Two fingers to Winston
...that, say historians, is the message delivered by a major new biopic which grotesquely traduces our greatest PM
HE IS Britain’s most celebrated wartime leader, revered for guiding the country through the darkest days of the Second World War and on to victory. But a controversial new biopic of Winston Churchill has been condemned as a vicious character assassination – and a ‘hatchet job’ worthy of Hitler’s propaganda machine.
The film, Churchill, stars Dundeeborn Brian Cox as the PM and Miranda Richardson as his wife Clemmie and charts events leading up to D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe that began on June 6, 1944.
It has sparked uproar by suggesting that a petulant, rude, ill-tempered Churchill opposed the landings that led ultimately to the liberation of Europe.
Historian Andrew Roberts, who is writing a new biography of Churchill, said: ‘The movie is a catalogue of errors which paints an entirely false picture of Churchill. I can’t recall another occasion where a single film has got so much wrong. It’s a hatchet job of the kind the Nazi propaganda machine would have been proud.’
And the visiting professor at the War Studies Department at King’s College, London, quipped: ‘Never in the course of movie-making have so many specious errors been made in so long a film by so few writers.’
Tory MP Nicholas Soames, Churchill’s grandson, also dismissed the film, saying: ‘It’s not something one would take seriously.’
The criticism may prove embarrassing for the film’s scriptwriter Alex von Tunzelmann.
The London-based Oxford-educated historian writes an occasional column for The Guardian newspaper called Reel History, in which she highlights the way Hollywood distorts historical fact. She was unavailable for comment.
A spokesman for film distributors Lionsgate UK said: ‘It has been made with a sympathetic view to intrigue audiences into finding out who Churchill is and to explore more into his life behind closed doors.’
Here, after seeing a preview, Roberts lists a series of basic and serious errors in the film…