By Richard Young
Yesterday Tom Nairn wrote in his oD article on Stephen Frears' The Queen, "Like poets, film directors and scriptwriters may sometimes try to be unacknowledged legislators of an age". This inadvertently manifested itself in France yesterday, (as reported by Martin Arnold in today's FT) as Jacques Chirac was moved to end the disparity in pensions between French war veterans and those from the ex-colonies after previewing Indigènes, a film about North African soldiers fighting to liberate occupied France in WWII.
The power of art to affect the emotions and bring about change in perception should be noted by Al Gore. I wonder if he had taken a less didactic approach in An Inconvenient Truth he could have achieved a greater impact – perhaps in the context of a band of brothers in peril George W might get it.
