Chris Levine, who first captured his groundbreaking portrait of Queen Elizabeth II almost 20 years ago, is one of the artists featured in the documentary Portrait of the Queen.
Queen Elizabeth II was one of the most photographed, most loved, talked about, spied upon, praised, criticized, and popular women on the planet. All over the globe and in every moment of her long life people have always wanted to watch her through a peephole, discover new things about her, get to know her better, connect with her and understand her. Portrait of the Queen offers an original portrayal of the story of The Queen from a totally new perspective: through the most intense, amazing, revealing photographic portraits of her, as shared by the extraordinary photographers who accompanied and often created the image of the British monarchy itself. Special focus is given to each of The Queen’s most intense, intimate, faithful portraits, symbols of 20th-century history, contextualized by the photographers who portrayed Her Majesty –Brian Aris, Jason Bell, Julian Calder, Chris Levine, David Montgomery, and John Swannell.
Chris is a light artist with an expansive and experimental practice. His multi-disciplinary approach harnesses a diverse array of technology with the unyielding intention of revealing the ways in which light is fundamental to human experience. He is driven by a deep-rooted desire to expand perception and sensitively guide the viewer to a meditative engagement with the present moment. His message and his language is light. This spiritually motivated and philosophical approach has allowed him to navigate unchartered territory in new media: he has been at the forefront of exploring how technologies such as holograms and lasers can contribute to the story of art and creative endeavors.
Although he has shown in museums and exhibitions dedicated to portraiture globally, Chris is not a portrait artist in the traditional sense. At the heart of Chris’s practice are his immersive light installations which he has endeavored to take out of the white cube environment into a real world, mass participatory experience. Continually pushing the boundaries of what light art can do and how it can have a transformative effect on the viewer, his singular ideology pulls the viewer into a greater consciousness through art.
Check out our interview with Chris:
Director’s Statement:
“Elizabeth II has, over the years, worked with great photographers from whom she has commissioned the portraits used to build, communicate and manage her image. Paola Calvetti, author of the book ‘Elisabetta II. Ritratto di Regina’, asked me to direct and do the photography for the film Portrait of the Queenwritten by her. Paola’s intuition to take an unprecedented point of view and make a film about the collaboration between Queen Elizabeth II and the great photographers is compelling and winning. I started working on it with care and attention and began imagining a point of view that was also unprecedented in order to turn the book into a film.
Let’s start with the assumption that the image emanates from the subject to the viewer: it comes towards us, making us the object of its manifestation. This is why images, editing and effects take on percussive characteristics in the film. This “philosophy” is conveyed clearly right from the opening credits, which I designed especially for the film.
From a filming perspective, I decided not to use panning, and avoid all camera movements that follow a left to right “interpretation” and instead try, whenever possible, to create images that come towards us from the screen, almost reaching us. Filming was done with 6K and 4K cameras, choosing from the lightest, most advanced models on the market: in the studio, I opted for a Black Magic Pocket Cinema Pro and on location for an iPhone 13 Pro. Unlike the book, I did not actually shoot any interviews as such with the photographers who photographed Queen Elizabeth II: I preferred to shoot their ‘portraits’ in the studio, with a pictorial light, in a black “box”, portraying them dressed in black. Their stories, their emotions in recalling them, their experiences with theQueen which they shared with me (as a colleague they know and respect and who knows and respects them in return) allowed genuine impressions and expressions to surface freely and be collected specifically for this film. The black surrounding them manages to cancel anything out that could distract us from their eyes, faces, words and emotions. And the empathy between colleagues that was created during these encounters generated moments of unexpected solidarity and deep emotion.
Then I met Charles Dance. Before meeting him in person in London, I had decided he would read the diaries, stories and ideas on photography from the great photographers of the past who had photographed the Queen -again from inside the “black box” but illuminated by the light of an iPad from which he would be reading. So, this would not be just a narrative voice, but a real presence that would form the backbone of the film. After meeting him, I was struck by his charisma, his voice, his expressiveness, intelligence, and realized that his contribution could be even much more decisive and convincing were his magnetism not constrained by a role and he were free to be himself –which is exactly what happened.
This crucial element blended with sudden accelerations and decelerations in the story, which I included in order to achieve the emotional structure of a ‘flexible narrative’, that can stretch and relax, arouse interest and surprise, and capture the attention.
A film based on images like this has the great advantage of combining the roles of director and cinematographer into one person. This hard-wired fusion of roles meant I should and could have many advantages since, for example, I wouldn’t have to explain to someone else exactly what I wanted to achieve in order for them to use lighting or film a certain scene in a certain way. In short, I wouldn’t have to try to achieve convergence since I was starting from fusion… But that’s not all. The film had to have the fundamental contribution of an artist who knew how to make you “see it even with your eyes closed”. The composer of the music, Remo Anzovino, succeeded in doing this by writing an unforgettable theme. A superb way to give color, through music, to a portrait of Elizabeth II.” -Fabrizio Ferri
