Queen Elizabeth II: A Lifetime of Service

I am going to interrupt Nations at War due to the Death of Queen Elizabeth II.  It took a lot of thinking, but I feel the need to share documentaries on Queen Elizabeth II in tribute to her life and service as Queen.  I will probably resume Nations at War in January 2023. Today’s documentary is Queen Elizabeth: A Lifetime of Service.  The run time of this documentary is 49:48.

This documentary on the Queen has an old-school feel to it.  Queen Elizabeth has reigned longer than any British Monarch (yes, this documentary came out during the Diamond Jubilee) and in sixty years she witnessed many changes to the world and to the royal family.  Over her reign, she traveled over a million miles and made over 250 foreign visits.  She strives to strengthen the ties among the Commonwealth Nations.  So this is a documentary about the highs and lows of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

In 2006, a service of thanksgiving was made in honor of the Queen’s Eightieth Birthday.  The crowds greeted her to share their thanks for her service.  Years before the monarch’s popularity took a hit with the death of Princess Diana.  Things changed, and Queen Elizabeth wanted to have a more personal touch on the monarch.  The divorces in the royal family would have given her a shock.  She would have overseen changes in society as well as the technology that came into the world.  When she had her coronation, hers was the first to be broadcasted on TV.

The first part of the documentary talks about the relationship and marriages of Prince Charles and Prince Andrew and how those marriages ended in divorce.  Then this documentary talks about her relationship with her niece and her nephew.  I felt like if the filmmakers wanted to talk about these relationships, they could have been saved for the end and given a cursory look.  There was a fire at Windsor Castle that upset the Queen and it was her favorite home. 

She was one of the most widely traveled monarchs in history.  She also welcomed world leaders into her home during the State Banquets.  She grasps foreign affairs really well.  She is the head of state in Australia and it was the first visit she made when she was Queen.  Her popularity in Australia stops the republic movement in its tracks.  What else did Queen Elizabeth face during her reign?  If you want to finish this documentary continue to watch the documentary.

Man, it was annoying to see so much of the focus on the documentary about Camilla and Charles.  Come on, it is a documentary on the Queen, it is not a documentary on Charles and Camilla.  Devoting ten minutes to that relationship was completely unnecessary.  Also, there was no need to rehash the reaction to Princess Diana’s death, after all this was a documentary about the Queen and how she navigated changes.  I really wish the documentary filmmakers would have focused more on the life of Queen Elizabeth instead of the relationships of her children.

The documentary was dumb many times.  It was stupid for them to focus so much on Diana’s death and the public reaction to the death.  This documentary was hard to watch at times because of the rabbit holes the filmmakers went down.  However, I wanted to find as many documentaries as I could find on Queen Elizabeth in honor of her death, so I was stuck doing this one while I looked.  This is a documentary I would NOT show in a classroom setting nor is it good for research purposes.