Ein Mann zu jeder Jahreszeit

Fred Zinnemann's one of our great forgotten directors, amazing considering that he was nominated for eight directing Oscars in four decades, winning two. Today's critics and auteurs don't champion him; you won't read much about him in "Entertainment Weekly." For Zinnemann, the script was the thing, what he worked from, and his greatest genius may have been in choosing the right scripts and knowing how to do them justice.

"From Here To Eternity" may well be Zinnemann at his highest tide, though IMDb voters seem to prefer "High Noon." Then there's "A Man For All Seasons," the film of the year in 1966, though its hard to imagine a film that represents the ethos of the 1960s less. "A Man For All Seasons" presents us with an unfashionable character who refuses to surrender his conscience to the dictates of king and countrymen, resolute instead in his devotion to God and Roman Catholic Church.

"When statesmen lead their country without their conscience to guide them, it is short road to chaos," Thomas More tells his nominal boss, Cardinal Wolsey, when the latter unsuccessfully presses him to give his blind assent to King Henry VIII's request for a convenient divorce. Perhaps out of pique, Wolsey makes sure More inherits his office of Counselor of the Realm, where More's sterling convictions are really put to the test.

More is a marvel of subtleties, tensile steel covered in a velvet glove, a mild-mannered lion trying at every turn to do well even though his political savvy knows how dangerous that can be. As a lawyer, More knows the angles, yet he is no sharpie. He respects the law too much for that. Rather, he sees in law the only hope for man's goodness in a fallen world. "I'd give the Devil benefit of the law, for my own safety's sake," he explains.

Paul Scofield plays More in such a way as to make us not only admire him but identify with him, and come to value both his humanness and his spirituality. His tired eyes, the way he gently rebuffs would-be bribers around Hampton Court, his genuine professions of loyalty to Henry even as he disagrees with the matter of his divorce, all speak to one of those great gifts of movies, which is the ability to create a character so well-rounded and illuminating in his window on the human condition we find him more haunting company than the real people we meet in life. It's a gift the movies seldom actually deliver on, so when someone like Scofield makes it happen, it is a object of gratitude as much as admiration.

The script, adapted by Robert Bolt from his stage play, is very literate and careful to explain the facts of More's dilemma. It moves too slowly and opaquely at times to qualify "A Man For All Seasons" as a true classic, that and a supporting cast full of one-note performances, though some are quite good (a few, however, are notably flat.) I especially liked Robert Shaw as a young and thin Henry VIII, full of vigor yet also a childish temperament and inconsistent mind. He demands More not oppose his marriage to Anne Boleyn, then decides he must have either More's outright assent or else his head. There's no bargaining with such a man. Perhaps More was better off standing on his principals as he did than climbing into bed with homicidal Henry. Just ask Anne.

Zinnemann presents some interesting visual images in "A Man For All Seasons," letting the period detail inform the story without overwhelming it. Several times, such as during the opening credits, inside More's cell at the Tower of London, and during More's trial, the camera shoots through narrow openings surrounded by high stone walls, a reminder not only of More's own trapped situation but the human condition. Aspirations of divinity may be unfashionable, even dangerous to one's health, but they present mankind with its one hope for overcoming its base nature, the dead-end character of temporality. "A Man For All Seasons" is a rallying cry for just such an approach to life, and remains undeniably effective in its artful, artless way.

If on occasions I babbled about some actor's performance being the best I've ever seen it was just because I hadn't seen "A Man For All Seasons". Well, up until today. And I definitely won't be that quickly amazed and impressed by a performance again. May I just say that Paul Scofield embodies great acting to it's very core. Comprehending his masterful and skillful acting is evident even to the greatest fool or layman and I (not being a big expert myself) could not believe how a man can attain such knowledge of perfection. His every word is spoken with the greatest skill, intonation and accent as well as his facial expressions and movements. His performance is so strong it's scary when I think about it. As if he knew(and he most definitely did!) EXACTLY how to perform his acting task. This movie is an explosion of outstanding acting and actors, showing their skills to the fullest and to the amazed viewers. It may well be the greatest movie ever made, but the reason for this lies also in the jaw dropping and mind opening script that deserves more credit than it could have ever gotten. If you thought "On The Waterfront", "Bridge On The River Kwai", "Glennary Glen Ross" or even "The Usual Suspects" or "Pulp Fiction" had some great dialogs then this inspiring and simply amazing script will definitely change your mind. There are so many memorable lines, monologues and great battling dialogs I can't even give an approximate number. Every moment is meaningful and the movie is full of smart and important thoughts. I won't go into the story, because as a previous commenter said, there are just too many points of view and meanings to it, but I will say this; Sir Thomas More was too moral and too strong to give in to the Church, and because of his reasons he was respected. But because he was, for some, this stubborn, he paid the price which in the real world when you play with the big boys, is a given. A movie every future actor, actress, director and screen writer should and must see and a movie that makes most of the later Oscar winners for best picture look like a joke. And a final though, Leonard Maltin was absolutely right; if Paul Scofield acted only in this movie he'd still be remembered as a marvel worth every praise and respect. 9/10

A Man For All Seasons is an erudite examination of the old Biblical maxim: a man cannot serve two masters. Sir Thomas More (poignantly portrayed by Paul Scofield) struggles to be true to both his faith and his monarch (the lusty and hearty King Henry VIII superbly played by Robert Shaw). I think it is difficult for citizens in our present secular society to truly understand just how central a role religion played in a man's life during the period of the film; it was an age of faith when Christianity exerted the most powerful of influences on one's thinking. On a side note, the American Republic wisely sought a nation that "divided church and state." However, the fine distinction remains that it would be a state informed by faith but not run by the church. The aforementioned exemplary performances by the leads are backed by excellent supporting turns, especially from Orson Welles as the less than saintly Cardinal Wolsey and the eternally ebullient Susannah York as Sir Thomas's daughter Margaret. This is a true masterpiece that richly deserves all the accolades and plaudits it has received.

This is one of my favorite films. It is of perfect length and pacing, and the script is one of the best ever written. The acting, direction, and design of this movie are uniformly excellent. The segue into Henry VIII's entrance is alone reason for seeing the movie. The production design is top-notch, both beautiful and--unlike many "costume dramas"--not so overwhelming as to lose the actors among outrageous sets and costumes. For an adaptation of a stage play, a remarkable proportion of the action taking place outdoors, with More's house at Chelsea being particularly lovely.

It's very easy to see this film superficially as a moral fable, and many people scoff at it as being a stagy morality play. But it's both more subtle and more vibrant that that. The subtlety of Robert Bolt's script lies in its exploration of identity. We're not meant to identify or admire More's religious ideas, which the movie actually tiptoes around. Instead it's what Bolt called More's "adamantine sense of his own self" that the movie really highlights.

... For Best Picture Oscar winner you have "Sound of Music" in 1965 and this film in 1966, turning to the more controversial (for its time) "In the Heat of the Night" in 1967 and then back to innocent musical storytelling with Oliver! In 1968 and then back to controversy with "Midnight Cowboy" in 1969, even rated X at the time. Amidst this change was "A Man For All Seasons", ironically about the importance of holding fast to your ethics in spite of changing times.

The Tudor dynasty of England was an interesting 120 years or so. This film focuses on the very brief time that Henry VIII was fighting the Roman Catholic Church over him marrying a second wife after the same church had made a special dispensation for him to marry the first, with that first wife now past the age of childbearing and no surviving son resulting from the marriage.

Into the fray comes Sir Thomas More, a devout Catholic. This film distills More's viewpoints down to his refusal to recognize that Henry has any right to break off from Rome and declare himself supreme head of the church in England. More seemed willing to help with arguments made to Rome in favor of granting Henry a divorce from his first wife, Katharine of Aragon, but he would not go past that into the taking of church property as Woolsey suggested or into the complete break from Rome that Henry eventually made. More was willing to help Henry as far as "working within the system", but he believed that system - the Roman Catholic Church - was established by God and he would not support an alternative view.

More remained silent on the issue of what Henry was doing, thinking this would protect him. He even remains silent to the viewer, since he refuses to share his opinion with anyone, though one can surmise it from what he has said he will not do or swear to and the resignation of his office of chancellor.

The real irony is everybody wondering at More's caution proclaiming - "This isn't Spain, it's England!", with everyone being so sure of their civil liberties there. Yet Thomas Cromwell was executed by Henry in 1540 for pretty much facilitating his marriage to an unattractive woman (Anne of Cleves), Anne Boleyn was executed on trumped up charges of adultery because she too failed to produce a male heir and a second divorce would have just been embarrassing, and the Duke of Norfolk only escaped execution because Henry died the night before Norfolk's scheduled execution. So it turned out that in Tudor England, dying in bed could be a goal difficult to attain in spite of it not being Spain.

In the end, More was executed because of the lies of RIchard Rich, as depicted in the film. More had this guy's number from the beginning. Before his fall from grace, More had urged Rich to take a teaching job and not press his luck at court because of his weakness of character and thus his susceptibility to being bribed and tempted. And yet it was the morally weak and treacherous Rich who eventually ascended to the office of chancellor, lived past the age of 70, and died in bed of natural causes.

The strength of this film lies in its performances - Scofield's steadfastly loyal and honest Thomas More, Robert Shaw as the bombastic and big as life Henry VIII, Susannah York as More's well educated and wise daughter, and especially an almost unrecognizable John Hurt as the slimy little weasel Richard Rich. My apology to weasels everywhere.

It is intensely political and philosophical and really appeals to people who think about standing up for one's ideals even when it is very easy to allow ethics to be bent.