Film watch: A Man for All Seasons
At the weekend, I watched A Man for All Seasons. Directed by Fred Zinnemann and scripted by Robert Bolt from his stage play, it won the Academy Award for Best Picture and an Oscar for Paul Scofield, who starred as Sir Thomas More. I probably hadn’t watched the film since it came out in 1966 yet I remembered whole scenes and even chunks of dialogue; it’s that good.
You can see More as a Catholic martyr, a man too principled to betray his beliefs or, as Hilary Mantel does in Wolf Hall, a persecutor of ‘heretics’. The standard work on the subject is R W Chambers’ 1935 biography. More’s son-in-law Will Roper wrote The Life of Sir Thomas More. These books are favourable to More. Peter Ackroyd’s biography was brilliant at evoking Tudor London but disappointing about More, with nothing new to say. It’s years since I studied this period, so I’m not up to date with current thinking on the subject.
The film opens with Cardinal Wolsey (Orson Welles, like a great red jelly), summoning More and saying, ‘The king wants an heir. What are you going to do about it?’ Ever the cautious lawyer, More replies that he’s sure the king needs no advice from him on the subject. Wolsey dies and More is appointed Chancellor in his place. HenryVIII has now convinced himself that he is incestuously married to his brother’s wife. The only person who can dissolve his marriage to poor Katherine of Aragon is the Pope. Henry decides to make himself head of the church in England, a break from Europe far more serious than Brexit. Those who matter, like More, are to swear an oath to this effect, which More refuses to do. Bolt’s Henry is desperate for More’s approval. The king’s ally in promoting the split from Rome is Thomas Cromwell, played by Leo McKern. The Duke of Norfolk (Nigel Davenport) tries to persuade More to sign, as he has done. More’s wife (wonderful Wendy Hiller) thinks he’s unreasonable. There’s great distress for his clever daughter (Susannah York) and her new husband, Will Roper (Corin Redgrave). It’s interesting to see Colin Blakely playing a small part as More’s steward and John Hurt in his first major screen role as ambitious Richard Rich, whom More distrusts and refuses to employ. And who is that beautiful woman who appears briefly (and silently) as Anne Boleyn? Vanessa Redgrave.
More is stripped of the chancellorship, which goes to Cromwell and is then imprisoned in the Tower. His clever brain twists and turns, finding ways of refusing to swear while still acknowledging the power of king and parliament. In the end, he is brought down by the perfidy of Richard Rich at his trial. This is a very powerful scene, which has More uttering the famous line, ‘Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. But for Wales?’ (Rich has been made Attorney General for Wales). There is absolutely no evidence for any of this, it’s all Robert Bolt, as is the moving scene in which More parts from his wife. Found guilty of treason, he is beheaded. Scofield’s performance throughout is superb.
David Starkey called Wolf Hall ‘a deliberate perversion of fact’ and ‘magnificent, wonderful fiction’. But so was A Man for All Seasons. There’s part of a fascinating and amusing discussion between Mantel and Starkey on YouTube. Their views are not so different as you might imagine. Historical fact (where it even exists) can be interpreted in many different ways, which is one of the joys of studying history.
