Opinion

William Scholes: Citizen Donald and My Cousin Rudy show life imitates art - badly

William Scholes

William Scholes

William has worked at The Irish News since 2002. His areas of interest include religion and motoring.

Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and President Donald Trump's 'personal lawyer', has shed blood, sweat and hair dye in his efforts to help Mr Trump leave office in a calm and dignified manner. Picture by AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and President Donald Trump's 'personal lawyer', has shed blood, sweat and hair dye in his efforts to help Mr Trump leave office in a calm and dignified manner. Picture by AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and President Donald Trump's 'personal lawyer', has shed blood, sweat and hair dye in his efforts to help Mr Trump leave office in a calm and dignified manner. Picture by AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

"LIFE imitates art far more than art imitates life," wrote Oscar Wilde, though it's doubtful if even his fertile imagination could have conceived a character as grotesque and preposterous as Donald Trump. Or as mendacious and of such orange luminescence.

There is, however, art in his post-election downward spiral through the circles of hell, where he is being sucked by an unseen Coriolis force powerful enough to rearrange both his hairstyle and Melania's facial expression.

It's not the art of being a great leader, as he would wish us to believe, but - because art doesn't have to be polite and pretty - that of the fallen dictator and megalomaniac.

This late-stage of the Trump tragic-farce that we're now witnessing could be his attempt to imitate Citizen Kane, a bona fide piece of art.

When it becomes clear that Charles Foster Kane, the newspaper magnate with political ambitions, is losing the election to become governor of New York, his staff at The Inquirer are forced to discard a front page headlined 'Kane elected'. They choose another: 'Fraud at polls'.

There are other echoes of Orson Welles's masterpiece in the Trumpian saga. The Donald is Kane, rattling around the White House, barking out delusions and law suits, a remote and out-of-touch figure trapped in a crumbling Xanadu cast in his own ridiculous image.

Kane's story ended - or did it begin? - with a broken snow globe and the whispered mystery of "Rosebud" from his dying lips.

Beyond 'badly', it's hard to imagine exactly how Trump's tale will conclude, however, Rudy Giuliani will almost certainly be involved.

He was once mayor of New York - further proof that anything really is possible in the United States - and now finds himself hamming it up as what is darkly referred to as Trump's 'personal lawyer'. This designation emphasises the unerring judgment that has been a hallmark of Trump's presidency.

Giuliani has already had an unfortunate misunderstanding with Borat, which would have been enough to take the wind out of most normal people's shirt tails.

But Giuliani is not normal. Like Trump, he is elemental. Unlike Trump, he is also capable of speaking in whole sentences and, occasionally, paragraphs.

Soon the transformation was complete; the crumpled canvas of his face looked like a lost Jackson Pollock. Here was My Cousin Rudy's abstract expression as imagined by an abstract expressionist

He followed up the Borat episode by bringing the world's media to Four Seasons Total Landscaping - a garden centre in Philadelphia, located between a crematorium and an adult bookstore - to share his many and varied conspiracy theories about the rigged election.

Any suggestion that the city's Four Seasons hotel was the intended venue is just more lamestream media fake news.

There was an even more extraordinary follow-up last week, at an event held at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington DC.

Ostensibly a news conference to share some vivid thoughts about communist interference in the election or some such, it also marked the debut of a daring new piece of performance art.

Giuliani treated his slack-jawed audience to his rendition of a scene from "one of my favourite law movies", My Cousin Vinny.

This included a thoroughly unconvincing impersonation of the actor Joe Pesci, who plays the eponymous Vinny, an out-of-his-depth lawyer from Brooklyn. Giuliani's lack of facility with a Brooklyn accent was particularly surprising given he is from Brooklyn.

As he whipped himself into a frenzy, an even more curious thing happened.

Rivulets of dark, sticky liquid started running down his temples; Giuliani's devotion to the cause was so total that he was even sweating hair dye for his master.

Soon the transformation was complete; the crumpled canvas of his face looked like a lost Jackson Pollock. Here was My Cousin Rudy's abstract expression as imagined by an abstract expressionist.

Oscar was right: life does indeed imitate art, often badly.

We have our own problems. But maybe there aren't too bad in comparison to the antics of Citizen Donald and his personal lawyer.

Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and President Donald Trump's 'personal lawyer', has shed blood, sweat and hair dye in his efforts to help Mr Trump leave office in a calm and dignified manner. Picture by AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and President Donald Trump's 'personal lawyer', has shed blood, sweat and hair dye in his efforts to help Mr Trump leave office in a calm and dignified manner. Picture by AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York and President Donald Trump's 'personal lawyer', has shed blood, sweat and hair dye in his efforts to help Mr Trump leave office in a calm and dignified manner. Picture by AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin