Links and complaints (I like to mix it up a little)
So I have two short fics elsewhere to record:
Ragged Edge (Faith/Vamp!Willow R)
Father Time (Giles, gen, melancholy)
And I have a short review and a pedantry about the King's Speech:
Very enjoyable. Very well made. Great acting. A bit static for a film, perhaps - it shows its theatre roots. But then speech therapy isn't the most physically active of topics, and the interior sets are outstanding. Geoffrey Rush is stunning, and so's Helena Bonham Carter. Firth does his thankless job of the repressed toff very well, though jest one more strengulated wahrd and I might have lost sympathy with him. Casting Guy Pearce as the PoW then making a big thing of Rush being an Aussie was brave, but I think came off okay. One speech at the start of war... isn't the most important thing going on there, but it's fair enough to see it mainly as one man's personal struggle, witnessed in agony by millions of embarrassed citizens.
My gripe is Churchill. I've seen the odd reviewer say he's a cardboard cutout caricature in this. I'd say more importantly he's a completely bloody unnecessary and inaccurate intrusion. Churchill urges George on to the throne? Churchill *names* him? Churchill who was leading the pro-Edward VIII campaign? No. We as a nation are sentimental about Churchill, and let his (undeniable) wartime role spill over into misinterpreting his life. At this time, he wasn't a hero. He was a lousy chancellor in the 1920s and laid quite a bit of groundwork for the Depression. In the 1930s he was isolated, alone, unpopular, and seeking a big splashy cause to save his career. Like the Abdication. Like opposing Indian independence, or even Dominion status on a par with the so-called White Dominions (and yes, that's exactly as racist as it sounds). He was fascinated by Mussolini, perhaps dangerously so. He was also right about the threat of Germany, about the dangers of disarmament, about appeasement - but he wasn't alone in urging a faster shift in government policy, and he didn't co-operate well with those who agreed with him. He did a hell of a difficult job in 1940, for which he is owed continuing gratitude. But he wasn't a saint, and he shouldn't be wheeled on as sympathetic window dressing, 'good old Churchill'. He's much more interesting and unpleasant than that.
(Mind you, I was glad to see the hatchet job the film does on Cosmo Gordon Lang. Definitely not my fave ABC.)
Ragged Edge (Faith/Vamp!Willow R)
Father Time (Giles, gen, melancholy)
And I have a short review and a pedantry about the King's Speech:
Very enjoyable. Very well made. Great acting. A bit static for a film, perhaps - it shows its theatre roots. But then speech therapy isn't the most physically active of topics, and the interior sets are outstanding. Geoffrey Rush is stunning, and so's Helena Bonham Carter. Firth does his thankless job of the repressed toff very well, though jest one more strengulated wahrd and I might have lost sympathy with him. Casting Guy Pearce as the PoW then making a big thing of Rush being an Aussie was brave, but I think came off okay. One speech at the start of war... isn't the most important thing going on there, but it's fair enough to see it mainly as one man's personal struggle, witnessed in agony by millions of embarrassed citizens.
My gripe is Churchill. I've seen the odd reviewer say he's a cardboard cutout caricature in this. I'd say more importantly he's a completely bloody unnecessary and inaccurate intrusion. Churchill urges George on to the throne? Churchill *names* him? Churchill who was leading the pro-Edward VIII campaign? No. We as a nation are sentimental about Churchill, and let his (undeniable) wartime role spill over into misinterpreting his life. At this time, he wasn't a hero. He was a lousy chancellor in the 1920s and laid quite a bit of groundwork for the Depression. In the 1930s he was isolated, alone, unpopular, and seeking a big splashy cause to save his career. Like the Abdication. Like opposing Indian independence, or even Dominion status on a par with the so-called White Dominions (and yes, that's exactly as racist as it sounds). He was fascinated by Mussolini, perhaps dangerously so. He was also right about the threat of Germany, about the dangers of disarmament, about appeasement - but he wasn't alone in urging a faster shift in government policy, and he didn't co-operate well with those who agreed with him. He did a hell of a difficult job in 1940, for which he is owed continuing gratitude. But he wasn't a saint, and he shouldn't be wheeled on as sympathetic window dressing, 'good old Churchill'. He's much more interesting and unpleasant than that.
(Mind you, I was glad to see the hatchet job the film does on Cosmo Gordon Lang. Definitely not my fave ABC.)