Into the Storm: Leadership Lessons From Winston Churchill
The film’s most elevating moment is a montage which director Thaddeus O’Sullivan creates out of Churchill’s famous “We shall fight on the beaches” speech of 1940. In the pubs and clubs, from the factory floors to the Parliament, we see Britain listening. This is Gleeson’s finest hour, capturing the cadences of the great orator, who, let us remember, was his own speechwriter and would likely rip apart a teleprompter with his bare hands if one ever appeared before him.
Churchill was the supreme wartime communicator. Today’s leaders should carefully study the many scenes of Into the Storm devoted to his masterful language skills. Writers appreciate a fellow wordsmith, so screenwriter Whitemore enshrines Churchill’s most ennobling words in scenes where they can be fully appreciated.
Speaking of heroic aviators, Churchill murmurs “never before has been much been owed by so many to so few.” Realizing immediately that he has struck rhetorical gold, he quickly tells an aide “write this down,” and next the reaction of his most important audience member is duly noted. Later, in private, he looks into the burned face of a flier while presenting the Victoria’s Cross and is equally eloquent. Churchill’s mighty words are more impactful than mere scripted catch phrases because they come from deep within, and Into the Storm captures that passion well.
The film’s title phrase is in a speech which is actually booed and heckled in a Parliamentary debate. Sometimes words alone won’t suffice. Wartime Britain is at the end of Empire, barely able to defend itself much less go on the offensive alone. Churchill’s key relationships with FDR and Stalin are crucial to both military success and what exactly will be won. Unfortunately, the tight 100 minute film format leaves some loose threads, such as a too brief glimpse of the Yalta meetings and a hasty glance towards the fate of Poland. The only glaring weakness of Into the Storm is that there’s not enough of it.
For more details on why Churchill had so little leverage negotiating the post-war fate of Poland, see PBS’ recent six hour documentary WWII Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West. That film is a stunning (for PBS) denunciation of Stalin, played in recreations by Alexey Petrenko who is also Into the Storm‘s Stalin. The Roosevelt of Into the Storm seems merely disinterested in post-war Europe. WWII Behind Closed Doors has the time to reveal that part of FDR’s proposal for post-war world was “drawn up by Harry Dexter White, a Soviet spy in Washington.” While Into the Storm‘s scope misses some history, it does capture FDR and Stalin in entertaining lighter moments, the former watching Churchill bathe and the latter toasting his manservant.
As Into the Storm concludes, Britain elects Labor. Churchill is out, Clement Atlee is in, on a political platform of “they want a proper welfare state.” Throughout the war, Churchill kept Atlee by his side as a sign of national unity. I guess Sun-tzu and Don Corleone were wrong: don’t always “keep your enemies closer.” There is a great scene of personal redemption which concludes Into the Storm, but the political resolution is unfinished. Producer Ridley Scott says he would like to do a post-war sequel dealing with Churchill’s temperament and his battle against depression. After HBO (and probably Gleeson) collect the awards which Into the Storm richly deserves, they too will want to commission a follow-up and complete the trilogy. History itself suggests the narrative. Atlee’s socialism impoverished Britain, and the voters turned to the Conservatives. In 1951, Winston Churchill returned as prime minister, saving his nation one final time.
Into the Storm premieres tonight on HBO and repeats throughout June.
Wow.
Looking forward to this. Balanced and intelligent.
By the way, many lefties of that era suffered from severe CDS. I have spoken with some who blamed him for WW2, as well as the Holocaust, go figure.
His only real weakness was a relatively poor grasp of economics, not as bad as the socialists, but not first rate either.
We could sure use a President now who had a little more Winston Churchill in him and a little less Neville Chamberlain.
I am glad that for once this batlle of Dunkirk isn’t mentionned as only a french disater !
Under Churchill Britain nobly threw itself on a hand grenade and so saved humanity. I very much hope that our Churchill, if we get one, will be a little more selfish.
FDR confronted Churchill on British Imperialism
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/2007_1-9/2007_1-9/2007-7/pdf/7-8_707_feat-2.pdf
Obama returned the bust of Churchill in the Oval Office to the British, my sources tell me he is ready to substitute it by a bust of Shaka Zulu.
Churchill was the only person that Hitler feared, and rightly so, without him, for sure, England would have capitulated. Even Sir Sttaford Cripps was, at the end, a pacifier. Churchill was, verily, a lion.
President Obama returned to Prime Minister of Britain Brown the bust of Winston Churchill which had been lent to President Bush.
We have no one like Churchill in this country. To bad for America! He loved his country and was willing to take all the heat in the press to do what he thought was the right thing to do. This was so even when the American President did not want to get involved. Where is our Churchill????
Another Chuck:
Under Churchill Britain nobly threw itself on a hand grenade and so saved humanity. I very much hope that our Churchill, if we get one, will be a little more selfish.
CHUCK THAT ONE CHUCK
My, what a remarkable statment. To describe saving one’s nation form military conquest as selfish bespeaks of a lack of ability to think rationally on the subject of war.
You must be thrilled to have Obama as President. He believed conceding Iraq to al Qaeda and Iran would make America safer. In fact I’d say Obama is the best version of Churchill that liberals could ever produce. His speechwriters’ words may be hollow, considering his actions, but he delivers them with the majesty of a Martin Luther King. Listening to some of his speeches you’d think he actually has a clue.
Nice article, Mr Kearney.
3. Marie Claude:
[I am glad that for once this batlle of Dunkirk isn’t mentionned as only a french disater!]
The Battle, and successful evacuation, of Dunkirk, was verily the turning point of the war against Hitler; however, he did not know it at the time. Had Hitler allowed Guderian’s panzers to go straight to Dunkirk, instead of believing the boasting of Hermann Goering that the Luftwaffe would save the day, England but had been left indefensible, the consequences far and deep for the whole world. Hitler (and the Dark forces behind him) was within a hair’s breath of wining the war.
Even a unusual, for that month, foggy and cloudy weather showed up, diminishing the chances of the Luftwaffe.
For the theory of the occult sources of that unusual weather in favor of the Allies, please check out recent book by my Belgian friend Georges Van Vrekhem: “Hitler and His God”
http://www.amazon.com/Hitler-His-God-Background-Phenomenon/dp/8129109530/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243783661&sr=8-1
Sorry for the unintentional bolding. A preview or edit button would be appreciated.
Our current politicians are all far too interested in votes/re-election rather than being leaders. Pandering to special interest groups outweighs what it good for the majority. The media has totally given up an semblance of being unbiased as evidenced by the slobbering over Obama.
Likely a modern day Churchill wouldn’t happened as he’d make some type of politically incorrect “slur” that would be played non-stop on the 24 hr “news” stations and result in his political demise.
BHO would have to stand on his mother’s shoulders to kiss Churchill on the arse.
Churchill was an amazing man and my favorite national leader. The Western world needs more like him. I haven’t seen the HBO series but I suggest doing a ton of research on Churchill on your own rather than just accept whatever image of Churchill they painted of him. You won’t be dissapointed or bored when reading biographies or watching documentaries about him. That’s for sure. He was actually a very terrible natural public speaker and had a pretty heavy lisp. He worked obsessively for many many hours to master every single one of his speeches since it didn’t come to him naturally. And he’s pace back and forth for hours all through the night into the early hours of the morning while dictating his speeches verbally which a young receptionist would have to torturously record. And his perception and understanding on a great many subjects was very spot on including his dislike of the islamic religion and the future threat of Nazism and communism. And his early years were just as eventful as his later years. He was also an AMAZING painter believe it or not. Such an interesting man.
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965);
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
There is no such thing as a good tax.
Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked, but few are those who see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—hoping it will eat him last.
The problems of victory are more agreeable than the problems of defeat, but they are no less difficult.
From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I shall not put.
A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
Bessie Braddock: “Sir, you are drunk.”
Churchill: “Madam, you are ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.”
Nancy Astor: “Sir, if you were my husband, I would give you poison.”
Churchill: “If I were your husband I would take it.”
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
Once in a while you will stumble upon the truth but most of us manage to pick ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened.
If you are going to go through hell, keep going.
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
A sheep in sheep’s clothing. (On Clement Atlee)
A modest man, who has much to be modest about. (On Clement Atlee)
I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.
Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.
The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
-“The Sinews of Peace” speech, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1945
If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others.
The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.
If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
You ask, What is our policy? I will say; “It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.” You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.
We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour!”
Churchill had two quotes that I find particularly illuminating. First, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Second, when he got tossed out of office, someone suggested it might be a blessing in disguise. “If so,” he retorted, “it is very effectively disguised.”
Terry Gain,
You misunderstand my meaning. Britain went into the war a superpower and came out a bankrupt shadow of itself. In taking out Hitler Chuchill took out Britain as well. That’s not an example I want the USA to follow. I would much prefer that our Churchill (once again, IF we get one) selfishly conduct wars in such a way that we come out of them more powerful than ever.
The Churchill quote I think Obama should study is ” Socialism is the philosphy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, it’s inherent virtue is equal sharing of misery.” I really don’t think Obama is smart enough to understand this.
our statesmen?
We don’t have those here, the only things we have are self-serving spineless politicians.
I thought Bush was a statesman, but then he went nuts in his last six months. We do, however, have some statesman. Some of them even ran for President last year. Do the names Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul ring a bell?
Alex – Great collection of quotes! The Lady Astor exchange is an all time classic. More on her at
http://jssgallery.org/Paintings/Lady_Astor.htm
chuck
Britain had no choice but to fight. Also if America did not join the fight then it would have just been delaying the inevitable.
wanna an idea of the Dday manifestation in Colleville ?
http://tinyurl.com/ku6wtv
some old videos too
Thanks for the post, Alex. Churchill had so many wonderful dead-on quotes!
“You misunderstand my meaning. Britain went into the war a superpower and came out a bankrupt shadow of itself. In taking out Hitler Chuchill took out Britain as well.”
That’s not nece4ssarily so. Britain though economically wounded by the war was still in better shape than Germany or France- and received more Marshall Plan aid than either.
It was Atlee’s ruinous policies which separated the “Great” from Britain.
My favourite quote by Churchill:
“Any man who is under 30 and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30 and is not a conservative, has no brains.”
The original of this quote of yours was, I understand, not Churchill but a French politician (of considerable repute there, but I cannot remember his name). It dates to the first decade of the last century.
Churchill’s quotes are so brilliant that good quotes are often attributed to him when one is not quite sure exactly who should be credited (as with myself not being quite sure of the exact author of your quote, though I do know where it came from). Some of those contributed by others above probably come into this category also. FW Smith, a brilliant barrister and intimate friend of Churchill’s has been credited with the two rather “catty” jokes concerning women that are among them.
Ah yes Sir Winston Churchill.Definetly one of my heroes while i was growing up.Thats the kind of leadership needed to slap these dictators and tyrants around at the UN.No worries though im confident one like him will come foward ,hopefully sooner rather than later.
Oh, My Lord, we need a Churchill figure now. We are surrounded by eunuchs and wusses.
I saw this movie Sunday and loved it! Recently HBO has been doing a good job with doing movies about history. For that I can sort of forgive them for Bill Maher’s show. Which I never watch anymore.
Terry, chuck was right in saying they jumped on the grenade for the rest of the world. However, they really had no choice. It was as Church said that they could have fought before and it would have been easier, but now they had to fight for their lives. Seriously, though, they did give everything they had for the rest of the world. They did a poor job rebuilding, though.
A UTOPIAN PRESIDENT IS A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY
Reality trumps ideology every time. Obama is out of touch with human nature and how the world works.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/06/utopian-obama-in-disconnect-with.html
8 Rita. “He loved his country and was willing to take all the heat in the press to do what he thought was the right thing to do.”
That guy left town Jan. 20, 2009
#17 Another Chuck – I think it is rather senseless to be blaming Britain for coming out of the war anything less than a superpower. Keep in mind that everyone was coming out of the Great Depression. Germany, against the armistice of WWI, was taking over mineral resources for it’s war machine and arming up. Once the Nazi onslaught began, Britain, as an island nation, was cut off from it’s usual supply of “everything.”
Hence, the American efforts to supply everything needed by ship convoy to keep them alive, e.g. Lend-Lease. The Nazi U-boats were effective early on at blockading the supply convoys and delayed Britain from getting to a war footing. Poor decisions by Hitler in not invading Britain, letting British and French troops to escape Dunkirk, and in opening a two front war cost Germany dearly in their efforts.
I for one don’t minimize the fact that coming out of a depression, being cut off from all means of supply, and refusing to capitulate to such a strong aggressor was no mean feat. Coming off that kind of war, they were just lucky to still exist as a country, much less emerge as a continuing superpower.
Mr. Kearney, thank you for a great writeup. I look forward to viewing the referenced documentaries and learning even more about truly larger than life characters who came to the forefront in time of desperation. I can only pray that America will also have people like that rise to the occasion as our country devolves into a chaotic mess even worse than currently exists.
LESSONS FROM THE CURRENT OBAMA POWER GRAB
Czars only lead to tyranny.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/06/czar-crazed-obama-executive-power-grab.html
Churchill was indeed a great war leader but was a disastrous peacetime leader. Unfortunately, once back in office, hubris meant that Churchill clung on to power while he was almost totally incapacitated by strokes and did not allow a capable replacement from his own party to take over. Attlee’s Government and policies did not bankrupt Britain but I should not expect objective commentary from this site. Read Roy Jenkin’s biography of Churchill and you will understand
I wish the favorite quote of those who use an interesting and well-produced documentary as an excuse to bash Obama was, “The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.” One truth overlooked is that in peace time, both Winnie and his Dad were slightly right of center moderates who fought tooth and nail with the extreme right wingers in Parliament, correctly stating that colonialism will lead to the bankrupting of the country. The decline was already underway before the war started. The war only magnified Britain’s economic woes.
Kudos to Alex for correctly quoting Winnie, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” Most people erroneously put “capitalism” were “democracy” should be. This has happened so frequently that for years I believed the misquote to be factual.
Jim, that’s Clement Attlee, with two t’s, not Atlee. And you’ve misquoted Churchill: not “never before has been much been owed by so many to so few” but “never before has so much …” Mere typos, I hope, in an interesting piece.
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”
We should never forget that we are the inheritors of the British Empire and building on its rich and strong foundations. The coming wars will be fought with as many skills but hopefully without the destructiveness of the past. Terrorism is not unexpected nor are other economic and environmental challenges and they should be put into perspective with the challenges of the past like Churchill faced. The key to success is continuing our resolution to remain free and foremost by wise and economic management. In peace we should have maximum freedom of the press and a willingness to put something aside for a rainy day. The future Fund of this country should be used wisely and not splurged on unwanted pink bats.