Customer Reviews

Churchill And The Generals [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Timothy West's portrayal of the British leader, Winston Churchill, is a necessary addition to any collection either of Churchilliana or World War II military history. It demonstrates his depth of both genius and quirky irrascibility and accurately demonstrates the role his leadership played in assembling a leadership cadre that could actually win the war with Britain's limited assets.
The problems that emerge in this portrayal for American viewers have to do with identification - who are these myriad characters who surround Churchill? Why was Auchinlek's great achievement at stopping Rommel during the first battle of AAlamein so downplayed? And, of course, why was Churchill's role in the advocacy of Montgomery in Normandy and during the battle of Market Garden completely ignored?
I had originally seen this presentation on TV years ago and its shortcomings certainly would have limited its reshowing. The generals are often given a one dimensional presentation and events tend to be crushed together without much explanation of what is happening in the war. Yet, all that aside, Churchill and the Generals atempts to do something very difficult. It tries to fairly show, with some measure of historical accuracy, the civilization saving decisions of a persona who often seems larger than life. Perhaps as film literature this deserved fewer stars than my rating but my personal admiration of Churchill kicked my rating up at least another star.

The only bad news is that this challenging and brilliantly scripted and acted film is but a low-budget TV drama. Once that has been taken on board and expectations adjusted the point should be ignored in much the same way as we happily watch classics such as 'Brief Encounter' or 'Casablanca' even though 'unfortunately' shot in monochrome.
The essence is the wartime mood in both the UK and America which is caught to perfection by actors most of whom had actually lived through those difficult times. The veracity these fine performers bring to the script shows their love for the project and their belief in its worthiness.
Was Churchill really as portrayed by the marvellous Timothy West? Did he hold both his own generals and much of the American leadership in his thrall for so long? Was he as impossible to deal with as portrayed? And how did he manage to gather up a country on the verge of defeat and drag it to a pitch where its citizens were prepared to fight with pitchforks on the beach against any invading Nazis? The reasons are explained here as adequately as is possible given the limitations of a less than 3 hour time frame. Many important episodes and characters have been omitted and many more are collapsed in importance such that light is made of certain calamitous events. Yet most importantly the feeling of how it might have been shines through. If this is not how it really was it is how we would like to believe it should have been.
The film has to overcome our own views of the man and his time yet set them together in context. This is the story of a future national icon, a man with abundant self-belief who had been shunned and ignored for much of his working life, whose own past political and military decisions had been severly questioned and who suffered the wide distrust of much of his own party yet somehow he overcame these immense odds and as much as anyone else helped form the world we live in today. His death two decades after the events protrayed was mourned by millions and his status survives as a legendary leader fit to sit alongside Arthur as a beacon of hope for the future.
Whatever your views of Churchill to attempt to realistically portray such a man living through moments of the greatest crises and to make his character believable must be applauded and this film somewhat like its subject suceeds against immense odds.
This is a masterpiece and may I reiterate along with other reviewers that we need a DVD asap

Churchill and the Generals (original UK title) is a lowish budget BBC TV drama that trancends its limitations through a combination of superb casting, acting and script. Some of the finest actors from Britain and USA were assembled to take on the difficult task of making believable characters from well-known historical figures. Such is the breadth of this 180 minute production that many of the actors have but a few lines to leave an impression of their characters. For example the wonderful Ian Richardson steals the plaudits with an all too believable Montgomery. Those who remember this grand old irascible figure from his later years will instantly recognise that his persona, as the public remember it, has been caught to perfection. Timothy West in the title role is instantly believable and the swings of temper and mood surely portray the way it must have been being around this impossible man who embodied the fight against Hitler during the early war years. It would be easy to go through the rest of the superb cast with equally starry-eyed comments on their acting worth. Many of the actors would have been young men during the war and their obvious love of the project shines through this marvellous production. Budget restrictions mean that the interspersed action scenes are taken from wartime footage but the transition from colour to b&w is handled competently. Because of the need to compress five years (from before Churchill's apponitment as Prime Minister to after D-Day) into three hours many important episodes are missed out or not given their true importance but this is historical drama not documentary. Its aim is to get the feel of the events and this it does marellously well. If your penchant is for lots of blood and gore try Private Ryan et al but if you prefer perceptive entertainment that draws you in to momentous events that helped shape our modern world though the old virtues of superb acting and direction this is the product. Please can we have a DVD version!

I shared this with my spouse, who has seen far more WWII info than I have, and we both enjoyed it even though it is fairly long. Of course it was done long ago so it has the technical and production limitations of that time, but sometimes works done closer to the period of the actual war have some advantages over later perspectives. The actor playing Churchill did not look so much or sound so much like the real Churchill to us, but we thought he did act like Churchill.

I don't work for Amazon, but I'm glad Amazon is providing such simple access to interesting older productions that have been scattered to the four winds over time.