Becket (1964)
directed by Peter GlenvilleFrames in this review are taken from the MPI DVD.
Jump to section: Plot | Characterization | Film
Some Kings and Queens of England just make better subjects for drama. George IV isn't nearly as interesting a character as George III, and Anne can't hold a candle to the various Henries (who must surely be disproportionately represented, even considering the lengths and achievements of their reigns). Such audacious and colorful characters they were — Henry VIII, who decreed Protestantism for England for purely selfish reasons: in order to divorce his wives; and Shakespeare's Henry V [link to film review], who established the English claim on the French throne and brought back a French bride from his continental wars.
It is an even earlier Henry who features in Becket, only the second King of England to carry the name. Though the credits award first billing to Richard Burton in the title role, the film is as much about Henry as it is about Thomas à Becket. Compared to the king, Becket is straightforward and uncomplicated — at first a worldly and scheming advisor, he becomes resolute in his godliness once he is thrust into his immortal destiny as Archbishop of Canterbury. He serves as a foil to Henry in their numerous exchanges, and never strays far from the king's mind. But the reverse is not true. Though Becket is troubled by his clashes with his royal friend, there is only place for one mother in his heart. Once he has chosen Rome over England, there are no soul-searching bouts of indecision, no questions of turning back. While the film's events are driven by Becket's actions, the film isn't actually about Becket, but rather about Becket's impact on Henry. Indeed, we would not remember the name Becket today had he not clashed with the king.
Plot and History
As with the most delicious historical dramas, Becket takes many liberties with the facts. Playwright Jean Anouilh introduces racial and class strife into the picture by having Becket come from among the Saxons of England, oppressed by the rule of the imported Norman nobility. But the broad outlines of the plot follow the events of history. Henry confers the Chancellorship of England upon his good friend Thomas Becket and goes off to fight Louis VII over some land in Northern France. To fight this war, he has requisitioned soldiers and money from his subjects, but the Catholic Church, ever mindful of its wealth and privileges, refuses his demands. In a stroke of luck, the Archbishop of Canterbury dies, and Henry has the bright idea to install Becket in his place. With his right-hand man heading the Church, he feels certain of having checkmated the pesky clergy and ensured their subservience. But Becket discovers a newfound purpose in his spiritual position, and becomes a staunch champion of Church prerogatives. When a clergyman is accused of a crime, Becket insists that only an ecclesiastical court can try him, and when one of Henry's nobles orders his execution after an escape attempt, Becket excommunicates the precipitous Lord Gilbert.
An infuriated Henry then tries to strip Becket of his position, serving trumped-up charges of embezzlement during his term as Chancellor. Fleeing England, Becket finds refuge with Louis VII, then proceeds to Rome to seek Pope Alexander III's interdiction, but is warned to tread cautiously. After a retreat in a monastery, Becket reconciles with Henry in a dramatic beach meeting as Henry's and Louis' entourages observe for posterity. But this reconciliation doesn't last long. Henry takes a stab at Canterbury by decreeing that his son Henry would be crowned in his lifetime at rival cathedral York. Afterwards, drinking himself into a stupor with his uneducated nobles at his side, Henry utters the apocryphal line, "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" The nobles take him literally at his word and slay Becket in the cathedral as he prepares for vespers. But it is Becket who has the last word, for he is declared a saint, and Henry submits himself to the lash as penance for his untimely death. The whole film is framed as a flashback from Henry kneeling in front of Becket's effigy, talking to and about his late friend.
Characterization
But the story only scratches the surface. The film, translated from the French play, is a cornucopia of clever exchanges and incisive wit; at one point Henry gives Becket his ring with three lions on it, and tells him: "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." But there are also searching questions about destiny and friendship, and verbal clashes producing enough conflicts to supply an entire college class with individual essay topics — Norman vs. Saxon, cultural refinement vs. coarseness, intelligence vs. vapidity, family ties vs. scheming, war vs. peace, France vs. England, the Church vs. the State, all intertwined with the most central conflict of them all: that of Henry vs. Becket.
Henry is played with relish by Peter O'Toole, the two to be forever linked in the annals of drama; O'Toole plays an older, more considered Henry II opposite Katharine Hepburn's Eleanor in The Lion in Winter. He brings a regal bearing to the role, his posture almost imperceptibly shifting ramrod-straight and his stride confident and assured as he switches pronouns from the personal I to the royal We. Regal, yes, but not refined. He yells at his court, works himself into fits of fury, belches, drinks, and whores his way around his dominions (as he recalls why he so loves reconquering his French possessions). But unlike his nobles, he eats with a fork, thanks to Becket's foresightedness in importing the new invention from Italy.
Becket the Saxon is suave and refined compared to the boorish Norman nobles, and may very well be the smartest person in England. "Always thinking," says Henry of his best friend, "He's read books, you know," and beneath Richard Burton's smoothly paced lines is an unmistakable shrewdness backed by careful consideration. It is this resourcefulness which leads him to buy back a French town intact rather than take it by force and pillage. The town showers Henry with a hero's welcome as he enters the city gates, but only of the poor, for the rich cost too much. Becket has little need to yell unless he is charging Henry's officers with eternal damnation of their souls; he softly and almost longingly refers to Henry as "my prince" even while the king is growing ever more pained and infuriated by their confrontation. He is initially unconcerned with honor; he serves the king, and is practically Norman in all but blood (and table manners). But he has an essential kindness about him even then, saving a poor peasant girl from being ravished by Henry by falsely claiming her for himself. It is this quest for meaning in his life that makes him stick his stake in the ground when his moment arrives.
Yet Henry is a capable ruler in his own right. He can play interests off each other, and he is the one manipulating Becket to his own ends by installing him in various offices. Thus Becket's change of heart is deeply wounding to Henry, as he is then left with no one else in the world to call friend. Henry has strained relations with his mother the Empress Mathilda (a severe Martita Hunt), who ignored him as a child. He hates his own children and shuns his wife Eleanor (Pamela Brown) as a dry desert with whom his procreative duty was nigh-unbearable. There's no hint of love in Henry, for Anouilh's Eleanor is not the conniving love-her-and-hate-her Queen of James Goldman's play. She is a bit aloof, a bit nagging, and seemingly doomed to fight Henry without much success — at one point she is so stunned by Henry's outburst that she has no rejoinder than to run crying and feebly threatening to complain to her uncle the Emperor.
In this lack of love Becket is no different at first. The captured Welsh noblewoman Gwendolen (archly elegant Siân Phillips with an accent that adds a touch of mystery) is very much in love with Becket, a companion from a race conquered by the English. But though he spends much time with her and clearly enjoys her company, he does not return the sentiment. As he as Chancellor points out to the clergymen in their opening confrontation with Henry, his mother is England. He cannot even deny Henry when he claims Gwendolyn for himself, nor can his cold heart take her back when the king is done with her. In an eloquently sad moment, Gwendolen bids him farewell by giving him her harp, saying as her voice begins to break up, "You've almost learned to play it." Splendid dialog.
Driftless people make some of the most devoted converts to religion, witness George W. bush. Is it any surprise then that Becket finds a purpose in life when he learns to love holy mother Church? This is why Becket can withstand the upcoming conflict with assurance and confidence, while Henry's moves are constantly undermined, leading him to exclaim in exasperation, "Are there no men in England?" Becket puts his trust in God to set him on the path to carry out His mission. And all this despite the fact that Henry is initiating action, while Becket is but a puppet, manipulated by Henry, then by Bishop Folliot of London (Donald Wolfit, intense, but with a reservoir of cunning underneath) who first suggests that he defend the principle of independence of ecclesiastical courts, as he would have done had he become Archbishop. Even when Becket escapes across the English Channel with his fiery young Saxon assistant Brother John (David Weston switching fury with sullenness), he is used by King Louis and Pope Alexander. A cultured King Louis (a delightful John Gielgud with a twinkle in his eye) tells Becket as much amid the fresh air and bright light of his palace. Louis would've done exactly as Henry had done had he been faced with a similarly troublesome clergyman; he grants Becket his protection because it will trouble the English throne.
Interestingly then, the play leans toward the secular position in the nominally central dispute. Just as Henry's illusions about the cheering throngs in the captured town are quickly dispelled by Becket's explanation of the arrangements, so too are the old Archbishop of Canterbury's platitudes about being "men of God" swiftly punctured by Henry's observation that monks fought fiercely during the Conquest, when there was pillage to be had. The Pope backs Becket only tentatively, mindful of the political game to be played, and the ambitious Bishop of London eagerly leaps to Henry's side when the trumped-up charges of embezzlement are dangled before his eyes as a means by which to obtain the hoped for archbishopric. And though Becket is as fearless as Martin Luther, he ultimately fights for a losing cause, subtly tarnished by the fact that we never determine the guilt of the offending clergyman who caused the hubbub. Today we take for granted that civil authority must trump ecclesiastical law. As for the independence of the Church from state authorities, that'll be swiftly dispatched with six Henries down the road.
Thus, although spiritual matters provide the impetus for the plot, the play is about Henry and Becket. Becket is never far from Henry, even when separated by hundreds of miles. As Becket is heading toward immortality, Henry is living with the family that he dislikes and drinking with the brain-dead Norman nobility (one of them replies to Henry's inquiry with the proud claim that he "never" does any thinking that doesn't have to). There's a bit of a fatalist streak in Becket, as he calmly orders the doors opened for vespers even as armed men are waiting outside. But ultimately one must wonder who gets the upper hand. Henry is stripped and whipped after making his peace with Becket, but there is a bit of nonchalance in his manner as he proclaims that the murderers must be punished and tells those very nobles that everyone must make their peace with Becket. Even in his soliloquy in front of Becket's tomb, there is the hint of uncertainty and possible insincerity with qualifiers like "I suppose." Becket is canonized and Henry has been taken down a notch, but he now has (at least on the surface) the love of his people and no Becket to trouble him any longer. Is this true contrition, or a show?
Film
For fans of dialog and plot, you could probably slap the flimsiest of film conventions on Anouilh's play and still end up with a fine film. But the filmed Becket, directed by Peter Glenville, is no hastily "opened-up" stage play. Edward Anhalt's Academy Award-winning screenplay cannot completely disguise its stage origins, with long scenes of characters making long speeches and snapping fast exchanges to each other. But it inserts enough establishing shots and changes of scene to provide the other technical arts with the opportunity to make a truly cinematic film. There were, after all, eleven other categories in which the film was nominated for an Oscar, but as always happens to great films in a year with a blockbuster, none of them stood a chance against My Fair Lady.
The costumes and art direction place us firmly in the dark world of medieval English castles; the French palace and other French locations, in contrast, are light and airy with finely-dressed people and richer furnishings. John Cox's sound is clean and unobtrusive, and Laurence Rosenthal's score adds color with its heraldry and soft emotion underneath, while having the good sense to go away altogether when the viewer concentrates on the twists and turns of dialog.
Geoffrey Unsworth's cinematography and Anne V. Coates' editing are particularly effective and delightful to watch. While the intense drama overshadows many of the other technical aspects of the film, talking heads would call unwanted attention to the artificiality of the play format, were it not for the filmic arts that supply visual interest on the screen. Unsworth's lighting brings out the detail in the interiors even while maintaining an appropriately dark feel overall. Camera motion is smooth and well-coordinated with meticulous blocking of the actors. The camera moves from one perfectly-composed shot to another, with complicated dollies and pans and tilts to transition among them.
Unsworth plays with spatial relationships, sometimes using split diopters to maintain focus on two far-apart planes. There is a surprisingly intimate two-shot of Henry talking to Becket's effigy in the cathedral crypt, matched with a similar two-shot during the flashback section, but with the sizes reversed so that Henry is now much larger than Becket. Who's pulling the other's ropes? The photographic statement on spaces well complements Peter Glenville's direction, which has Henry pacing around impatiently, generally staying far away from everyone except Becket. Coates, as usual, makes the difficult task of seamless editing look effortless. Not once does the viewer have a desire to see any angle other than the one being presented. Editors cut by instinct, but somehow her instinct becomes our instinct as soon as it hits the screen. All this proficiency, both in front of the camera and behind it, makes a wordy 148-minute film go by rapidly, and once the film is done you find yourself missing the sharp wit of those 12th-century characters almost right away.
As with many other independent productions over the years, Becket's original negative was neglected, and a restoration was only completed in 2003 by the Academy Film Archive. Further rights issues held up its DVD release until 2007, when a limited theatrical re-release was done. The DVD is not great, but it's acceptable, and certainly beats the bare-bones MGM DVD of The Lion in Winter, the other great 1960s historical drama starring Peter O'Toole as Henry II. [link to article explaining the situation]
