The prime minister says!

On January 18, a historical drama about Winston Churchill “Dark Times” is released on the screens - the potential laureate of Oscars

May 1940. Great Britain on the edge of the war: after the invasion of Poland, Norway and Denmark were occupied, followed by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France. Hitler comes. The Senate is a panic. Prime Minister Chamberlain receives a vote of mistrust. Count Galifax (Stephen Dillane) should take his place - in Britain, each appointment is regulated - and yet King George VI (Ben Mendelssohn) and the parliament make a forced decision: to appoint Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman) to the key post). A person with a bad character and nasty habits - which are whispering in parliament - and with burdensome luggage: the fault for the lethal fiasco Gallipoli. And to this monster to entrust the kingdom before the main war of the twentieth century? “I got this work because the ship is drowning,” the politician will say later.

“Dark Times” is a story of a choice that has turned into history. Political logic and total fear paralyzes, dictating to Europe passive resistance to fascism. Germany smashes French troops and surrounds the British Expeditionary Corps in Dunkirka, sent to the allies to help. US Help? In vain hopes, the country adheres to neutrality.

What is Churchill? He is inclined to negotiations. Peaceful negotiations with Hitler, dictator, corporal, insignificance ... Perhaps at that moment the doubts and the ripening of the Dynamo operation, the fate of not only Great Britain, but also of the whole of Western Europe, performed.

The seventh full -length film of the talented and diverse British director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, Anna Karenina) can be called a portrait of Churchill. The authors are not trying to talk about almost the most famous politics in modern history, everything they know. Wright takes only a fragment from a long life of a political heavyweight, brings it closer, enlarges optics. In order to consider the ocean of personality in one episode, as in a drop. For Wright, it’s superly that Churchill is not only a politician, but a journalist and writer, the owner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Actually, the three main speeches of Churchill, which determined the path of the nation, became the basis of the script.

The Nolanovsky Dunkirk recently watched - an exciting drama and poetic story of the evacuation of thousands of British soldiers from the coastline - “on the general plan”. From the air we saw the dinked military on the beach, in long lines waiting for their fate, explosions on the beach, corpses on the beach. And in the clouds, the British fought with the "messengers", bombing peaceful ships-rescuers. In “Dark Times” - the same story of the salvation of the army, when, by order of Churchill, the operation “Dynamo” began. An extraordinary armada went to the bay from all over England: private yachts, fishing schooners, boats and fragile vessels. But Wright focuses on close -up politicians.

A way out of a hopeless situation is invented before our eyes in government offices, in the corridors of the authorities and ... in the bedroom of Churchill. In the Dunkerka - an inventive game over time, in dark times - a carefully written out prose of the rear life that determines the fate of the world. In the Dunkerka - an attempt by a visual experiment, the game over time. Wright has respectful old -fashioned, dull light, anxiously flickering light bulb - the military headquarters. A multiple Oscar nominee operator Bruno Delbonnel prefers gloomy claustrophobic inflorescences in the premises and the air swollen in London streets. Instead of gluing - a fowdered carrier. Everything works for a condensing atmosphere of despair.

“Dark times” called Churchill this key in his career, which determined the entire course of life.

The film took place at the moment when Wright, having read the script in which the drama was seasoned with sarcasm, decided to invite Gary Oldman - his idol to the main role. An outstanding actor, unpredictable tricster in Dracula and Fifth Element. Not at all like a monumental prime minister, but capable of fabulous reincarnations.

A heavy gait is a solemn hollow with a tilt forward and a support on a stick. Pants tightened high above the protruding belly. Well, of course, an immutable cigar.

From the first appearance in the frame, Churchill resembles the famous portrait of Sasseland, destroyed by the uncomprogramium, on which the politician appeared as an overweight, depressed, stuck in a chair by a puffy old man. Apparently, Wright and Oldman were guided by the recognition of Churchill's first love - Lady Pamela Litton:

“When you meet Winston for the first time, you immediately notice all its shortcomings, and you spend the rest of your life, opening its advantages.”

Churchill dictates to the driver a performance in front of parliamentarians, lying in the bathroom, in bed. In the night shirt. In a dressing gown without underwear. Wrinking words with tape. Like a bulldog, rushing at a girl who does not have time to decipher his murmur.

Is it so strange that he was surrounded by ill -wishers, envious, opponents in the Senate?

The famous masters Katsuhiro Tsuji and Ivan Primorak worked on skillful makeup. It took six months to develop only a face mask. More than three hours of makeup before each shoot. But make -up and artificial worship is only a key, Oldman plays the transformation of a grumbling old man with an explosive character in a grandiose political leader with feverish energy, perspicacity and an acute mind. Without embarrassment, he instantly retorts the king’s exquisite attacks at weekly ritual meetings (“How did you learn to drink and not get drunk during the day?” - “Practice”). Disavoid political opponents (“Do not interrupt me when I interrupt you!”). He uses all the wealth of the language to prove his own innocence (“You cannot agree with the tiger when your head is in his mouth”). At the right moment, he knows how to increase the degree of enthusiasm in demand in the military era: “We will fight on the seas and in the oceans, we will protect our island, no matter what it costs us, we will never give up!”

Alas, the authors failed the climax. Churchill for the second time in his life went down to the subway on the way to Westminster, where he should declare his decision. And here, in the subway, he asks the opinion of ordinary people: are they ready to fight? Or should you make concessions? This is followed by a complete pathetics and a go -a -way pathos scene, which I do not want to talk about.

But about the outstanding work of Oldman, who felt for the nerve of the character of his hero, will write and talk.

200 actors played Churchill on a large and small screen. Among the recent successes of John Litgou in the British drama drama, Crown. There Churchill is an old wise fox, which is in a hurry to let the thread of power out of the hands.

Churchill Oldman is seemingly pure unpredictability, eccentricity, but - subordinated to strict internal logic, despite the monstrous political pressure.

Churchill Oldman is the scale of a person, wounded by weaknesses.

Such a complex, bright person could take responsibility for the country. Awaken in compatriots a faith in victory, when despair has entered all the pores of society. How can hope be instructed in the minds of people?

With the help of words. They say about Churchill: "He mobilized English and sent him into battle." The chances of saving the army were foggy, and in his first speech he drove the word “victory” into the heads of the British: “You ask what our goal is? I can answer in one word: victory - victory at all costs, victory, despite all the horrors; Victory, regardless of how long and thornist can be the path to her; We will not survive without victory. ” He knew how to balance between emotion and argument, and with the help of words to convince fellow citizens that Hitler could be defeated. On June 4, in the House of Commons, he promised: “We will fight on the beaches, we will fight on the site, we will fight in the fields and on the streets, we will never give up.”

Words can change the world. When Churchill says, the guns are silent to hit with renewed vigor.

At a press conference in Toronto, Gary Oldman admitted that he has a collection of quotes Churchill, which he regularly re-reads. “Here is the Oscar for the best male role,” critics wrote, who watched the picture. And they were right, the Golden Globe Gary Oldman - this is confirmed.