| Popis: |
The mass of published material that accompanies the highly successful Showtime series The Tudors includes a collection of shooting scripts written by Michael Hirst (who also wrote the screenplays for Elizabeth [dir. Shekhar Kapur, 1998] and Elizabeth: The Golden Age [dir. Shekhar Kapur, 2007]).1 In an arresting display of machismo, finery, and insouciance, the cover prioritizes an image of a seated Henry VIII with three of his wives in a row behind him. The arrangement of selective marital history has been cropped: that is, the wives are visible only from the neck down. Hence, it is impossible to guess at the respective spouses’ identities. Each woman is registered only by and through her body—in particular, through the conjunction of cleavage and collar bones, which underscores the series’ reliance on twenty-first-century standards of beauty. The emphasis on nonindividualized forms points up the erotic nature of the televisual enterprise—sexualized bodies will be prominent throughout—whilealso playing upon popular notions of Henry VIII as the ultimate “S & M” lover (see figure 1.1). |
