Joe Wright depicts flawed, ‘deeply human’ Churchill
There have been by conservative estimates some 30 portrayals of Winston Churchill on film, including Timothy Spall in The King’s Speech, Rod Taylor in Inglourious Basterds and John Evans twice, in 1989s Casablanca Express and five years later in Honey Sweet Love. But British director Joe Wright, whose new film Darkest Hour shows Churchill as a newly appointed prime minister at the start of the Second World War, says he knows only one.
“The only Churchill I have ever seen was Albert Finney’s in Gathering Storm,” he says, referring to the 2002 TV biopic. “Which I’m quite pleased about because I wasn’t corrupted by other interpretations of the man.”
Wright, working from a screenplay by Anthony McCarten, says he wanted to “get to know that man for all his faults and all his genius. And what I found was a deeply human, deeply flawed great man. And I loved him.”
He’s not alone in that respect. Gary Oldman’s portrayal of Churchill in Darkest Hour has many convinced he’s the front-runner in the Oscar race for best actor this year. (Coming up fast on the inside, the little known Timothée Chalamet for Call Me By Your Name; he’s also in Lady Bird and Hostiles.)
“The important thing I find with all the characters in every film I make is that I have to love them,” Wright continues. “And that’s not blind love; that’s a humanistic love. What I’m looking for is understanding.”
Wright says he disagrees with the historical Churchill on many fronts, most notably women’s suffrage (Churchill was a lukewarm supporter at best), Indian independence (he was against it), and “his disastrous Gallipoli campaign” in the First World War, which resulted in more than 100,000 deaths.
“And yet at the moment where it counted the very most he was the one who stood up and resisted, kicking and screaming, the rise of Hitler and Nazism. He understood the perils of appeasing such a totalitarian regime, and for that I will be always be grateful.”
We view Churchill’s wartime success through the clear lens of history, but one of the great achievements of Darkest Hour is the way it reminds us that nothing was certain in 1940.
“I tried very hard to put myself and the actors back into the position of not knowing the outcome,” says Wright. “Churchill was right because Hitler turned left.” If Hitler had “turned right” and invaded England, “it’s conceivable we’d be looking back and thinking Churchill was wrong.”
Darkest Hour takes place in the same time period as this summer’s hit film Dunkirk, but with very little overlap; Christopher Nolan’s film doesn’t even include a portrayal of Churchill. “I was mighty relieved when I went and saw the film,” says Wright. “Firstly I think it’s a masterpiece, and secondly there’s no problem with an audience being able to appreciate and enjoy both films.”