The Gathering Storm
Albert Finney and Vanessa Redgrave are striking in their appearance as the Churchills in the HBO, BBC, Scott Free Production of "The Gathering Storm." It is unfortunate that such fine talent has been wasted on such a trivial script.
"The Gathering Storm", which for anyone who has read Churchill's book by the same title, will find this story has thin links to the original text. Good grief, we are still trumpeting the old canard of the Treaty of Versailles being the cause of the Second World War - read Margaret MacMillan's "Paris 1919." And Hitler had black eyes? He did? I understand they were pale blue. Yes, Churchill did spend working time in the bath but after the third bath scene I was beginning to think I was seeing out-takes for a new production of Marat. What makes for history in this production is lazy and dull. This is hard to accomplish with such a rich and dynamic period of time.
The script is in fact strikingly redundant to the point of plagiarising the tremendous production made several years ago, "Churchill: the Wilderness Years" with Robert Hardy and Siân Phillips. When there are so many wonderful stories to be told about Churchill, why repeat what has already been done so well. (Just read the books by John Lukacs, "Five Days in London: May 1940" and "The Duel: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler" for great story sources).
Albert Finney and Vanessa Redgrave are striking in their appearance as the Churchills in the HBO, BBC, Scott Free Production of "The Gathering Storm." It is unfortunate that such fine talent has been wasted on such a trivial script.
"The Gathering Storm", which for anyone who has read Churchill's book by the same title, will find this story has thin links to the original text. Good grief, we are still trumpeting the old canard of the Treaty of Versailles being the cause of the Second World War - read Margaret MacMillan's "Paris 1919." And Hitler had black eyes? He did? I understand they were pale blue. Yes, Churchill did spend working time in the bath but after the third bath scene I was beginning to think I was seeing out-takes for a new production of Marat. What makes for history in this production is lazy and dull. This is hard to accomplish with such a rich and dynamic period of time.
The script is in fact strikingly redundant to the point of plagiarising the tremendous production made several years ago, "Churchill: the Wilderness Years" with Robert Hardy and Siân Phillips. When there are so many wonderful stories to be told about Churchill, why repeat what has already been done so well. (Just read the books by John Lukacs, "Five Days in London: May 1940" and "The Duel: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler" for great story sources).