Purely Joyful Movie!

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Roger Ebert said that this movie's history was as good as one could expect, but otherwise it was pretty bad. I revere Ebert, but he was way off about the history part.The movie is very much concerned that you properly appreciate Cromwell. To this end, it fills the sound track with orchestral flourishes and fanfares and strident Protestant chorales from the first moment Cromwell appears to the last. Not content with this, it shamelessly reworks history in order to put Cromwell in places and roles which the historical Cromwell did not occupy, and to show him performing wonders that he did not perform, in the hope that the viewer will not know enough history to notice, or will just figure that such lies are the necessary means of sanctifying Cromwell. For example, it makes Cromwell one of the five members of parliament accused of treason by Strafford, although he was not. It makes Cromwell a participant in the battle of Edgehill, although he wasn't there. Movie-Cromwell commanded the revolutionaries at the critical battle of Naseby, starkly outnumbered by Charles but routing his forces through brilliant strategy and just plain awesomeness. The historical Cromwell was at least present at Naseby, but Fairfax was in command, and his forces had the edge in numbers. At every point Movie-Cromwell is shown to be the sole unaided leader and savior of the Revolution, whereas the real Cromwell was often a subordinate or part of a larger committee. In short, the movie perjures itself from beginning to end.Now, you could say that there are plenty of history films that get the history way wrong, but are at least fun to watch or produce memorable moments and so on. You might even point out that Shakespeare's histories are bad history but memorable art. Well, Hughes is not Shakespeare, and his Cromwell is not Prince Hal either. Sixty percent of what he does throughout the movie presents a variation on the following: (a) Cromwell asserts a conventional and lofty principle ("I will hear no treason against the king!") (b) He immediately runs up against a harsh reality (One of his men has his ears cut off) (c) He declares that God wants him to throw aside the original principle ("God damn this king!").There are lot of movies about people who have started off with good intentions and made themselves dictators, convincing themselves that it's necessary for the greater good because all the others in government are traitors and thieves, and because democracy (or republicanism, to be more precise than the movie ever is) is just inadequate to the needs of the day. You can argue about whether this is an adequate and fair summary of the career of the historical Cromwell (I don't think so), but it is an exact synopsis of Movie-Cromwell's career. As if to convince you that he has really gone over the edge, movie-Cromwell punctuates his seizure of total power with a long ahistorical populist rant about how he will make England a center of learning where every man can earn his bread.As I say, there are a lot of movies about ranting dictators, but there are not so many where a narrator comes along at the end and assures you that the dictator was perfectly justified by history in all his actions and ambitions! But here, after the above-mentioned rant, supposedly taking place in 1653, (SPOILER) the movie comes to an abrupt end - we never see a frame about Cromwell's service as Lord Protector - we only get the voice of an uncredited narrator telling us that during those five years Cromwell made England a great and respected nation!Now on the issue of religion. We know that the English Civil War had a strong religious element. We don't expect Cromwell and his Puritans to be presented as models of tolerance and ecumenicism. Of course they were opposed not just to the Catholics who back the monarchy but to Catholicism itself. But in fact it looks very much as if Hughes himself is opposed to Catholicism, which is exemplified in the film by Charles' French wife, Henrietta Maria, one of his many evil counselors (and who, out of perhaps 100 words spoken in the film by women, has the plurality), and by a conniving Italian archbishop who attempts to extort all sorts of treasonable favors out of Charles in return for his support. All this in a film released in 1970, during the Troubles! I have no independent knowledge of Hughes' sympathies in religion or Irish politics. We are informed that this biopic was a "dream project" for Hughes, the product of ten years of research. We do know that Cromwell was a particular hero to the Orange Order. We can see that Hughes wrote and directed a film dedicated to the particular virtues of Cromwell during the time when Catholics in Northern Island were launching a civil rights movement (1964) and loyalists were responding by creating paramilitary forces (1966). The film is full of fake history - did he compose the lies himself, or just uncritically trust some dodgy source? Hughes actually filmed scenes of Cromwell putting down Catholics in Ireland, which were ultimately cut from the final film as just too inflammatory.And even if one ignores the whole Irish context, the message that national revival can best be handled by a single man who says "I alone can fix it" - no, that was someone else, Movie-Cromwell says "I must do it all alone" - doesn't play well in 2018. To me, anyway.

Although enthusiastic about this film thirteen years ago, I now have reservations. The history is just too dodgy, with people in positions they never held; faked, chaotic or completely omitted battles; and several pointlessly altered incidents and situations. Why was it thought necessary to invent alternative facts in this messy way ? History, it seems, is always being re-written --- by both sides. Consider how Cromwell has been maligned and misrepresented for 400 years by the benighted Catholic Irish. Read "Cromwell: An Honourable Enemy" by Tom Reilly, born and bred in Drogheda. The Parliamentary cavalry should have attacked, boot to boot, in a resolute and tightly packed wedge, with "a steady round trot", as learned from the Swedish army in the 30 years war, not in this flamboyant disorderly manner.That said, I thought the personalities of Cromwell and Charles I were well presented by Harris and Guinness. The other characters were not well played, quite apart from the inaccurate ways they were directed. Prince Rupert was simply ridiculous, and the future Charles II, one of Britain's sleaziest and most treacherous monarchs, was way off piste. Though he was too young here to have got into his dissolute stride. Film is well worth seeing, nevertheless, more than once.

It is strange indeed that there is such a variety of interpretations of the film, quibbles about historical accuracy etc. when the closing narration both makes crystal clear what the film's purpose is and makes claims far more controversial than the film's strongest detractors have noticed. The narration celebrates the change from absolute to a constitutional Monarchy and Cromwell for bringing it about. It says that the 5 years of Cromwell's "reign" brought about an England "feared, respected and powerful". It takes obvious pride in him not just on England's behalf but much more widely as having established the principal of the primacy of parliament over the monarchy. Surprising that reviews quibbling over points of historical accuracy don't mention this narration with its central claim and entirely uncritical celebration of Cromwell.Since 1899 a statue of Cromwell has had a prominent location in the gardens of the British Houses of Parliament, something not without controversy from then until now. The statue's continuing presence can be read as Parliament's loud - and proud - assertion of its primacy.The script and the choice of one of the UK's finest actors, Alec Guinness, gave a gracious and nuanced portrayal of Charles 1. The choice of Richard Harris added to a blunt, forceful and determined Cromwell. The portrayal of a Parliament left to make up its own rules - and Cromwell's dramatic return with the Army to impose his view is memorableIt is a fine and interesting film, also a history lesson but one not everyone would celebrate. It is about politics, not pageantry

Why is it that to many people even in the UK the American Civil War is so much more interesting than the English one?Surely there could be no grander cause than defending the right of the people to rule the people and ending the Divine Right of Kings?I approached "Cromwell" in the hope that it would do something to redress the balance,but,sadly it failed to do so. Some of the blame could be rested on Cromwell himself,played by Mr R.Harris as a Puritan,both literally and figuratively.A man with the charisma of a breeze block and the temper of a starving hyena,he glowers and rants and raves at regular intervals when he isn't saying "Aaaah!" to denote irony with just the faintest Irish accent which in itself is the ultimate irony considering the real life Cromwell's proclivities. On occasions of particularly high emotions,Mr Harris's voice takes on the timbre of a peevish Dalek though fortunately by the end of the picture he is rapidly overtaken by what appears to be a rather bad case of laryngitis. Sir Alec Guinness gives us a rather camp and waspish King Charles who releases Bon Mots with the regularity of Oscar Wilde on a deadline. "Do you want it good or do you want it Wednesday?" as they say in the scriptwriting business...well,we got it Wednesday. Many reliable second - string British actors turn out and speak their lines as if on the boards with the R.S.C. where no doubt most of them would have been much happier. The lovely Miss D.Tutin has little to say despite her billing;but she does manage to look quite fierce in all the right places.No wonder Sir Alec looked terrified of her. Where is our Sherman,or Lee or Jackson? Can you imagine John Wayne as Cromwell and Ward Bond as his best friend? Where was our Appomatox,our Bull Run? Perhaps the Americans are simply better at building myths than we are. Certainly I can't see the Americans letting anything as dour,colourless and downright dull about their Civil War loose on the public.