Film Matters Magazine

In early 2022, I am aware of everyone else who seems to be online just the same amount as I am, so I recognize there is a trend in the content I am consuming. There is an online scene managed by college students in downtown New York. They all appear to be actors, creators, personalities, influencers, or all of the above. They are preparing for the next big scene to appear in New York City. This scene never leaves the online stratosphere of think pieces acknowledging the scene as a physical space, rooting from a triangular epicenter in the Lower East Side: Dimes Square. Dimes Square is a microneighborhood that could be more fiction than fact. In many ways, Dimes Square seems reminiscent of earlier microcultures within New York City that rose to prominence, thanks to aspiring artists from outside the city. Think of The Factory without an Andy Warhol ringleader. Like the countless trend articles about Dimes Square, ambitious artists from outside the city create what they believe to be the New York scene due to their own dreams of a setting beyond the reality of an actual “art scene” that exists in New York. This scene is created through online performances for consumption through various tweets, Instagram memes, and podcasts, curated for eclectic teenagers outside the city. These teens beg for a glimpse into the world of a post-millennial generation, zoomers and Gen Z, living in the city, maintaining a lifestyle unaffordable to the vast majority.

From director Pablo Larrain, Spencer (2021) was long awaited as the ultimate biopic on one of the most fascinating, yet cursed, personalities of modern history. The story of Lady Diana has been an object of attention since the very beginning of her relationship with Prince Charles and her entry into the royal family. Her figure has always had two sides, which only began to be comprehended appropriately after her death, and whose comprehension also brought to light some of the controversies of the royal institution. Season four and five of Netflix’s The Crown give one accurate representation of both these aspects. The show introduces Diana as a 16-year-old girl, who falls in love with Prince Charles and idealizes royal life as a dream. However, the series moves quickly from this idyllic view to the claustrophobic reality of life within the royal family. The progressive decay of Diana’s mental health takes place quite fast, as she tries to meet the standards required to live as a “royal,” while experiencing a growing sense of loneliness in a relationship where love only exists for the eyes of the public. If The Crown does a good job at giving a nuanced depiction of Diana, the princess’ point of view is one among many, in a show where all characters are equally portrayed in their merits and flaws, to stimulate empathy and understanding from the audience. Larrain’s Spencer takes a different approach by presenting facts from Diana’s perspective only, a character immersion which involves interesting choices in terms of style and genre. In fact, if Spencer was categorized as “drama,” this article will argue that the category is not as fitting as it may be for The Crown. Instead, Larrain’s film presents multiple elements which belong to the horror genre. In a graceful envelope of elegant dresses, luxurious meals and beautiful landscapes, Spencer depicts the psychological suffering of a princess kept in a golden cage. Besides audiovisual features which are typically horror, it also presents parallels with two classics of the horror genre: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). The comparison concerns plot development as well as stylistic choices in terms of cinematography and action sequences. As it states at the beginning, Spencer is “a fable from a true tragedy.” This article unveils how writer Steven Knight and director Pablo Larrain managed to capture a fragment of time from Diana’s real life, encapsulate it in the structure of a fable through costumes, makeup and palaces, even gift it with a happy ending, all with one aim: to represent the horror that lurked behind all of that.