Churchill
I have not
watched the film yet.
Regarding Gary Oldman I have nothing to speak in
terms of his professional career and even less in his personal life (I'm not
interested in dirty laundry), but what I read in an article by Louise Raw has
caught my attention because I had not an idea that Mr Churchill had had such a
turbulent past.
It´s just a coincidence, but I was finishing Heart of Darkness, by J. Conrad when Darkest Hour was reaching a spectacular
success and for me both, the book and what I´ve heard about the film, helped by
Feel free to enjoy Gary Oldman's
portrayal of Churchill but don't forget his problematic past had many
points of contact.
«You
should have heard him say, `My ivory´. Oh yes, I heard him. `My Intendent, my
ivory, my station, my river, my—´everything belonged to him. It made me hold my
breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of
laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged
to him —but that was a trifle.»
I´m
going to leave aside what Mr Churchill did in the Great War or with the role
played in World War II, because among other things at home, in the forties and
fifties my elders were in favour of the man with the hat and the cigar, but
apart from this the writing of Louise Raw has opened my eyes and has helped me
to think the extent to which we can know someone.
I
had already heard something about Leopold II, king of the Belgians (and of many
African blacks, since the former Belgian Congo was totally his property) and
what I have read in Heart of ... fits
perfectly with the idea I had of the action of Europeans in the African
continent.
Everyone
knows the Black Legend about what the first colonizers and explorers of America
(Spaniards and Portuguese, mainly) did in the sixteenth century, but the
colonization and the Partition of Africa was made in the nineteenth century,
more than three hundred years later . If that was abominable, what a name to
give to these events...
«You
remember I told you I had been struck at the distance by certain attempts at
ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the place. Now I had
suddenly a nearer view, and its first result was to make me throw my head back
as if before a blow. Then I went carefully from post to post with my glass, and
I saw my mistake. These round knobs were no ornamental but symbolic; they were
expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbing —food for thought and also for
the vultures if there had been any looking down from the sky; but at all events
for such ants as were industrious enough to ascend the pole. They would have
been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not
been turned to the house. Only one, the first I had made out, was facing my
way.»
Did
Mr Churchill read Conrad's book? Did it fall into his hands published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine? His
grandson tries to excuse him by saying that his grandfather did what all people
did at that time. In other words, if we all commit the same crime, that is not
a crime. My God, what excuse so childish. Excuses for a man, commendable
politician, who allowed himself the luxury of saying things as nice as that the
fields where the natives were confined was for their own good; it only meant
the “minimum of suffering”.
«I
pulled the string of the whistle, and I did this because I saw the pilgrims on
deck getting out their rifles with an air of anticipating a jolly lark. At the
sudden screech there was a movement of abject terror through that wedged mass
of bodies. `Don´t! don´t you frighten them away´, cried someone on deck
disconsolately. I pulled the string time after time... The three red chaps had
fallen flat, face down on the shore, as though they had been shot dead. Only
the barbarous and superb woman did not so much as flinch, and stretched
tragically her bare arms after us over the sombre and glittering river.
And then that imbecile crowd down on the deck started their little fun,
and I could see nothing more for smoke.»
His
career as a leader was a mixture of 'jolly little wars against barbarous
people' and the use, if necessary, of poisonous gas against 'uncivilized
tribes'. These practices were day-to-day outside the metropolis, but at home
you had to be careful because this man was very responsible if he had to
control a problem generated by exalted Lithuanians or staff who wanted to
improve their work. Careful because Mr Churchill put on the workman's suit and
headed the patrol of the police or the army - with Trump's face - to stop those
troublemakers. Tip: if some of this happened in your neighbourhood, better not
to go to your garden to see what was happening.
Not
to mention the opinion he had of the Indians who gave birth as rabbits and did
not get food for everyone.
With
time it was softening; it was when he said that democracy was the least bad way
of doing politics - that's only thinking about the white race. Even in the late
thirties he goes on to say that he did not see well that the Red Indians of America
or the black people of Australia were treated badly just because the white man
was superior.
As I
just read Heart of Darkness and as I
am, so to speak, a poor reader I have the feeling that I have not understood
many things and that if I read it again, after a while and better prepared
would find exciting moments that in this first reading they will have escaped
me. I know because this has happened to other people much smarter than me.
«`What
a loss to me —to us!´—she corrected herself with beautiful generosity; then added
in a murmur, `To the world´.»
We
are already disgusted to hear that behind a great man there is always a great
woman - what a chauvinist pig! Behind a remarkable man it is common that we
find lights and shadows. Shadows.
When
I go to see the film I will not go empty.
From
my Borstal.
LDR
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