Trudeau

It is hard to find fault with this terrific effort...great script, great actors etc...but why do they screw up such a super show with dumb things. Although I am complaining about only a couple of parts of the show, I do not know why these things took place. For example, at the end of episode one, after a great re-telling of the P.Laporte-J. Cross FLQ crisis, they resolve it with a multi-screen ending, that had no narrative, and made absolutely no sense at all to those who do not know how it ended. It was as if the director and editor suddenly realized that they only had 60 seconds left to wrap it up and tried to do everything at once. If you were new to the story and did not know how the events unfolded then you would have been lost. Likewise at the end of the second episode, so 'genius' decided to use an actual speech by the real Trudeau, but made it into a grainy scratch filled piece of black and white film as if it had been film in the time of Laurier not Trudeau. What exactly was the point of that. The only other complaint I had was a scene in which Trudeau and his reporter 'friend' were coming up the steps into the Centre Block and unlike every other shot in the series, someone decided to jump cut it as if it were a rock video. Again, what was the point of interupting the flow of the show to do that (unless it was to cut out the person walking in front of them). However, on the whole, the show was great, the portrail of historical figures fascinating. John Turner, Mitchell Sharp and even John Munro came across very well as did Pelletier, Marchand and Lalonde to mention just a few. But then why did they not use an actor to portray Joe Clark, using newsreel footage for his parts and not anyone else, including Levesque. These examples of disjointedness were irritating as they all interuppted the narrative flow of a great show.

While my mother would tell me stories of what happened when I was younger, the four-hour miniseries, "Trudeau," was like a knowledgeable neighbour filling in the external details about the politics and events of the time.

Through the music of the time, interspersed with clips from actual news footage, and the actors' performances, we were brought through such groundbreaking events as the October Crisis, the Québec Referendum and the bringing home of the Constitution to Canada.

The role that Margaret Sinclair Trudeau played in the life of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau and his political life is given its due importance in this production. Margaret was played as a strong support to Pierre, in spite of their marriage breakdown and Margaret's escapades with drugs and hanging out with the Rolling Stones.

While it was only touched on during the broadcast, Trudeau's legacy is the maturing of a Canada that welcomes languages and cultures from around the world. Additionally, Trudeau's statement that the government "has no business in the bedrooms of the nation" made it easier for divorcing couples and those with so-called "alternative lifestyles" to have the opportunity to participate more fully in Canadian society.

This piece was casted, not with look-alikes, but with actors who could convey the essence of the players of a generation ago. Anyone with knowledge of the era could easily recognise the premiers, aides and other characters played by a group of very familiar actors, whose performances were nothing less than stellar. Kudos to Colm Feore (Pierre) and Polly Shannon (Margaret)!!!

This production was broadcast with closed captions and descriptive video making it a trendsetter in accessible TV for the hearing and visually impaired.

Some might argue the most memorable line from Trudeau was, "Just watch me!" However, after seeing this miniseries, I think it should be, "This is us! Here we are!"

And we are, indeed!

The 1960s-1970s pastiche style of this telefilm was so very well accomplished that it made me realize again why I HATED films of this era so much--the semicoherent lets-pretend-we're-tripping mise en scene, the syrupy musical interludes, the overall style-over-substance approach. But then around the three-quarters point I realized how RIGHT this approach is to this particular story. What "Trudeau" says to me is that Trudeau was put into office because he seemed to fit the style of the times--as one of his handlers terms it at the beginning of the film, he's "sexy"--but, as is demonstrated over and over, he utterly lacked the stuff of a real statesman, as reflected not only in his fumbling of various Quebec separatist uprisings but in his personally and politically suicidal choice of the immature, abusive narcissist Margaret Sinclair as his consort. I found "Trudeau" painful to watch, especially the scenes in which the aging Trudeau is browbeaten and humiliated by his hystrionic child-wife, the objective correlative of his former glamorous self, which contrasts with smarting irony with the progressive revelation of his inability to deliver the goods ("What do you want me to do about it?" he squawks to an aide, not the first or last revelation of this very hollow man's essential cluelessness.) I bought "Trudeau" wanting to see more of Colm Feore after being enchanted by his portrayal of Glenn Gould, another stupefyingly complex late 20th century Canadian mass media icon. Weirdly, and appropriately I think, Feore's Gould comes across as a far warmer, more authentic personality than his cold, brittle Trudeau. Polly Shannon's whimpery Margaret just made me want to slap her in the mouth, which I think is perfectly appropriate to the character. Most of all I just loved the way the director used Patrick McKenna in this film, not giving him that much to DO but posing him strategically near Feore at crucial moments, his chubby, mobile face and beautiful huge gray eyes telegraphing perfectly all the ideas and emotions that the fuzzy, chilly stick figure next to him just isn't grasping.

Phenomenal performance from Colm Feore (who HAS lived in Canada for 40 yrs. despite being Boston-born). It is eerie, you almost believe it really is Trudeau, the voice, mannerisms are spot on. Peter Outerbridge is particularly strong as Jim Coutts. The mini-series in typical CBC fashion deifies Trudeau while ignoring the real harm he did to Canada: flawed constitution that left out one of the founding peoples agreement to it, rise of alienation & the threat of separatism, the ruin of the economy, staggering debt & out-of-control spending. Trudeau was reviled outside Canada as a world leader; Thatcher & Reagan wouldn't give him the time of day! That being said, he was a man of conviction & courage & the miniseries brings that element out well. The extra features on the DVD, particularly the 1968 Liberal leadership convention documentary, is particularly good in presenting the political intrigue & drama of the time. A movie well-worth seeing or owning for that matter!

I'm a conservative; and even those who are die-hard conservatives, or hated Trudeau, will really enjoy this flick. I bought it after watching it and renting it about a dozen times.

The historical accuracy was great - which is very funny for a historical movie (because not a lot of these kinds of movies are historically accurate). Its hard for me to determine what my favorite scene was because they were all great. Even the opening of the movie with the old CBC colour butterfly was great, and set up the atmosphere for the film. It gives everyone a chance to see how popular politicians got started, and made their mark, and how others were hated and why they were hated. It was definitely not biased whatsoever.

This movie has made it in my top three most favorite movies.