The Damned United

[Rigel]

Anyone else seen this? It's a fictionalized account of Brian Clough taking over as manager of the Leeds United team in 1974. Michael Sheen stars with Timothy Spall, and they're both great to watch. In fact, Michael Sheen is fast becoming one of my favorite actors.

I'm conflicted about this one, though. When movies portray historical events, I prefer them to be as factual as possible. While filmmakers cite the need to create a better movie, I personally feel that real life is quite exciting enough. Besides, if you're just going to throw in some fiction, you might as well write the whole thing as fiction and not shackle yourself with any of the truth. For this reason, I'm not fond of movies such as The Pursuit of Happyness or Hidalgo, movies which are almost entirely fiction and share nothing but the name of the main character with the people they are supposedly based on (understandable in the case of Hidalgo, whose author Frank Hopkins has been called the greatest liar the world has ever seen, but inexcusable with Chris Gardner, whose life remarkable enough without embellishment).

Still, when looking into the inaccuracies in this The Damned United, they seem mostly harmless - things like fudging the dates that players were signed.

Anyway, I enjoyed the movie, and would recommend it.

[finn]

................Michael Sheen is fast becoming one of my favorite actors.

.........and Timothy Spall is already one of mine.

Sheen tho' is really starting to come alive and has a really varied resume to date. He is now the de facto choice to play Blair (tho recently I watched a great little film with Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan called the Ghost Writer where Brosnan played a Blair-alike), played Frost and now Brian Clough but was also the lead lycanthrope in the Underworld series.

This a neat movie charicature of the times. Revie (great casting of Colm Meaney) and Leeds United were succesful by virtue of kicking the opposition off the park, a trait that proved his downfall when manager of England. Brian Clough was a Cassius Clay-like, loud-mouthed braggart, but like Clay, he had the talent to back it up. The two are pitched against each other as the juxtaposition of consumate skill versus meaness and win at all costs doggedness.

However this film for me, was really about the relationship between Clough and Taylor; the taking for granted, the seperation, the mistress that was blind self belief and ego that Clough fell in love with and finally through to the reconcilliation and realisation that it was all very shallow and lacked contextual value without Taylor, who both complimented and completed him and provided the steadiness of platform on which he performed.

I find it interesting and extremely well told and it mirrors so many relationships. It spells out the lesson that obsession with the individual's wants and needs, can so easily destroy an entity which in itself is greater than the sum of the parts.

Clough was brilliant but so too was Taylor pulling the strings, whilst Clough played sleight of hand with a public always eager to hear his outspoken but direct opinion. What he achieved in his career was quite remarkable and his and Taylor's ability to build teams and take them to the very pinnacle of achievement still makes all but the greatest modern managers look pedestrian.