UK, 1992
Written by Jim Broadbent
Directed by Mike Leigh
Written by Jim Broadbent
Directed by Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh is the big director, but his contributions here are modest. Technical credits are patently plain, getting out of the way of text and performance, while at the same time quietly and wittily lampooning the way that these kinds of Heritage programs get made. Quiet lampooning is eclipsed, however, by that positively electrifying text and performance. Mr. Jim Broadbent is responsible for both, and you wonder if he’s been holding out on us, or maybe missed his calling. He's a revelation, not only as a comic actor—we already knew that—but as a conceptualist and an ideologist as well. This isn't just about Heritage programs, is it? Making fun can, indeed, be fun, but it turns out that this little concoction has got bigger fish to fry.
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| I say... |
At first Broadbent’s lumbering, gauche aristocrat—costume! make-up!—buffoons about in a pleasing, familiar fashion, offering the civilized liberal viewer all sorts of easy targets, reinforcing his easy prejudices. Those Tories, he thinks. The 23rd Earl of Leete, indeed. But then there’s a deft escalation. Broadbent and his creation move from mere Wodehouse/Wooster chinlessness (through a very interesting, nearly straight disquisition on estate management and estate expansion), to a casual description of the murders he’s committed to maintain his place and position. In this unexpected turn easy parody spreads and deepens, then finally sharpens into actual savagery. Sometimes people cite Jonathan Swift, and usually in a pretty loose and sloppy manner. Occasionally something comes along that conjures Swift's angry, agonized spirit. This film is the real McCoy.
A Sense of History is Swiftian in both matter and the manner. As with its predecessor’s fanciful, furious creations, Broadbent's character may not simply or even represent himself, but rather the powers and principalities of which he is an emblem. If that character’s statements or actions are preposterous, then it is only to more effectively lead us to the even more presposterous actualities that are taking place in the real world...
("A Modest Proposal" (1729) is Swift's most pointed, notorious provocation: [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm].)
...In this production the target would seem to be Thatcherite Conservatism—and let’s by all means add Mr. Reagan here, and maybe Mr. Kohl, and even Mr. Mulroney. After all, these ideas and policies were not exclusive to the United Kingdom during this period. But is that too easy? Further reflection makes me wonder if this little film is really only about the impulse to privatize, to trade (way) more freely, to dismantle the welfare state and the basic tenets of social democracy. I don't like it, but you do, and I can at least see your point. But Broadbent and Leigh make me wonder if there's not a Balrog back there. '80s free marketeers are only the tip of a very ancient, pulverizing iceberg. It's a glacial menace which, if I may refer to suddenly paradoxical Global Warming—you know, the Right tends not to credit the idea—never had any intention of moving, melting, or Trickling Down at all. If these really are the roots, is there not some ground for bi-partisan accord? The left and the right differ on the subject of tax codes and health care, but surely no one countenances les droits du seigneur anymore.
A Sense of History is way more than mere contemporary critique. It posits that the presumptions and privileges that we may associate with plutocratic capitalism are actually, positively feudal. Everyone knows that feudalism was superannuated by printing presses, Reformation, Enlightenment, burgeoning and actual democracies, with mercantilism providing a complicated but measurable benefit all the way through. Alas, say the landed gentry. Even more, away with all that! Magna Carta, after all, was conceived to protect aristocratic, landed interests against royal incursion or presumption. The peasant and working classes had little to do with that initial exchange. The protagonist of this film ardently yearns for those good, old days. The film itself wonders if those days have really ended.
((Interlude: in 1844 Friedrich Engels incontrovertibly documents the privations and necessarily affirms the rights of the still largely right-less; The Condition of the Working Class in England...
... John Ball was an English priest who was instrumental in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. In 1888 William Morris wrote a stirring book about and inspired by him, and Edward Burne-Jones made this illustration:
... Did we catch that sentiment, or that Challenge? In the face of that, or of Mosiah, ch. 2, verse 20's, it becomes rather difficult to ever justify material inequality...))
Can that be true? A Sense of History is satire, and a fable besides. As with writers from Aesop to Bunyan to all the people who invented Monsters, Inc. (or Monsters vs. Aliens), Broadbent is drawing analogies. Once again, his main character really represents institutions and ideas. He is, in fact, a kind of objective correlative: an object or situation that symbolizes the concept that is being expressed, as well as the emotions that situation or concept evoke. (Cf. T.S. Eliot, 1920, "Hamlet and his Problems," from The Sacred Wood; also, at the level of an entire mindset that gets theorized as a Movement, Martin Esslin, 1961, The Theatre of the Absurd.)
Absurdism uses the objective correlative all the time. Absurdism surveys the field and describes its dilemmas very effectively. Absurdism occasionally commiserates, and even comforts (cf. the fairly frequent stabs of tenderness in Beckett, or the constant subtext of fraternal regard in the oeuvre of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy). It can certainly wallow. But what answers does it give us, especially since those objects and situations are so figurative? What can we actually do?
Check out that definition again. Since the objective correlative is supposed to clarify things, we probably ought to be careful when we emerge out of the satirical and back into the world of real relations. With regard to political discourse, we ought not to get caught up in objectifying the individuals that adhere to the ideas in question. This is especially true if, in the course of our satirizing, we have succumbed to caricature. Be mad! But be fair first!
More than just fairness is at issue here, or at stake. It is generally thought that Jonathan Swift's righteous anger, so relentless and so often ineffectual, broke his heart and drove him mad. Read the scarifying fourth part of Gulliver's Travels (1726); if and since this is what Swift really thought and felt, then it all stands to reason. What peace could there be for him?
There is another way, one that doesn't necessarily require appeasement in the face of evil, or the turning of a soul-destroying blind eye. There may be malice and villainy. There may even, occasionally, be evil. But what if we fought that only, and didn't look for it where there's only sincere error, or even a difference in opinion. The thing: in real life, as real individuals, millionaires are probably, certainly, often, very nice people. So, too, maybe and mostly, Thatcher, Reagan, Kohl, Mulroney, as well as the current 1 and 5 and even 25 percent. "The truly terrible thing is that everyone has his reasons..."
All of this honours what we feel and know about our fellow human beings. It has a place in political discourse as well. Calm political-scientifical thought tends to credit hegemony, to avoid crying conspiracy. ("Then who do I shoot?" says the just-evicted farmer to tractor driver who's only doing his job in Ford's The Grapes Wrath. Good, impossible question!) But hegemony or not, conditions remain. Savage satire isn't nearly as savage as the actual reality, at least for the throngs that don't get represented in this film, or remotely considered by its protagonist. This was 1992, and now it's a lot later. Things haven't improved, have they?
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| The Fleischers, 1939; not quite in the spirit of the original... |
A Sense of History is Swiftian in both matter and the manner. As with its predecessor’s fanciful, furious creations, Broadbent's character may not simply or even represent himself, but rather the powers and principalities of which he is an emblem. If that character’s statements or actions are preposterous, then it is only to more effectively lead us to the even more presposterous actualities that are taking place in the real world...
("A Modest Proposal" (1729) is Swift's most pointed, notorious provocation: [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm].)
...In this production the target would seem to be Thatcherite Conservatism—and let’s by all means add Mr. Reagan here, and maybe Mr. Kohl, and even Mr. Mulroney. After all, these ideas and policies were not exclusive to the United Kingdom during this period. But is that too easy? Further reflection makes me wonder if this little film is really only about the impulse to privatize, to trade (way) more freely, to dismantle the welfare state and the basic tenets of social democracy. I don't like it, but you do, and I can at least see your point. But Broadbent and Leigh make me wonder if there's not a Balrog back there. '80s free marketeers are only the tip of a very ancient, pulverizing iceberg. It's a glacial menace which, if I may refer to suddenly paradoxical Global Warming—you know, the Right tends not to credit the idea—never had any intention of moving, melting, or Trickling Down at all. If these really are the roots, is there not some ground for bi-partisan accord? The left and the right differ on the subject of tax codes and health care, but surely no one countenances les droits du seigneur anymore.
 |
| "I shall not pass, eh?" (The Hildebrandts, 1977) |
A Sense of History is way more than mere contemporary critique. It posits that the presumptions and privileges that we may associate with plutocratic capitalism are actually, positively feudal. Everyone knows that feudalism was superannuated by printing presses, Reformation, Enlightenment, burgeoning and actual democracies, with mercantilism providing a complicated but measurable benefit all the way through. Alas, say the landed gentry. Even more, away with all that! Magna Carta, after all, was conceived to protect aristocratic, landed interests against royal incursion or presumption. The peasant and working classes had little to do with that initial exchange. The protagonist of this film ardently yearns for those good, old days. The film itself wonders if those days have really ended.
((Interlude: in 1844 Friedrich Engels incontrovertibly documents the privations and necessarily affirms the rights of the still largely right-less; The Condition of the Working Class in England...
... John Ball was an English priest who was instrumental in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. In 1888 William Morris wrote a stirring book about and inspired by him, and Edward Burne-Jones made this illustration:
... Did we catch that sentiment, or that Challenge? In the face of that, or of Mosiah, ch. 2, verse 20's, it becomes rather difficult to ever justify material inequality...))
Can that be true? A Sense of History is satire, and a fable besides. As with writers from Aesop to Bunyan to all the people who invented Monsters, Inc. (or Monsters vs. Aliens), Broadbent is drawing analogies. Once again, his main character really represents institutions and ideas. He is, in fact, a kind of objective correlative: an object or situation that symbolizes the concept that is being expressed, as well as the emotions that situation or concept evoke. (Cf. T.S. Eliot, 1920, "Hamlet and his Problems," from The Sacred Wood; also, at the level of an entire mindset that gets theorized as a Movement, Martin Esslin, 1961, The Theatre of the Absurd.)
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| Ex-patriated, writing in a 2nd language, drinking coffee... |
Absurdism uses the objective correlative all the time. Absurdism surveys the field and describes its dilemmas very effectively. Absurdism occasionally commiserates, and even comforts (cf. the fairly frequent stabs of tenderness in Beckett, or the constant subtext of fraternal regard in the oeuvre of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy). It can certainly wallow. But what answers does it give us, especially since those objects and situations are so figurative? What can we actually do?
Check out that definition again. Since the objective correlative is supposed to clarify things, we probably ought to be careful when we emerge out of the satirical and back into the world of real relations. With regard to political discourse, we ought not to get caught up in objectifying the individuals that adhere to the ideas in question. This is especially true if, in the course of our satirizing, we have succumbed to caricature. Be mad! But be fair first!
More than just fairness is at issue here, or at stake. It is generally thought that Jonathan Swift's righteous anger, so relentless and so often ineffectual, broke his heart and drove him mad. Read the scarifying fourth part of Gulliver's Travels (1726); if and since this is what Swift really thought and felt, then it all stands to reason. What peace could there be for him?
 |
| Weary and heavy laden; Swift's death mask |
There is another way, one that doesn't necessarily require appeasement in the face of evil, or the turning of a soul-destroying blind eye. There may be malice and villainy. There may even, occasionally, be evil. But what if we fought that only, and didn't look for it where there's only sincere error, or even a difference in opinion. The thing: in real life, as real individuals, millionaires are probably, certainly, often, very nice people. So, too, maybe and mostly, Thatcher, Reagan, Kohl, Mulroney, as well as the current 1 and 5 and even 25 percent. "The truly terrible thing is that everyone has his reasons..."
All of this honours what we feel and know about our fellow human beings. It has a place in political discourse as well. Calm political-scientifical thought tends to credit hegemony, to avoid crying conspiracy. ("Then who do I shoot?" says the just-evicted farmer to tractor driver who's only doing his job in Ford's The Grapes Wrath. Good, impossible question!) But hegemony or not, conditions remain. Savage satire isn't nearly as savage as the actual reality, at least for the throngs that don't get represented in this film, or remotely considered by its protagonist. This was 1992, and now it's a lot later. Things haven't improved, have they?
 |
| The wild rose, which is our provincial flower... |
Remember Dickens' Miss Havisham, taking all the credit when poor old ex-convicted, sweat-of-his-brow Magwitch did all the work? Great Expectations (1861) eviscerates the feudal remnants that continued to dominate in mid-Victorian times. (Orwell points out with affectionate frustration that Dickens, for all his semi-progressive calls-to-action, was finally, immoveably medieval in mind and social instinct. We're a muddle, aren't we? See "Dickens," in the posthumous A Collection of Essays, from 1954.) Reflecting contemporary complexity, David Lean's 1946 adaptation of Dickens' great novel mourns and then ultimately endorses the end of Empire. Isn't that the trajectory of Pip's character? It's all attractive, especially when it's to our advantage. But it's also immoral, so it has to go. And then everything else has to change. Yes, he won the war for us, but I'm voting for Atlee.
1992? Now? UK? US?! A Sense of History says that at the end of the Thatcher era certain toffs, and the institutions that comfort them, consider material privilege and social pre-eminence to be their perfect and absolute right. From all appearances those rights are actually maintained and protected, even legislated. This, regardless of what merit or industry or justice or decency might have to say about it.
The actual feudal period had its graces and beauties, its consolations and compensations. It ended, as did most of its Unities, giving way to four or five hundred bright, hellish years of emerging and actual modernity. Disaster and divine beauty attended. But wait! If everything had to change, and everything did change, then why is it that the Lairds still retain their ancient place and status? Especially when Aquinas, Giotto and the Religious World View have been been replaced by Futurism, epidemical political cynicism and, let's face it, Fascism. Change, Now!
((Another interlude: in 1964, Stanley Kubrick and Terry Southern invent Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It's satirical hand may feel a bit heavy today, but its provocative question remains, and very much relates to the present subject. If the allies won WWII, then why is this refugee Nazi [cf. the actual, not very fairly sent-up Edward Teller] basically setting our foreign policy, and then destroying our world?))
Am I putting words in the filmmakers' mouths? Have I appropriated their film? Does it matter? Shall we not admit it? These ideologies are built, depend on, and insure the continuing and permanent disadvantage of others.
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| I say... |
Satire isn't just for fun, but for reflection. What about our outside-of-the-film life? All of this back and forth, this exact permanent problem could put you in the mind of England's Charles 1st. Things have happened to people that think they have divinely granted rights and advantages that place them permanently above everyone else. We don't want to be Cromwell, though, do we? On the other hand, maybe civility is a problem sometimes. Is that the film's subliminal thesis, or directive? Murder ‘em! After all of my noodling and namby-pambiness, we still and finally have a film that is sure of itself. This is furiously impressive stuff.
(Further interlude: we saw Broadbent in this hilariously bloody production, at London's National Theatre in 2005: http://www.improbable.co.uk/show_example.asp?item_id=10. His trousers were extremely bell bottomed.)
Topsy Turvy
UK, 1999
Written and directed by Mike Leigh
UK, 1999
Written and directed by Mike Leigh
I like to find reasons for things, and give the benefit of the doubt. But that little brothel sequence is so unfortunate! Yes, in it we learn that Mr. Sullivan was a sensualist. We wonder if maybe this is a sign of his creative funk, or what churning ‘em out can reduce you to. We go on to learn that he wrote The Lost Chord (and Onward, Christian Soldiers), and that he aspired to Grand Opera. We understand that there’s an important disconnect here, a confounding inconsistency that needs to be accounted for. But Leigh—who isn’t usually given to cheap ironies, and who finally, even profoundly loves this character—doesn’t really resolve or make use of the sequence. (The later bit about abortion is much more mournful, consistent with the sad distinction between the sweet rapture of theatrical collectivism and fantasy, and the lonely, diminishing, substance-dependent realities.) But think how many bright eyed youngsters might have been stirred and inspired by this, now justifiably R-rated thing.
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| The scene in question |
It’s a pity, because everything else in the film is amazing. It provides a service of which film fans are in desperate need, though a great many of them don't know it. Topsy-Turvy demonstrates the grandness and glory of theatre. It is so good on theatrical process, so good on all the constituent sub-processes that make up this wonderful institution. It’s so good on creation—including creative funks—translation, execution. It’s so good on the culture and the subcultures, the hierarchy, the financing, the fantasy. It’s very respectful toward potentially musty Victorian properties, at the same time that it’s fairly critical about musty Victorian sensibilities. (Lots of fun is had with the word “one.”)
For all of its satirical barbs, though, the film is finally fair-minded, historically speaking. Things are of their times, and we can’t criticize without considering all the paths and pressures by which these things came to be. Roots and branches, and realities in between. May I note how effective the many static camera set ups are? How effective, contrarily, are the montages that trace change and progress? Performances are a treat, from big to small. The last three sequences! The one featuring Mr. Gilbert’s long-suffering wife almost demands that you start the film over. She also serves who only stands and waits.
A Sense of History and Topsy Turvy are packaged together, thusly: http://www.criterion.com/films/27550-topsy-turvy
For all of its satirical barbs, though, the film is finally fair-minded, historically speaking. Things are of their times, and we can’t criticize without considering all the paths and pressures by which these things came to be. Roots and branches, and realities in between. May I note how effective the many static camera set ups are? How effective, contrarily, are the montages that trace change and progress? Performances are a treat, from big to small. The last three sequences! The one featuring Mr. Gilbert’s long-suffering wife almost demands that you start the film over. She also serves who only stands and waits.
A Sense of History and Topsy Turvy are packaged together, thusly: http://www.criterion.com/films/27550-topsy-turvy
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| Leigh, looking gnomic |
Another Year
UK, 2010
Written and directed by Mike Leigh
UK, 2010
Written and directed by Mike Leigh
The happy married couple at the centre of Leigh’s film is quite impressively drawn, and by a number of effective means. There is a leisurely accumulation of their unexceptional and everyday activities, of work or domestic details, of casual conversations and such. The seasonal structure of the film helps this emphasis on the quotidian, on the seemingly inconsequential. Of course at some point lots of not much eventually starts adding up to a very great deal. That’s a documentary commonplace, and old hat for Leigh and his collaborators. Commonplace and old hat or not, it works, and it’s true.
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| Happy... |
In addition to glimpses of happy others, we also or mostly have all these trying, pathetic failures—Mary, Ken, Ronnie, Carl. These people are not only at the margins of the Hepples’ lives; they seem to be miserably marginal in their own lives. They set up an opposition that is the more powerful for being so quiet. On the one hand, happy marriage, or satisfied, balanced individuals who consistently attend to others while reasonably attending to their own interests and desires. On the other, the film’s bookends, and something vaguely and suggestively central to its entire theme and purpose. At the start there’s the intense, screen-filling close-up of Imelda Staunton’s afflicted, almost banshee countenance. During her brief tenure in the film she is imperviously, impenetrably sorrowful, and when she departs, sinking like a stone, she leaves troubling ripples. This is quite an unsettling introduction to the apparent tranquility that follows.
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| ... not |
The film ends similarly, or identically, with a matchingly miserable close up of the Mary/Leslie Manville character. She’s been an object of comedy and sympathy, sympathy and comedy throughout the film. (For all the customary celebrations of the film’s charitable nature, you could also see it as taking smug pot-shots at life’s also-rans, portrayed as they are through subtle but still unmistakeable caricature.) Is this another theme? Is it the main one? The poor we have always among us. Or worse, there’s a worm at the root, a killing blight that will always remain, and may always prevail. Nice movie, sort of.
