This morning I got a case of "Becket" on my mind. The film, released in 1964, really impressed me and influenced my later decision to become a professional actor. Never has Richard Burton been better, and it comes close to being Peter O'Toole's best work too. It took 30 years to make it to VHS, and 40 years to make to DVD. It will always stand tall, in the top ten Historical films ever made; at least on my list.
While in college in 1965, I was in a production of MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL. The head of the English Department took the role of Becket, and played him like a capote-clone; but Burton kept echoing in my head, with his blue eyes burrowing into my soul.
Burton as Becket saying, "Where honor should me, in me, there is just a void."
Glenn Buttkus
T.S. Eliot called it "Murder in the Cathedral." Jean Anouilh called it "Becket." Shakespeare would have called it "Henry II."
'Becket' (1964)
Director: Peter Glenville
Writer: Jean Anouilh (play), Edward Anhalt (screenplay)
Cast:
Richard Burton: Thomas Becket
Peter O’Toole: King Henry II
John Gielgud: King Louis VII of France
Pamela Brown: Queen Eleanor of Aquitane
Donald Wolfit: Bishop Folliot
Sian Phillips: Gwendolen
Felix Aylmer: Archbishop of Canterbury
By any name, in any season, the epic struggle between a 12th-century English king and a courtier-turned-conscience of his realm makes for a majestic movie, currently -- and thankfully -- being re-released for the first time in 40-plus years.
The time: less than a century after the Norman conquest. The problem: high-spirited Henry II (Peter O'Toole) is having trouble with still-restive Saxons and church officials. Of great aid in both matters is his beloved drinking-and-wenching pal, Thomas Becket (Richard Burton), a wiser and cooler head than Henry's crowned one. When the troublesome Archbishop of Canterbury finally does him the favor of dying, Henry's bright idea for his replacement is Becket, a confidant loyal to Henry, not Rome.
But to the king's chagrin, Becket takes God and the job seriously.
Edward Anhalt took home the 1964 Oscar for best screenplay adaptation for "Becket" and deserved it. His script captures the full power of Anouilh's play, whose language is declaimed by Burton and O'Toole with mesmerizing eloquence.
"I have something far worse than a sin on my conscience," says Henry, with a perfect pause before, "... a mistake."
Few plays have been turned into films with such a love of words intact. Originally produced on Broadway in 1959 with Laurence Olivier as Becket and Anthony Quinn as King Henry, "Becket" contains one significant factual error: Contrary to one of its main plot lines, the real Thomas was a Norman, not a Saxon -- something Anouilh said he discovered only after finishing the play.
But never mind. It brings history to life with magnificent performances by the most exciting actors of the day. Of the two principles, it is O'Toole's dynamic rage rather than Burton's piety that is more riveting. Equally fine in support are John Gielgud as foppish Louis XII of France, along with Martita Hunt as Henry's mother and Pamela Brown as his carping wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, a pair of queens constantly beaten by the king's royal flush.
"Who are you?" shouts the King to his cowering young son.
"Henry III," the boy answers.
"Not YET!" the father retorts, later addressing the boy as "you witless baboon!"
Suffice to say, this is not the most functional of royal families.
"Becket" and its historical circumstances foreshadow the bigger case -- and church-state split -- to come, six Henries later, with another Thomas immortalized in another epic film: Fred Zinnemann's "Man for All Seasons" (1966) would pit Henry VIII against Sir Thomas More. Two years later, "Lion in Winter" (1968) allowed O'Toole to reprise Henry II opposite Katharine Hepburn as a much more formidable Eleanor.
If there's a better British history trilogy than this trio, I can't name it. It's one of many things to thank the much-maligned '60s for.
While we're doling out retro-thanks, let's thank the gorgeous Panavision cinematography of Geoffrey Unsworth for the look of "Becket." The chance to enjoy it on a big screen again (at the Manor) is well worth sharing with your kids. Its 2 1/2 hours fly by, although you'll miss the nicety of an intermission, which was de riguer back in those salad days of its theatrical release.
Director Peter Glenville was a London and New York stage director, whose precious few films included a dull 1967 rendering of Graham Greene's "The Comedians," which inspired Bosley Crowther's shortest, cruelest, funniest-ever review: " 'The Comedians': Ha ha." After notices like that, you could see why Grenville swore off movie-making. But "Becket" is the (one and only) gem in his diadem.
The story's only "weak" point is a matter of historical accuracy: That catalytic issue on which Becket took his stand -- a jurisdictional dispute between ecclesiastical vs. civil court authority -- strikes us as not so terribly compelling in today's world of fast-and-loose creative judicial solutions. Why didn't Henry just declare Becket an anti-crown combatant and let him rot in the Tower of Londtanamo?
Becket and Henry represented nearly identical willfulness on opposite ends of the spectrum. "Humility is the most difficult of the virtues to achieve," wrote T.S. Eliot. "Nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself."
Barry Paris, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Memorable Quotes:
Thomas a Becket: God rest his soul.
King Henry II: He will, He will. He'll be much more use to God than he ever was to me.
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Thomas a Becket: Honor is a private matter within; it's an idea, and every man has his own version of it.
King Henry II: How gracefully you tell your king to mind his own business.
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Empress Matilda: Oh, if I were a man!
King Henry II: Thank God, madam, He gave you breasts! An asset from which I derived not the slightest benefit.
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King Henry II: Am I the strongest or am I not?
Thomas a Becket: You are today, but one must never drive one's enemy to despair; it makes him strong. Gentleness is better politics, it saps virility. A good occupational force must never crush. It must corrupt.
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King Henry II: Don't be nervous, Bishop. I'm not asking for absolution. I've something far worse than a sin on my conscience: a mistake.
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King Henry II: Let us drink, gentlemen. Let us drink, till we roll under the table in vomit and oblivion.
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King Henry II: Do you know how much trouble I went through to make you a noble?
Thomas a Becket: Yes, as I recall, you lifted your finger, pointed at me and said, "Thomas Becket, you are noble."
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Thomas a Becket: England is a ship. The king is captain of the ship.
King Henry II: That's neat. I like that.
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King Henry II: Your body, madam, was a desert that duty forced me to wander in alone. But you have never been a wife to me!
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King Henry II: He's read books, you know, it's amazing. He's drunk and wenched his way through London but he's thinking all the time.
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King Henry II: So what in most people is morality, in you it's just an exercise in... what's the word?
Thomas a Becket: Aesthetics.
King Henry II: Yes, that's the word. Always "aesthetics."
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King Henry II: There. That's the Great Seal of England. Don't lose it; without the seal, there's no more England, and we'll all have to pack up and go back to Normandy.
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King Henry II: I'm suddenly very intelligent. It probably comes from making love to that French girl last night.
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King Henry II: Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?
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King Henry II: [laughing in both amusement and anger] It's funny! It's too funny! Becket is the only intelligent man in my kingdom, and he's against me!
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Baron: Becket! You are a liar. You are a traitor!
[draws his sword on Becket]
Thomas a Becket: Sheathe your sword, Morville, before you impale your soul upon it!
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King Henry II: Are you mad? You're Chancellor of England; you're mine!
Thomas a Becket: I am also the Archbishop, and you have introduced me to deeper obligations.
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Thomas a Becket: Nobility lies in the man, my prince, not in the towel.
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Thomas a Becket: Tonight you can do me the honor of christening my forks.
King Henry II: Forks?
Thomas a Becket: Yes, from Florence. New little invention. It's for pronging meat and carrying it to the mouth. It saves you dirtying your fingers.
King Henry II: But then you dirty the fork.
Thomas a Becket: Yes, but it's washable.
King Henry II: So are your fingers. I don't see the point.
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King Henry II: Here's my royal foot up your royal buttocks!
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Empress Matilda: You have an obsession about him that is unhealthy and unnatural!
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King Henry II: [isolating one of his brawling sons from the rest] Which one are you?
Prince Henry: Henry the Third.
King Henry II: NOT YET, SIR!
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Thomas a Becket: Here I am, Lord, adorned for Your festivities.
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Thomas a Becket: Lord Gilbert, Baron of England by the grace of his majesty, King Henry II, seized upon the person of a priest of the Holy Church and unlawfully did hold him in custody. Furthermore, in the presence of Lord Gilbert, and by his command, his men seized upon this priest when he tried to escape and put him to death. This is the sin of murder and sacrilege. In that Lord Gilbert has rendered no act of contrition or repentance, and is at the moment, at liberty in the land, we do, here and now, separate him from the precious body and blood of Christ, and from the society of all Christians. We exclude him from our Holy Mother Church and all her sacraments, in heaven, or on Earth. We declare him excommunicate and anathema. We cast him into the outer darkness. We judge him damned with the devil and his fallen angels and all the reprobate, to eternal fire and everlasting pain!
[slams candle to the ground]
Monks: [chanting] So be it.
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Brother John: I don't mind if I am just a grain of sand in a machine. Because I know by putting more and more grains of sand in a machine, one day it'll come grinding to a stop.
Thomas a Becket: And on that day - what then?
Brother John: Well, we'll have a fine, new, well-oiled machine in the place of the old one. And this time we'll put the Normans into it instead. That's what justice means, doesn't it?
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King Henry II: Do you ever think?
Baron: Never, sire! A gentleman has better things to do!
[Henry and the four barons giggle drunkenly]
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Thomas a Becket: We must manage the church. One can always come to a sensible little arrangement with God.
King Henry II: Becket, you are a monster.
Thomas a Becket: You flatter me, My Lord.
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Thomas a Becket: Yes, we have soldiers disguised in the crowd to encourage enthusiasm.
King Henry II: Why must you destroy all my illusions?
Thomas a Becket: Because you should have none, My Prince.
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King Louis VII of France: The King of England and his Ambassadors can drown themselves in what they are impertinent enough to call their English channel.
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Thomas a Becket: We are both aware of the delicacy of my position. Let us trust that God will find a solution for it.
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Brother John: You betrayed your Saxon race, now you betray God.
Thomas a Becket: Perhaps you will succeed in teaching me humility, it's a virtue I've never really mastered.
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King Henry II: The die is cast, Thomas, make the most of it. And if I know you, I'm sure you will.
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King Louis VII of France: My dear man, crowned heads are free to play a little game of courtesy, but nations owe one another none.
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Thomas a Becket: Oh Lord, how heavy thy honor is to bear.
