24 November 2019

“The Prime Minister.
Show a bit of respect...”

The Cave
Death Wave
The Cave (นางนอน), based on the true story of last year’s miraculous cave rescue, opened in cinemas this week. The film sticks solidly to the facts, with several key participants playing themselves. It’s tense and dramatic, and begins in medias res: the very first line of dialogue is “Let’s go to the cave.” There’s a moment of Ace in the Hole-style social commentary—a vendor selling lottery tickets at the cave entrance—though one scene stands out as comic relief: the arrival of the Prime Minister.

Before the PM appears, he’s formally announced—“The Prime Minister. Show a bit of respect, guys.”—though while he was on-screen, there were chuckles from the cinema audience. The character has a close physical likeness to Prayut Chan-o-cha, and he serves no purpose other than to give gift baskets to the divers. He also uses broken English (like Prayut himself), telling one diver: “Oh! You marry her, visa no problem.”

The Cave is one of only a handful of films to feature Thai Prime Ministers, due to censorship of political content and public apathy towards politics. A biopic of Plaek Phibunsongkhram was abandoned in 1988 due to a lawsuit from his estate. Similarly, a Sarit Thanarat biopic—provisionally titled จอมพล (‘marshal’)—was vetoed by the censors in 2002. Sarit did feature briefly in the horror movie Zee Oui: The Man-Eater (ซี-อุย), ordering the swift execution of Zee Oui for political expediency.

Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s documentary Paradoxocracy (ประชาธิป’ไทย) discusses Thaksin Shinawatra, and the film’s distributor asked the director incredulously: “How can you put a film with Thaksin in the cinema?” Sulak Sivaraksa makes a similar point in the documentary itself, saying: “Your movie shouldn’t waste too much time on Thaksin.” (That line received applause at cinema screenings.)

In Ing Kanjanavanit’s banned Shakespeare Must Die (เชคสเปียร์ต้องตาย), Macbeth is reimagined as a Thaksin-like figure, and the similarity is noted self-referentially when a policeman says: “Your actor looks like our Dear Leader. Is this intentional?” Wisit Sasanatieng’s The Red Eagle (อินทรีแดง) features a Prime Minister who abandons his principles once he assumes office, reneging on a pre-election pledge to ban nuclear power. In a Bangkok Post interview, Wisit claimed that he “didn’t set out to criticise any particular prime minister... I only want to mock those who began as good guys fighting for the poor, then, like Darth Vader, they become villains once they have power.” But that sounds awfully like a description of Thaksin.

The disaster movie Death Wave (13-04-2022 วันโลกสังหาร) features Thailand’s most ludicrous cinematic Prime Minister, portrayed as a holier-than-thou figure who selflessly sacrifices his career for the greater good: “the lives and safety of my people are more valuable than my assumed position... I’m willing to lose everything in exchange for the lives of my people.” He even becomes an action hero, rescuing a busload of drowning children while a news reporter praises “our Prime Minister’s fearless courage.” Needless to say, that PM was entirely fictional.

23 November 2019

Epic December

Cleopatra
Ben-Hur
North by Northwest
Children of Paradise
Die Hard
Following this month’s Judy Garland Focus, next month will be Epic December at Bangkok Screening Room. The season begins with Cleopatra, the last gasp of the Hollywood studio system and one of the most expensive films in cinema history. Another highlight is Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, winner of a record eleven Oscars. And no epic season would be complete without the ultimate Hollywood classic, Gone with the Wind.

Cleopatra is showing on 1st and 28th December. Ben-Hur will be screened on 21st and 29th December. Gone with the Wind is playing on 7th and 15th December. Back in 2010, Gone with the Wind was the last film ever screened at Siam Theater; it was also shown at Scala in 2017, and at Lido (with Ben-Hur) in 2007.

Aside from the Epic December season, Bangkok Screening Room will also be showing a few other classics next month. Marcel Carné’s poetic realist Children of Paradise (Les enfants du paradis) will be screened on 8th and 14th December. Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller North by Northwest is showing on 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, and 15th December. The action movie Die Hard is on 20th December, as part of a short season of Christmas films.

20 November 2019

“The Future Forward party is a journey...”


Democracy Monument

The Thai Constitutional Court has disqualified Future Forward party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit as an MP, ruling that he violated the constitution by holding shares in a media company. Thanathorn had claimed that he sold his shares in V-Luck Media to his mother in January, and that she paid for them by cheque at that time. However, it was not until May—after this year’s election—that the cheque was cashed.

Article 98 of the constitution forbids MPs from holding shares in media companies. After the verdict, Thanathorn said: “The election on 24th March was not the only battle. The Future Forward party is a journey. It still needs to undergo many elections and importantly, I am still a prime ministerial candidate.” (It is not necessary for prime ministers to be MPs, thus Thanathorn remains eligible for nomination as PM at the next election.)

10 November 2019

Ready Player One


Ready Player One

Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One meticulously recreates key sequences from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining—but then proceeds to populate them with CGI zombies. (Doctor Sleep, released a few weeks ago, recreates The Shining’s sets equally faithfully, though its cast is no match for the original, and the actor imitating Jack Nicholson is terrible.) Ready Player One also suffers from too much expository dialogue: it takes around twenty minutes to establish the rules of the game played by the central characters.

09 November 2019

Judy Garland Focus

The Wizard of Oz
Meet Me in St. Louis
Bangkok Screening Room will be showing some classic Judy Garland musicals this month. The Judy Garland Focus season includes The Wizard of Oz (screening tomorrow and 23rd November) and Meet Me in St. Louis (on 16th and 24th November).

04 November 2019

Never Again

Never Again
Never Again
Never Again
Never Again
Thai political protesters of all persuasions have used clothing and accessories as markers of political identity. Medallions were distributed at the funerals of 13th October 1973 massacre victims. (Reproductions were issued with a book commemorating the event.) The UDD and PAD movements are both better known by the colour of their respective clothes—red-shirts and yellow-shirts—and both groups also used plastic hand-clappers at their rallies. Later, the PDRC protesters were nicknamed whistle-blowers, not because they were exposing corruption but because they blew whistles at their protests.

These simple artefacts are souvenirs of protests attended, and symbols of the deeply polarised nature of modern Thai politics. A collection of more recent political emphemera is currently on show in Bangkok, at the Never Again exhibition. The items on display, including UDD calendars and water bowls, were all declared illegal by the junta in the years following the 2014 coup. The exhibition also features a large collection of anti-junta t-shirts.

The main exhibit is the white shirt worn by New Democracy Movement member Sirawith Seritiwat when he was attacked by thugs on 28th June. His bloodstained shirt highlights the violence of the attack, and serves as a potent reminder of the anti-democratic vigilantism that has existed in Thailand for more than forty years. (Stickers from the New Democracy Movement are also included, though their banned ‘seven reasons to vote no’ leaflet is missing.)

Never Again: Seize, Trample, Repeat, Change (หยุด ย่ำ ซ้ำ เดิน) was organised by Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, an NGO that also published the recent book ราษฎรกำแหง (‘dissident citizens’). The exhibition was previously held at Chiang Mai University (from 11th to 16th August), and is now at WTF Gallery (from 1st to 10th November).

02 November 2019

Short Film Marathon

Short Film Marathon
Short Film Marathon
100 Times Reproduction of Democracy
The annual Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน) began yesterday at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya. More than 400 films will be screened, in alphabetical order, until 12th December, and the cream of the crop will be selected for the forthcoming 23rd Short Film and Video Festival. Attendees at yesterday’s launch were given bib numbers, just like a real marathon. (Fortunately, no actual running was required.)

The first programme included Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s new film 100 Times Reproduction of Democracy (การผลิตซ้ำประชาธิปไตยให้กลายเป็นของแท้). The film begins with a self-reflexive commentary on artistic reproduction: 100 Times Reproduction of ‘A Cock Kills a Child by Pecking on the Mouth of an Earthen Jar’ (การผลิตซ้ำภาพยนตร์สั้นเรื่องไก่จิกเด็กตายบนปากโอ่งจำนวน 100 ครั้ง), which itself incorporates A Cock Kills a Child by Pecking on the Mouth of an Earthen Jar (ไก่จิกเด็กตายบนปากโอ่ง), Chulayarnnon’s award-winning entry at the 17th Short Film and Video Festival. Scenes from that film (a patient with arthritis exercising and visiting her doctor) are repeated, and the director sells 100 DVD copies of it and gives away 100 copies of his award certificate.

100 Times Reproduction of Democracy then transitions into the equally repetitive issue of Thai politics: the cycle of coups has been reproduced a dozen times since the democratic revolution of 1932. The film shows how one symbol can be replaced with another, with the removal of a plaque commemorating the revolution. Chulayarnnon also filmed the PDRC’s ‘Shutdown Bangkok’ rallies—as he did in Myth of Modernity and Here Comes the Democrat Party (ประชาธิปัตย์มาแล้ว)—and Rap Against Dictatorship’s performance of My Country Has (ประเทศกูมี) earlier this year. The song is juxtaposed with footage from Children’s Day of toddlers posing with tanks and machine guns, showing how militarism is inculcated at an extremely young age.

28 October 2019

RAW Jazz Effect

RAW Jazz Effect
Rapper P9D’s album RAW Jazz Effect was released in 2017. Each CD (packaged in a DVD case) is signed by the artist and inscribed with a line from the track Light On. The album’s full title is Ruthless and the Whole Jazz Effect.

Like his fellow Thai bands Rap Against Dictatorship, Dogwhine, and The Commoner, P9D’s lyrics are often political. The track Section 44 begins with the line “Fuck the section 44,” in reference to article 44 of the interim constitution, which granted absolute power to the military junta.

The Thai experimental noise band Gamnad737 also released a song in opposition to article 44, though the track—Kill the Section 44, from their album Lets Kill [sic]—has no lyrics. (Lets Kill is available on cassette and CD, and in a unique CD edition splattered with founding member Arkat Vinyapiroath’s blood.)

25 October 2019

The New York Times Book of Movies

The New York Times Book of Movies
The New York Times Book of Movies: The Essential 1,000 Films to See is the third edition of a film guide that was first published in 1999 (not, as the new edition says, 1987). The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made was updated in 2004, and the retitled third edition appeared this month. The 1,000 films were selected by New York Times film critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis.

This is not the only guide to 1,000 classic films. Others include: Halliwell’s Top 1,000 by John Walker, Time Out’s 1,000 Films to Change Your Life, The Guardian’s 1,000 Films to See Before You Die, and Have You Seen...? by David Thomson.

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Siri House

Halloween
The Shining
To celebrate Halloween, Siri House in Bangkok will be showing Kubrick’s The Shining tomorrow. The screening is free of charge.

Framed

Revival
A Freedom of Information request by BuzzFeed News has revealed that the Secret Service interviewed Eminem on 16th January 2017. The rapper was questioned about his single Framed, from his album Revival, after a TMZ reporter alerted the Secret Service to the song’s lyrics. (The song is about a man who kills Trump’s eldest daughter: “how the fuck is Ivanka Trump in the trunk of my car?”)

After two days, the investigation was closed and no further action was taken, though Eminem referenced the interview in a later song, The Ringer: “Agent Orange just sent the Secret Service / To meet in person to see if I really think of hurtin’ him”. The case lends credence to another rapper, YG, who previously claimed that his single FDT was censored at the request of the Secret Service due to its violent anti-Trump lyrics.

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22 October 2019

Dog of God

Dog of God
Democrazy
Dog of God is the debut EP by Thai band Dogwhine, and is available on CD from the Ageha café in Bangkok. The EP includes a couple of overtly political tracks: Leader is a dig at unelected Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha (“Leader must come from election”), and Democrazy comments on the country’s cycle of military violence (“Nowhere to hide, no way to run / Not your first time to see the dictator”).

The animated promo video for Democrazy features the folding chair and hanging corpse from Neal Ulevich’s famous photograph of the 6th October 1976 massacre. (The video’s director is credited only by his nickname, Jung.) The song’s Democrazy pun echoes the name of Bangkok’s Democrazy Theatre Studio and the titles of the short films Democrazy.mov (by Thunsita Yanuprom and Sarun Channiam) and Demockrazy (by Duangporn Pakavirojkul).

Dogwhine are part of a wave of musicians using protest songs to comment on contemporary Thai politics. Rap Against Dictatorship’s anthemic My Country Has (ประเทศกูมี) is the most prominent example, though others include The Commoner’s EP สามัญชน (‘commoner’), P9D’s single Section 44, and the จะ4ปีแล้วนะ (‘four years already’) and BNK44 concerts.

18 October 2019

For the Record

For the Record
Just as Tony Blair’s legacy is defined by the Iraq war, David Cameron’s premiership will also be judged by a single decision: to hold a referendum on the UK’s EU membership. Thus, it’s inevitable that Europe also overshadows Cameron’s new memoir, For the Record.

In his memoir, A Journey, Blair acknowledged the polarisation and anger caused by his support for George W. Bush’s Iraq invasion, though he also insisted that he took the decision in good faith. Similarly, For the Record begins with Cameron’s apology for the consequences of Brexit: “I am truly sorry to have seen the country I love so much suffer uncertainty and division in the years since then. But...”

Cameron also accepts some of the responsibility for losing the referendum campaign: “I deeply regret the outcome and accept that my approach failed. The decisions I took contributed to that failure. I failed. But, in my defence...”

This remorse and regret is always followed by a qualifying ‘but’, and he insists that the referendum itself was justified: “I am not apologetic about having been the prime minister who promised a referendum and delivered on the promise.” Cameron is equally unapologetic about austerity. Quite the opposite, in fact: “My assessment now is that we probably didn’t cut enough.”

As for Boris Johnson, Cameron calls him “an irritation” and later, for good measure, “a massive irritation.” He’s also clear about Johnson’s motives for supporting Brexit: “while Boris cared about this issue, it was secondary to another concern: what was the best outcome for him?”

As even Vote Leave admit, the £350m-a-week on the bus was a calculated deception. Cameron puts it rather effectively: “As Boris rode the bus around the country, he left the truth at home.” Absolutely, except now Boris is in the driving seat and, like the end of The Italian Job, we’re teetering on the edge of a cliff.

16 October 2019

The Amazing Thai-Land

The Amazing Thai-Land
The Amazing Thai-Land
The Amazing Thai-Land
The Amazing Thai-Land
The Amazing Thai-Land, is graphic artist Chalermpol Junrayab’s debut solo exhibition. (The title is an ironic reappropriation of the Tourist Authority of Thailand’s slogan ‘Amazing Thailand’.) Chalermpol creates parodies of comic-book covers on his iPad, satirising Thai politics.

Junta leader and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha is caricatured in several of Chalermpol’s prints. In Final Curve, for example, the 24th March election campaign is depicted as a dodgem race, which Prayut (car number 44) wins with the help of a turbo engine representing the 250 senators he appointed. Another print, Buddha Man, refers to the recent Ultraman Buddha controversy, with an inset portrait of the Buddha wearing Ultraman’s costume.

The Amazing Thai-Land opened on 12th October at Sathorn 11 Art Space in Bangkok. Free copies of Chalermpol’s 2019 desk calendar are available at the exhibition, which runs until 25th October. (Political calendars caused controversy in 2016 and 2018, when calendars promoting Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra were seized by the military.)

11 October 2019

1001 Movies
You Must See Before You Die

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
The 2019 edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die was published last week. Edited by Steven Jay Schneider, the first edition appeared in 2003, and it has been updated annually ever since (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018).

This year’s edition, revised by Ian Haydn Smith, features twelve new titles: Phantom Thread, The Greatest Showman, Crazy Rich Asians, Capernaum, A Star is Born (the Bradley Cooper remake), Avengers: Infinity War, Roma, Hereditary, The Favourite, Sorry to Bother You, Vice, and BlacKkKlansman. The new entries were all released between 2017 and 2018.

To maintain the 1001 total, a dozen films from the previous edition have been deleted: Buffalo ’66, Three Kings, Magnolia, Kippur, A One and a Two... (一 一), Amores perros, Talk to Her (Hable con ella), Victoria, Spotlight, Dawson City: Frozen in Time, Lady Macbeth, and Under the Shadow. Most previous updates removed only recent films, though this year’s deletions include some twenty-year-old classics (such as A One and a Two... and Amores perros).

There are also a couple of minor changes to the illustrations. The entry for The Burmese Harp (ビルマの竪琴) previously featured an English-language poster, though this has been replaced with the correct Japanese version (page 318); and the poster for The Gleaners and I (Les glaneurs et la glaneuse) has been mistakenly replaced by a duplicated photograph (page 883).

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07 October 2019

ราษฎรกำแหง

ราษฎรกำแหง: บันทึก 9 คดี ต้านรัฐประหารในยุค คสช. (‘dissident citizens: nine cases against the NCPO coup’), edited by Noppon Archamas, examines the charges brought against pro-democracy activists since the 2014 coup. Its spine has an anti-coup message in Morse code (“..-. ..- -.-. -.- -.-. --- ..- .--.”), and its cover features the three-finger salute appropriated by anti-coup protesters from the film The Hunger Games.

สามัญชน

สามัญชน (‘commoner’), a new EP from the Thai band The Commoner, was released on CD this month. The EP includes a booklet with a drawing inspired by Neal Ulevich’s iconic photograph of the 6th October 1976 massacre. (A previous album, Gigantrix Extinction, also featured artwork inspired by the image, and the photograph itself appeared on the cover of the Dead Kennedys single Holiday in Cambodia.)

The five tracks on the EP all comment on Thai political issues, and the EP is dedicated to “the commoners who fought against Thai Dictatorship.” The EP is part of a long tradition of Thai protest songs, known as เพลงเพื่อชีวิต (‘songs for life’). The genre was developed by the band Caravan, in response to the 14th October 1973 massacre, and was popularised by the band Carabao.

Commoner’s Anthem (บทเพลงของสามัญชน) is a tribute to those detained in ‘attitude adjustment’ sessions after the 2014 coup. We Are Friends (เราคือเพื่อนกัน) was written for those campaigning against military graft, particularly a group arrested in 2016 while travelling to Rajabhakti Park in Hua Hin. Apology Flowers (ดอก) is about the arrests of activists campaigning for a ‘no’ vote in the 2016 referendum. The Loop (วังวน) refers to two long-standing injustices: the unsolved murder of Somchai Neelapaijit (who was abducted in 2004 after he accused the police of torturing Muslim detainees) and the 6th October massacre. Imprisoned Butterfly (ฝากรักถึงเจ้าผีเสื้อ) is dedicated to Jatupat Boonpattararaksa, who was jailed for more than two years after sharing a BBC article about King Rama X on Facebook in 2016.

06 October 2019

Museum of October 6

Museum of October 6
Museum of October 6
Museum of October 6
Today marks the anniversary of the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University. To commemorate the event, this weekend there is an exhibition at Thammasat organised by the Museum of October 6. For the first time, artefacts from the massacre itself are on display, including a megaphone—riddled with bullet holes—used by student protesters.

The exhibition, titled ประจักษ์ / พยาน (‘evidence / witness’) is dominated by a large gate, red with rust. Two activists were hanged from this gate on 25th September 1976, after they campaigned against military dictator Thanom Kittikachorn’s return from exile. Their hanging was reenacted by Thammasat students on 4th October 1976. The reenactment was falsely portrayed by the right-wing tabloid Dao Siam (ดาวสยาม) as an attack on the Crown Prince, and this incendiary report precipitated the massacre at Thammasat.

The red gate had remained undisturbed ever since the massacre, until it was rediscovered by Patporn Phoothong in 2017. Patporn, who curated the exhibition, has also made three documentaries about 6th October: Silenced Memories (ความทรงจ ไรเสยง), Respectfully Yours (ดวยความนบถอ), and The Two Brothers (สองพนอง). The red gate is also the subject of a painting at the ศิลปะนานาพันธุ์ ศิลปะประชาธิปไตย (‘art for democracy’) exhibition, currently on show elsewhere in Bangkok; and Pachara Piyasongsoot’s Anatomy of Silence (กายวิภาคของความเงียบ) exhibition included a painting depicting the hanged men’s view from the red gate.

04 October 2019

ศิลปะนานาพันธุ์ ศิลปะประชาธิปไตย

The group exhibition ศิลปะนานาพันธุ์ ศิลปะประชาธิปไตย (‘art for democracy’) opened on 28th September at Angoon’s Garden in Bangkok. Most of the paintings in the show are displayed outside, with some hanging next to a small pond. The exhibition (a less provocative equivalent of the political art show Uncensored) runs for exactly one month.

Each artwork is a response to the Thai military’s political influence over the decades. For example, Jirapatt Aungsumalee’s painting ประตูแดง (‘red gate’) depicts the outlines of two men hanged from a red gate in 1976, the extrajudicial killings that precipitated the 6th October 1976 massacre. A painting by Ekalux Julsukont also refers to 6th October: a man ready to strike a corpse with a chair, a figure from Neal Ulevich’s iconic photograph of the massacre.

The exhibition includes a single sculpture, Pin Sasao’s ถังแดง​: ความตายของบิลลี่ (‘red barrel: the death of Billy’), which uses a mannequin and barbecue to represent the murder of human rights activist Porlajee Rakchongcharoen. (Porlajee, nicknamed Billy, was stuffed into an oil drum, in an echo of the ‘red barrel’ killings of Thailand’s anti-Communist purge.) There are also photographs of performance art events by Sinsawat Yodbangtoey, Memory / History / Democracy (ความทรงจำประวัติศาสตร์ประชาธิปไตย), taken at monuments marking various Thai political upheavals.

The short film The Two Brothers (สองพี่น้อง) and the Anatomy of Silence (กายวิภาคของความเงียบ) exhibition were also inspired by the ‘red gate’ hangings; the gate itself will be shown at an exhibition marking the anniversary of 6th October this weekend. The man with the chair has been painted by numerous artists, including Headache Stencil and Tawan Wattuya.

03 October 2019

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood is, as its poster proclaims, the ninth film by Quentin Tarantino. It’s also, apparently, his penultimate work. (Tarantino’s previous films are Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill I and II, Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, and The Hateful Eight.)

The title is both a tribute to Once Upon a Time in the West (C’era una volta il West) and a signal that this version of 1960s Hollywood is ultimately a fairy tale. Inglourious Basterds began with the caption “Once upon a time... in Nazi-occupied France”, and the new film features a similar form of revisionist history. It’s also unashamedly nostalgic, recreating the Hollywood of Tarantino’s childhood.

All of Tarantino’s films have superb soundtracks, and Once Upon a Time... is no exception. In this case, the music is all from the period, a great early example being the lip trill from Billy Stewart’s Summertime matched to a sputtering car engine. (It’s a reversal of the moment when the music slows as the car runs out of gas in The Graduate.) In fact, the best scenes all feature Brad Pitt driving around LA listening to his car radio. However, that also hints at one of the film’s flaws: for long stretches, we simply watch the characters hanging out. This may be fun, but it’s not particularly ambitious on Tarantino’s part, especially given the epic running time.

02 October 2019

Stone


Stone

Stone is the latest in a series of coffee-table books on building materials, edited by William Hall and published by Phaidon. Like its predecessors Concrete, Brick, and Wood, Stone features stunning full-page photographs of more than 150 buildings, each with a paragraph-length caption.

“Many of the world’s most significant, revered, influential and memorable structures are built with stone,” Hall notes in his preface. Stone is the oldest and most durable of building materials, and the book includes such architectural masterworks as the pyramids of Giza, the Parthenon, and the Taj Mahal. Various forms of stone are represented, including basalt, limestone, marble, and sandstone.

“...a long and disturbing pattern of
behaviour by the British tabloid media”

The Mail on Sunday
Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, are suing The Mail on Sunday for breach of copyright, after the newspaper printed extracts from a letter she wrote to her father, Thomas. In a statement released yesterday, Harry said: “This particular legal action hinges on one incident in a long and disturbing pattern of behaviour by British tabloid media.”

The Mail on Sunday published the letter on 10th February, in a four-page article written by Caroline Graham. Thomas Markle—who supplied it to the newspaper—has legal ownership of the letter as its recipient, though copyright is retained solely by his daughter, as its writer. Thus, the newspaper was not legally entitled to reproduce it.

The Queen sued another UK tabloid, The Sun, for breach of copyright in 1992, after it published a transcript of her Christmas broadcast two days early. More recently, Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, sued the French magazine Closer for invasion of privacy.

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