A Tale of Two Toms: Becket and More

How about this for an abrupt swerve from last week: the stories of Thomas A Becket and St. Thomas More, as told in “Becket” and “A Man For All Seasons.”

“Becket” (1964).  Peter O’Toole plays English King Henry II; Richard Burton plays Saxon Thomas Becket, an old drinking and whoring buddy of the King’s.  Becket warns his friend that the Church in England is getting too powerful: powerful enough to challenge his sovereignty.  Henry’s solution: to replace the recently deceased Archbishop of Canterbury with none other than Becket himself.  The only problem with this is that, once anointed Archbishop, Becket suddenly finds himself taking the job seriously. 

            Conflict arises almost immediately:  a priest is accused of molesting a young girl (some things never change).  The church insists that its priests are subject to canon law and courts, not garden variety civil law.  But the local noble takes the matter into his own hands and has his men murder the priest without even a trial – civil OR canon. Becket’s reaction, as appropriate for his position, is to excommunicate the noble.  In retaliation, Henry then has his own goons murder Becket in his own cathedral.  Bad move.  Becket was essentially murdered for following his conscience and acting as the Archbishop should have.
[Getting back to Oscar issues: the film won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay, although it had been nominated for eleven other awards.]

“A Man For All Seasons” (1966).  Fast forward a few centuries – same country, though – and a few Henry’s.  Now it’s Henry VIII’s turn to behave badly.  England needs a male heir, but Catherine of Aragon, the Queen, doesn’t seem to be able to pop out any babies – male or female – for the king.  He’s extravagantly played by Robert Shaw (probably best known from “Jaws”).  Paul Scofield, looking like the 60s version of Christoph Waltz, plays Thomas More, an upright, Catholic lawyer who is very calm and low key – probably never the King’s whoring wing-man.  A petty weasel, Richie Rich (no, not the cartoon character), played by a very young John Hurt, implicates More, who then goes on trial.  Only at trial, faced with the patent injustice of the situation, does More finally explode and express some form of passion.  Essentially More won’t bow to Henry and accept his “marriage” to the presumably more fertile Anne Boleyn.  So his head gets chopped off.
[Perhas the competition at the Oscars was less two years later, as this film won six Oscars, including best picture and best actor.]

            Adjusting the audience’s attention to the “chick flick” factors, “The Other Boleyn Girl”, with Eric Bana as H8, and Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, was a juicier take on the same topic – indeed, with Thomas More completely absent from that film.

In the battle of Henry vs. Thomas, the Henrys are 2-0.  Each Thomas was motivated by his conscience, and took down just himself.  H8 at least went through due process, as farcical as the trial was.  I would imagine the distinction was due to a major event between the two.  Becket was executed in 1170, More in 1535 – and More himself cites the intervening factor, the Magna Carta, signed in 1215. 

In “The Meaning of Life”, Graham Chapman plays a Protestant man who explains to his wife that the difference between the Catholic and Protestant churches is that the latter allows him to put a condom on his “willie”.  The more accurate difference is that the Protestant church not only allows vicars to marry, but also for couples to divorce.  The church’s origin stems from H8’s need for a male heir.