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2017
Winston Churchill is one of
many celebrities about whom I have mixed emotions. Yes, he accomplished many fine things; he was
a military officer; he served for many years as a member of the British
Parliament, where he influenced the passage of some crucial laws. And he served two terms as Prime Minister,
most notably during the early forties when he faced the burgeoning threat of
Hitler. So many of his compatriots wanted to appease that dictator for the sake
of survival and peace, but Churchill was the voice of resistance, and we all
need to be thankful that he was.
He was also a capable
artist; over his lifetime he completed a few hundred paintings, most of which
can still be observed in museums. He was a fighter plenipotentiary and took his
country through World War II and victory over the Nazi empire, though it needs
to be pointed out that he could never have prevailed in that struggle without
the aid of the United States. We came into that War two years after the British
did and by that time his cause was in the gravest doubt. He had a lot of help.
But of course he was
something of a hothead. One nickname for
him was Bulldog. He was very
temperamental and could reduce people to a pulp with his arguments. He got his country involved during World War
I in the infamous Gallipoli debacle. He
pushed for the invasion of Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula in the hopes of
pressuring the Turks to shift their allegiance to the Allied Powers, but it did
not work, and there were about 250,000 British casualties. A cruel defeat and a stain on England’s
history from which it never recovered!
And it took many years for his military reputation to recover. There was a recklessness about him that
struck fear into the hearts of many of his fellow countrymen. He was not the kind of Prime Minister I would
want leading me under peaceful circumstances, but it just so happens that what
the United Kingdom needed in 1940, after Germany declared war on it, was
a hothead, or maybe what we today would call a hawk.
And now we have this movie
docudrama, “Darkest Hour”. When I heard
that it was centered around Churchill’s induction into the responsibilities of
Prime Minster at the start of World War II, I feared that it would be a
whitewash, that he would be lionized as a supreme heroic figure, with little or
no attention to his faults and failures.
But while his decision-making during the course of the scenario could
not quite be classified as reckless, it could be called quite impulsive. When he comes into office, Germany is in the
process of conquering one European country after another – France, Holland,
Belgium, Czechoslovakia, et al, and the entire British military constituency of
300,000 is trapped behind the lines at Dunkirk, leaving England completely
defenseless. (“Darkest Hour” dovetails
quite nicely with the movie “Dunkirk”, recently reviewed by me on this blog, a
more epic account of the eventual rescue of those 300,000.) England has been left by its previous Prime
Minister, Neville Chamberlain, in quite a mess and its conservative Parliament
in a shambles.
So Churchill steps into the
vacuum, appointed by the King to form a new government, but he is not greeted
with open arms by that Parliament. In
fact, the hawk admits, when privately consulted about his plans and his
strategy after taking office, that he has none.
He talks big and turns a brave face toward the British public, while in
private he seems quite at a loss; he even admits to fear, something not
normally associated in peoples’ minds with him.
There is all kinds of conservative pressure being brought to bear upon
him to enter into negotiations with Hitler.
The old guard in the legislature is ready to avoid war at any cost, even
the loss of England itself. And
Churchill is right on the verge of agreeing to this, when he gets a bird’s eye
view of what the citizens on the street actually want. For the sake of those who have not yet seen
“Darkest Hour” I will not spoil the suspense by telling how this comes
about.
And King George himself
exerts some secret influence on his warlike disposition as well. His King would have paid a severe price had
he been captured by an invading German army, and he is not in the mood for escaping
to Canada to avoid the ordeal.
Gary Oldman earns his Oscar
for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role working through the bumps
and grinds of taking Churchill apart and examining the mind and the heart of
the man. I personally have not viewed
much of Oldman’s other work, though I know he has been around for a number of
years. I find absolutely no fault with
his portrayal. He faced, I’m sure, the
temptation to ham it up and to make the man a colossus. But he finds the right balance between his
gruff and vulnerable sides, between the sandpaper and the soft spots, and he
does it without diminishing the force of the man’s personality or the
prodigious weight of his intelligence or of his imagination. His work here is quite a study. There is some delightful humor also in his
interactions with fellow compatriots – even his first private encounter with
the King. This Prime Minister certainly
had a knack for wittiness. Whatever your
opinions or reservations about Sir Winston, you do well to observe Oldman at
work. He takes possession of the
movie. He had to undergo some rugged
physical reshaping to play the part.
Let me interject here that
another very quality piece of drama pertaining to British history is the
current TV Special Series entitled “The Crown”.
It has completed two seasons and I now wait with great anticipation for
Season Three. Those who have not viewed
the first two would do well to consider the work of John Lithgow as Churchill,
even though his is a supporting role.
Regrettably the character has already died and I am not certain whether
or not there will be flashback scenes including him in the remaining
episodes. As far as I am concerned
Lithgow is as effective as Oldman. Both
give this figure a memorable treatment.
(Lithgow won an Emmy for his.) Of
course “Darkest Hour” is a more compressed narrative pertaining only to a few
months early in the Second World War, while “The Crown” is a continuing saga
covering all the decades in the reign of the current Queen Elizabeth. Albert Finney also did a Churchill not too
many TV seasons back, and I would laud his work as well.
Kristin Scott Thomas
contributes a nice touch as Churchill’s wife, who knows the man inside and
outside and provides some much needed insight and empowerment, especially her
keen understanding of what she sees as his inescapable place in the making of
future history. She provides a needed
soft touch to steer his thoughts when his fury threatens to go off the deep
end. However it may have been actually,
this helpmate is a definite leveling influence.
She even has a touch of the poet about her.
There is one more category
of Churchill’s accomplishments, one that I would rank above all others. He was a tremendous writer. He got his literary talents going very early,
when he was in the army fighting in India during the 1890s. His first two books tell of his experiences
during that time. After his departure
from the military he got work as a war correspondent covering the Boer War in
South Africa. All his life he was
writing. Many books and articles poured
out of him. His words were shaped by
respect for great ideals; he could wax ever so eloquent on the printed
page.
I am now going to close
this reviewing by listing some of the many dozens of quotes for which he is
responsible. Every italicized word that
follows is his. Have an enjoyable read.
To build may
have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a
single day.
To improve is
to change, so to be perfect is to change often.
The farther
backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
The price of greatness is responsibility.
Personally
I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
Success is
the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Success is
not final, failure is not fatal. It is
the courage to continue that counts.
Attitude is a
little thing that makes a big difference.
You have
enemies? Good. It means you’ve stood up for something or
sometime in your life.
Politics is
the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month
and next year. And to have the ability
afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen!
We shape our
dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.
What is
adequacy? Adequacy is no standard at
all.
In the course
of my life I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have
always found it a wholesome diet.
The first
duty of the university is to teach wisdom, not a trade, character, not
technicalities. We want a lot of
engineers in the modern world, but we do not want a world of engineers.
The greatest
lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.
It’s not enough
that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what is required.
Out of
intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.
Courage is
what it takes to stand up and speak; it’s also what it takes to sit down and
listen.
Continuous
effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.
All the
greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word:
freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website: enspiritus.blogspot.com. To know about me, consult the
autobiographical entry on the website for Dec. 5, 2016.
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