Arrgh! You're not reading my review because I mentioned the Wigram episode in "Gathering Storm" and why there was less time for sub-plots in this film; and I mentioned the problem with insufficiently defined transitions in the past-to-present transitions. I am so chuffed to read my words repeated! :-)
I am not a filmmaker but I should think that producing films, like publishing, is the art of the possible. In 2009, to have 90 minutes to explore Churchill the man is a minor miracle. Do we know how many docu- dramas, beginning with Jack Le Vien's multi-part "The Valiant Years" in the 1960s, there have been? Dozens. Simon Ward in 1974 played "Young Winston." Old Winston was portrayed by Richard Burton in the "first" Gathering Storm, Timothy West in a film about the WW2 generals, somebody else in one about the Big Three, Timothy Robert Hardy in the 1982 multi-part "Wilderness Years," Hardy again in a 1986 David Susskind one-man production, Hardy again in a stage play, Albert Finney in the 2002 "Gathering Storm II" (I reviewed last three at http://xrl.us/bevckq). Then there were all the films in which WSC had more of a bit part, about Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, Yalta, the Blitz, "Danger UXB." And then there are the historical fiction-thrillers, like "The Eagle Has Landed." Most of them are available on CD. There are so many that a Churchill Centre film buff, Glynne Jenkins, has given lectures about them. Perhaps somebody on this list can offer a compilation—if even close to complete, FINEST HOUR would publish it. Producers have missed a great drama in the middle-aged Winston of 1914-15, but World War II has been done to death. What hasn't been done, not even in Ridley Scott's first effort, and not since Tim Hardy's 1982 epic (and that was multiple parts in different period) is to document of Churchill's true character. We all know how badly he's been represented by the likes of Irving, Ponting and Buchanan. Scott and Whitemore could easily have followed suit. But they did it right, and did it well. It's the age of the Internet, after all. The wider context of WW2 is hardly obscure. As Casey Stengel said, "You can look it up." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/ChurchillChat?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
