I did not go to see the movie with great expectations. Some word of mouth was that there was too much focus on the Alzeimer's or whatever form of dementia that has claimed her. To me, however, her current condition (or the condition as portrayed in the years immediately after her resignation as the longest serving Prime Minister in English history and the first, and so far, only such serving woman) was a poignantly perfect center of the film.
When we first meet her, she is living, under beneficient guard, because of fear that in her confused state she'll be seen. But though seen (I assume in a fictional snapshot) buying milk in a small grocery, she is viewd by the public and the shopkeeper as just another dotty old woman. And therein, for me, lay the genius of the film. I have heard that this toggle between the present day and her rise and fall from grace was intended somehow to diminish the woman, but to me it merely enhanced my respect for her and reminds that no matter how great any of us are, or think we are, we will end up, if we live to a ripe old age, shuffling from room to room, forgotten by most, braced only by our memories, if God vouchsafes we may keep even those.
I remember the very real Mrs. Thatcher at Ronald Reagan's funeral, already well under the curse of her disease but still managing to be stoic and a reminder of the stateswoman that she was, as was the man she came to honor, another victim of the same disease. The character portrayed by Meryl Streep was every bit someone I would love to emulate. The portrayal has sent me back to biography and speeches and I could only wish to have one ounce of her courage of conviction.
So many scenes of the woman among men at a time when that was considered plainly iditotic by the great male thinkers of the day. She did not back down. That of course was a double edged sword, but the great are not readily swayed by the swagger of fearful and politically motivated tongues nor by acts of violence, as the bombing of the Brighton Hotel in 1984. While she and her husband escaped injury, five people died including members of Parliament. Her view, was to do what is right, not what is necessarily popular. How did she know what was right? Well, while certainly human beings are imperfect in their implementation, she was guided by natural law, moral law, common law.
She could fail to listen, it is said. Tell me, which of our current leaders are in the habit of listening, and as she noted, she was the one who ultimately made the decisions and on her, not on her opponents or even supporters, was the weight of the result of the decision.
One of the conceits of the film which I personally loved, although it has been done in many a film, were the hallucinatory appearances of Thatcher's husband, Dennis, played with such a charm that eccentric and daffy as he is drawn, I would be pleased to call him husband. From the time he meets her as a young up and coming businessman, and accepting her honest warning that she will not be the typical housewife and will be involved in statecraft, he is her buffer, even when she is not aware of it, and most of all, when she is not appreciative of it.
She paid a price for her choices. She had a son, Mark, who, at least according to the movie wanted little to do with her in her late age, no doubt a response to her lack of availability to him in his developing years. Her daughter is closer, but mother is, again according to the film, not hugely affectionate or grateful for that presence, since it is the absent boy she clearly prefers.
The moniker, "Iron Lady" was given to Thatcher by the Russians. Politically, philosophically, she was that indeed. But even the most astute, most forceful, most prominent individual fades into the past. But right now, she is brought, hat, purse, double string of pearls, and an unconvential mind and soul, back into our consciousness and the market place of ideas.
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/
No comments:
Post a Comment