"CHURCHILL" AN EMBARRASSING DISTORTION OF HISTORY

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By E.A. Barrera

June 5, 2017 (San Diego's East County) - There is something particularly galling when a writer and supposed historian pens a screenplay and intentionally distorts history for the purposes of modern day sensibilities. In this case, that sensibility is rampant in the portrayal of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill - under a childish modern notion of human interaction and motivation.

Jonathan Teplitsky’s film “Churchill” is nothing but a soap opera strewn with cliché and silly characterizations of Winston Churchill as equal parts clown, drunk, foolish old man, petty and jealous leader. Ultimately a man needing the scolding of his wife and friends before he can inspire a nation on the eve of the D-Day Invasion.

From a screenplay written by pop-historian Alex Von Tunzelmann, the film is loaded with modern day notions of marriage, and simplistic dialogue between historical figures. Embarrassing scenes such as arguments in which Churchill turns to Supreme Allied Commander (and future President) General Dwight D. Eisenhower, lecturing him that “Someone has to speak on behalf of the ordinary fighting man.”

Other brilliant scenes include Churchill reminding his wife that he’s “trying to run a country and win a war” and the idiotic “debate” over the invasion of Normandy, in which Churchill says to Eisenhower “Have you no thought of the cost if we go?” followed by Ike asking “Have you no thought of the cost if we don’t?”

And throughout this film – beautifully shot by David Higgs – there are long segments of watching Churchill light his cigar, look anxious, move amidst heavy cigar smoke and silently sit like an audience member while great military leaders decide the fate of the war. There is even a Quentin Tatantinoesque moment in which Churchill walks slow-motion, with cigar in mouth through the doors of a room where the showdown will commence.

The film treats Churchill like some old man who’s best days were years behind him. “If we can just make him feel part of it” is another inane gem of a line repeated twice by a character attempting some sympathy for poor old Winnie.

Lest the whole world has entered into a Trumpian nightmare of historical revisionism and understanding of history, allow me to point out the obvious facts: Churchill literally saved Europe from Nazi tyranny and with the possible exception of Franklin Roosevelt, was the most significant political leader of the 20th Century. He was a brilliant scholar and soldier, who wrote extensive histories on the the military campaigns of the British Empire. While most of Europe was seeking to appease Adolph Hitler, if not tacitly support his political goals of genocide, world domination and Aryan supremacy, it was Winston Churchill who recognized Hitler’s threat earlier than any other but FDR.

It was Churchill who rallied the people of England and the world to stand up to the Nazi’s during the worst of the war years. Churchill gave this world and England hope as the blitz and the fire-bombings and terror of Germany’s war machine almost conquered all of Europe. To answer Von Tunzelmann’s silly thematic point … he was definitely part of it.

Worst of all in this movie is the implication that by the time of the D-Day invasion, Churchill was a doddering old man suffering mental illness. In press notes for the movie, Von Tunzelmann even piously goes so far as to write that she hopes “we are now at a stage as a society where we understand better that these struggles are not shameful, and that to explore them is not disrespectful.”

“Churchill” wastes the talents of good actors Brian Cox, Miranda Richardson and John Slattery in a film written for an audience that regards history as “totally like anyone’s guess” and can not distinguish between genuine human drama and the stuff of juvenile pop-music lyrics.

It is in fact a disrespectful treatment of a serious, complicated man in a serious complicated moment of time.

 


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