BEING THERE
007 AND THE QUEEN.
I’ve been fortunate enough to attend 10 Olympic Games, and some of the greatest moments I’ve witnessed in sport have had the five rings as a backdrop. So, thank you Donovan, Diana Matheson, Muhammad, Laura Fortino, Usain, Sidney, Tessa and Scott, Shaun White, Yu Na Kim, and a slew of others. But, beyond a few brilliant games (almost all involving the U.S. and Canada), the best long-stretch-of-time event I’ve seen at an Olympics — and perhaps anywhere else — was in London nearly five years ago: the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Games. And, within those ceremonies was one of the most poignant off-field moments I’ve ever seen. A queen winning her country back. That Olympic year was also the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. The monarch who 15 years earlier had turned a majority of Great Britons completely off — many for good — when Buckingham Palace completely botched its reaction to Princess Di’s death. It made the House of Windsor seem cold and out of touch with its subjects. Kate and Wills’ ubiquitous and refreshing presence today had restored a lot of lustre and popularity to the Royal Family. But the Queen still wasn’t getting a lot of that herself. Then 007 stepped in to save the day … in real life this time. The British spent 27 million pounds ($45 million Cdn) on the ceremonies, directed and produced by Danny Boyle, the noted producer, writer, director who was famous for such movies as “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Trainspotting.” You have to get the British to understand how brilliant the opening ceremonies were. My mom was English (oh, so English), and my dad was a first-generation Canadian whose family stretched back a couple of centuries as English sharecroppers. So I had a history there, and to be honest, was probably predisposed to enjoy something very British. And did Boyle ever provide it. It would take about five months of “Being Theres” to cover all of the subtle, luminous, creative, wacky, touching, and musical brilliance packed into those Opening Ceremonies. But if you’d like a couple of interesting synopses to jog your memories just go to YouTube. To represent more than a millennium of complex British history, which cannot really be simplified, Boyle broke his production down into three major revolutions: the Industrial Revolution (with all of its economic hope and sooty bleakness); the Cultural Revolution (Hello, John, Paul, George and Ringo); and the Information Revolution (sorry North Americans, but the English invented the WorldWideWeb). Juxtapositioned within each were scores of definitive British tidbits, many presented with classic English irreverence and humour, others with devastating gravity. About 20 minutes in, the stadium went dark and on the giant screen, accompanied by perfect sound quality, came Boyle’s short film featuring actor Daniel Craig whose third James Bond film, “Skyfall, was to be released later that year. At first, you thought it was some kind of trailer, which seemed weird and overly commercial. But that’s why you don’t judge art before you see where it goes. Bond (Craig) strides purposefully into Buckingham Palace and is shown into the Queen’s offices, where a white-haired woman in a salmon dress and a pearl necklace is sitting with her back to the camera. An actress, everyone assumed. Then she turned around and said “Good Evening, Mr. Bond” and the reaction in the Olympic Stadium, and on Twitter was instantaneous and incredulous. “OMG, it’s the real Queen.” People in the stadium were unabashedly cheering and yelling. Bond and the Queen soon pile into a helicopter (there is a key helicopter scene in “Skyfall”) and they fly toward the Olympic Stadium, passing all kinds of iconic London landmarks on the way. As the helicopter hovers over the stadium (in the movie and in real time), Bond and the Queen jump out of it, appearing to parachute into the stadium. Then a spotlight shone onto a stairway in the stadium, and the announcer announces the arrival of Olympic committee president Jacques Rogge, Prince Phillip and “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth,” who was wearing exactly the same pearls and salmon-coloured dress as in the video. I’m not sure what it sounds like to sit beside the engines of a Boeing 747, but I think I got a hint of it that night, in the moment the crowd saw the Queen walk in and put the whole thing together: Her Majesty is Quite a Sport. It was a love fest at a zillion decibels, it stole the show — and I’m sure she’d never ever encountered that kind of pure, spontaneous outpouring of appreciation. Almost all Opening Ceremonies to big Games are turning points for the local populace, because all the run-up years’ worries tend to dissipate amid the overt nationalism. But this one went much deeper than adjusting a nation’s view of whether the massive costs are worth it. This one changed a nation’s view of its monarchy. Veteran Spectator columnist Steve Milton has pretty much seen it all in his 40 years covering sports around the world and, in Being There, he will relive special moments of those stories, from the inside out, every Friday. If there’s a memorable sporting event you want Steve to write about, let him know at smilton@thespec.com. Chances are he was there.