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Lack of something... The Iron Lady
May. 13th, 2013 09:43 amOver the weekend I finally watched The Iron Lady. I'd not really wanted to when it came out and it turned out that it was on and I more or less drifted into watching it. If you haven't, don't bother. It's not very good, and rather poorly put together, which is sad because there are some excellent bits of acting from some of the cast. Anthony Head as Geoffrey Howe was brilliant.
I was minded of it by an interesting piece by Jay Lake on why he's not a conservative. One of the problems with the movie is it gets too wrapped up in the framing device, of Margaret Thatcher alone, old and going senile, and uses her conversations with the shade of Dennis to draw her into her memories. It's a weak device, really only there to get Meryl Streep another Oscar nod. It also meant that they gloss over a lot of the contradictions at the heart of her tenure.
One of those contradictions is about economics, something that Jay alludes to in a comment on his LJ. Before the Falklands, Margaret Thatcher was the least popular prime minister in British history. Probably bad enough that a 3rd party, then the newly formed SDP potentially could have held the balance of power after a 1983 election, rather than the landslide she got. Interestingly, after 1983, however, Thatcher, for the most part abandoned the fairly daft economic policies of austerity she'd been following, and engineered a truly massive increase in the money supply - albeit through making access to credit easier for everybody and granting the wealthy an enormous tax cut. From a stimulus perspective it worked, but the damage to more traditional industries was already done, and in some respects the UK has never really recovered. The ground work laid in that period of the changes to banks, stock markets and consumer credit laid the foundations of the disaster we've just lived through.
Which brings me back to my core problem with the film - the stuff that wasn't touched.
- They gloss over her rise to party leader which involved a lot of the backroom shenanigans that would end her tenure 20 years later
- The role of Airy Neave and Gordon Reece in her rise, and the introduction of professional communicators in politics
- Whether or not they did pick her because they thought she'd be easy to control, or because they thought she was the right person at the right time?
- The reversal of economic policy once it was clear what a mess they really were in
- The cold blooded way she drew Arthur Scargill and the NUM into a strike they couldn't possibly win
- The Westland Affair and why Hesletine was in such a strong position when she faltered over the Poll Tax
There was so much interesting stuff in there. But it was handled very poorly. One other example: the opening shot involves a frail, old Margaret Thatcher buying a pint of milk, and there are references to milk all the way through the film - but not once do they mention her original nickname of "Milk Snatcher"...
It was really such a wasted opportunity and cast.
I was minded of it by an interesting piece by Jay Lake on why he's not a conservative. One of the problems with the movie is it gets too wrapped up in the framing device, of Margaret Thatcher alone, old and going senile, and uses her conversations with the shade of Dennis to draw her into her memories. It's a weak device, really only there to get Meryl Streep another Oscar nod. It also meant that they gloss over a lot of the contradictions at the heart of her tenure.
One of those contradictions is about economics, something that Jay alludes to in a comment on his LJ. Before the Falklands, Margaret Thatcher was the least popular prime minister in British history. Probably bad enough that a 3rd party, then the newly formed SDP potentially could have held the balance of power after a 1983 election, rather than the landslide she got. Interestingly, after 1983, however, Thatcher, for the most part abandoned the fairly daft economic policies of austerity she'd been following, and engineered a truly massive increase in the money supply - albeit through making access to credit easier for everybody and granting the wealthy an enormous tax cut. From a stimulus perspective it worked, but the damage to more traditional industries was already done, and in some respects the UK has never really recovered. The ground work laid in that period of the changes to banks, stock markets and consumer credit laid the foundations of the disaster we've just lived through.
Which brings me back to my core problem with the film - the stuff that wasn't touched.
- They gloss over her rise to party leader which involved a lot of the backroom shenanigans that would end her tenure 20 years later
- The role of Airy Neave and Gordon Reece in her rise, and the introduction of professional communicators in politics
- Whether or not they did pick her because they thought she'd be easy to control, or because they thought she was the right person at the right time?
- The reversal of economic policy once it was clear what a mess they really were in
- The cold blooded way she drew Arthur Scargill and the NUM into a strike they couldn't possibly win
- The Westland Affair and why Hesletine was in such a strong position when she faltered over the Poll Tax
There was so much interesting stuff in there. But it was handled very poorly. One other example: the opening shot involves a frail, old Margaret Thatcher buying a pint of milk, and there are references to milk all the way through the film - but not once do they mention her original nickname of "Milk Snatcher"...
It was really such a wasted opportunity and cast.
