A Man for All Seasons (1966)

A Man for All Seasons (1966)

starring Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Leo McKern

directed by Fred Zinnemann

120 minutes

Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) is made Lord Chacellor of England during the reign of Henry VIII. The king is married at the time to Catherine of Aragorn, his first wife, who after 20 years with him has not given birth to any sons that lived. Henry wants to get the marriage annulled and get married to Anne Boleyn.

More feels that such a course of action can only be taken if the pope gives his approval but because the pope already made an exception to allow Henry to marry Catherine (she was previously married to Henry's brother), More feels as though it is morally wrong to ask the Pope to reverse his previous ruling. Henry VIII does not accept More' opinion on the matter and urges him to reconsider but More refuses and ultimately resigns his post as High Chancellor.

A new law is passed. the Act of Supremacy. The Church of England breaks with the Roman Catholic Church and Henry VIII has his marriage to Catherine annulled. Part of the new law is an oath of allegiance to Henry and which recognizes Henry as the head of the Church of England. More refuses to take the oath. He is locked up and eventually put on trial. His chief accuser is Thomas Cromwell (Leo McKern) the former aide to the former Lord Chancellor.

More refuses to take the oath but maintains that he is loyal to Henry VIII. Cromwell gets someone to commit perjury in order to provide the needed evidence required to convict More,

Thoughts

This movie was nominated for eight Academy Awards. It won six of those awards including Best Picture, Best Director (Fred Zinnemann), and Best Actor (Paul Scofield). Fred Zinneman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director seven times. This was his second and final win. His other win was for From Here to Eternity (1954). The only one of the films for which he was nominated but did not win that I have seen is High Noon. Paul Scofield was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Quiz Show (1994), which I have seen but not recently.

There are quite a few closeups which make me wonder if this was originally intended for the small screen or if there was a lot of reshooting where not everyone was available. 

I get the central message here which is about the perils of standing up to authority but there's something about the way it plays out that didn't move me very much. I found the movie to be kind of dry. It is well made but it isn't terribly passionate.