Month: August 2018

Us and the U S – Chapter 13

/ Geoffrey Gibson / Leave a comment

Us and the US

[The extracts that follow under this gravely ungrammatical title précis a book published in 2014 called ‘A Tale of Two Nations; Uncle Sam from Down Under’.  That book sought to compare the key phases of history of the two nations under fourteen headings.  That format will be followed in the précis.  The chapter headings are Foreword;1 Motherland; 2 Conception;3 Birth; 4 Natives; 5 Frontiers; 6 Laws; 7 Revolution; 8 Migration; 9 Government; 10 Wars; 11 Patriotism; 12 Wealth; 13 God; 14 Findings; Afterword.  Each chapter is about 1400 words.]

13

God

The English Bill of Rights bans anyone from holding the Crown of England who is ‘…reconciled to, or shall hold communion with…the…Church of Rome…or shall marry a papist’.  The English Bill of Rights is still part of the laws of each state of Australia.  The English Act of Settlement of 1701 forbids the holder of the crown to marry ‘a papist’ and says that anyone who shall ‘come into possession of the Crown shall join in communion with the Church of England’.

The Queen of Australia must ‘join in communion with the Church of England.’  Her successor may marry someone of another faith – say a Muslim sister of Osama bin Laden – and Australia might ask the English Crown to approve of the appointment of a Muslim or Jewish or Catholic or Infidel Governor-General, but the English crown – the Australian crown – is denied religious freedom or tolerance.  It is, and must remain, Anglican.  Well, why shouldn’t the English have what they want?

Section 116 of the Australian Constitution provides:  ‘The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth’.  On the issue of an established church, and imposing religious observance, the Australian Constitution therefore provides for the direct opposite of the constitution of the United Kingdom.  Australia is schizophrenic at its ecclesiastical summit.

There does not look to have been much chance of some pious and ambitious types trying to set up an established church in Australia, but the Commonwealth of Australia is left in the anomalous position of being a country that cannot have an established church taking its monarch from a nation that must have an established church as a result of ancient British laws that Australians cannot change, but that are entirely repugnant to the laws of Australia as a whole.

Putting that quirk to one side, Australians have not had much trouble with religion, but such troubles as they have had did religion no good.  It is very much an ebbing force in communal life in Australia.

Religious conflict in Australia was mainly imported.  That is hardly surprising in a migrant nation.  Geoffrey Blainey has this comment: ‘Between 1929 and 1949, Irish Australians, three of whom were Catholics and one a lapsed Catholic, held the post of Prime Minister in every year but two.  One of the Catholics, Joe Lyons, dramatically left the Labor Party and headed a conservative government from 1932 to 1939.’  This was a bad premonition of an even worse split in the Labor Party, one that would disenfranchise a generation.

The issue of Church and State flickered on about state aid to church schools, but the disasters of about sixty years of religious fuelling of political debate meant that anyone trying that kind of thing could expect to be under a large bucket of something quite malodorous.  The churches as a whole now have very little influence in politics, and proponents of some worthy causes might be inclined to pray that the princes of the church just stay out of the fray.  However, on issues that are said to be moral like abortion and euthanasia, a small number of religious people can make enough noise to frighten off politicians who are by nature timid.  In 2017, that would be said of the dispute about equality.

The international abuse scandal is seen by those opposed to the churches as confirming all their fears, and when it broke, the church found no reservoir of goodwill or even sympathy.

**

The First Amendment to the U S Constitution provides: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances’.  So, the Australian model had followed the American on setting up rather more than Chinese Walls between Church and State by banning an established church and by guaranteeing freedom of religion.

The picture on the ground in England and in the U S looks to be the reverse of what it is on paper.  The English queen is the head of a state religion, but religion has a minimal effect on English politics; you could make much the same observation for Australia; in the U S, there is no established church, but de facto the president has to go through the motions of being a professed Christian, and religion has a continuing and significant effect on U S politics, an effect that is not widely admired outside of the U S.

For the most part, the early presidents were products of the Enlightenment who were at best not enthused about a personal God.  Lincoln was clearly nowhere near being a practising Christian.  There is not much point speculating which presidents may have been communicant Christians.  One American historian spoke of ‘The assumption that the United States is morally superior to other nations, the assertion that it must redeem the world by spreading popular government’, and ‘faith in the nation’s divinely ordained destiny to fulfil this mission.’  The ‘rhetoric of empire’ is a lot worse than the Napoleon complex – that cost more than five million lives in European wars fought so that Europe might know the blessing of French republican liberty – Napoleon did not claim to be sent by God.

This kind of talk is terrifying to those outside America.  It is not just that the U S has an appalling record of getting into bed for its own purposes with corrupt, repressive, and wicked rulers who are sponsored to stand over and hold down their people in the name of freedom and democracy – the more serious problem is that this is being done because the Americans, like the Hebrews, Romans, and English before them have been chosen by Providence for just that mission.  That is something that no-one outside America believes, and hopefully something that very, very few sane Americans believe.

Then, even putting to one side that two presidents in the lifetime of the author suffered from a manic incapacity to hold their pants up, and an equally manic drive to abuse the power of their high office and trust, and putting to one side TV evangelists, there is the spell-binding hypocrisy of it all.  Here we have Uncle Sam bringing truth, justice, freedom, and the American way to the oppressed peoples of the world – in the name of and on a mission from Almighty God – even to those poor souls not yet blessed with a revelation of God’s plan for them – in faraway and dangerous places like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Then the problem of hypocrisy went into orbit with the election of Donald Trump.

A few years ago Australia saw its first female Prime Minister.  One day the U S might chance its arm on a woman, but there is little or no chance on present form that the first U S woman president will be a professed atheist living in sin.  Neither that PM, nor any other Australian has claimed that Australians have a mission to the world for which they have been chosen by God.

 

Here and there – Shakespeare on film – a first XI

/ Geoffrey Gibson / Leave a comment

 

Someone suggested that I do a note on my favourite films of Shakespeare – recognising that the list today might change radically tomorrow.  Here then is today’s first XI – in alphabetical order.

All’s Well that Ends Well is the only play by this author I have not seen on stage.  The 1981 BBC version features two of my favourite actors, and not just in Shakespeare – Ian Charleson and Michael Hordern.  Bertram is a rotten role, but Charleson was so good.  Hordern for me is like Gielgud – they both look like they were born to play Shakespeare.  Hordern oozes Lafew.  There is a wonderful scene – Act V scene ii – where Parolles is wretched and roughly dealt with by the Clown, and Lafew takes him under his wing.  It is pure magic that can’t be taught.  No wonder Hordern terrified Richard Burton as a scene stealer.

The 1984 BBC Coriolanus has a spellbinding performance from Alan Howard in the lead.  He makes no effort to hide his contempt of the mob, and this author knew how to show politics in the gutter.  The sets the BBC employed are perfect for this plot.  Irene Worth is the mother-in-law from hell.  Riveting political drama that is relevant to our time.

I have never understood the fuss about Citizen Kane, but it is hard to avoid the word genius with Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight of 1965.  The film draws on all the Falstaff plays – except Merry Wives.  Somehow it manages to convey the essence of the author’s most famous character.  Gielgud plays the king, and Norman Rodwell is brilliant as a restless young prince wondering if he might be soulless. He was his father’s son.  (It was a bit rich for the producers to give second billing to the late Jean Moreau for Doll – she has about four lines.)

It’s hard to believe that Branagh’s Hamlet came out more than twenty years ago – in 1996.  I saw it four times at the Astor in packed houses.  Some of these dream cast jobs can get wearisome but not this one.  The late Richard Briers was a Branagh favourite and another professional scene stealer.  Rufus Sewell was perfect for Horatio – the kind of guy who would give you a very worrying night if he came to take out your daughter.  The late Robin Williams aired his magic as the courtier, and Gerard Depardieu shows what a wonderful screen presence he has as he stares down Richard Briers with the least lines in the play.

Branagh’s Henry V (1989) got flogged to death in my house when a daughter wrote a ballet to the music.  Branagh’s enthusiasm is infectious.  He broke off with Emma Thompson, but she is very sexy here – and backed up by the great Geraldine McEwan.  Ian Holm nearly steals the show as Fluellen, he having played the lead in the Harper Collins audio.  You also get the bonus of Brian Blessed as Exeter and Richard Briers as Bardolph. The other great scene stealer is Mountjoy, the French Herald.  Blessed is wonderful in confronting the French, and Scofield shows what a great actor he was.  (I’m sure Brian Blessed was in Z Cars and that Sergeant Barlow called him ‘a teddy boy in uniform’: that English frankness was a real revelation to me.)

The whole cast of the BBC Henry VIII (1979) is strong – led by John Stride and Claire Bloom – but Timothy West is splendid as the doomed Cardinal Wolsey – the very definition of a professional politician.  The phrase ‘spin doctor’ could have been coined for this great play.  The scene where the plot to unseat the Archbishop is foiled is unforgettable high politics.

When Brando did Julius Caesar in 1953, I was about eight.  This film helped introduce my girls to Shakespeare: ‘Golly, Dad, who’s that hunk?’  This is another wonderful political plot.  Brando is amazing in the big speech, but we tend to forget the dramatic power of the next two scenes.  Shakespeare wrote a lot about how easy it is to inflame the mob.  He would be horrified but not surprised by seeing the mob in action today.

Fantasy and slapstick are hard to put on the screen, but the 1998 Hollywood Midsummer Night’s Dream gives it a real shot.  Kevin Kline and the director, and clips from opera, make Bottom an intriguing star, but David Strathairn and Sophie Marceau are just right as royalty – and there is no doubt that Michelle Pfeiffer was Hollywood royalty.

The Branagh Much Ado about Nothing of 1994 has one of the most invigorating starts of a movie.  Emma Thompson is deadly as Beatrice, but Michael Keaton nearly runs off with show in the comic parts.

It would be churlish to skip Richard Burton and his then wife Elizabeth Taylor in the 1967 Taming of the Shrew directed by the great film and opera director, Franco Zeffirelli.  The screen is painted with something close to an Old Master level, and Michael Hordern as the unfortunate dad again shows his lethal scene stealing.

When I saw Julie Taymor’s debut as feature film director in Titus in 1999 at the cinema, on each occasion I could feel and hear the audience shift uneasily at the end when Anthony Hopkins appears on the screen ‘dressed as a cook’ – which I think is the stage direction.  This is for obvious reasons a difficult play to put on but I thought then and I think now that this production was a complete and gutsy success.  It is brilliantly set and choreographed.  Geraldine McEwen has a small part that finds the wrong end of a billiard cue.  While the sources are Roman, this film comes across as the archetypal Greek tragedy of a cursed house.  Hopkins is perfect as the square-jawed servant of public duty. Jessica Lange still conveys that sexy fatality.  As the play is developed in the film, it could be at the root of the great Westerns.  Most of the show is about how bad the bad guys are, so that when their dispatch comes at the end, the sense of relief is complete.  This is the revenge show of all revenge shows.  The film is also a demolition job on the notion that ancient Rome was civilised.

Well, there’s my first XI for today.  Imogen Stubbs and Helena Bonham Carter were both terrific in Twelfth Night of 1996, but the slapstick didn’t quite come off, and some of the boys got worried when they thought that Ms Stubbs – who I would have given an arm and a leg to see play the Jailer’s Daughter – looked sexiest when dressed as a copper and with a moustache.  That kind of thing may be unsettling, but she carried it off with her customary trade craft.

Well, whatever else may be said, we are not denied great offerings – and that’s without going to the Globe and other live productions.