The Lion in Winter (1968)

Really Surprised!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This was the most talked about film of 1968. It is the story of an aging Henry II and his efforts to divide his kingdom at the time of his death. He has his queen, Eleanor of Acquitain, locked up in a castle and has released her to help him sort things out. He has three sons, one a petulant little man, full of fire and anxiety; the second, a man with a persecution complex who feels he is the odd man out; and the third, Richard the Lion Hearted, a warrior (who is exposed as a homosexual). This is a movie where the dialogue is fast and furious. Henry has a mistress and she becomes a pawn in this game. He tries to hand the kingdom over to a couple sons, but the conditions they place on his choice cause him to change his mind. Enter the French ruler who is furious that Henry is exerting power that he has no right to, in his opinion. The byplay between the Queen and Henry is marvelous; there is no one who can spar verbally better than Hepburn. There is a kind of dance that goes on. This is the very soul of dysfunction. I had never seen this in its day. It is a marvelous portrayal of the failings of a family. And an actual love story, as strange as that sounds.

I have noticed criticisms of this movie online. Its silliness. There are those who do not understand its brilliance, and there are those who must find fault with anything special to feel good about themselves. That is rather pitiful, isn't it? Watch the movie. The tour de force acting by Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole is a joy to watch. Anthony Hopkins is incredible, and its his first movie role. Clearly, he had "it". He commands the screen, to the point one cannot look away. The rest of the cast is also wonderful, except Jane Merrow as Alais. Sadly, she is way out of her league. On the other hand, watching the contrast between Merrow and the others only serves to prove their superior skills, and make watching them even more delightful. When these brilliant actors deliver their zinger lines, its pure delight. The Lion in Winter is in my top ten movie list.

The Lion in Winter, based on James Goldman's play about treachery in the family of King Henry II, is an intense, fierce, personal drama, directed with evident pleasure by Anthony Harvey.Cataloging the vicious wrangling for inheritance one Christmas holiday, the action is mostly contained within one day. The all-powerful Henry II (Peter O'Toole), summons his politically ambitious family to a reunion in 1183, when a decision on succession is deemed advisable. This includes his exiled, embittered and imprisoned wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katherine Hepburn), and three legitimate male offspring, along with his mistress and her brother, youthful king Philip of France. King Henry II schemes against the mother of his children, Eleanor to try to get his favorite son, a sniveling slack-jaw John (Nigel Terry), appointed as his successor while Eleanor hopes to position her favorite, the soldier genius Richard (Anthony Hopkins), as the heir apparent. Meanwhile, middle child, the reserved and quiet Geoffrey (John Castle) hopes to play them all against one another and come out victorious as the future king. The members of this tempestuous family jockey for position and brutally squabble among each other, rekindling every injury suffered and adding new, Homeric insults to their already bruised reputations.In one day, the seven characters are stripped bare of all inner torments, outward pretensions and governing personality traits. Goldman blends in his absorbing screenplay elements of love, hate, frustration, fulfillment, ambition and greed. The relationships between people, though ambivalent, are ambivalent with a certain satisfying ferocity. Director Anthony Harvey's knowledge of the craft aids him in keeping the tension high and never letting the audience settle for long on an outcome in the constant feud, with twists, turns and plenty of incredible backstabbing.Even though Terry, Castle and especially Hopkins are all at the top of their craft, this film is all about the thorny and turbulent relationship between Henry and Eleanor, whom he's had imprisoned to keep her from meddling with his empire. A marvelously flamboyant Peter O'Toole plays the revolting king to the hilt and holds his own against Katherine Hepburn in a witty, literate, and inventive script. Hepburn is simply magnificent as the scheming and shrewd Eleanor of Aquitaine. There is something about an actress with this degree of presence and a wholly distinct, pleasant and idiosyncratic voice that gets her through even misplaced weepy or extravagant scenes. Her verbal duels with the equally impressive O'Toole are spellbinding. Both play their scenes with great passion, vigor and expertise. Right from the first scene, they both show a wonderful relish for even the most mundane sarcastic line.Despite feeling a bit stage-bound, The Lion in Winter is every bit as engrossing and watchable. It's a nuanced, gorgeous film that keeps you riveted right from the word go.

The Lion in Winter is about the games that people high up in power tend to play with each other when they can, but it's also about parents, their children and how a woman has to act in such a society. This movie is rich with a lot of ideas and concepts, and yet it mostly comes down to the acting - people not exactly of the small-time variety like Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn as the King of England and Eleanor of Aquataine (in other words, the Queen, or once was), and featuring supporting roles for the likes of Anthony Hopkins (his first film, really) and Timothy Dalton. Does a lot of this get stagy? Oh, very much so. It can be a drawback, or maybe just the "Showiness" in quotation marks. I use quotes since that's what other people say, and I do too. But is this necessarily a bad thing? No, but the feeling that this was a play and brought to the screen by its author is never left.This is all essentially a familial drama with political implications at a lot of turns: the King has to choose his heir, as he is fifty years old and seemingly won't live that much longer (perhaps for the time, the 12th century, it was quite old, albeit Eleanor is supposed to be 61). Who will he choose: super strong but emotionally wounded Richard, the middle-child with his own scheming Phillip, or the lovable but weak-willed and odd John? If he really could have his way he'd want to choose all of them - and, as one might see, the question could arise that none of them is an option - but a lot of these games are complicated by other factors, such as of course Eleanor, the mother of his children and a prisoner for her own scheming over the years; the King of France (Dalton) who is often referred to as "boy", and the king's sister cum mistress for Henry, and a to-be-betrothed to one of the sons (Jane Merrow, underrated among the cast, she's really good here).In other words, there's some wackiness that ensues, of the sometimes dark, melodramatic and brooding kind. But what I found most interesting were what was behind so much of the drama, what these characters carry with them and continue to do so, some of them as they are facing death sooner someday than others. With Eleanor of Aquataine, this is a character who has had power taken away from her, she really doesn't have anything, and yet she can - or really has to - cut Henry down every chance she can to keep up to his level. She really is a vulnerable character deep down, when she can show it, though when that is exactly is anyone's guess. Like many plays (or the ones that I've seen and heard over the years), the games that people play on each other - think Virginia Woolf, for instance - is what is supposed to make it riveting for the audience. Who is going to plot what next? How will all of this drama (verging on soap opera) unfold? Maybe all of this is soap opera. There were certainly times, like when the sons are hiding not totally comically in Dalton's bedchamber when Henry comes in to have a talk, that the staginess of it can't be helped. But what stuck out for me and what made me like the movie so much is that the director Anthony Harvey and writer Goldman takes this material as seriously as they can, and mostly as this family drama first. Again, one may think of Game of Thrones as well (this could just as easily be the Lannister clan, fans of the show will know what I mean). And yet in order for this stuff to work, the actors do have to sell it and not hold back; if one is to do this sort of high-voltage, highly emotionally charged stuff right, get some people who will commit to it completely.Peter O'Toole gives what could be one of his two or three best performances here. That's a bold statement considering what other work he did in his career, but really when has he been better? Yes, this King has to yell and pontificate in GRAND, BIG ways (in caps) in many scenes. But a lot of this, we are in the know on, is braggadocio, like a much more refined version of Archie Bunker or Ralph Kramden. And yes, a sitcom comparison could be made here, only the laughs had aren't shallow or base: these characters really can't stand one another - that, and, in one of those contradictions people have to keep in their heads one alongside the other, they love each other still. That's what's fascinating about watching O'Toole and Hepburn (in a role far more Oscar-y than 'Dinner' in 67). If you don't buy them as a bitter, wry, deeply wounded married couple, the movie actually doesn't work as well. I bought into them, and many of their scenes carry that electrified air of big, bold dramatic moments, especially in the last act when big claims are made about past familial ties.I don't know if it's all a great film. Some of the dramatic confrontations here get into that realm of such theatricality that it's hard to take a few times, just in that way of 'Oh, for chrissake, just kill each other and get it over with already!' But it has such a strong script and acting, and the themes of being a woman in that period and what a marriage was in such medieval times, or being a father and sons, that I had a great time watching it. By the end one senses not much has *really* changed for these people, but then why should it? Life goes on, until it doesn't, for these people of royalty and obsessive power