A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS
UK, 1966,
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
OCIC Grand Prize 1967
SHORT REVIEW
'A Man for All Seasons' tells the story of statesman Thomas More's disagreement with Henry VIII over the matter of the king's divorce. The film is an eloquent depiction of More's struggle to argue for the authority of the Catholic Church, and to protect himself using the letter of the law, once the state obliged him to forswear his beliefs.
Director Fred Zinnemann provides a sharp but understated period atmosphere, never dwelling on the wonderful sets and costumes. Paul Scofield is magnificent as the isolated man whose unwillingness to compromise the truth led him from high office to lowly martyrdom.
LONG REVIEW
Agonising yet uplifting, 'A Man for All Seasons' wrings stirring drama from Thomas More's resonant refusal to sanction Henry VIII's divorce.
Adapted by Robert Bolt from his stage success, this gripping, handsome film argues that government without conscience is "a short route to chaos", and that the corridors of power can lead all but the most innocent into spiritual peril.
Anchoring the film is Paul Scofield's beautiful performance as the intelligent, compassionate and dryly humorous More (unwittingly wrong only in his certainty that he is "not the stuff of which martyrs are made.") Robert Shaw also stands out, appearing briefly as a robust, troubled Henry, driven into something resembling bipolar disorder by guilt issues which he thinks More's approval could sponge away.
Director Fred Zinnemann slowly puts the squeeze on his solitary hero (as he did in 'High Noon') and More is manoeuvred into a position where his only chance of survival is a strategy of silence on the contentious divorce question. Bolt's script excels here, as language becomes a matter of life and death, words become weapons and silence provides shelter. The palaces, manor houses and courts of Tudor England are shot with a stately reserve which subtly heightens the impact of offhand references to the torture and execution awaiting those perceived as traitors.
There is sly (and enduring) political comment in the portrayal of a land covered in surveillance, where corrupt officials seek ruthlessly to enforce a uniformity of personal opinion. The film remains reticent, though, about the anguish that is surely inevitable on the way to the executioner's block. The interrogation scenes are written so dazzlingly that they prove positively entertaining, playing like witty logic debates, instead of feeling like alarming abuses of power. Even in his dank cell in the Tower of London, separated from his family, More never seems really sick with fear. Perhaps Bolt, for all his eloquent dialogue, is too English a writer to daub More in a sweat of blood as his Gethsemane looms.
In prizing More's sense of selfhood, the film achieves something quite different from biopic or hagiography. It succeeds in skewering life's bullies, busybodies and 'yes men' - those shrugging opportunists who will leap into the mud to keep the king smiling. Better to see the mantrap close in on you, says this affecting film, than to let the truth be concealed by the spirit of the age.
CRITERIA FOR REVIEWING
In a sense, everybody reviews films. No cinema visit with friends is complete without the discussion after the film (often enough known as the post-mortem). Even children, the least experienced of filmgoers, can't emerge from the cinema without mulling gleefully over their highlights and announcing, "I like the bit where..."
Writing a review for publication does, of course, demand a somewhat sterner degree of discipline. When I started writing reviews, I was given just one line of guidance: 'Hit the deadline and hit the word count.' (Sound advice to focus the mind.)
Clearly there is no 'correct' way to review a film. The way that works best for me starts in the screening room as I make notes furiously throughout the film, capturing the plot outline, memorable dialogue, telling moments and passing observations that flit through my mind. With this method you end up effectively with a blueprint of the film. (You also end up with writer's cramp). Assuming that you are later able to decipher these notes, as scrawled in the dark, unseen, at knee level, you should find them very useful when, with your deadline looming, it comes to marshalling your thoughts.
Which is the hard part. Sitting at the computer late into the night, longing to produce an informed, flowing and absorbing assessment of the film in question, yet staring at an ever-growing scroll of tangled phrases and abandoned paragraphs, the lonely film reviewer can experience something akin to a foretaste of Purgatory. Well, keep at it. What seemed an irretrievable mess will, eventually, with industry, pull together into a coherent whole. And finally, be prepared for the editors to knock it into shape. Certainly it can be annoying if they come along and spoil your lovely text, but it can be much more annoying if they come along and improve it.
So why put yourself through it? Why not leave reviewing to others and spend your time instead watching more films? Or indeed helping out at the soup kitchen?
The key to it may have something to do with what a certain priest once called 'the ministry of the pen'. The world isn't about to stop reading. Writers are still going to write, and they'll be coming from every conceivable angle. Why not have your say? (Perhaps that is one way we can be 'salt to the world'.)
Film is a global language; a hall of mirrors in which mankind is invited to see himself in any number of lights, by turns flattering, harsh, amusing and so on. The debate about films will go on with or without your contribution. Why wouldn't you take your turn with the megaphone?
Reviews should not simply convey opinion. Good reviews share knowledge and communicate an understanding of what makes a film tick. David Lean always delighted in what he called "the elegant pleasures of cinematic sleight of hand". The reviewer should be able to point out the ways a film exploits (or fails to exploit) that compressed interplay of story, acting, photography, editing, design, sound and music that makes for a good film.
Like any expression of ideas (alongside conversations, interviews, books, broadcasts and the rest), film is one more place where the cosmic battle between good and evil can take place. For films have power. They are a window on the world. They express the aspirations and the anxieties of their society. They affirm norms. They give voice to causes and magnify what has gone largely unremarked. They can move, manipulate or entertain, and nudge people, however slightly, towards hope or despair. Films' incognito spying on characters' private actions, desires and sufferings automatically engages the moral sensibility of the audience. No less than psalms or parables might, films stir up in us outrage or affection, disdain or compassion.
The urge to write about films is the same urge that, as C.S. Lewis points out, makes us want to share a beautiful view of a landscape with someone else, or to let others know about it later. Our enjoyment of something good is completed by our praising of it. Wanting to articulate our reactions to any form of art is natural, and film, with its immediacy and its glorious storytelling scope, is liable to draw strong reactions.
Finally, reviewing should be fun. You get to contribute to the great, ongoing, international conversation about the stories which the world tells itself. And in celebrating the wonderful gift of cinema, you come down from the still of the gallery and, waving your arms and stomping your feet, accept your invitation to the dance.
