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#153 - The Gnome in the Garden, Part 1: The Special Relationship (Patreon)

Published:
2020-05-18 20:28:54
Edited:
2020-11-29 20:59:27
Imported:
2024-06

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THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP (2010) charts the complicated dynamic between political allies/personal rivals Bill Clinton (Dennis Quaid) and Tony Blair (Michael Sheen). This light docudrama gives us opportunity to consider the nature of Britain and the U.S.'s "Special Relationship," the political moment that sparked Blairism and Clintonism, and to what extent the personal relationships of world leaders matter. PLUS: Jean-Luc Godard and the Ontario French school curriculum.

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Comments

Emvee

Peter Morgan loves to reduce all historical events to powerful people having tea parties and politely chatting about crushing thousands of people’s lives, where the real stakes (we are led to believe) are the subtle shifts in dynamic between the two people in the room. I saw his The Audience with Helen Mirren in London (The Crown is an extension of that play about the British monarch meeting with a series of prime ministers.) I can still hear the joyful titters of the audience as they understood references to various events and petty grudges. It’s all pretty insular and mainly about the fantasy of being in the room for this august gathering. It means well but largely exists to buck up that “gnome in the garden” notion that we have things like the weekend and sick leave because two nice highly born people agreed to it over cucumber sandwiches, and not because people were risking their bodies in the streets to wrest it. An interesting take on this genre (and one that The Crown tries to ape, I think, even down to the opening credits) is a decades-old series called Fall of Eagles, available on YouTube. It goes along with a standard-ish soap opera about the late 19th century monarchs of Europe, then there’s a barn burner episode about the Mayerling incident (a fascinating capture of woolly romance woven to cover up grotesque behaviour by the powerful), and then we get several episodes about the communists’ rise in Russia (with Lenin famously played by an ageless Patrick Stewart) with a wide cadre of working-class activists included. For the genre, it’s a refreshing take on choosing your cast of key players in historical events.

Mark K

Speaking of Blair’s insincerity, have you ever seen this clip from 2DTV? (Clip starts at 10:13) https://youtu.be/loE_EOisaZs