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.