PIERS BRENDON
A few months ago I was asked to talk to the cast and crew of a feature film entitled Darkest Hour (out this November), starring Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill and Kristin Scott Thomas as his wife Clementine. The director, Joe Wright, wanted me to provide a biographical analysis of the prime minister and some historical background to the crisis engulfing the country at the end of May 1940. Then, as France was collapsing under the German onslaught and the Dunkirk evacuation was taking place, Churchill imposed the decision to fight on, alone if necessary, despite pleas within his own war cabinet, notably from Lord Halifax, that Britain should seek a negotiated settlement with Hitler.
I tried to provide a helpful character study of Churchill in the context of this existential drama. But I suspect the occasion was more interesting to me than it was to my audience. In the wake of our session, I was asked what I thought of some large photographs of Churchill pinned up at the back of the room. Peering at them myopically, I expressed surprise that I had never seen these images before. This got a good laugh at my expense because they were, in fact, pictures of Gary Oldman in character. I was fooled not only by the familiar props—hat, cigar, bow tie and stick—but by Oldman’s uncannily Churchillian expression. He was the British bulldog to the life, an incarnation of strength, courage and tenacity.