The opening scene of The Queen features the Queen and her portrait man discussing the current election. Their dialogue reveals and sets up Blair as a "fresh, young" Prime Minister at odds with the establishment. The loyal portrait man ruefully admits that he didn't vote for Blair, which further enforces the Queen as the very embodiment of the establishment. This is the central opposing dynamic that gives the film much of its thrust... the Queen has a duty to tradition to uphold, whilst Blair intends to drag the country kicking and screaming into the next century.
It's 1997, and England has just come out of a 18 year stretch of conservative Tory party rule. Blair represents the other political party, the more progressive Labor party, and is the first Prime Minister to have been born after Elizabeth II became the Queen. During the film he is referred to by Tracey Ullman (in real interview footage) as a "breath of a fresh air".
During the first meeting between the Queen and her new Prime Minister, the Queen wryly recalls her meeting with the first of ten Prime Ministers who have served under her reign - Winston Churchill. It's an eye-opening moment that reminds the viewer that she is a living part of history, a one-woman institution that stretches back into times a lot of us only know from history books. It also serves as a reminder to Blair that he is just the latest in a long line of political figures: things might change under each one, but the Queen remains unaffected.
Outside of this film, the Queen is a somewhat enigmatic figure in comparison to other heads of state... she rarely gives interviews and has a very defined public persona that remains mostly aloof and unknowable to her subjects. With this in mind, it's somewhat ambitious to even attempt a biopic based on her, especially while she still continues to rule. The film sets her up as a rock of tradition, cautious of anything that might erode or invade her continued duty as the latest in a long line of monarchs with a God-given right to rule. Helen Mirren does a good job of exemplifying this whilst retaining the Queen's characteristic distance. Anyway, back to the film...
When the Queen first hears that Diana has died she is automatically concerned with protocol, remarking that, "This isn't a matter of state, it's a private matter". This reaction is motivated by the ways in which the public may perceive the royal family if they fail to act in accordance with tradition (Prince Charles wants to use a Royal plane to recover the body - the Queen is against it). We're invited into the private worlds of the Royals, the cushioned inner sanctums of the palace, and shown the complexity of their relationship with Diana's tragic death. It goes beyond dealing with mourning and grief due to the unprecedented nature of Princess Diana's status as a prominent ex-royal family member, and the way this fails to fit with what the country expects from the Queen.
The Queen doesn't want to join the public in mourning, she wants to keep it separate. She doesn't want to face the possibility that should she invite the public into their family's grief that the line between subject and ruler may become violated. The reality of 20th century England is that the Queen (and the Royal family) only really wields power in name only... it's possible that the Queen is subconsciously aware of this, and is afraid to yield to the public's wishes as it may expose the reality that she is not all-powerful and not a direct representative of God. Her cold, aloof public persona is based on this. The film represents her as such, and it's an extension of these themes. She's a woman trapped between two eras - an historical age where the rule of the monarch was infallible, and a modern age where she could be seen as nothing more than a decorative item for an otherwise democratic country.
With all this in mind, the Queen is a hardline traditionalist. She doesn't want to change even the smallest detail of the funeral for the sake of the public in order to draw the least amount of attention. It's a delusional viewpoint that illustrates her as very clearly living in an insulated bubble - accentuated by shots of her and her family strolling calmly through quiet, empty rooms in the palace. She isn't connected to reality.
Prince Charles on the other hand is interestingly portrayed as the only Royal who is truly in touch with what's happening, claiming Diana to be a wonderful woman despite their differences, and clandestinely supporting Blair's standpoint on how the Royal family should publicly react to her death. This is later revealed to run deeper as an issue relating to his own insecurities, he seems more aware of the awkward place of the Royal family in the modern world and tries to buy himself longevity by allying himself with Tony Blair. Prince Philip pointedly remarks that Charles' view of Diana has only changed now that she is dead, suggesting that Charles is creating the persona that the public wants to see rather than representing how he really feels.
The Queen is visibly uncomfortable with the public's affection for Diana (she makes excuses to go to bed when the television reports focus on her popularity too much), and is so naive and out of touch that she is later shaken and preoccupied by the world's reaction to these events. She isn't even aware of the mounting tide of flowers outside the palace until someone tells her. It doesn't help that her own unpopularity escalates due to her refusal to publicly acknowledge the death, a situation exacerbated by newspaper headlines along the lines of "Royals have no heart", and the sense that the media is co-opting the interest in Princess Diana's death as a power for anti-monarchist sentiments.
Conversely, Blair is told by his PR man that he is getting "raves in the press". The newspapers are portraying Blair as the only one who has "correctly judged the mood of the country", helped no doubt by his dubbing of Diana as the "People's Princess". The evolution of the public perception of Princess Diana seems to elevate her to sainthood. The public never actually knew Diana but they come to see her as a positive ideal and connect with what she now represents, and a large part of this feeds into the perception that she stood up to the Establishment (IE. The Queen) by breaking with tradition and divorcing Charles in reaction to his adultery. Prince Charles even verbally acknowledges this creation of a 'new' Diana, remarking that there are now two Dianas - the 'real' Diana and the public's Diana.
There's a subplot that runs through The Queen in relation to the presence of an especially large Stag on the Royal estates. Prince Philip repeatedly hunts after it but when the Queen sights it on her own she actually tries to save it by scaring it off. This represents a turning point in the Queen's psyche after the emotional strain of events finally takes it's toll on her and she breaks down both literally (her car stops working) and figuratively (she cries). The irony of sparing the Stag is that it is later shot on a nearby commercial estate. It's headless corpse seems horrific when the Queen inspects it... she's concerned for the suffering it endured before it died but still congratulates the shooter because it's what tradition dictates. The Stag subplot is interesting for a number of reasons. The first is that the Queen seems more upset about this animal than she was for Diana, and it's therefore clear to us that this world of deer-hunting is more immediate and accessible to the Queen than the media frenzy outside her personal life. The second reason that comes to mind is that the Stag itself might also be seen as a metaphorical comment on Diana's own brutal fate once she was cut off from the Royal family (exemplified by images of the twisted car wreck).
The key point to take away from The Queen in relation to History and Memory is the way that a figure like Queen Elizabeth II will be remembered by the public (and, by extension, history itself). To Blair, it's suggested by his wife that he sees the Queen as a mother-substitute - something that isn't very flattering to either party but nonetheless demonstrates how we use our own personal experience to project ideas of representation onto public figures. The most obvious example of how the Queen represents herself to the public is the way that her voice changes for the television address (and if you watch any of her other televised messages you'll notice more of this formalised way of speaking). She creates a public persona that isn't entirely in keeping with her real self. Cherie Blair observes during the Princess Diana address that the Queen "Doesn't mean a word of it", to which her husband replies, "That's not the point". This refers to the fact that her public tribute replaces her true feelings as far as history as concerned. However, the slightly metafictional nature of this film renders some of this point as ironic - we now have this film as a document of how these events possibly happened, and so one representation of history gets overwritten or contradicted by another representation of history. As you can see, it makes the truth of the matter a very elusive thing.
A good scene that relates to the way these historical figures represent themselves in our growing age of media is the scene where the Earl of Spencer delivers a eulogy for his sister Diana at her funeral. The sound of applause erupts from the thousands of people gathered outside and travels inwards to the church congregation like a wave, with the assorted Who's Who of politics, royalty and entertainment taking their cue to join in with the clapping. The way these people react to the eulogy is shown to be entirely dependent on what the public wants. The Queen resists and refuses to join in with the applause, maintaining her dignity and the appearance of autonomy - resolute to the end that she will not confront the weaknesses in her reign any further.
These ideas are explored in continued detail during the final scene between the Queen and Tony Blair, with more metafictional touches on display. A prime example of this is the twinkle in the Queen's eye when they argue about whether she will be remembered for this one terrible week or not... the fact that a biopic on her focuses on this event should be argument enough that her reaction to Princess Diana's death can be seen as a defining moment for her character in historical terms. She sums up her reign with the maxim, "Duty first, self second", but looks wistful and sad when remembering her time as a girl before taking the throne... a life that could've been, were it not for tradition.
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