Elizabeth II ascended the throne just a few weeks after Eisenhower became president, and yet Stephen Frears’ smart, moving and altogether engrossing “The Queen” is the first feature film about her. It’s likely to remain the best.
Set mostly in the week following the death of Princess Diana, “The Queen” traces the aging monarch’s attempt to come to grips both with a population whose extraordinary outpouring of grief is entirely beyond her comprehension and with a new media-savvy prime minister, Tony Blair (Michael Sheen), whose political antennae vibrate in perfect sympathy with the mood swings of the masses.
The result is a fascinating and telling confrontation of old-fashioned British phlegm and newfangled demands that all public figures be emotionally accessible to the people. It’s the story, in other words, of how politicians and sovereigns can hold on to their positions only if they consent to become just a special kind of celebrity. That’s a story to which even the least Anglophilic among us can relate.
What catapults the film into the first rank is a mesmerizing performance by Helen Mirren, perhaps best known as the star of the PBS import “Prime Suspect.” Her Elizabeth is a fiercely complex character, deeply marked by the demands of her bizarre calling, one of which is the lifelong repression of the merely personal. Profoundly unsnobbish, she seems most at ease talking shop with her cooks, gamekeepers and mechanics (“I’ve broken my prop-shaft,” she barks into a phone when she’s driven her Land Rover aground on a ford), but is capable of exuding an icy majesty when facing down undesired interference, especially from the men in her life. These include a boorish Prince Philip (James Cromwell) and a simpering Charles (Alex Jennings), whom the film treats mostly as objects of ridicule. At one point Blair ends a phone call with the words, “Let’s keep in touch,” perhaps failing to notice that he has just issued his sovereign a command. With delicious indifference she replies, “Yes, let’s.”
At the center of the plot is the question of how the royals will respond to Diana’s death. For Elizabeth, this tragedy is a strictly private matter. But the media quickly seize upon her traditional British reserve as a sign of intolerable hauteur. Subject to increasingly skittish entreaties from the prime minister that she give her grief a public airing, the queen is brought to a painful awareness of the strange new world that has taken shape while she raised her beloved corgis in the Scottish Highlands.
In front of the news cameras, Blair shows himself, by contrast, right at home. Calling Diana “the people’s princess,” he at once cements his political position and endears himself to the populace, composed, as the queen mother tartly puts it, of “hysterics carrying candles” who need help with their grief. But “The Queen” asks about the cost of this glib sentimentality. When he talks to Elizabeth in person, Blair comes off as genial, but comparatively shallow and unformed, the king of the pygmies. Even as the Queen comes around to his views, Blair recognizes Elizabeth as, in many respects, a master.
Frears scored his first hit here with the still indispensable “My Beautiful Launderette” (1985), with its embrace of gays, punk and a postimperial immigrant culture that seemed utterly opposed to the supposed virtues of old England. Surprising that he should now turn a sympathetic, if judiciously critical, eye on the royals. But when Elizabeth graciously receives the curtsies of old women at the gates of Buckingham Palace, we know we’re witnessing the last rites of an epoch that is no less noble for being untelegenic. Like Elizabeth, these women were schooled on the austerities of war and sacrifice to the nation. Even Frears appreciates the old rigors that have, of necessity, been tossed aside to make way for the new openness. Although it would have taken a dreadful director to make Mirren’s remarkable performance look bad, Frears has adopted a beautifully restrained style that makes it all the more moving. Only once do we see Elizabeth give way to grief and sob — whether for Diana, her family or herself is not clear. But even then, we don’t really see her. Frears keeps the camera at her back, as if to rebuke our desire to see every weakness ferreted out and exposed. It’s a defining moment in this film about an extraordinary woman’s wish to keep a few shreds of her inner life to herself.
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Unipsycho
He’s an apparition, an anarchist, a one-wheeled circus sideshow. He’s Pink Man, and he’s riding straight for your head.
by John E. Citrone
It’s almost 1 a.m. on a sweltering Thursday at downtown nightclub TSI. Inside, a DJ spins Roy Orbison, while kids in tight T-shirts and studiously mussed hair consume beer and cigarettes. Outside on Bay Street, a doorman doles out wristbands and collects the cover charge. The night air is heavy. Other than the hiss of passing cars and snatches of conversation, it’s quiet. Really quiet.
Then someone shatters the silence. “No f *cking way! Pink Man!” In an instant the scene goes from mundane to surreal. A small man sheathed in pink spandex flashes by, a silver cape whipping behind him. He disappears into the long, dark corridor leading to the club, then emerges into the light at the opposite end of the tunnel. He turns and pivots, fluttering his hands, then flapping his arms. He looks like a flamingo on angel dust.
It’s a strange spectacle — stranger than the first glance suggests. Not only is he wearing a skin-tight hooded pink unitard, he’s riding a goddamn unicycle. It’s easy to miss as Pink Man zooms past, a neon blur beneath the streetlights. But as he stutter-stops and spins, drifts and hovers, his wheel carves a path through the small crowd. He whirls about, smiling big and scary. He utters a manic laugh. He sings his tuneless theme song: “Pink Man, coming outta nowhere/Pink Man, rollin’ on a wheel/What do you think, man?”
As his audience makes room for this herky-jerky sideshow, Pink Man dips off his cycle long enough to slide his head between the legs of a female bar patron.
“Oh my God!” she screams as he positions her on his shoulders, rises up onto the seat of the unicycle and rockets down the alley toward Bay Street. Covering her eyes, the woman gasps, then thrusts her hands skyward as Pink Man picks up speed. They nearly tumble out onto Bay Street when Pink Man stops short, spins his body and shuttles back through the tunnel. His passenger, unscathed, is elated and terrified.
Pink Man dumps her off where several others have gathered, does a few more stunts. Then, in a blast of sweat and color, he’s gone.
About a year-and-a-half ago, residents of Jacksonville’s Five Points neighborhood began sharing a mass hallucination. At the oddest times, in the oddest places, a skinny man in a pink bodysuit and pink high-tops would appear on a unicycle. In the middle of the night on a side street, at peak drinking hours at dive bars, at 3 in the afternoon in local parks, he’d show up, pedal around crazily, then vanish.
That was around the time Michael Maxfield came to town. His arrival in Jacksonville was just the most recent stop of a two-decades-long journey. He’s been on the road since his early 20s, unicycle, backpack and guitar his only companions. Part traveling minstrel, part performance artist, Maxfield has traveled on three continents and in most major U.S. cities, bringing his apolitical routine to the masses.
Born in the small town of Leominster, Mass., Maxfield grew up in what he describes as an average, working-class family. He began riding his brother’s unicycle at age 13 and liked it enough that it was one of the few things he took with him when he left home.
In 1982, in search of a place to express himself, Maxfield took a bus to San Francisco. He began to explore riding as a form of entertainment — years before donning his pink suit. Taking his unicycle around Bay area neighborhoods and on Berkley College campus, Maxfield would spin around poles and street signs, flapping his arms, messing with students and passersby. The experience was freeing, but it wasn’t until he joined a commune in Southern Oregon that he really discovered his creative side. There he lived in a teepee, read by kerosene lantern, wrote music, picked berries for breakfast and meditated. He also coauthored a children’s book called “Children for Peace,” which he promoted on a cross-country tour. While on the road, he entertained by singing songs he had written and by giving people rides on his shoulders while riding his unicycle.
After the book tour, Maxfield returned to Southern Oregon, where he married and had a couple of children. What seemed like the beginning of a happy, conventional life in fact turned into a very dark period for Maxfield — one that ended in divorce and thoughts of suicide. But it also prompted his decision to relocate to Eugene, Ore., where he first began to build his public persona. It was there Maxfield perfected his routines, creating odd moves and actually dancing on his unicycle. Though he loved the social aspect of his rides, he felt like doing something more substantial, along the lines of performance art.
“What I came up with was, I thought I would be a guy from outer space,” says Maxfield. “A spaceman on a unicycle.” While looking through a dancewear catalogue, he stumbled upon a pink unitard. “And I’m like, ‘Holy cow.’”
He took a trial ride in the unitard at the University of Oregon, and immediately people began yelling “Pink Man!” as he passed.
Pink Man was born.
Maxfield began “pinking” random bars, restaurants and nightclubs. (“Pink is a verb,” he insists.) He traveled to Portland, where, within 10 minutes of his arrival, a TV news crew picked him up for a story. As a result of the short segment and the political overtones of his chosen color scheme, Pink Man was hired to appear at a Portland Pride soccer game at the Memorial Coliseum. (Though often mistaken for being gay, Maxfield is emphatic that he is not.) He created havoc on the field with other costumed characters, including a mock Barney, whose head fell off and was kicked into the goal. The clip ended up on Dick Clark’s “TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes.”
Though Eugene was a great place to test his new moves, Maxfield found it confining. He returned to San Francisco and began pinking Haight-Ashbury. He came up with slogans — “I pink therefore I am” — that he’d shout as he’d buzz the unsuspecting. Unlike street buskers, who remain stationary, performing for a finite amount of time, Pink Man would zip in, twirl and spin, sing a quick song, then disappear. Not only did this type of hit-and-run performance art help Maxfield deal with crowd anxiety, it also deepened the mystery of Pink Man.
“I like to be really enigmatic,” says Maxfield. “I love that it takes a while for people to fathom what just happened.”
As word spread about the wacky pink guy on the unicycle, Maxfield began working fairs and parades. He garnered TV coverage and newspaper profiles. He led the first “How Berkley Can You Be?” parade and was dubbed a “clown, superhero, flamingo” by The Berkley Daily. In the San Francisco Chronicle’s annual readers poll, Pink Man was ranked third in the category of favorite local personalities — behind Wavy Gravy and Jerry Brown.
Maxfield was on his way to reaching folk hero status. He decided to ride the momentum to Los Angeles.
Mike Maxfield’s Riverside apartment is nearly empty. There’s a pyramid of TVs along one wall; only the top one works. There’s a sofa, an acoustic guitar, an electric keyboard and one lamp. His unicycle leans by the door. Maxfield lives here rent-free in exchange for his services as quasi-groundskeeper. That’s how Maxfield makes his way — staying with friends, squatting, living off the kindness of strangers.
He’s broke and over his head in debt. His pink high tops are falling apart, and he needs a new unitard. He relies on a couple of big-money gigs in each city to get him by. Most of the time he performs for free.
Thin, with large eyes and expressive brows, Maxfield looks like a comic book character even without his pink suit. His balding pate and boney face turn a rosy hue when he gets excited, and he often gets excited — when talking about his travels, his exploits and the sheer joy he gets from being Pink Man.
“Check this out,” he spits as he bounds from the sofa to the kitchen. He returns holding a sapling he recently dug up from behind his building, its root embedded in a Florida license plate. The plate looks ancient, but the markings are clear: 13P.
Maxfield is moved by this coincidence and uses it as a launching pad to explain the legend of Pink Man. “Pink Man is from the 13th dimension,” he explains. “M is the 13th letter of the alphabet, and my initials are M.M. And I [was] born on the 13th. Also, you know what’s crazy? In scrabble, take the underlined M — so you know it’s not a W — if you put that underlined M on its side, it’s a 13. How about that? And Massachusetts, which begins with an M, has 13 letters.”
According to Maxfield, Pink Man hails from a universe where the beings have no legs, only a spinning vortex on which they hover. He contends this extraterrestrial bond is what generates the “amazing” coincidences of Pink Man. The license plate, for example: Maxfield says the P stands for “pink,” and the 13, well, that’s self-evident. Another prized possession is a plastic pink key Maxfield found after meditating on Venice Beach. (“Pink key,” he says. “Pinkie! Get it?”) He calls the trinket a “gift from the universe.”
There’s more. Much more. Maxfield has a mental library of coincidences and anecdotes — the time a pink flamingo flew over his car as he was leaving Miami, the fact that International Pink Week falls on the week of his birthday — which he uses to build the backstory of his alter ego.
Maxfield admits there’s an element of escapism in Pink Man. It’s evident in the way he carries himself off the unicycle. When holed up in his apartment, Maxfield is jittery, gnawing at his cuticles and chuckling uneasily. But when he’s on a ride, Maxfield is in complete control. His movements are fluid (his trademark handflap, his superhero glide) and staccato (his stutter stop, his rolling pivot). He seems unaware, or maybe unconcerned, that his body suit is so revealing. Every contour, every bulge, is well-defined. Sweat is an issue, too. Within a half-hour of hard riding, his spandex suit is sopping wet; people sometimes recoil when he hugs them. But his confidence is endearing, and most are thrilled to be fondled, tickled and embraced by the man in pink.
Of course, his unicycle skills are captivating. Maxfield is capable of executing triple spins, backpedaling, riding down stairs, and he is always adding new tricks to his repertoire. That’s not to say the performance is error-free. Maxfield has had his share of spills. One wipeout at Park and King streets sent him sprawling into the intersection. But Maxfield regards a fall as legitimate drama, and he works it, waving at passing cars as they honk at his apparent misfortune.
It’s all about the show, and Maxfield is happiest when Pink Man is entertaining people. He wants to spread joy. He needs to make people happy. It’s part of his redemption, part of leaving his painful past behind.
There are some things you just can’t live down. No matter how hard you try, no matter how sincere your efforts, no matter how far you run.
For Maxfield, it was the summer of ’91, a period he says was marked by “episodic dysfunctional behavior.” After engaging in conduct he declines to discuss other than to say it was “unacceptable” in nature, Maxfield crossed the line. While babysitting two prepubescent girls at his home in Southern Oregon, Maxfield, as he puts it, “touched them for a few seconds” while they slept. When the girls stirred and began to wake, Maxfield “backed off and left the room.” The encounter was brief, but the damage was done.
Maxfield spent the evening in a fog, questioning himself and his potential to repeat the behavior. He says he immediately understood the gravity of what he had done and wanted to seek counseling, but it took several months of painful introspection before he mustered the courage to come forward at a self-help workshop.
It wasn’t unusual that the girls were left in his care. Maxfield was married at the time and had children of his own in the house. The parents of the girls were friends of Maxfield and his wife.
After the incident, Maxfield felt like he had to do “whatever it took to ensure that it would never happen again.” He confessed to his wife and the girls’ parents. Maxfield says it was agonizing for everyone, but miraculously his wife and the parents of the girls supported him.
Maxfield was never arrested; no charges were filed. But word slowly got out. His relationship with his wife deteriorated, and they eventually divorced.
Soon after, Maxfield moved to Seattle, Wash., where he became suicidal. Feeling like he needed his family, he headed back to Leominster and tried to get his head together. He began riding his unicycle again, building his self esteem and finding a modicum of happiness in his daily jaunts. But Maxfield missed his kids, so he relocated to Eugene, Ore., close enough to visit his children but far enough from what he calls “the story.”
Soon after, he began riding at the University of Oregon, first in plainclothes, then in his pink outfit. Pink Man became a hit, and newspapers and TV stations from surrounding cities started doing features on Maxfield’s flamboyant alter ego.
But his visibility was his worst enemy. Two days after the local paper ran a front-page piece about Pink Man and his appearance at the “Eugene Celebration,” another front-page story appeared in the same paper documenting his troubled past. Turns out someone close to the family ratted him out to the publication.
He retreated to his girlfriend’s apartment and kept a low profile. A few days later, the police showed up, questioned him and searched the place, but found nothing incriminating. A neighborhood child had claimed Maxfield molested him, identifying him as the “guy from the newspaper.” Maxfield was out of the state during the time the incident allegedly took place, and he was never arrested or charged, but his name was mud. Again, he moved on.
In 1998, Maxfield was hired to perform at the Orange County Fair, titled “In The Pink,” in Southern California. The first few days were great — parents and kids eating up his shtick, positive press for both the fair and Pink Man. Then a local publication picked up the Oregon story, which was titled “Troubled Past Catches Up With Pink Man,” and he was forced to resign. The alternative newspaper OC Weekly came to his defense with the front-page headline, “He’s Gone! We Say That Sucks!” Letters to the editor ranged from vitriolic (“You child fag molesters will never print this. Your balls are in each others’ mouths”) to sympathetic (“While it is certainly difficult to dismiss his former life … I can only hope that he has redeemed himself via his pinkish existence by bringing joy and hysteria to a cynical public”). CNN, then in the process of doing a feature on Pink Man, dropped the piece when the story broke.
And so it has gone for Maxfield. For the past decade he has stayed on the move, traveling from city to city, alternately anonymous and high-profile, both cherished and vilified.
“That’s the punishment,” he says. “That’s the big cost. You can’t imagine how that feels.”
Maxfield makes no secret of his pain. His emotions are less stable than his gyrating unicycle, and he is prone to nervous laughter and full body fidgets. Sometimes he cries. His guilt is tremendous, his fear palpable. And yet his compulsion keeps him in the public eye.
Though Maxfield spent a year-and-a half in Jacksonville, he’s received relatively little media coverage. The Florida Times-Union approached him about doing a feature, but according to Maxfield, when he mentioned that he didn’t want his past disclosed, the reporter balked. Maxfield decided to come forward in Folio Weekly because, he says, he is tired of running, tired of letting others control his fate. He also hopes to dissuade others who are plagued with similar desires.
“If you are doing something abusive or taking advantage of children, you gotta stop. You gotta come forward,” he says. Maxfield has entertained the idea of speaking at local churches and colleges in hopes of helping others by telling his story. He even wants to publish his autobiography, a story he says he’s been working on for the past seven years. But he is realistic.
“No matter what, it doesn’t end until I die,” he laments, his hands beginning to shake. “The reason I am still on this path is because of the joy. As equally hard as it is, it must be worthwhile.
“[Children] are the best,” he continues, tears pooling in bloodshot eyes. “They’re the coolest people on the planet. I’ve been cut off from that — the most beautiful part of society, the most beautiful part of humanity. I can’t tell you how crushing that it.”
Maxfield’s biggest fan, his brother Andy, died in early 2002 from muscular dystrophy. His mother died shortly thereafter. It was a massive blow, the toughest time un his life, but it made Maxfield certain of his direction. He determined that he wanted to “pink the world.”
One of seven kids, Maxfield has had a rocky relationship with his family. His brother and mom seemed to understand his proclivity for performance, but the rest of his family has found it hard to accept Maxfield’s unpredictable lifestyle.
“As the world sees me, I’m a frickin’ loser,” says Maxfield. “But on the other hand, like the L.A. Times called me ‘a fold hero — an antidote for an all too-serious world.’ Well, so maybe that counts for something. Maybe having a positive impact on the world counts for something.”
If Maxfield is dubious about his station in life, he is convinced of Pink Man’s celebrity potential. He’s done his best to get as much exposure as possible, performing at high-profile events including several San Francisco peace demonstrations and a massive Hollywood Hard Rock Café Halloween street party. He’s even pinked the White House. But Pink Man had the greatest exposure when Maxfield was living in L.A. His image was used on “The Tonight Show” as a bumper before commercial breaks. He was invited to crash a fundraiser where he met Martin Short, Steve Martin, Diane Keaton and Matthew McConaughey. (After the party, Short called him a “genius.”) In Style magazine ran a piece about Mary Steenburgen, which mentioned that her son dressed as Pink Man for Halloween. And Pink Man has been featured on television in Canada, Germany, the UK, South America, China and Japan.
For Maxfield, who is keenly aware of all media coverage — good and bad – such prominence felt like validation. But it wasn’t until he met Will Wright, creator of The Sims computer games, that he was able to fulfill his dream of pinking the world.
Wright was a fan of Pink Man, even had a promotional Pink Man postcard on his fridge, says Maxfield. Through a mutual friend, the two met for lunch and talked about Maxfield’s desire to travel. Wright offered to fund Pink Man trips to Tokyo and, later, Paris. Maxfield pinked the hell out of both, hitting the cafes and shops of Paris and the crowded streets of downtown Tokyo. He captured it all on video.
Sitting in his apartment recently, laptop computer perched on a small table, Maxfield fast-forwards through a DVD of him pinking Tokyo. Narrating the action, he grows more excited as a particular moment approaches. Suddenly, he freeze-frames on a young woman, her eyes wide and mouth agape.
“[It’s] like she just saw a unicorn,” says Maxfield, overcome with joy. “It’s just so magical. I feel so blessed that I can have that effect — just screwing around.”
After returning from his international tour in early 2005, Maxfield found himself in Jacksonville. It was a choice of convenience more than anything — a friend offered him a place to stay. But the city soon became home. He recorded an album of original music, funded with money received in a settlement with an advertising agency that stole his image for a television commercial. He made a lot of friends here, too, and became a fixture at nightspots and restaurants around downtown. He even considered making Northeast Florida his permanent home base, a point from which he can travel and perform, then return to re-energize in relative comfort.
But Pink Man never stays in one place too long.
Sometimes being Pink Man is a bitch. For all the joy Maxfield has spread, all the laughter and songs, all the shoulder rides and madness, there have been some discouraging moments. Like much-maligned Teletubbie Tinky Winky, Pink Man is guilty by association — and color choice.
Blame it on homophobia, callous disregard or simple ignorance, it doesn’t hurt any less. Maxfield has endured his share of insults screamed from car windows, been flipped off and cursed at, all of which is perfectly OK with him. There’s always a level of risk involved for any performance artist — especially one dressed in pink and flitting about on a unicycle. But there is an undeniably effeminate quality to his presentation, a pervasive looseness that could easily be misconstrued. He rides with limp wrists dangling just above his shoulders. He thrusts his hips out as he pivots. He endures standard insults, like “faggot” and “homo,” but Maxfield’s been violently accosted a number of times, too, and that isn’t part of the Pink Man plan.
On more than one occasion, he’s had his unicycle taken from him and thrown to the ground. While riding in Berkley, he was pulled off his cycle and dragged beside a car. And in a Tokyo park, he was mobbed by the performance group the Japanese Elvises.
Imagine the scene: Pink Man descending upon six jumpsuited, rhinestone-spangled Japanese Elvises in hopes of joining their public performance. Having none of it, the Elvises attacked, pushing Maxfield down. They kicked at Maxfield as he lay on the ground, using his unicycle to deflect the blows.
“As I was backing away from them, I was just cracking up,” says Maxfield. “It’s like I popped out of my body, and I saw Pink Man getting his ass kicked by The Japanese Elvises. And that is funny stuff.”
Maxfield laughs when he tells the story, but the implication is clear. Some people just don’t like Pink Man. Even in Maxfield’s Riverside neighborhood, ill will sometimes prevails. One evening, while riding along Park Street in Five Points, Pink Man had his cape ripped from his shoulders by an inebriated troublemaker who then retreated behind the counter of Starlite Café. Maxfield went into the bar to retrieve the silver garment, almost getting into a fight with the man, but left capeless.
“I really try to make a conscious effort to not piss people off. That’s not my goal,” says Maxfield. “I don’t mind pushing buttons, but I want to connect. I love people.”
More often than not, Maxfield does connect. On a recent ride through the streets of downtown Jacksonville, Pink Man pedals into London Bridge. He grabs a pint and pedals out to the sidewalk where a group of friends shares drinks and smokes. He giggles and twirls, and they all raise a glass. A voice shouts, “These times need something crazy!” followed by an earth-shaking belch. Everyone laughs and salutes.
Later, Pink Man hits TSI. On the dance floor, the girls love him, circling around him as he dances on his wheel. Outside, he gives shoulder rides and sings his songs. He’s a self-contained circus — a little creepy, a little dangerous, a whole lot of fun.
“Pink Man is fucking crazy,” smiles Donnie Cook from behind an ambivalent puff of cigarette smoke. “I love him, but I hate him. He’s fucking crazy.”
During the course of this story, Mike Maxfield again decided to relocate. He expressed concern about the repercussions of acknowledging his past. He also had an altercation with his landlord and had to move out in a hurry.
Maxfield tried living in Key West but hated it. He considered Paris and New York, but wound up back in the San Francisco area, where he’s staying with a friend. He believes there are people in Jacksonville that would love to see him fail, but he also knows that others will mourn his departure. He may return. He just doesn’t know yet.
Of one thing he is certain. Pink Man is beyond him, a force to be obeyed rather than fought. He has to, in Pink Man’s words, “pink on.” In a way, Pink Man saved Mike Maxfield’s life, and that may be the bottom line. You don’t turn your back on a friend like that.