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00:00Oh, it is fun to be queen sometimes.
00:02One can only imagine.
00:08Yorgos Lanthimos's deliciously odd The Favourite
00:12throws out all the rules when it comes to the period piece,
00:15and reinvents the form with a farcical punk spirit.
00:18This showcase for three stellar actresses
00:21is full of clever, symbolic storytelling
00:23and wry observations about our society.
00:26But favor is a breeze that shifts direction all the time.
00:29Then in an instant you're back sleeping with a bunch of scabrous whores
00:32wondering whose fingers are in your ****.
00:34Underneath the comedy, The Favourite is a commentary on power.
00:38The screenplay was originally titled The Balance of Power.
00:41No, take the day off, I command it.
00:44Someone must run things.
00:45Here, history is just raw material, a jumping-off point
00:49to explore contemporary and timeless dynamics
00:51like how inequality breeds vicious competition,
00:54Oh dear, the servant is dressed in the clothes of a lady.
00:59And how the intimate, behind-the-scenes relationships of leaders
01:02impact the lives of regular people.
01:04Well, we should ask people.
01:05Get some people in from the villages and ask them.
01:07This is not how matters were stated dealt with.
01:10People are led.
01:11They do not lead.
01:12So here's our take on how The Favourite
01:14is a sophisticated meditation on power, class, and love.
01:18If you're new here, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell
01:29to get notified about all of our new videos.
01:33One of the first things you'll notice about the visuals of The Favourite
01:40is that it's shot wide.
01:42Very wide.
01:43Cinematographer Robbie Ryan, who's known for his work with Andrea Arnold,
01:48including another period piece that doesn't feel like one,
01:50Wuthering Heights, said here that they even used a 6mm fisheye lens,
01:55which is about as wide as it gets.
01:58The wide view means we're always seeing the characters in their space.
02:03Lanthimos said, quote,
02:04From the beginning, I had this image of these lonely characters in huge spaces.
02:09So the visuals express the loneliness, isolation, and fear of these people
02:14at the top of society.
02:16I must be ready.
02:17I need how to be ready when I do not know who my enemy is.
02:19We see the characters frequently traversing these long hallways,
02:24sometimes from the ultra-wide angle,
02:26emphasizing that getting around this palace is a long journey,
02:30during which the characters are surrounded by an emptiness,
02:32and exposed and visible to the court, as if they're on stage.
02:37Production designer Fiona Crombie said the movie's color palette
02:40came from the black and white marble floor of Hatfield House,
02:44the English manor where the film was shot.
02:46Three-time Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell
02:49dresses the upper-class ladies and the Queen
02:51in that black and white of the floor,
02:53so it feels as if they are part of the palace,
02:57merged with this opulent yet terrible environment they can't escape.
03:02Ryan elaborated that the claustrophobic effect of seeing the whole room at once
03:06makes us feel the characters are imprisoned by this space.
03:10Constant camera movement is also central to the visual approach.
03:14Lanthimos wanted the camera to always be fluidly moving,
03:17almost like a character itself.
03:20The film has a lot of whip pans,
03:22but whereas a whip pan on most lenses just looks like a blur.
03:26As Ryan explained, when you do a whip pan on a very wide lens,
03:30quote,
03:31you're seeing the whole room move around.
03:33So again, through the style of this moving camera,
03:36Lanthimos is making us aware of a continuous world
03:39pressing in on these characters, allowing them no way out.
03:43My life is like a maze.
03:45I continually think I've gotten out of it.
03:48I need to find another corner right in front of me.
03:50The ultra-wide shots also visually support the comedy of the film
03:54by making the space look strange, altered, absurd.
03:59The lens of absurdity applied to the period drama feels appropriate,
04:03because we can only imagine that the lives of these wealthy court aristocrats
04:06were absolutely mad.
04:08They had little to do with their time but scheme, backstab,
04:12and live outrageously decadent lives of luxury.
04:16So of course they're going to spend their time on pointless things
04:20like obsessing about ducks.
04:22Horatio is a prize worth stealing, he does not leave my side.
04:25Keep him away from me or I will pull his liver out
04:28and eat it with a cornichon.
04:29And throwing oranges at this guy.
04:34Which brings us to one of the subversive strengths of the favorites,
04:38not getting too uptight about period details.
04:41This is a film that clothes the low servants in recycled jeans,
04:44but the favorite is probably more true in spirit
04:48to what it would have felt like to be part of the inner circle
04:50of a royal 18th century court,
04:53to live this over-the-top, luxurious, sensuous, wild lifestyle.
04:59The orange-throwing sequence has a brutality to it,
05:02so the sequence captures the violence that underpins
05:05this frothy, mannered society,
05:07in which pleasure is derived from hurting and humiliating those who have less.
05:12It is important to make new friends, is it not?
05:16Yes, if that's what's actually happening here.
05:19Not veiled threats under the guise of civility.
05:22In the costumes, Powell said she cut out a lot of period-appropriate elements,
05:26but kept the silhouettes and shapes of the time.
05:30And that's exactly what the film as a whole is doing,
05:33getting rid of historically accurate surface details
05:35to zero in on the deeper spirit of the times.
05:38There's also an aspect of the favorite that is playfully revisionist history,
05:43its gender dynamics.
05:45The way the film sidelines the men,
05:46turning them into puppets and afterthoughts,
05:51is a fun kind of wish fulfillment.
05:58Case in point, Anne's husband was actually living for most of the time we see,
06:02but he's completely left out of the film.
06:05While we're generally used to seeing females done up in extensive makeup
06:09and hairstyling, here it's the men who look like, as Powell said,
06:13quote, ridiculous-looking peacocks.
06:15What an outfit.
06:19I thought it might be too much.
06:22Your mascara is running.
06:23If you'd like to go fix yourself, we can continue this later.
06:27She said Lanthimos wanted the women to have a natural, raw look.
06:30While here, for once, it's the men who are the background decorations.
06:34This wig's ridiculous.
06:36A man must look pretty.
06:39These women compete through a combination of the stereotypically masculine and feminine.
06:44One wears masculine riding gear, plots wars, and loves shooting a phallic gun.
06:48Let's shoot something.
06:50The other is the image of feminine honey, using mock weakness as a weapon.
06:54Still, while it might be tempting to search for messages here
06:58about what women in general are like in power,
07:01I do not know of women and their feelings,
07:03but I know they nurse their hurts like wailing newborns.
07:06You're dolphin.
07:07I feel a surge of desire to see your nose broken.
07:10Lanthimos' point isn't that these three people stand for all women.
07:14He said, what we tried to do is portray them as human beings.
07:18Because of the prevalent male gaze in cinema, women are portrayed as housewives, girlfriends.
07:23Our small contribution is we're just trying to show them as complex and wonderful and
07:28horrific as they are, like other human beings.
07:36The battle between Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and Abigail Hill yields three
07:40stunning performances by Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone.
07:45We enter this world through Abigail, encouraged to side with the underdog.
07:49I hoped I might be employed here by you, as something.
07:53A monster for the children to play with, perhaps.
07:55Yes, if you like.
07:59And even as she reveals more and more of a cold-blooded, ruthless nature
08:03and supplants Sarah as the favorite, we might be tempted to think
08:06at least not much has changed.
08:08That one tyrannical favorite has replaced another.
08:11Do it again!
08:12But, in fact, Abigail is worse than her predecessor, in a significant way.
08:17As she tells us, she is only for herself.
08:20I'm on my side, always.
08:23But Sarah is for a cause.
08:25The French are chastened, but not defeated, Harley.
08:27We must destroy them.
08:29And she serves that cause even when it costs her.
08:31There's always a price to pay.
08:33I am prepared to pay it.
08:35Historically, Sarah's Whig Party were against absolute monarchy.
08:38They were crucial in establishing constitutional monarchy
08:41and expanding the power of the parliament.
08:43And likewise, Sarah loves her queen, but she loves her country more.
08:48Early on, she tells the queen,
08:49If you love me, love has limits.
08:51It should not.
08:52Then she tells Harley, leader of the Tories,
08:55There are limits.
08:56The love of your country.
08:57To me, there is no limit on that.
08:58The queen sees this as disloyalty, as she feels she is the country.
09:03She has been unavoidably detained with business of state,
09:05and Sarah's downfall is that, in single-mindedly pursuing her strategic vision for the country,
09:16she overplays her hand, overestimating her control over the queen.
09:19Do not shout at me, I am the queen, and for once act like one.
09:23And forgetting that, at the end of the day, she's still only the favorite,
09:26dependent on the queen's favor to retain her power.
09:29Might I remind you, you're not the queen.
09:31Abigail doesn't care how her country is indirectly affected by her machinations.
09:35The country's future hangs in the balance.
09:37My thing is what I wish to talk about.
09:40She frequently tells us she's a good person,
09:42Even if I were the last one left in this wretched place, I would remain a lady.
09:46and delivers delirious monologues about how she doesn't want to sacrifice her morals.
09:51I will need to act in a way that meets with the edges of my morality.
09:54Yet, she decides she can only win this game by playing dirty.
09:58When I end up on the street selling my asshole to syphilitic soldiers,
10:01steadfast morality will be a f***ing nonsense that will mock me daily.
10:05Throughout the film, we get deceptively pretty visuals of Abigail like this.
10:09At first, they look like a classically beautiful frame,
10:12only to play on and reveal an underlying perversity or manipulation to the situation.
10:18And this reflects Abigail herself,
10:20I'm sorry, Your Majesty.
10:25I think I caught a chill picking the herbs for your leg.
10:28The way she appears as the innocent flower,
10:31So you are perhaps too kind for your own good.
10:34It has been said.
10:36but is truly the Viper.
10:38She is a Viper.
10:39I think you are a pretty little liar that I have misjudged.
10:42In this scene, when Abigail dances with the Queen,
10:44we hear the sounds of the shooting,
10:48signaling to us, while the visuals show sweet fun,
10:52Abigail's showing her killer's instinct,
10:54making a violent play for Sarah's position.
10:59Perfect.
11:00I won't make a killer of you yet.
11:04Meanwhile, Sarah is happy to present herself as cruel and hard.
11:09Sometimes a lady likes to have some fun.
11:11But in the end, she won't stoop to Abigail's level to win this game.
11:16She does almost sacrifice her integrity when she threatens to blackmail the Queen with her letters.
11:22You have no idea what I would do for my country, and for you.
11:27But then she immediately burns them, unable to betray her friend and Sovereign.
11:32Though Sarah apparently loses this battle,
11:35we get this enigmatic exchange as she's about to leave the palace.
11:39Oh my god, you actually think you have won?
11:43Haven't I?
11:46We were playing very different games.
11:49Abigail may have dominated, but for what?
11:51She has no vision, no greater purpose than her own comfort or pleasure.
11:56The final imagery as Abigail kneels visually equates Abigail with the bunnies.
12:02So this image leaves us with a question.
12:05What has she really won?
12:07What is it worth to be the Queen's favorite,
12:10when at the end of the day you're still just another ridiculous royal pet,
12:14vulnerable to the Queen's tiniest whim, easily replaced by the next bunny.
12:19And in the meantime, you spend your days looking up at this view of a gout-ridden,
12:24emotionally disturbed, aging monarch.
12:27In history's eyes, if she lost this series of battles,
12:31Sarah still won the war, as she came to dominate the narrative of Queen Anne
12:35through her harsh writings.
12:37And her legacy was carried on through some pretty influential descendants,
12:40Winston Churchill and Princess Diana.
12:43So embedded in this contest for power, we find a subtle moral,
12:48that without a larger vision to use our power toward, the victory is empty.
12:54In this dancing scene, the way the sound is timed to match the Queen's fall,
13:03tells us something else too.
13:05That in this shooting competition, the Queen is the game.
13:13So it foreshadows that Abigail is happy to destroy the Queen in order to win.
13:19Sarah makes a point of reminding Abigail that the Queen isn't just a prize,
13:23she's a person.
13:24The Queen is an extraordinary person, even if it's not readily apparent.
13:32Anne may appear ridiculous as a monarch,
13:35I looked like a fool.
13:36They were all staring, weren't they?
13:38I can tell even if I can't see, and I heard the word fat.
13:41but as a person, she's incredibly human.
13:44As Coleman put it, quote,
13:46she sort of feels everything, and her life has been an experience of bottomless grief.
13:52I lost some seventeen children.
13:54This grief is illustrated in Coleman's performance
13:57whenever the Queen hears music.
13:59Stop it! Enough! Stop! Be done!
14:05She can't stand it because the beauty opens up her feeling,
14:08and there is just too much hurt and loss there.
14:11Some wounds do not close. I have many such.
14:15One just walks around with them,
14:17and sometimes one can feel them filling with blood.
14:20The Queen's rabbits represent all the children she's lost.
14:23The day is Hildebrand's day. The day you lost him.
14:28Yes. Each one that dies, a little bit of you goes with them.
14:32But they also embody her need to substitute relationships
14:36for those children she so badly wanted and couldn't have.
14:40She passionately needs to feel loved,
14:43to mitigate in some small way her unbearable, incurable pain.
14:47It hurts. Everything hurts. Everyone leaves me.
14:51The worst thing about being the head honcho is that you can't know
14:54if anyone is telling you the truth.
14:56The Queen is tortured by not knowing if anyone loves her,
15:00or they all just want something from her.
15:02Abigail understands this, so her strategy is based on making sure
15:06the Queen never feels she wants anything.
15:09I do not want her to ever think I want anything from her.
15:12Do you not wish to know what I've decided?
15:14I wish to know that you are happy,
15:16and that your spirit will light in once this is done.
15:19Meanwhile, Sarah bosses the Queen around.
15:22You'll pronounce the tax in Parliament. I will set the date.
15:25Making open demands for her cause.
15:28She wants nothing from me unlike you.
15:30She wants nothing from you, and yet somehow she is a lady.
15:35With 2,000 a year.
15:37In this pivotal scene where Sarah makes her final plea,
15:40we are placed in the Queen's perspective,
15:42feeling the tension of not knowing if Sarah is genuine.
15:45She does not love you.
15:47Because how could anyone?
15:49But here, Sarah voices the deepest point of the film,
15:53that love is honesty.
15:55No.
15:56Sometimes you look like a badger,
15:59and you can rely on me to tell you.
16:01Why?
16:02Because I will not lie.
16:03That is love.
16:04Sarah may not always be nice,
16:07Aim for the flagstones.
16:08The lawn might break your fall.
16:10But we see her display loving tenderness for Anne,
16:13push her out of her funks to make her go do things,
16:16and curb her self-destructive habits with tough love.
16:20I am not food.
16:21You cannot just eat and eat.
16:23It is far easier to lie and please
16:26than it is to love and be honest.
16:29I wish you could love me as she does.
16:31You wish me to lie to you?
16:33Abigail would offer the Queen wine, though it's bad for her.
16:37You should have some.
16:38I'll get you some, it would ease you.
16:40No.
16:41While Sarah would rudely deny the Queen hot chocolate for her own good.
16:45None for the Queen.
16:46What?
16:47What?
16:48You cannot have hot chocolate.
16:49Your stomach.
16:50Eventually the Queen must choose between a woman who presents meanness,
16:54You are too sensitive.
16:55And you are too mean and uncaring some days.
16:58Some days aren't quite lovely though, let's sink on them.
17:01and a woman who presents sweetness.
17:03Your hair is so lustrous.
17:05It's something people in court comment on.
17:08One puts her down.
17:09You look like a badger.
17:10Oh.
17:11Are you going to cry?
17:13The other flatters her.
17:14You're so beautiful.
17:15Stop it, you mock me.
17:16I do not.
17:17If I were a man I would ravish you.
17:18In the end, the Queen chooses flattery over love,
17:19and she's heartbroken the rest of her days.
17:20So the tragedy of the final image isn't truly Abigail's,
17:23it's the Queen's.
17:25Sarah wasn't a bunny like the rest,
17:41as symbolized by her disgust for the creatures,
17:44Sarah, you must say hello to little ones.
17:45No.
17:46and sent away the one person who treated her like a real person and an equal,
17:50instead of cowering to her like a trapped, scared rabbit.
17:54The Queen knows that she gave up her one honest relationship for a lie.
18:04The favorite is transplanting something current onto Queen Anne's England
18:08to speak about our own time.
18:10It's exploring contemporary issues like,
18:12the way that sexuality factors into relationships between a more powerful
18:16and less powerful party.
18:18How big state decisions can come down to which private parties have the ear of the leader.
18:23Is it a bit like going late to a party?
18:25It is not like a party.
18:27I'm sorry Prime Minister, passing thought.
18:29I think it is like a party.
18:30A perfect analogy.
18:31The toxicity of a polarized political environment,
18:35and the ways that women can find power within a male system.
18:38Have you come to seduce me or rape me?
18:41I am a gentleman.
18:43So rape them.
18:45A central commentary we can see in this film is warning about the dangers of inequality.
18:50You have fallen far.
18:52As Ryan observed, life was so polarized,
18:55the poverty was extreme, and the rich was extreme.
18:58You can say that about nowadays,
19:00but I don't think it's even touching the levels of what society had back then.
19:04Even though they're related, an important class difference separates Sarah and Abigail.
19:09In a way, Sarah's freedom to fight for a cause is a luxury born of her life of privilege.
19:14Abigail's traumatic past means she feels she can't afford to worry about more than herself.
19:20Her firsthand experience of how the world treats its poor and its nobodies
19:25means she'll do anything to feel secure and comfortable.
19:30You are of a sweet disposition and have suffered blows,
19:34so desire safety and favor above all else.
19:37Look how happy she is when she gets her own room.
19:40She's fueled by a desperation not to end up back out on the streets.
19:44I must take control of my circumstance.
19:47No matter how powerful Abigail gets,
19:50I have one. I am safe.
19:52She never truly feels safe.
19:55Now that she's gone, I find myself more concerned than when she was here.
19:59When Abigail comes into this environment,
20:01she perhaps is the sweet-hearted lady she keeps claiming to be.
20:05I am a person of honor even if my station is not.
20:08I'm still the lady I was, in my heart.
20:10She actually seems to surprise herself with the vicious acts she's capable of
20:15for self-preservation.
20:16As it turns out, I am capable of much unpleasantness.
20:19So this character is a warning that,
20:21when you have a vastly unequal society,
20:24the fear in the lower classes for survival
20:26and the fear in the upper classes of losing their status
20:29creates savage competition all around.
20:33I could not just stand by and let you destroy me.
20:35The favorite takes after Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon,
20:38in some visual choices like using natural light,
20:41which in night scenes meant shooting by candlelight.
20:44And on a deeper level, both are stories about opportunists,
20:47who are hurt in their early life.
20:49When I was 15, my father lost me in a card game.
20:52They climb the social ladder and adopt the hedonistic, lavish lifestyle
20:56of their former oppressors,
20:58yet their feeling that they don't belong never goes away.
21:01On the surface, this looks like just a stunning tableau of a lady from the past.
21:05Yet as the camera pushes in inviting us to look closer,
21:09we notice that she is uncomfortable, afraid.
21:12She doesn't fit with this backdrop.
21:14Images like these express Abigail's insecurity that,
21:18no matter how high she rises, she'll be called out as an imposter.
21:22After Abigail rises in status, Powell said she gave her clothes
21:26the vulgarity of the nouveau riche, to make her look like she was trying too hard.
21:32The mistake these characters make is to imagine that rising up in the ranks will free them.
21:36And the biggest idea the favorite leaves us with is that,
21:39in any grossly unequal social system where ultimate power is concentrated in the hands of a few,
21:45all people are trapped.
21:47This is encapsulated in the final scene when Abigail crushes one of Anne's pet bunnies under her heel,
21:53just for the hell of it.
21:54And it's no coincidence, by the way, that some of these bunnies are distinctly black and white,
22:00looking a lot like the ladies of court.
22:02Through her haze of advancing illness, Anne registers disgust at the true nature of this pretender,
22:08and she asserts her power to remind Abigail who's boss.
22:12How dare you touch the Queen like that!
22:14Yet being the boss is no fun either.
22:17As we've seen, no one in this film is sadder than the Queen.
22:20It's a deep, dark truth about human nature that,
22:23when we can't address or retaliate against the true cause of our frustration,
22:27we take it out on somebody who has it worse.
22:30Look at me! How dare you! Close your eyes! Incompetent.
22:35So what the Queen does to Abigail here is the same as what Abigail did to the bunny.
22:39The unhappiness trickles down from the top to the bottom of society,
22:43as each dissatisfied person cruelly punishes the one beneath her,
22:47until everyone is miserable.
22:50All I know is, your carriage awaits,
22:53and my maid is on her way up with something called a pineapple.
22:56It's Susannah and Deborah, and we are The Take.
23:06If you like what we're doing and you're new here, please subscribe.
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23:19Thank you so much for watching.
23:21Well, let's see you guys.
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