Not angry, disappointed: Australian cricket's legacy.

It is easy to feel sorry for Steve Smith. He’s a young, highly-strung man in a position of great responsibility in the public eye who is currently struggling under the tonne of bricks that fell on him from a great height. He allowed a ball-tampering scheme to go ahead, and lied to the umpires on the field, then lied to the public in the press conference where he was supposed to be coming clean. As a consequence, he has been stripped of the captaincy for two years and banned from playing international and interstate cricket for 12 months. His latest press conference saw him break down in tears, unsurprisingly. 

Australian fans and officials have been accused of over-reacting. Perhaps, but I don’t think this is merely a response to one instance of ball-tampering and clumsy cover-up. This is a response to being embarrassed by the on-field behaviour of our national team for two decades. Ever since Steve Waugh announced that they were aiming for “mental disintegration” of the opposition, as if the cricket field was a early branch of Ahu Ghraib, the Australian cricket team have put an unholy emphasis on sledging. What is sledging? It is the organised, systematic, verbal abuse of opposition batsmen. Wow, you might think, that sounds a lot like bullying, which we’re all against. It does, because it is.

A lot of people confused sledging with the witty put-downs one used to read about in books such as “Chappelli laughs” or Max Walker’s “How to hypnotise a python.” It’s actually more along the lines of “How does Brian Lara’s cock taste?” as said to a young West Indian batsman by one of our best fast bowlers. And this was organised - he didn’t even think that up himself. They have team meetings to decide on their campaigns of sledging. They selected a keeper to bat and for his ability to keep up the chatter, not because he was  the best keeper.  In this latest series, they demanded the stump microphones be turned off so they could sledge. This would be time and energy I imagine better used in practicing batting, bowling, and fielding, but what do I know?

So why have we gone along with it? Why has it taken this long for the Australian public and officials to be angry? Simple - we were winning. Shame on us. Under Steve Waugh we were the best team in the world. Under successive captains, we’ve been less so. “Hard but fair” was their mantra, always claiming to know where the ‘line’ was. It was easy to spot the line actually; whatever the Australians did was on the right side, however the opposition responded was on the other.  We were winning, so bad behaviour was called ‘professionalism’, ‘larrikinism’, ‘the Australian style of game’.  As our success rate started going down, the number of people questioning the team went up. There were those who never liked it and said so - full credit to them. But it has taken this ball tampering incident for CA to realise for two decades they had been letting successive Australian teams bring the game into disrepute, and maybe they should do something about it. 

The players were under a lot of pressure on this tour, far from home, and losing. Perhaps what the SA cricketer said to Dave Warner was horrible. But when you’ve been antagonising someone precisely in order to make them snap, and when you succeed they don’t snap in a way you  like, I’m not sure the moral ground you think you’re on is all that high - or moral. Large sections of the South African crowds behaved poorly. Darren Lehmann, now thankfully Australia’s ex-coach, during the last Ashes series asked the Australian crowd to make a particular English cricketer cry and go home. It’s more like immoral quicksand.

Nor is Australia alone taking the game down this slope where it is now. Weak officials and powerful money brokers have seen cheating and corruption blight the game. There are plenty of people to look at beyond the three Australians at all levels across the globe. But I’m just focussing on the sledging, Australia’s specialty and pride. This summer I enjoyed watching some schoolboy First XI matches, games you’d imagine played in the best spirit of the game, with some of the players already enjoying representative honours. Yet batsmen were abused on the field by close-in fielders. Here’s one direct quote: “You’re a fucking ugly cunt.” Not all teams indulged in this behaviour but one is too many. There should be no place on the cricket field for that, but neither the umpires nor the coaches did anything about it. These boys are the future of the game. This is the legacy of these two decades of sledging. The Australian cricket team should be ashamed. It’s time international cricket took a deep breath and start to get the game back to what it was; a game of honour and fair play. Australia has a chance to lead the way.

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Getting ahead of the game: Australia's next mini-series

A lunch room at a cricket ground in Cape Town. Two discouraged looking men are discussing the day’s play

SMITH: I don't understand it, we just can't get on top of these South Africans.

WARNER: I know. 

SMITH: Where could we be going wrong? We don’t need to consider our skills or tactics at all. Are you still talking yourself up?

WARNER: Endlessly. Actually the wife's a little sick of it if I'm honest. And the kids.

SMITH: And the sledging?

WARNER: We had an emergency meeting of the sledging subcommittee last night, and we reckon we are on point. We are in THEIR HEADS

SMITH: But didn't one of them get into yours? 

WARNER: Yeah and that was really mean. That was over the line.

SMITH: Yeah the line is so important isn't it? And that's why we're so good at it, because we know where the line is, and can define it for the other teams.

WARNER: If they ask.

SMITH: And they never do.

BOTH: Until it's too late.

WARNER: And then it’s all, ooh the Aussies are so mean. Sometimes I just want to… sniffles

SMITH: putting his arm around Warner’s shoulder. It’s all right mate. You didn’t do anything wrong. You never do.

Pause

Enter BANCROFT

BANCROFT: G’day Skipper, g’day Mr Warner. How’s it going?  We got a plan to get these blokes out? Have we? Huh? Huh? Cause you guys are ace and if anyone can come up with a plan it’ll be you guys. Yeah. Can’t wait to hear it. I bet it’s a really good one.

SMITH: Go away.

BANCROFT: Yeah, sure skip, anything you say skip. I’m over here if you need me skip.

Exit BANCROFT

Pause

SMITH: What if we, you know, cheated?

WARNER: Cheated?

SMITH: I mean, take professionalism to new levels.

WARNER: Ohhhh. Wouldn’t that be, maybe, over the line?

SMITH: Not if we do it.

WARNER: Good point.

SMITH: If we interfered with the ball.

WARNER: With the ball?

SMITH:  A bit.

WARNER: Don't other teams do that sometimes?

SMITH: Oh yeah. All the time. It’s practically part of the game.

WARNER: And how did we react to it?

Pause

SMITH: I think we were cool with it.

WARNER: Yeah cool, that's right. I'm pretty sure we stayed on the right side of the line.

SMITH: I'm not sure the line applies in that situation.

WARNER: But if did, we were.

SMITH: Because we always are.

WARNER: Exactly. 

SMITH: But how would we do it?

WARNER: It would need to be subtle. What if we used this bright yellow tape?

SMITH: Yeah, that won’t show up on cameras at all.

WARNER: There’s cameras?

SMITH: I think so.

WARNER: But I can't do it. For some reason those South African bas…

SMITH: Language! You’ve got a small fortune in the swear jar already.

WARNER: Those South African bounders …

SMITH: Much better.

WARNER: … have taken a real set against me. They’ll be watching me like a hawk.

SMITH: I know. I don’t understand it. No-one talks themselves up as much as you, nor sledges as well.

WARNER: It’s a mystery.

SMITH: And I can’t do it, because I’m the captain.

WARNER: But isn’t it your responsib -

SMITH: I said, I can’t. 

WARNER: What if we asked someone whose place in the team is heavily dependent on our good will?

SMITH: That would be good. But who would be silly enough...?

Pause. They both smile, look at each other, and call:

BOTH: Bancroft!

Enter BANCROFT

BANCROFT: Yeah fellahs? 

                                                  END OF SCENE

Old movies, forgotten awards

I don’t think I particularly like the Oscars anymore. I was never mad for them, didn’t sit up watching till midnight avoiding the news so I wouldn’t know who won what, or of later years trying to find a venue to watch them live. Awards themselves are of dubious value, award shows even more so. When Nicole Kidman pretentiously said “Art is important” to defend her going to the Oscars in the wake of 9/11, the obvious riposte, “Yes but award shows aren’t”, wasn’t mentioned. Ultimately, good work doesn’t always get awards, and awards don’t always go to good work. And as Johnny Carson (I think) said, the Oscars are two hours of entertainment jam-packed into a five-hour show.

Over the last few years Hollywood’s night of artistic self-congratulation has turned into a  night of moral self-congratulation, when stars wear dresses of a certain colour or badges to show their disapproval of an appalling mode of human behaviour that has been in the headlines mainly because it is prevalent in Hollywood, whose disapproval is strongest in hindsight. They seem to confuse wearing a designer dress of one colour instead of another as some form of activism, like those people who wear “This is what a feminist looks like” t-shirt regardless of how they actually treat women in real life, or those people who wear Che Guevara t-shirts and have never once gone from war to war so they can shoot people (I assume that’s what they’re supporting; it was Che’s favourite activity.)  I’m not sure how many more open secrets Hollywood can all pretend to be appalled by.

I also dislike the articles that appear discussing the films etc that should never have won the Oscar. I think they’re mean-spirited (which admittedly is spiritus temporum) and again confuses awards with the worth of a film. I of course have my opinions on films I think weren’t worthy winners but good luck to those artists. It doesn’t change anything that matters. So overall, while I will never claim to be uninterested in the Oscars, I am tending towards the disinterested. 

But I still like films. One good thing this year is the Foxtel are showing all the best-film award winners in order. I say ‘all’, it’s actually ‘a lot’ but does include the first, 1927’s Wings, through to last year’s Moonlight. There’s a lot there I’ve only ever heard about but never seen: All about Eve, The Apartment, The Deer Hunter, and those that I haven’t seen for a long time: Shakespeare in love, which I will defend to the death so sod off. I would love to have the time and wherewithal to sit and watch for several days, which is a ludicrous idea but still. It’s sobering to consider how many of these films are forgotten. But such is art - and awards. 

One film I did watch was 1930’s big winner All Quiet on the Western Front, which won Best Picture and Best Director. It’s one year older than my Dad, and like him, sometimes shaky but stands the test of time well. The acting can be wooden and melodramatic but the film itself greatly affecting. A class of young German schoolboys are implored by their fiercely-patriotic teacher to enlist in the early days of the war, and we follow them through training, battle and their deaths. (Spoiler-alert I guess - but the film is 88 years old and the novel older and WWI isn’t a byword for happily-ever-after.) Some die on the battlefield, some in the hospital. One soldier spends a night in a shell crater, watching the enemy soldier he stabbed die over the course of the hours. He goes home but find no-one understands what he’s been through, least of all the teacher who started him there. It’s following them on this journey that makes it such a moving film. The ending is devastating and the final shot haunting.

The novel was written by Erich Maria Remarque, a WWI veteran, based on his experiences in the German army. Making the film in the late 1920s meant there were plenty of veterans around to act as advisors, in particular Germans, some of whom appear as trainers in the training sequences. The battle sounds are like nothing I’ve ever heard. An old corporal, Kat, describes the sounds of different shells to the newcomers, and I think this specificity is reflected in the soundscape. This closeness to the original event I suspect gives the film a verisimilitude later films can lack, despite advances in technique.

It’s also interesting to watch a film made before Hollywood imposed the Hayes Code on itself to prevent government censorship. A French soldier is blown up leaving nothing but his hands still clinging to the wire - a memory of one of the German veterans who worked on the film. Swimming in a river behind the lines, the young German men spot some French women and bribe them with food. Bare bottoms are seen when they boys show off in the river, and it’s clear the night does involve sex, without being explicit. This sequence is at once touching and pathetic. The women are desperate for food, but the subsequent liaison is one of genuine human connection, which both parties are clearly craving. It’s a

sequence that would not have appeared a decade later for example. For different reasons it may not appear if the film were made now. (There are stories of a new version coming.) And I don’t know if it’s a reflection of German society of the novel or American society when the film was shot, but the boys are also much freer displaying physical affection towards each other. It makes them seem much younger, and their descent into the horrors of war that much more terrible.

The film, like the book, was banned in Nazi Germany for the negative picture of the war. The film was banned in Poland and France for being pro-German. Controversial in its day, still affecting now. We should all be so lucky in the work we create.

The Uses of Churchills

Just recently we’ve had a lot of Churchills. Gary Oldman won an Oscar for his, John Lithgow won high praise for his, and Brian Cox … well, Brian Cox got stuck with an incredibly dud script. We’ve also discovered that if you make a show with Churchill, you get to add a great part for a  female actor of a certain age: in these three examples, Kristin Scott Thomas, Harriet Walter and Miranda Richardson, all play his wife Clementine who was his great supporter, sounding board, conscience and moderator.

But there’s been great and lesser Churchills before 2017. In 2010 Churchill inexplicably turned up as George VI’s supporter in The King’s Speech, played by Timothy Spall. Albert Finney played the part with Vanessa Redgrave as Clementine in 2002’s The Gathering Storm, Brendan Gleeson and Janet McTeer in the 2009 sequel, Into the Storm. Last century saw Robert Hardy in The Wilderness Years with Siân Phillips, an eight-part television series (playing Churchill was a theme of Hardy’s career) and Simon Lord as Young Winston with Pippa Steel as young Clementine. And that’s just the highlights.

There’s little mystery as to why Churchill attracts writers and actors. He was born in the age of Victoria and died in the Second Elizabethan Age, a name he coined, living through almost a century. He was a lonely neglected child. He took part in the Boer War and both World Wars, as reporter, soldier and politician - in WWI, soldier and politician. He went from outsider, to insider, from party to party, from voice in the wilderness to the roar of the British Lion. He was given the job of Prime Minister at perhaps the most vulnerable point of Britain’s long history and lead it to triumph. He was a prolific historian winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, and also Time Magazine’s Man of the Half Century. Often wrong-headed, he was responsible for military disasters such as Gallipoli and Norway, and yet without him, who knows how long the Nazi control of western Europe could have lasted, and with what consequences. He fought for the Empire and lost it. And at the height of his triumph in the Second World War, he was dumped by the British public who never quite forgave the Tories for the 30s. It’s a hell of a story. Combine with that his character and physical characteristics - the voice, the oratory, the cigars, the drinking, V for Victory, the wit - it’s almost as he decided to gift future actors with too much to work with.

Which makes one wonder, why make stuff up? History doesn’t happen in neat dramatic lines of course and so a certain amount of trimming and editing is part of any historical script. Both The Crown and Darkest Hour have also altered history but not I think fatally. Darkest Hour has Churchill hopping on to the underground. As history it’s wrong and out of character, but dramatically it works. It also talks to Churchill’s ability to draw inspiration from the people, and his actual habit, later, of getting the results of some of the first political polling in Britain. It dramatises the strong connection between Churchill and the people during the war.

The Crown goes a little further. When Churchill had his stroke in 1953, the Queen was one of the first people informed, even if it was kept secret on a wider scale. Churchill was a lot of things but never deceitful to the Crown. Not so in the show. But the show is about Elizabeth II and it gives Claire Foy a wonderfully-written scene where she scolds Churchill for his deception, putting him in his place, while demonstrating her respect for him. It’s beautifully played too by Foy and Lithgow. My favourite episode of The Crown was later when Churchill was having his portrait painted by Graham Sutherland. Again it’s beautifully written and played, this time between Lithgow and Stephen Dillane as the artist. I can forgive a lot for that.

But Churchill. Oh my dear, Churchill.

Winston Churchill as a panicky fool so overwhelmed by his doubts about D-Day that he prays in cod-Shakespeare for a storm to wreck the invasion. Churchill despised by his generals. The screenwriter, Alex von Tunzelmann has taken some facts, such as Churchill’s suggestions for diversionary attacks on other fronts, and the sidelining of the UK as a world power, and spun pure tosh. Ironically Tunzelmann is an historian who wrote a series of columns about historical films, rating them both as films and as history. Her own work fails as both - it’s a dull silly film and execrable history. I have not read any of her other work but this seems to be her first crack at World War Two, and at film writing. I hope she  improves in both. Her thesis is bad and her exposition clumsy. “This is our last briefing on Operation Overlord, the assault on the German occupying forces in the north of France,” announces John Slattery as Eisenhower. One almost expects one of the other generals to pipe up “We’re going to do what to who now?”

Many writers proclaim their discovery Churchill’s feet of clay as if they’re the first ones. And we live in an age that loves to drag down great people to our level - or lower if possible. I can’t think of any other reason you would write and produce a film so poor as this. Which is a pity; there’s a strong cast of British and American actors wasted here. There is, as a friend of mine much more knowledgable about these things said, a good film to be made about British doubts about Operation Overlord. There is also plenty of material to play with about the relationship between the British and American generals before and after D-Day. This film is not that film.

Ah well, you say, it’s just a film. But history is taught less and less at schools and most people’s understanding of history is drawn from films and television. I think it’s becoming more important for screenwriters to get history right. With any luck, Churchill will gain the fate it deserves - forgotten and unlamented.