The Lion in Winter (1968)

The Lion in Winter
Directed by Anthony Harvey
Written by James Goldman from his play
1968/UK
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Eleanor of Aquitaine: Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It’s 1183 and we’re barbarians! How clear we make it. [/box]

This movie holds up so damn well to a re-watch.

The plot is kind of convoluted.  It takes up the dual tasks of conveying some history of the Plantagenets of England and trying to be sort of a 12th Century Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) with three bickering sons thrown in for good measure.

At any rate,  King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) is enjoying his romance with Alais, a woman many years his junior, as well as the enforced absence of his headstrong wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn.  But now the succession to the throne is weighing heavily on his mind.  The choices are between the somewhat feeble minded (?) John (Nigel Terry), war-like Richard (Anthony Hopkins), and the conniving Goeffrey.  Henry favors John and Eleanor, who has friends in high places, favors Richard.  Henry summons Eleanor from the convent for Christmas.  Then the plotting among the sons and their champions begins in deadly earnest.  At the same time King Phillip of France (Timothy Dalton) shows up to add to the fun and try to enforce Henry’s promise to allow his sister Alais and John to marry.

And then there are many scenes in which Henry and Eleanor bicker on and on about whether they ever loved each other and whether they love each other now.  This is interspersed with some of the most cutting domestic ddialogue in any movie, in which the spouses take low blows at each other’s known weaknesses.

Well, I fell in love with this all over again after many years.  The acting by the both principals is remarkable.  Such mastery of conveying real feeling under the carefully crafted dialogue.  The movie also has a fiery early performance by Anthony Hopkins and I thought Timothy Dalton was excellent.  Made me wonder why he is not better know outside of being Bond.

My only problem with the film was its script.  I have a bias against the ‘I love you, I love you not’ theme.  I also thought the melding of the modern sensibility of the script with the 12 century authentic production design was not well-handled.  Again, both the performances and the production values outweighed any small niggles .  I felt exhilerated when it was over.  Recommended.

Katharine Hepburn won an Oscar for Best Actress in a tie with Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl (1968).  The film also won in the categories of Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from another Medium and Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a musical.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Director and Best Costume Design.