Maynard goes to the Movies
A movie currently in limited release, “The Queen”, dramatizes the actions of Queen Elizabeth (played by Helen Mirren) and Tony Blair following the death of Princess Diana in 1997.
Diana was never high on my radar, but the film opened to universal critical acclaim. I went to find out for myself, and I was impressed. If offers a fascinating insight into the human condition, and you don’t have to be a Diana fanatic to appreciate this.
This isn’t really a movie about Diana, and you’ll see only the very broad picture of her life and death. At a metaphorical level, it’s the story of the clash between head and heart, between structure and emotion. The monarchy handles death in a manner dictated by rigid protocol; the man in the street is inclined to run with his feelings. While the Queen proceeded in quiet dignity and reserve, the public demanded an orgy of grief. Upon such divergences, revolutions are made.
Who was right? The film is not heavily judgmental; it lets the story (which I assume is fundamentally accurate) speak for itself. Both the Queen and Tony Blair are portrayed as sympathetic characters trying to do the right thing under great duress, and not aspiring to take personal advantage of the situation. Interestingly, Blair’s wife comes across as a woman whose psyche is dominated by an underlying rage, which she justifies by intellectual rationalizations. (In other words, another latent moonbat.) But I assume someone more in agreement with her position would find her to be the oppressed voice of reason and light. Oh, and Prince Charles seems to be something of a questionable character, working against his mother in a clumsy effort to contain this problem that partly grew out of his personal failure to hold his marriage together.
I come away from “The Queen” contemplating the tension between head and heart, and tilting towards the head in reaction to a touchy-feely era where it seems the heart has run wild. It’s a question of balance. Without the head, we become merely animals; creatures of feelings and appetite and nothing more. This is the road to hedonism and eventually nihilism. But without the heart, the head is irrelevant, because then it matters not whether we live or die.
That’s what I got out of it. But this is a film that works on many levels, and others will appreciate it for different reasons. In any case, a big “thumbs up” for “The Queen”.
“…Blair’s wife comes across as a woman whose psyche is dominated by an underlying rage, which she justifies by intellectual rationalizations. (In other words, another latent moonbat.)”
Cherie Booth Blair’s moonbattery is in no way latent. She’s a Class A leftwing wackjob.