The Duke

November 2, 2021 Shane Virunphan

The Duke

Directed by Roger Michell

Starring: Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent, Matthew Goode, Anna Maxwell Martin, Fionn Whitehead, Sian Clifford, Charlotte Spencer, Aimée Kelly, John Heffernan, James Wilby, Charles Edwards, Richard McCabe, Joshua McGuire, Andrew Havill, Sam Swainsbury, Dorian Lough , Alfredo Tavares, Jack Bandeira, Heather Craney, Michael Mather, Simon Hubbard, Michael Adams, Sarah Annett

Country: UK

Year: 2020

Click Here for Italian Version

"A portrait made by a Spanish drunkard."

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, more simply Francisco Goya, was an artist deeply involved in his era.

All the Spanish nobility courted him. Goya had to paint many portraits. He entered the court of King Charles IV. He understood the contradictions of that environment by manifesting a clear disappointment. The same negative reaction, he had when Napoleon invaded Spain.

In 1808, General Arthur Wellesley was sent from England to Portugal to help them against Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. It was a long campaign and, although he commanded small troops, the General achieved important victories and the liberation of Madrid, which he conquered in 1812. At the end of the conflict, the General was appointed Duke of Wellington. With this title, he will command an army of European countries and, at Waterloo, he defeated Napoleon.

During the war against the French, Goya, already famous, painted three portraits of Wellington.

In the best known, on a totally obscure background, the Duke is in three quarters with his black eyes fixed on the audience. His face is elongated, attentive, concerned, concentrated, determined. He has a small mouth, imposing eyebrows, dark hair, confused by the scenery. He is healthy with bright red cheeks, matching the prestigious uniform packed with medals. His bust is massive, in contrast to a smaller head. His chest must be huge to hold the countless honours and, so, satisfy his aristocrat's pride. These noble mentions depict the Duke as an authoritative, austere, historian man whose fame will continue over time.

More than a century later, the Duke's portrait ended up in different hands. The Portrait of the Duke of Wellington by Goya became popular and attracted the curiosity of a modest, humble person, completely different from the boastful Duke.

In 1961, the painting was purchased and exhibited by the National Gallery in London. A few days after, it was stolen by Kempton Bunton, an elder from Newcastle, who had just small gig-jobs, but he was intimately a visionary and rebel.

Goya would have been happy. A proletarian, a little strange, a little dreamer, would have kept Scotland Yard in check for years. The policemen looked like fools. The investigations were feverish, but they did not recover the painting. It will reappear in 1965. For four years, it was merely hidden in a house of Kempton.

The story of the theft is a fascinating subject for the ability of an expert director. Roger Michell added provocation and irony, as he did in his previous films. The Duke was presented at the 77th Venice Film Festival.

Kempton begins a very bizarre protest; perhaps a popular, crazy, idealistic, challenges with a small civic attraction. He complains about the exemption from paying the television tax for the retired. It is a political act with no appeal, and Kempton's battle fails miserably. On the same day, the news broadcasts spoke widely of the arrival of the portrait of the Duke at the National Gallery. Therefore, Kempton decided to make an impressive gesture: he would have stolen the canvas. For the ransom, he would have requested the exclusion of the TV tax.

Roger Michell depicts Kempton Bunton with a sense of justice of a medieval knight, like a Don Quixote, like a Robin Hood, like a David. The director represents him in a more modern social context. He adds a hint of utopian socialism, a simple man without fear of taking sides in front of a tank like the unknown Chinese guy in Tiananmen Square. Kempton fights against the windmills, against the Sheriff of Nottingham, against Goliath. He wants to have his own justice, not universal justice, but his one, a symbol of innumerable sufferings: the abolition of the TV tax:

“In a way, it’s a Robin Hood story. Robin Hood is referenced in several ways. He isn’t Robin Hood, but what’s great about it is that, as in many pieces of English fiction, it’s a story about a small man, a working-class man from the north of England, disenfranchised, jobless. At Ealing Studios in the 60s, it continues to be part of English culture, this celebration of eccentric individuals. His is a revolutionary act.” (1)

The collective life of the sixties in England is the ironic habitat of history. The environment is a continuously exploited working class, which begins to acquire political awareness, with protests clashing against very strong opposition. The proletarians are gathered in the suburbs, they face human and family problem dramas. The difficulties are many: poverty, uncertain jobs, poorly paid, many hours, a lot of effort. Unemployment is widespread, especially among young people. Kempton does not have an occupation, both of personal inability and for his intense feeling of righteousness. Dorothy has to work for the financial needs of the family, she is domestic for an unpleasant bourgeois. The son is idle, he has not studied, he has no idea for his future:

“I was inspired, in terms of imagery, by other British films made in 1961. A whole generation of new directors working in black and white in the north of England, talking for the first time about the working class in the north. Unemployment, industrial waste.” (2)

It is the realism of the film: the description of sensitive protagonists symbolises both the past, from Goya to the Duke of Wellington, and the present. The actors help to respect these requirements.

“The Duke is a real story full of references to our past and our present. More, there are brilliant characters played by high-level actors who have been able to masterfully grasp and re-propose their every facet to the public." (3)

Kempton Bunton is exaggerated, over-the-top, qualities necessary to be an idealist. To the director, he is an eccentric talkative liar, with an effervescent fantasy with colossal nonsense. He is an inveterate liar, he focuses only on his imaginations, while his wife is very practical. Dorothy is a hard worker, she has to support the family. She loves her husband and allows him to plan his hallucinations. They are a lovely family. However, they faced the pain of mourning the death of their daughter. This untimely death destroys the atmosphere in the house, especially in Dorothy's soul. However, they are a beautiful couple.

To the director, their relationship is balanced, to give it a realistic tone. In everyday life, there are no heroes or the damned:

“His character wants to be a great playwright, like Cechov, and he’s fairly rough in many ways: we never see him doing the washing up or helping the wife with any work; he’s happy for her to win the bread for the household; he gets sacked all the time. He’s really irresponsible in terms of family life. But he has this caring side, he’s very kind and wants to help the community. There’s a balance between positive and negative sides. This helps the public understand he is a real person, not just an idealised version.” (4)

The characters have a comical English ambiance. Kempton and Dorothy interpret the motto used in London in the German bombings: keep calm and carry on. They have a style, despite the robbery, despite the police persecution, despite the jail, despite the trial, they keep calm and go on with their lives. It happens in court: Kempton Bunton is funny, he involves the audience and the jury with his eccentric and naif empathy.

His rhetoric in speaking is due to big self-esteem, pride in never surrendering, and his tough optimism despite adversity.

The author uses some details to highlight the film style: the two-shot in the conversation between Dorothy and Kempton, who wants to go to London. Or, the ridiculous police chief, ready to accuse imaginary gangs of professionals, probably Italians. Or, the full sequence of the court, like the sweet smile of the woman to the defendant

There is a particular in the editing, a wit: a shot of Munch's The Scream. Two versions of The Scream were stolen from two diverse museums in Oslo.

The thefts of Oslo and in the National Gallery are comparable with a difference. The thefts of Munch's paintings occurred thirty-three and forty-three years later the London one. The common part is that they have been found, without identifying the culprits. Do the thefts of Oslo have the same intimistic, social, political, cultural motivations too? The director launches the involuntary suspicion with this short editing:

Why did you show Munch’s The Scream behind the Goya? That painting was stolen on several different occasions. Was it a reference or a funny moment? Yes, it’s intended to be a funny moment. (5)

The film has a public, dreamlike, ethical atmosphere. For a visionary thief, evil is not stealing a painting, maybe it is stealing a frame. So, The Duke has a logical formalism. The pace is sustained, with some falls in the finale.

Roger Michell cites films from the sixties:

"The Duke is an extension of the British Ealing Comedies which described social classes, capitalism and the consequence of the world of work of the technological improvements" (6)

and represents the colour similar to that epoch, as the evening scenes with dim and low light.

The script is brilliant, with quick dialogue and skill by the actors Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent. The author's opinion:

"It all depended on the very well-written dialogue.” (7)

The result is a pleasure of irony, with sarcastic jokes, with a clear and clean direction.

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