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Lion in Winter
I rewatched The Lion in Winter last night, and god I love that film. It's my favorite thing--political maneuvering, scheming, manipulation--with my other favorite thing--people wanting the love of someone who can't give it and they wouldn't even believe if they did.
I commented on Barbarians at the Gate, and how it flopped because it was all dialogue. Lion in Winter is all dialogue, but with this cast--dynamite. First time I watched it, I was all about Katherine Hepburn, and she is stunning. You never know whether Eleanor is earnest or angling for something, and it doesn't seem like she even knows herself. Even her moments alone are performances. And Peter O'Toole--god. I need more Peter O'Toole in my life.
Then there's the actor playing John, who manages to make him fantastically repulsive, just through the way he holds himself. Geoffrey, who was always my favorite (come on, doesn't he seem like the best choice for king?). Timothy Dalton as Philip I. And poor Richard (Anthony Hopkins), who just seems to go through the whole movie begging people to love him. Where's the fic of the doomed love between Richard and Philip? You'd think that would be fandom catnip--underage, dubcon, lies, betrayal--but I've checked. The only story I could find was fix-it (bleurgh).
I have the soundtrack from this film--it's 36 minutes long. And that is all the music in the film--they didn't leave any out. In fact, it's more music than in the film, since it includes several choral arrangements of songs Alais sings to herself. So that's a total of 25 minutes of music in a film 135 minutes long--and five minutes of that is the credits. And those 25 minutes won the Oscar for best score!
I first saw Lion in Winter as a production at my high school, and loved it despite the clunky high-school acting. (Okay, and Geoffrey was hot--sue me!) And this film adaptation is just the pinnacle of what you could do with that material. I tried to watch the 2003 Glenn Close/Patrick Stewart version and just, no. Even with her pronounced East Coast accent, no one could be more Eleanor of Aquitane than Katherine Hepburn.
I commented on Barbarians at the Gate, and how it flopped because it was all dialogue. Lion in Winter is all dialogue, but with this cast--dynamite. First time I watched it, I was all about Katherine Hepburn, and she is stunning. You never know whether Eleanor is earnest or angling for something, and it doesn't seem like she even knows herself. Even her moments alone are performances. And Peter O'Toole--god. I need more Peter O'Toole in my life.
Then there's the actor playing John, who manages to make him fantastically repulsive, just through the way he holds himself. Geoffrey, who was always my favorite (come on, doesn't he seem like the best choice for king?). Timothy Dalton as Philip I. And poor Richard (Anthony Hopkins), who just seems to go through the whole movie begging people to love him. Where's the fic of the doomed love between Richard and Philip? You'd think that would be fandom catnip--underage, dubcon, lies, betrayal--but I've checked. The only story I could find was fix-it (bleurgh).
I have the soundtrack from this film--it's 36 minutes long. And that is all the music in the film--they didn't leave any out. In fact, it's more music than in the film, since it includes several choral arrangements of songs Alais sings to herself. So that's a total of 25 minutes of music in a film 135 minutes long--and five minutes of that is the credits. And those 25 minutes won the Oscar for best score!
I first saw Lion in Winter as a production at my high school, and loved it despite the clunky high-school acting. (Okay, and Geoffrey was hot--sue me!) And this film adaptation is just the pinnacle of what you could do with that material. I tried to watch the 2003 Glenn Close/Patrick Stewart version and just, no. Even with her pronounced East Coast accent, no one could be more Eleanor of Aquitane than Katherine Hepburn.
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I'm looking at O'Toole's filmography and trying to decide if him in musicals is a good idea or a really really bad one.
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Eleanor of Aquitaine is awesome.
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Adding to the queue....
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Of course that was years n years ago, and I was watching it late at night and sort of falling asleep, which probably killed any hope. But man, I should rewatch this...
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