A Man for All Seasons

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Plot: The Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) is a man of great principle and a devout Catholic in the time of King Henry VIII. The King wants to dissolve his marriage to the queen (a Spanish princess and the widow of his late brother) so that he can marry Anne Boleyn. All around him, courtiers and politicians plot to use this development to their advantage, or at least to hold on to their positions, given the conflict between the Church’s position that marriage is indissoluble and the King’s that it must be dissolved. For More, the choice is clear, and God comes before the King. But because of More’s incorruptible reputation, his support is crucial. Every possible form of persuasion and coercion is attempted, but More will not make any affirmative statement on behalf of the divorce (though he refrains from opposing it explicitly). And More will not lend his allegiance to the new church headed by the King.

Finally, having lost his position, his fortune, his reputation (on false charges) and his liberty, More is sentenced to death. He accepts it with grace and faith, forgiving the executioner.

Discussion: This is an outstanding (and brilliantly filmed) study of a man who is faced with a harrowingly difficult moral choice. The choice remains clear to him, even at great cost not just to himself but to his family. Yet within his clear moral imperative, he does calibrate. His conscience does not require him to work against or even speak out against the divorce; he need only keep silent.

Questions for Kids:

· What does the title mean?

· The same director made “High Noon” — do you see any similarities?

· What would you consider in deciding what to do, if you were More?

· What other characters in history can you think of who sustained such a commitment to a moral principle?

Connections: Kids and teens should read some of the books about this period, and see if they can find reproductions of the paintings by Hans Holbein of the real-life characters. They may want to watch some of the many movies about it as well. As history shows, the marriage that led to the establishment of the Church of England did not last. “Anne of the Thousand Days” tells the story of the relationship of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, including, from a different perspective, some of the events of “A Man for All Seasons.” A British mini-series, “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” devotes one episode to each wife, and is more historically accurate and very well done. Henry VIII is such a colorful figure that he appeared in several movies, including the classic “Private Life of Henry VIII” with Charles Laughton. His death appears in the (completely fictional) “Prince and the Pauper,” and his daughter with Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth I, is featured in several movies, including “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (with Bette Davis and Errol Flynn) and “Mary, Queen of Scots” (with Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth) and “Mary of Scotland” (with Katharine Hepburn as Mary and Florence Eldridge as Elizabeth).

This movie won six Oscars , including Best Picture, Director, and Actor.

Chariots of Fire

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

A+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for adult situations and language
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense moments of competition
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	1981
Date Released to DVD:	July 9, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00284AVN

In honor of the 2012 Olympics in London, this 1981 classic and winner of the Oscar for Best Picture has been reissued.

This is the true story of two athletes who raced in the 1924 Olympics, one a privileged Jewish student at Cambridge (Ben Cross as Harold Abrahams), the other a missionary from Scotland (Ian Charleson as Eric Liddell). Wonderfully evocative of the time and place, with superb performances, the movie shows us the source of the runners’ determination, for one a need to prove his worth to himself and the society that discriminates against him, for the other, a way of connecting to God.

The movie begins with the memorial service for Harold Abrahams, and then goes back to his first day at Cambridge, just after World War I. A speaker reminds the entering class that they must achieve for themselves and for those who were lost in the war. Abrahams is a bit arrogant, but finds friends and impresses the whole university by being the first to meet a long-term challenge and race all the way around the quad within the twelve strokes of the clock at noon.

Liddell is deeply committed to missionary work. But when his sister asks him to give up running so that he can go with her, he explains that “I believe God made me for a purpose. He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.”

Abrahams is devastated when he loses to Liddell, saying he won’t race unless he can win. But his girlfriend reminds him that he can’t win unless he races. Both Abrahams and Liddell make the Olympic team. There is a crisis when Liddell’s event is scheduled for a Sunday, because he will not run on the Sabbath. But Lord Lindsay (Nigel Havers) graciously allows Liddell his place in a different event, “just for the pleasure of seeing you run,” and both Liddell and Abrahams win.

Both of the athletes must make difficult choices with a great deal of opposition. One uses a coach (who isn’t even English), in defiance of tradition and expectations. The other resists the urging of his sister, the person he loves most, who wants him to quit racing and defies the Prince of Wales, who wants him to race on the Sabbath.

One of the themes of the movie is the problems that the Jewish athlete has dealing with the prejudice of society. The other athlete has to confront the conflict between the dictates of his religion and the requirements of the sport (including the entreaties of the heir to the throne) when he is asked to compete on the Sabbath.

Families who watch this movie should talk about these questions: Why was running so important to these men? Was it different for different athletes? Why does Harold Abrahams think of quitting when he loses to Liddell? Have you ever felt that way? What did you do? Why doesn’t Eric’s sister want him to race? Why does he race despite her objections? Why don’t the teachers at Harold Abraham’s school think it is appropriate to have a coach? Would anyone think that today?

This movie deservedly won the Oscars for best picture, screenplay, costume design, and music.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy a two-part made for television miniseries called “The First Olympics — Athens 1896,” about the American team entering the first modern Olympics in 1896. It features Louis Jourdan (of “Gigi”), David Caruso (of the original cast of television’s “NYPD Blue”) and David Ogden Stiers (of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”). While it does not have the resonance and meaning (or the production values) of “Chariots of Fire,” it is heartwarming, funny, exciting, and a lovely period piece. Not currently available on video, it usually shows up on television around the time of Olympic competitions. An extremely silly movie about the first modern Olympics is “It Happened in Athens,” with Jayne Mansfield and real-life Olympic athlete Bob Mathias.

“Miracle on Ice,” another made for television movie, is the true story of the 1980 U.S. hockey team, which astonished the world at the Olympics in Lake Placid. Yet another Olympic made for television movie, “The Golden Moment,” is the story of a romance between a Soviet gymnast and an American athlete. Its primary charm is the fact that it takes place at an Olympics in which, in real life, the U.S. never competed — that was the year the U.S. protested the Soviet invasion of Afganistan by boycotting the Moscow Olympics.

See also “Cool Runnings” about the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team, “The Bob Mathias Story,” with the real-life decathalon champion playing himself, “The Jesse Owens Story,” with Dorian Harewood as the legendary athlete, and “Babe” with Susan Clark as Babe Deidrickson Zaharias.

On the silly side, try “Animalympics,” an animated spoof of the Olympics with some comical moments, and the very funny “Million Dollar Legs,” with W.C. Fields as the President of Klopstockia, a country entering the Olympics.

And of course Bud Greenspan’s documentaries about the Olympics are always worth watching, for the stories and the personalities as much as for the athletic achievements.

Edison, the Man

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

“Plot: The movie begins with a dinner in 1929 honoring the “”Golden Jubilee of Light,”” the anniversary of the invention of the electric light bulb. But the guest of honor has not yet left home. He is being interviewed by two high school students, telling them that success is ninety-nine percent perspiration and one percent inspiration, and that the most valuable thing in the world is time, because all the money in the world won’t buy one minute of it.

Related Tags:

Based on a true story Biography

Enigma

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

One of the most important contributions to the Allied victory in World War II was a code-breaking operation that was so secret it was not revealed until 30 years later. Their deciphering of the Enigma code developed by the Germans shortened the war by as much as a year.

This is the story of the people who worked at a huge and historic estate called Bletchley to unlock the unlockable. They had to solve a puzzle considered impenetrable because it was so complex that it could never have been decoded by the human brain. What the Germans never anticipated was that the British would think up the beginnings of the modern day computer and develop a “thinking machine” to sort through billions of complex computations and find the equivalent of a needle buried in one of millions of haystacks.

The essentials of the story are true, but the characters in the movie are fictional. As he did with “Shakespeare in Love,” screenwriter/playwright Tom Stoppard brilliantly interweaves the real and the imaginary to illuminate not only his characters’ era but our own.

The central figure in this story is Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott), a brilliant mathematician with a stunning grasp of numerical relationships. His grasp of human relationships is a little shaky, however. When we first meet him, he is returning to Bletchley after a breakdown. He was shattered by a brief, overwhelming affair with Claire (Saffron Burrows), a co-worker who seduced and then abandoned him. His superiors do not want him back, but he may be their best hope for breaking the German’s new code, the Shark, before a group of U-boats meet up with American convoys carrying desperately needed supplies.

The reason the Germans are using a new code is that they found out that the British had broken the Enigma. Meanwhile, Claire has disappeared. Figuring out where she is and whether there is a connection between her disappearance and the leak to the Germans is a puzzle that is as important to Tom as decoding the Shark.

He teams up with Claire’s roommate Hester (Kate Winslet) to find out what happened to Claire. As they search for clues, they are watched by Wigram (Jeremy Northern), a sleek secret agent investigating Tom and his team to see if one of them is a traitor.

Stoppard is fascinated with puzzles, wordplay, secrets, and stories within stories, all of which lend themselves very well to the Bletchley code-breakers. The movie brilliantly depicts the desperate atmosphere and heart-breaking dedication of the people who knew that their success – or failure – could do more to determine the outcome of the war than a thousand soldiers with guns.

The performances are excellent, particularly Northern, whose single syllable on entering Tom’s room, “Bliss!” gives us his character’s history from tony prep school through too many compromises. He is a man who has had to sacrifice what he once thought of as honor to serve a greater cause, has had to betray in order to be loyal, and has had to keep too many secrets. Winslet’s only failing is her entirely unsuccessful effort to look dowdy. But she and Scott are marvelous at showing us something we seldom see in movies, really smart people using their intelligence.

Parents should know that the movie has some sexual references and situations (brief nudity). Claire seduces just about every man she meets. There are some very tense scenes, including graphic images of slaughtered bodies in a mass grave.

The movie raises a number of moral dilemmas that are well worth discussion. When it becomes clear that there is no way to save the American supply ships in time, the code-breakers debate whether it is right to use what they know about the ships’ positions to help them calculate the keys to break the code. What are the best arguments for each side? Who was right? The characters lie and there are a number of betrayals in the movie – more than some members of the audience may be able to sort through on the first viewing – and it is worth talking about how people decide whom to trust and how much evidence they need before they change their minds.

Families who enjoy this movie should read about the real key figure at Bletchley, the truly enigmatic Alan Turing. His artificial intelligence test is still the standard used today.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy reading Between Silk and Cyanide, a wonderfully entertaining memoir by Leo Marks, who worked on creating codes during this era. (Fans of 84 Charing Cross Road will enjoy the fact that Leo Marks is the son of man who owned the bookstore at that address.) The complicated issues of uneasy alliances and tragic choices are explored in Kurt Vonnegut’s classic novel, Mother Night. You can also see an exciting but highly fictionalized version of the capture of the Enigma machine (in real life, it was the Brits, not the Americans) in U-571.

Murder by Numbers

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

In 1924 there was a murder was so shocking that it was called the crime of the century. What was chilling was the motive — not money or passion but a cool arrogance that led two wealthy young men to try to prove their superiority by showing that they could get away with murder.

The greatest criminal defense lawyer in American history was called in to defend the two brilliant young students accused of the crime. They had confessed to the crime, so all that Clarence Darrow could do was invent a legal argument that would keep his clients alive. His use of psychiatric testimony and his moving closing argument allowed Leopold and Loeb to escape the death penalty and live out their lives in prison.

That case is the inspiration for this story of two high school kids and the detective trying to solve a murder case. Sandra Bullock plays Cassie, a detective whose tough manner with her colleagues hides her sensitivity. When she refers to the murder victim by her first name, her chief reminds her that she is supposed to be identifying with the perpetrator, not the person he killed. It is the criminal’s profile she needs to study.

Cassie has a new partner, Sam (Ben Chaplin). Cassie always has a new partner because no one will stay with her long enough to work on a second case. At first, it seems as though clever police work has led Sam to the killer. And when Cassie insists that the solution is at the same time too neat (the suspect is dead) and too messy (despite the convenient forensic matches of hairs and fibers, there are still unanswered questions), no one wants to listen.

There is something about the two high school kids — rich, popular Rick (Ryan Gosling) and introverted, scholarly Justin (Michael Pitt) — that bothers her.

It is easy to see why Bullock, who also produced, wanted to make this movie. She gets to play a grittier (and more wounded) character than her usual girl-next-door parts, and she has a couple of showy scenes, but the movie feels predictable, even manufactured, a sort of movie by numbers.

Parents should know that the movie has some graphic violence including murders and domestic abuse. Characters use very strong language, drink, use drugs, and smoke. A character has an exploitive sexual encounter that is secretly videotaped. Cassie has sex with Sam but will not allow him to get close to her. There is a homosexual connection between Justin and Rick. The movie’s tension and creepiness may upset some viewers.

Families who see this movie should talk about the role parental neglect might have played in creating a need in Rick and Justin to do something angry and destructive and the way that two people can spur each other on to do things that neither of them could have imagined alone. Why was becoming a detective a good or bad way for Cassie to respond to her past? Did the detectives lie to the suspects? Is that fair? Families may also want to talk about the famous “prisoner’s dilemma”, which we see here as the police question the two boys in different rooms so that each one feels pressure to confess first.

Families who enjoy this movie might like to read Clarence Darrow’s famous closing argument at the Leopold and Loeb trial or take a look at this history of the case. Other movies based on Leopold and Loeb include Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope and Compulsion, with Orson Welles in the Darrow role.