Sunday, January 08, 2012
Mrs. Thatch!
Press coverage around 'The Iron Lady' has shrieked of a conspiracy, a right wing glossing over of Mrs. Thatcher's dark side. The film's makers have even been accused of, duh, duh, DUHHHH, humanizing Britain's only female PM. The truth is, it does, and that's no bad thing.
If you don't like 'The Iron Lady', that's fine. It's not your cup of tea. You may carp about its lack of historical detail, or even accuracy. You might wish, it focused on the miners' strike rather than on Thatcher in the advanced stages of dementia, talking with her dead husband Denis.
Most of the objections to this film are simplistic and ideologically based. They think she was an evil negative force in the world and want their viewpoint to be given celluloid validation. They're not looking at the actual film,which although superficially about a major political figure is actually about the transitory nature of fame and power.
A case in point, the controversial scene where Thatcher goes to buy milk a the beginning of the film. Scurrying back to with her shopping, bemused and confused, what's clear is that Thatcher, like many of the elderly, is invisible to the rest of us. Her battles, her passions and her considerable fame, such as it was, are irrelevant to the majority of the population alive today. Even her son Mark lives abroad and has no intention of coming to visit 'Another time perhaps', she suggests when he calls. As with many elderly parents hoping to see their children, even the longest serving British PM of the 20th century lacks definitive powers of persuasion with her absent son.
Britain's current leader, whom Thatcher, played by Oscar-bound Meryl Streep, calls 'quite a smoothy', will go the same way.
The last vestiges of her former glory surround her: the official portrait on her kitchen wall, the secretary half-heartedly leafing through her Filofax for appointments, these are physical manifestations of the obscurity all people are destined for.
Some bits of the film are inspired, others not so. Her early years are brilliantly captured, and it wasn't all good. However, portraying Thatcher as instrumental in ending the Cold War (she was famously opposed to German reunification, the final political act of the Cold War) is just wrong. It also skirts over her internal conflicts with the Heathites in her party, which could have truncated her leadership had it not been for the Falklands War.
Some viewers also mightn't get all the historical minutiae, and that's a shame. Dealing with it would make a great film, or a long one depending on how good it's rendered, but that's another film, not currently showing in Omniplexes around the world.
If the film's director, writer and stars all argue that the film is apolitical, it's not to hide an unpalatable political narrative, it's just the film isn't particularly political. Thatcher's family and friends have also been frosty about the film, so it's hardly the hagiography it might be construed as being. Furthermore, the charge of humanizing Thatcher, the same charge leveled at the makers of 'Downfall' about Bruno Ganz's depiction of Hitler, is an outrageous distortion of Thatcher's term in Downing Street. She may have been, in the words of Ben Elton, a 'nasty old witch', but she was a democratically elected 'nasty old witch', who respected and understood the cut and thrust of democratic politics, and thrived on it. And was shown the door by it.
Incidentally, for an accurate account of Thatcher's years in power, google BBC's documentary, 'Thatcher: The Downing Street Years'. For an entertaining, semi-fictitious drama about a significant historical figure, watch The Iron Lady.
If you don't like 'The Iron Lady', that's fine. It's not your cup of tea. You may carp about its lack of historical detail, or even accuracy. You might wish, it focused on the miners' strike rather than on Thatcher in the advanced stages of dementia, talking with her dead husband Denis.
Most of the objections to this film are simplistic and ideologically based. They think she was an evil negative force in the world and want their viewpoint to be given celluloid validation. They're not looking at the actual film,which although superficially about a major political figure is actually about the transitory nature of fame and power.
A case in point, the controversial scene where Thatcher goes to buy milk a the beginning of the film. Scurrying back to with her shopping, bemused and confused, what's clear is that Thatcher, like many of the elderly, is invisible to the rest of us. Her battles, her passions and her considerable fame, such as it was, are irrelevant to the majority of the population alive today. Even her son Mark lives abroad and has no intention of coming to visit 'Another time perhaps', she suggests when he calls. As with many elderly parents hoping to see their children, even the longest serving British PM of the 20th century lacks definitive powers of persuasion with her absent son.
Britain's current leader, whom Thatcher, played by Oscar-bound Meryl Streep, calls 'quite a smoothy', will go the same way.
The last vestiges of her former glory surround her: the official portrait on her kitchen wall, the secretary half-heartedly leafing through her Filofax for appointments, these are physical manifestations of the obscurity all people are destined for.
Some bits of the film are inspired, others not so. Her early years are brilliantly captured, and it wasn't all good. However, portraying Thatcher as instrumental in ending the Cold War (she was famously opposed to German reunification, the final political act of the Cold War) is just wrong. It also skirts over her internal conflicts with the Heathites in her party, which could have truncated her leadership had it not been for the Falklands War.
Some viewers also mightn't get all the historical minutiae, and that's a shame. Dealing with it would make a great film, or a long one depending on how good it's rendered, but that's another film, not currently showing in Omniplexes around the world.
If the film's director, writer and stars all argue that the film is apolitical, it's not to hide an unpalatable political narrative, it's just the film isn't particularly political. Thatcher's family and friends have also been frosty about the film, so it's hardly the hagiography it might be construed as being. Furthermore, the charge of humanizing Thatcher, the same charge leveled at the makers of 'Downfall' about Bruno Ganz's depiction of Hitler, is an outrageous distortion of Thatcher's term in Downing Street. She may have been, in the words of Ben Elton, a 'nasty old witch', but she was a democratically elected 'nasty old witch', who respected and understood the cut and thrust of democratic politics, and thrived on it. And was shown the door by it.
Incidentally, for an accurate account of Thatcher's years in power, google BBC's documentary, 'Thatcher: The Downing Street Years'. For an entertaining, semi-fictitious drama about a significant historical figure, watch The Iron Lady.
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