-The Favourite - When Style Becomes Substance.

I often see the discussion of style and substance framed as two mutually exclusive parts of storytelling and filmmaking. One takes away from the other, too big of a focus on style and the story loses part of its meaning. Yorgos Lothimos takes this idea and laughs. With every film that he has released so far, he finds a way to take a traditionally stylistic He does this to the point where the two are inseparable. One compliments the other, in the end result, a truly unique cinematic experience. Today I would like to break down The Favourite in particular, looking at how these two elements interact with one another. To begin with The Story, The Favourite is a film obsessed with power, and in particular, power imbalances. The film can essentially be broken down into a web of interconnected relationships, all centered around Queen Anne, with the different characters all fighting one another for her admiration, which in turn leads to her influence and then power so they can get what they want. The fight for power is most clear between Abigail and Lady Marlborough, both of whom realize the great potential power that being friendly with Queen Anne offers. Lady Marlborough's relationship is very clear. She is strict, she does control and manipulate Queen Anne, and she does use this control to achieve what she wants politically, but at the base of this relationship is two predominant factors. First, a legitimate care for Queen Anne, and next, a love of her country. All that she does politically results in what she thinks is best for the country to which she is loyal. Abigail, on the other hand, is much harder to read. She is obviously loyal to herself, and very clearly doesn't have a true care for Queen It could have been just from the start. She was always looking out for herself and trying to get close to Queen Anne for that reason and for that reason alone. However, I don't think that it's that straightforward. I think that Abigail cared for Queen Anne when she saw the pain that she was in and out of her own goodness, decided to care for her. Once she saw that she could get something out of Queen Anne, she began to manipulate her, and once she got power, she let it go to her head. The end result is a constant power struggle between Lady Marlborough and Abigail. They both need Queen Anne to fulfill their needs, and they both do it the same way, cozying up to her as a friend. Sure, Lady Marlborough may have better intentions, but the result is manipulation. They're both doing the same thing, and regardless of why, the end result is a negative impact on Queen Anne. Anne Lenthemose takes this idea and makes the power struggle as extreme as possible. He rarely likes to show Abigail and Lady Marlborough in the same frame, but he sometimes likes to keep them in the same shot, and uses these whooshing camera movements to do so. The result is a literal transfer of power through transfer of screen time. Within every scene that the two take part in, they're always struggling for control over Queen Anne, and that is shown off perfectly through this fight over control of the screen, as that relationship moves back and forth. And this extreme style is also used to show off the insanity of Queen Anne. Very early on in the film, it is established that she is unstable, and perhaps justifiably so. We learn of her traumatic past, and she explicitly states the reason for her instability. With that in mind, we see the toll that this emotional manipulation takes on her. She slowly starts to lose more of who she is, as Lady Marlborough and Abigail continue to fight for her affection. Throughout the film, she has a number of freakouts, incidents in which she goes crazy. Visually, Lenthemose shows this off in a few ways. First, he takes away all focus from the background. All the attention is put on the foreground, oftentimes on Queen Anne, or whatever she is looking at. He next likes to keep the camera lingering. The audience, much like the movement deprived from Queen Anne, has no choice but to watch. He also places the audience in her perspective, by moving the camera with her. As she moves, so do we. This makes the audience relate to her when she is the most vulnerable. It's well done, and captures one of the biggest themes of the movie. Because the movie is about so much more than just a struggle for power. Yes, that's the biggest focus, but that doesn't mean that it's the only focus, and perhaps just as important is the human element. The manipulation has a downside, a downside that accumulates with the film's conclusion. Everything up to that is just simply its buildup. The final aspect of stylization added to the story that I want to focus on has very little to do with the broad overarching conflict of the film, and much more to do with the general style that is found in most every scene. This is a ridiculous looking movie, to put it as simply as possible. Extreme and often unnecessary close-ups, unique camera movements like this to frame a conversation, and then you have scenes like this. Quite literally, a naked man dancing in slow motion, as rotten fruit is thrown at him. And all of this accumulates into a mindset. It's about excess, it's about absurdity, it's about things that are here that don't need to be. And this reflected not only into the style, but also in the story itself. And take this conversation for example, or this scene in which Lanphimos perfectly captures the intensity of a goose race. Everything in this world is obsessed with status and things that quite frankly do not matter. Lanphimos captures all of this nonsense and he shoots it like it's the most important thing in the world, it matters more than anything else. There is a war going on in a countryside, the people are upset because the increased taxes needed to pay for said war, and inside, this is happening. And to everyone watching, this matters a whole lot. Well, I should say, this matters to all except for Abigail and Lady Malabarra. They have much bigger concerns and priorities, they want power and they want to beat the other. They are the anomalies in this absurd world, and that is why they have been successful. It's worth pointing out that they might participate in this only because that is what is expected of them, that is how they gain power. They don't care about duck races or petty squabbles that exist within the castle, for they are much too concerned about being the favorite. Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed. If you've seen enough of my videos, you probably know how much I love this movie and I hope I was able to shed some light on some of the more stylistic elements of the film and how they work with the story to make both so much better. Because ultimately, that is what Lanthimos was able to create with this film, a weird hybrid of two unique elements that somehow come together and tell one of the greatest stories of the year. This video took a bit more time than usual to make, just because I love this movie, I wanted to make sure that I did it justice. There was a whole lot of rewriting and just completely scrapping different ideas and going into a different direction, so I hope you enjoyed the end result of this. I'd love to start a conversation about the film, so please drop a comment and tell me your thoughts on the favorite. I guess some aspects of it are a little bit polarizing, but I definitely am interested in hearing what you have to say. Until next time, check out my last video, in which I looked at One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and how that film establishes its conflict. Thank you for watching.