HISTORY LESSONS: A Man for All Seasons (1966)
“And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, then in good faith, I long not to live.”
CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of royal incest, religious zeal, religion, Catholicism, execution, scatological references.
We’re starting a new series of historical films with one of the classics of the genre, long revered as one of the gold standards of historical cinema. Though, to be quite honest, this would be better served as historical fiction, and even then it’s pretty boring. Everything that happens in this movie did happen, to some extent, in real life, but trying to spin a 16th century religious zealot as a paragon of individual morality is one heck of a choice. In fact, it’s even more misguided than you think, because the man on which this story rests happened to be defending the Catholic Church against the monarchy which was, checking our notes, oh, the popular opinion of the time. The only thing that saves this movie is some outstanding quips and its impeccable performances, which somehow make a mind-numbingly boring story watchable. It’s just a shame our writer couldn’t give them more to work with. Hold on tight to the golden chain as we start our History Lessons series with 1966’s A Man for All Seasons on Macintosh & Maud Haven’t Seen What?!
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Intro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive..
Excerpt taken from "Rondeau from Suite de Symphonies," composed by Jean-Joseph Mouret and performed by the English Chamber Orchestra. Copyright SME (on behalf of SMCMG), Public Domain Compositions, and 4 Music Rights Societies.
Excerpt taken from the film A Man for All Seasons is © 1966 Highland Films, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpt taken from “Closing Credits” from the original motion picture soundtrack to the film Glory, conducted and composed by James Horner. Copyright 1989 Tri-Star Pictures, Inc.
