He mumbles, so it’s amost impossible to catch every- thing. Be prepared to type fast.” A new secretary is introduced to the soon-to-be British prime minister Winston Churchill in the opening scenes of the tense period drama film Darkest Hour. It is 1940 and Nazi Germany is tramping over Europe and threatening to invade Britain. Churchill is called in to replace Britain’s disgraced prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, who is forced to resign as his attempt to appease Hitler by allowing him to take over Czechoslovakia fails. This infamous pact that Hitler signed in Munich in 1938 is ignored by the Nazis when, on September the 1st of the following year, they invade Poland. Two days later, France and the United Kingdom declare war on Germany. With Chamberlain having proven himself incapable of halting Hitler, with Europe at war and Great Britain the ultimate target, Winston Churchill takes on the unenviable role of being a wartime prime minister.
an iconic man
The difficulty understanding Churchill is aggravated by the fact that he almost always talks with a cigar in his mouth. His distinctive voice forms part of the masterful characterization – hump, double chin and all – of the British actor Gary Oldman, who takes on the role of the iconic historical figure that other great British and American actors, including Michael Gambon, John Lithgow or most recently Brian Cox, have also played.
Gary Oldman (English accent): The challenging part was stepping into the man’s shoes. And not only do you have the Churchill shoes to fill but you are in the shadow of great actors who have played him before and portrayed him. So, it’s like a double whammy.
I hesitated. No, I didn’t jump at it.
NOBEL PRIZE RHETORIC
Screenwriter Anthony McCarten also points out the difficulties in bringing Churchill’s voice to the big screen. While Churchill was famous for his commanding rhetoric, only public recordings of his voice are available, in the Parliamentary speeches or the radio broadcasts he gave during World War Two.
Anthony McCarten (New Zealand accent): The biggest challenge was writing for Winston, to fill those shoes. He was one of the greatest wordsmiths, won the Nobel Prize for literature. And we don’t really have any dialogue that exists of how he talked to anybody. We just have the speeches. So I had to flesh out two hours of drama and invent dialogue and actions worthy of an exemplary great man. So that was the biggie for me. When you’re writing, especially speeches, you’re writing a piece of music, it’s like the score, and someone then has to play the Stradivarius. And Gary is a consummate musician. And he plays the highs, the lows, the trebles, the bass… and watching that is one of the most thrilling things that I’ve ever seen.
CHURCHILL UP CLOSE
The movie is not only a depiction of the most decisive moments of this critical episode of the 20th century, it is also about the man and his circumstances, a real person with fears and doubts. Kristin Scott Thomas, who plays Churchill’s wife Clementine, explains the importance of showing this side of the great statesman.
Kristin Scott Thomas (English accent): I loved seeing the domestic side to the heroic man. The man who saved the world. I think that was what moved me the most. Well I think what’s important to realize is that Churchill was a very, very accomplished man. He was a historian, he was a brilliant writer… He really looked at the past to understand the future and the present. And I think that’s a very important lesson to learn. I also think that watching the film and reading the screenplay, you really understood how important it is for these world leaders to have really good support systems around them in the family. And how love, the relationship between the two of them, is exquisite. It really is. I mean it’s full of storms and it’s very passionate. And it kept going and it was, it was always there. It was sort of solid. And even if they had flaming rows, they would sort of get through it. And they would be there for each other. And that was pretty amazing.
RESISTENCE
The study of history reveals the mistakes humankind has made in the past so we can learn from them. Its purpose is also to show how and why great men and women made tough decisions during difficult times. There is a point to historic fiction, then, too: to do the same while entertaining us. As much a biopic and a historic episode as a thriller, Darkest Hour is full not only of high-level politics, but also of party intrigues, obscure schemes and private affairs. Having worked on films like Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, director Joe Wright has considerable experience in providing pace and rhythm in period dramas, although this time he acknowledges that the story of a great man’s fight against fascism has some connections with the present.
Joe Wright (English accent): In this period of time, this very short period of time, he wrote three of the greatest speeches in history. And so we were interested in discovering what was behind those speeches, and what inspired such great oratory. I had to be quite careful not to plaster my own feelings about contemporary politics onto the movie and really let the film, Churchill, the story, speak for itself and be quite specific about this very singular individual and these very extraordinary times that he was living through. I see around me great resistance, and Churchill resisted. He resisted tyranny, he resisted bigotry, he resisted hate, and he was pretty much alone in that at a certain point.
WHAT IF…
In a similar fashion, Gary Oldman highlights the need for true leaders that would lead the way during troubled times. And although fortunately we’re not yet on the brink of a new world war, we cannot afford to let the lessons of the past fade away.
Gary Oldman: He was so extraordinary but he’s one of the sort of essential men in history, you know, to human rights and what he did was if you remove him from the scenario, the world could have been a very, very, very different place. So, that’s a hard one. Leadership, we need some leadership. Real real leadership, I think.