The Duchess.

The movie was surprisingly enjoyable. Most royal films are grossly misinterpreted and are not an acurate portrayal of what actually went down. Marie Antoinette was butchered (Dunst was horrible) and The Other Boleyn Girl (Johansson and Portman were badly cast) was a joke. (The only amazing recent film was Elizabeth, played by Cate Blanchett.) Maybe it is because there is so much history behind the storylines that movie producers, directors and screenwriters want to capture. Most of the screenplays want the passion, the drama and the extravagance of the lives of kings and queens and duchesses. Those portions are only a part of long lives.. a significant amount of moviegoers dont have the historical background of European monarchy. To tell the preceding story would be impossible in a 1 1/2 hour-2 hour limit.

Keira Knightley did a good job in portraying Georgiana. Her acting was believable and it made me feel for the women in that time. Marriage was forced, love was forbidden, male heirs were required, rape was allowed, physical abuse was common, gossip spread like wildfire, and men were allowed as many mistresses as they wanted. I cant imagine the pain and suffering some of these historical figures had to endure to survive.

The movie got me thinking.. I'm sure publicity has been around much longer than it has existed as a profession. When women were sent away to vacation, most people knew that said women were with child, most likely out of wedlock. It relates to today, similarly, when a celebrity goes into rehab. There probably was a "royal publicist" but to turn that into a money generating profession before paternal/DNA testing was discovered would have been quite profitable. Imagine.. royalty and dukes, duchesses, lords, ladies, emperors, empresses.. so many dot European history. A publicist would have been used to cover up affairs between male royalty and lower class women, and to hush rumors about births of illegitimate children. Genius.

My brain has been processing too much pr lately.. I'm sure this entry is a by-product of all the pr talk thats been going on for the past couple of days. Hopefully all this effort will come with tangible results.