both sides of the divide, loyal one moment to the king (when it benefitted him), then a turncoat the next when it didn’t. But he had to be well connected and very clever to get away with it. Being powerful helped a lot too. This Wikipedia definition of him:“A landed magnate of immense power, particularly across the northwest of England where his authority went almost unchallenged, even by the Crown.”But most did not have Stanley’s power. Instead, they acquiesced to the powerful nobles and royals above them.Some people will say it’s unfair to apply 21st century moral standards to people in 15th century Europe. I think they’re wrong, as the human condition remains as it is, indelible. Verification of this comes from the 1948 U.N. Declaration of Universal Human Rights. Murder, rape, torture and plenty of other inhumane acts apply in all conditions in all places at all times. They are universal criminal offences. This is called civilisation. That Britain in the late 15th century was uncivilised is on vivid display here in this fine drama of political intrigue, deceit and cruelty. If you think our times are awful now (and they are in some ways where, for instance, 95% of all oxygen on Earth is polluted and over 15,000 nuclear weapons still exist) we live in a relative paradise compared to the absolute hell these people had to live through.Yet it’s a feature of dramas that protagonists must occur in them. Otherwise there’s no point in telling stories. If we are good, or hope to be good, we want to identify with what is good. In a story like this goodness looks thin on the ground, yet there is genuine affection, love, tenderness and devotion in it. Parents love their children and do their best to protect and instruct them. Some friendships based on trust and fidelity endure. The king (Edward IV, House of York) truly loves his Queen (Elizabeth Woodville, House of Lancaster), and she in turn genuinely returns the love. He says to her at one point that everything he has ever done or tried to do as king was because of her and his love for her. This may feel like overwriting on the part of Philippa Gregory and her screenwriters, but I’m not so sure. The historical accounts seem pretty emphatic that this marriage was one of profound mutual attraction, otherwise known as love as first sight. Elizabeth, a commoner, was not a customary or expected choice. Why should a king, the most powerful person in the land, stoop to marry a commoner? The accounts say he did so because he couldn’t help it. What good were alliances and state policy for him if, as the most powerful being in the land, he couldn’t even choose his own happiness? So he turned his back on tradition and protocol and followed his heart. This isn’t a point of sentimentality in the story. Instead, it’s quite touching, and if you are in love or have ever been in love you might agree with me upon seeing their romance and attachment. Their love is something bright in an otherwise dark drama.The problem with politics is that it pollutes so much, especially the soul. Most of the characters in this story are soulless, having sold out at some point along the way, making their Faustian bargains with contingencies that would benefit them politically, socially, financially, etc. Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry Tudor (future King of England as Henry VII) is one of the worst hypocrites. Not only is she scheming and conniving, she’s also pious, believing anything she thinks, says and does has God’s explicit blessing. I kept hoping against hope that Ford Prefect, the alien who visits Earth in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would show up in the drama and ask her:“And just who is this God person you keep rattling on about and prostrating yourself to?”Reasonable question, though one seldom or never asked back then.But there are other machiavellian hypocrites worse than Margaret. One is Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick. Sleazy and repellant, he’s the kingmaker behind the scenes, the kind of guy you would never lend a tenner to for the next round. He drips with ambition and scheming, mellowness not part of his psychological remit. I knew he would die in battle at some point, but his death could not come soon enough for me. People aren’t human to him, especially his marriageable daughters. They are pieces on the political chess board, means to an end instead of sentient ends in themselves. Again, modern romance on my part? I don’t think so. If a man as father cannot love his daughters in any age he’s hardly fit to think himself a man and father. I despise him for this. Even his nearest and dearest, or what should be his dearest, are corrupted by his cynical ambition. In fact I was unable to stifle a laugh when someone at his funeral called him “a good and noble man”, similar to Paul Manafort, a Trump criminal associate, who is said to have “led a blameless life” in the opinion of the judge who sentenced him to prison.But worse than the hypocrites are the murderers. Is it true that King Richard III murdered the young sons (aged 8 and 12) of his brother King Edward IV after Edward died in 1483? Richard claimed he didn’t do it. If not, someone did. Margaret Beaufort is shown to be a candidate in this drama, as she stood to gain everything by their deaths if King Richard could be deposed (which he subsequently was by death in battle in 1485). His slayer was Henry Tudor, son of Margaret Beaufort, who then ascended the throne as Henry VII, founder of the Tudor dynasty that included his son Henry VIII and granddaughter Queen Elizabeth I.How did the so-called War of the Roses end? Through political compromise. The eldest daughter of the White Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, wife of King Edward IV, married Henry VII, thus uniting the two Houses of York and Lancaster (Tudor) and putting an end to the civil war that raged between cousins in the same extended family for over 30 years. So, that’s one positive point in the story, a political act that ushers in a period of temporary peace (before Henry VIII disposes of wives and takes on the Pope). The daughter of the White Queen is also an Elizabeth — Princess Elizabeth, whose story is told in the equally superb BBC series, The White Princess, which is just as good as this series, if not better. For one thing, it has subtitles, which ought to be compulsory by my reckoning. Nothing is wrong with my hearing. What’s wrong is muffled dialogue that cannot be deciphered no matter how high the volume is turned up. The BBC budget for The White Queen was £25 million. That’s a lot of money for a 10-part mini series. Granted, the costumes and sets are fantastic, so beautiful. I could feel I was in the 15th century. Also, much of the drama was not filmed in England but on location in Belgium (Bruges, Ghent, and elsewhere). Home probably would have been cheaper but they needed authentic late medieval buildings and could find plenty of them still standing in Flanders. Even so, how much extra would subtitles have cost them? I could catch only about 90% of what was said, which means the BBC owes me the missing 10%. Maybe they should send me the script to pacify me. Anyway, an unfortunate omission. The White Princess has subtitles, so maybe others apart from myself complained. If so, power to the people, right on!The production is billed as history seen through the eyes of women, following the novel of Philippa Gregory (same title) on which the series is based. Fair enough. Three of the important leads are women: Elizabeth Woodville (the White Queen, consort to Edward IV); Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor (Henry VII); and Anne Neville, daughter of Richard Neville (Earl of Warwick) who initially marries a prince in the House of Lancaster (another Edward) then later as a young widow marries Richard III, her cousin. These women have to scrape, scratch and claw for what is theirs, or what they take to be rightfully theirs. Their manners are no better than those of the men, although they openly fight less (at least not with swords). None are people you’d want to know, with the possible exception of Elizabeth Woodville (although she’s an occultist who engages in witchcraft and divination to try to get what she wants). Maybe a Halloween friend only.Despite the iniquities and inequalities of our age, I’m glad of central heating, indoor plumbing, electricity, umbrellas, democracy, trial by jury, a free press, weekends, and the absence of the plague and executioner’s blade. They did their best to survive back then, but as this series shows so well, it was a constant struggle and The Simpsons were not part of their world. Civilisation would have to wait.

Pedido recibido correctamente y a tiempo. Me ha encantado la serie y la recomiendo de verdad. Se trata de la adaptación de unas novelas históricas,con lo cual tampoco hay que exigir completa rigurosidad con lo que sucedió realmente, cuando muchos de sus episodios todavía constituyen un enigma para los historiadores. Sin embargo, la trama es muy entretenida, los personajes sumamente atractivos y la recreación, la música y los escenarios estupendos, como suele pasar en las series de la BBC.Como dato muy interesante, decir que, aunque no se indica, la versión italiana tiene audio y subtítulos en varios idiomas, incluido el castellano, lo cual fue todo un puntazo. Muchas gracias a la persona que lo indicó en una de las opiniones publicadas con anterioridad.