PJ: This is a review of two programmes that will appear on BBC1 this year: Another remake of "Great Expectations" (please go to the link provided to read the section that focuses on this film) and "Sarah Palin, You Betcha!". While not enjoying Broomfield's Palin documentary, the author is enthusiastically thankful for one thing....
"Let us give praise and thanks that the film is not more urgently needed now that Palin is no longer elbowing and scratching her way to the White House. But shame on Senator McCain for dragging this barely educated and ill-mannered hellcat onto the world stage. She's like Pip abruptly hauled up the social scale, only a hundred times less prepared for the journey."
The Arts Desk
Great Expectations, BBC One / True Stories: Sarah Palin - You Betcha!, More4
Do we need another version of Dickens' most adaptable novel or another hatchet job of Alaska's infamous governor?
by Jasper Rees
What might Dickens have made of the former governor of Alaska? In Sarah Palin: You Betcha!, a film for More4's True Stories strand, she found herself portrayed from afar by another specialist in grotesques and gargoyles. Nick Broomfield travelled to Wasilla, the tight-knit snow-bound wellspring of Alaska’s most infamous export, in pursuit of an interview. Initially it all looked promising. The filmmaker managed to pin down Palin’s affable father and indeed the title refers to the cheery reply Broomfield extracted from Palin when he flew to a book signing (such as one pictured below) in Texas and, filming surreptitiously, requested the interview in person.
As in other Broomfield chases, it was initially enough to enjoy the thrill of the pursuit. But it became apparent that, despite deploying all his signature faux-naif, poker-faced trickery and charm, no interview would be happening. Armed with a megaphone, Broomfield even popped her a question from the back of a rally. As he will have expected, he was booed and thrown out. Other rabbits would need to be yanked from the hat. In a town where the Palins divisively regard anyone who is not their friend as their foe, Broomfield’s only option was to talk to those of the latter persuasion. And so they queued - former supporters and colleagues who have been banned, cast out, cold-shouldered and vilified - to vilify right back.
What emerged was a portrait of a vengeful narrow-minded ignorant evangelical incompetent bigot whose one pre-eminent skill is in street fighting. It’s not as if these broad brushstrokes aren't already known: Palin has even dealt a mortal blow to her own standing with the risible reality travelogue series Sarah Palin’s Alaska. But the fresh filigree detail supplied here was compellingly awful. Let us give praise and thanks that the film is not more urgently needed now that Palin is no longer elbowing and scratching her way to the White House. But shame on Senator McCain for dragging this barely educated and ill-mannered hellcat onto the world stage. She's like Pip abruptly hauled up the social scale, only a hundred times less prepared for the journey.
http://www.theartsdesk.com/tv/great-expectations-bbc-one-true-stories-sarah-palin-you-betcha-more4
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