Richard III & the Car Park

[Beowulf]

There's a fascinating left-pond vv right pond difference in perspective visible here which I highlight, not in the interests of discord, but purely because it's interesting.Dave

Dave,

I find it fascinating that the pond is described as U.S. is 'left pond' and England is 'right pond' because that means you see the world from the perspective of being on the bottom looking up, lol. Since we are south of England maybe you see yourself mentally standing on U.S. soil. Perhaps you are in heart 'one of us'

At any rate I do see your thought about the two points of view, and 'how could you guys build a car park over an antiquity'. Wonder how many actually think things like that, I assumed you didn't know it was there. I figured the original church wasn't torn down to put up the car park, but had been gone quite some time.



I

[RivkahChaya]

I think it's just a matter of who's on the right, and who's on the left of a Mercator map.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Barbara

As a non-Leicester correspondent (in purely UK terms it's a VERY LONG way away from where I am - though in US terms it isn't) I couldn't really comment on the car park...I'd assume, as you surmise, the underlying matter was unknown... after all, even in Leicestershire there are some standards

The original church, as you say, was long gone

All the best

Dave

[Beowulf]

Hi Barbara

... after all, even in Leicestershire there are some standards

All the best

Dave

Well, make the best of it, I always say

[RivkahChaya]

I call shenanigans on the historical accuracy of that battle crown.

[Phil H]

Richard DID wear a regal circlet on his helmet at Bosworth. It was found "allegedly" under a hawthorn bush and used to crown Henry tudor after his victory. (The hawthorn bush was definitely used by the Tudors as an emblem - it appears in the Henry VII chapel at Westminster - but whether there is a connection is a moot point.)

In Olivier's film of Richard III, from which the still is taken, his crown is used throughout the movie - arched to crown both Edward IV and Richard; and later by Richard as king with the arches detached. It is the same crown he uses during the battle - symbolically. The first image in the film is of a huge version of the same crown suspended over the coronation chair.

Although in reality a battle-crown would have been smaller and lighter, Henry V wore one at Agincourt (1415) which was large enough to carry the great balas spinel or "ruby" known as the Black Prince's ruby. The stone is still set in the Imperial State Crown worn by The Queen at the State Opening of Parliament each year. English crowns are usually a circlet with four crosses pattee and four fleurs de luce/lys or fleurons, arranged alternately. Henry had one of the fleurons on his crown cut off during the fighting.

Phil H

[RivkahChaya]

I have no doubt that he wore a regal circlet (in modern terms, it's known as a "sniper check"*), but I was questioning the accuracy of something that heavy in battle.

Sorry; something that bugs be to no end is the non-heaviness of fake gold in movies. I realize that you can't use real gold, because it is too expensive, and well, too heavy, but actors toss around the painted plastic bars like they are painted plastic. It's called acting, people. If the actors are that bad, then at least fill the bars with cement, or make a few of them out of lead, and coat them with copper-nickel. You don't have to make the entire stack of ingots that way, just the three or four the actors are going to handle. I hate multi-million dollar movies with such unconvincing gold.

The same goes for gold headdresses on royalty.

*Reference to saluting officers in a "hot" area, which the US Army specifically forbade during the Iraq war, in which my husband served, because it would indicate to someone watching from a distance who the officers were. Occasionally, a newly arrived, fresh from ROTC lieutenant would demand to be saluted, and the enlisted men referred to it as a "sniper check."

[Phil H]

But Rivkah, costume design is sometimes about more than realism or authenticity - its is about creating an image or emphasising certain things.

Medieval kings were, of course, supposed to be "sniper checks" (wonderful term, which I had not come across before) - wearing crowns, displaying their full coats of arms, leading from the front and fighting in the thickest press of the battle. It was a different type of warfare and a different age. It was also part of the price of kingship.

Even in World War One, officers dressed differently from the men and led from the front, walking in front of their men into the machine gun fire. By WWII things had changed a good deal.

Phil H

[Bridewell]

even in Leicestershire there are some standards

Dave,

We do have feelings, you know!

Regards, Bridewell.

[RivkahChaya]

But Rivkah, costume design is sometimes about more than realism or authenticity - its is about creating an image or emphasising certain things.

Gold is heavy.

[Phil H]

But if you want to create the image of a king who wears his crown lightly.... or depict golden dubloons cascading through the pirates' fingers.... you might want to make it SEEM light.

Phil H

[RivkahChaya]

First, I don't think Richard did wear the crown lightly, and second, a doubloon weighed 6 or 7 grams, because it was really small.

I was complaining about kings wearing crowns more suitable for court into battle-- the equivalent of a soldier going to battle in a class-A uniform now, instead of combat camouflage, aside from the weight of it. Then the whole thing about people in movies tossing around fake gold ingots, the type traded between banks, which are about half the size of a red masonry brick, and weigh about 27 pounds avoirdupois, or 12.5kg. 400 Troy ounces, FWIW.

If actors can't act, and make them look heavy, then at least fill them with cement. Sheesh. And I'm not talking about scenes where it's appropriate symbolically for the gold to seem light. I can't think of one movie scene like that. I think they're just cases of "didn't do the research."

[Errata]

First, I don't think Richard did wear the crown lightly, and second, a doubloon weighed 6 or 7 grams, because it was really small.

I was complaining about kings wearing crowns more suitable for court into battle-- the equivalent of a soldier going to battle in a class-A uniform now, instead of combat camouflage, aside from the weight of it. Then the whole thing about people in movies tossing around fake gold ingots, the type traded between banks, which are about half the size of a red masonry brick, and weigh about 27 pounds avoirdupois, or 12.5kg. 400 Troy ounces, FWIW.

If actors can't act, and make them look heavy, then at least fill them with cement. Sheesh. And I'm not talking about scenes where it's appropriate symbolically for the gold to seem light. I can't think of one movie scene like that. I think they're just cases of "didn't do the research."

As someone with extensive experience in acting, props, costume, and production design, I can guarantee you that it isn't because we didn't do the research. It's because a: actors wearing real gold crowns screw up their necks pretty bad and b: by the time we get to gold bricks for a Nazi gold scene, the money is gone. Mostly we don't make gold ingots. We rent them from prop houses that made them for previous movies. Sometimes very old movies. Actors know they are heavy. They don't tend to know how heavy. In truth it's about 4-5 pounds per bar. the weight of your average regular old red brick. So actors actually tend to do alright until they have to lift a bag of them or something, and then they just kind of lose it, but no actor has ever been super about being able to shift their body to accommodate a weight that isn't there. It makes it hard to walk, and they tend to tip over. We fill bags with weighty stuff, but unless we are going to make some super strong bad specifically for the scene (which we won't) then it isn't enough.

Now I've had to handle gold bullion, I was a jeweler for awhile. Thank god jeweler's bullion is smaller. Gold is heavy, but it's not unreasonably heavy. It is heavier than people think it is, because when we think metal, we think the weight of stainless steel, which is the metal we encounter most often. Silver is also heavier, titanium is lighter, platinum about the same. It's not that it's super heavy, it's that it surprises you with it's weight, because you were expecting something else.

[Beowulf]

But Rivkah, costume design is sometimes about more than realism or authenticity - its is about creating an image or emphasising certain things.
Phil H

Which explains why Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry the VIII in The Tudors looked more like a tennis pro...

[RivkahChaya]

We rent them from prop houses that made them for previous movies. Sometimes very old movies. Actors know they are heavy. They don't tend to know how heavy. In truth it's about 4-5 pounds per bar. the weight of your average regular old red brick. So actors actually tend to do alright until they have to lift a bag of them or something, and then they just kind of lose it, but no actor has ever been super about being able to shift their body to accommodate a weight that isn't there. It makes it hard to walk, and they tend to tip over.

If Netflix still has it streaming, take a look at the movie Ghost Ship (the one from 2002), which I'll admit from the outset, is not a great movie. There's a scene where they find a stack of gold ingots. Watch the actors toss them around, and pick up two at once.

Now, I can tell you that a really cheap set of weight, for lifting, you know, home gym, are plastic over cement, and you can get a set totaling about 120lbs for around $25. So don't tell me that you can't make heavier fake gold bars. Every single one doesn't have to be that heavy, just the four or five the actors handle. This was a multi-million dollar picture.

I can even forgive SPOILER: the scene at the end, where four or six actors are carrying a rotting wood box full of several hundred ingots, which would weigh more than a modern car, because, well, something. But I have seen people in a high school play do a better job of acting like something that wasn't heavy was.