on Kristin Stewart's Diana

 I saw Spencer last night, and a miracle happened: my heart opened up and I had a little sympathy, a trickle of blood or some other humour, for Diana.

I have a strong sense that the reactionary culture of the eighties began with the marriage of Charles and Diana. It was like rock n roll heaven for reactionaries. Of course, I am more of the school that the royals and the aristocrats are spongers who sit on piles of blood money exacted from the skins of millions of peasants by their horrific ancestors. So I am not exactly unbiased. I have more sympathy for Ulrike Meinhof than for Diana.

Until I saw Kristin Stewart's performance, and realized that Ulrike and Diana were closely akin.

Of course, being plunged into the Windsor family must have been like being thrust nightmarishly into one of those Goya portraits of the Bourbon family in Spain: all the awful faces, all the inbred attitude. I've read the reviews: of course, the movie takes reality on a joyride, and there are some - such as the once enjoyable and now completely petrified Anthony Lane, the review for the New Yorker - who are a bit upset that more isn't made of Queen Elizabeth's bountiful philanthropy. The usual plea for billionaires. However, the film definitely resists using philanthropy as a prop to celebrate gaudy and unaccountable wealth. Thank God. The dialogue is all Pinter laced with underlings out of Shakespeare.

I'd love to see Steward do Ulrike Meinhof next. About ten years ago, the Austrian writer wrote a play that collaged Meinhof to Schiller's version of Mary Queen of Scots. A collaging of Diana to Meinhof would work much better. Politics, so often, is temperament. As it should be, perhaps.