"And unfortunately, Wolsey's dead!"
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Wolf Hall
Moss_Garden — 10 years ago(April 21, 2015 09:00 AM)
The shot of the whole family standing in awkward silence as they ponder their collective hand in the downfall of the man who could save them now was just so, so funny. And Cromwell standing there being more loudly silent than anyone's ever been before. Gorgeous shot.
Formerly Nothin_but_the_Rain -
bejasus — 10 years ago(February 05, 2016 04:57 PM)
You are right. That's a brilliant scene: perfectly written; perfectly directed; perfectly acted by the ensemble.
Really, each character is very succinctly captured in that one telling scene. Anne's unreasonableness. Mary Boleyn's unexpected and unpredictable candor - and how it has a frightening element to it, like she's always skating close to the edge is likely to pull Cromwell over the edge with her when she goes. George Boleyn and Thomas Boleyn's shameless pursuit of their own interests at everyone else's expense. "Uncle Norfolk's" bombastic hair-trigger temper and impatience. And, of course, Cromwell's "loud silence," as you say.
I also liked his decision to slowly kneel down and pick up what I think is a shard of glass, and, very slowly, hand it to Anne as he responds. You can see that the beginning of the gesture rattles Anne she doesn't know what the hell he's about to do. But then his decision to hand her the piece of glass is just as unexpected and she's rattled by that. It seems, on the surface, the action of a subordinate, but also seems to communicate exactly the opposite: he's not doing her bidding exactly, but he's willing to pick up after her for some reason of his own . . . . That part of the "action" of this scene just fascinates me . . . .