The King’s Speech, and the Weinstein Brothers

14 Responses to The King’s Speech, and the Weinstein Brothers

1. brendan says:

   January 6, 2011 at 11:33 am

   This is great Sheil. Really made me want to see the film, too…I like how you review ‘King’s Speech’ in there but cover a whole different topic at the same time. Nifty!

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2. sheila says:

   January 6, 2011 at 11:51 am

   Thanks, Bren! It’s really interesting to watch this whole Weinstein thing keep developing. In a way, it’s same ol’ same ol’ – but it was that guy sitting next to me at the movie that really made it all LAND for me. How, when they ‘get it right’, they really get it right.

   I think Cash would really enjoy this one too!

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3. brendan says:

   January 6, 2011 at 12:04 pm

   I was just going to ask you that…maybe this weekend we’ll go. Melody and I are going to see ‘Black Swan’ with Larry and Fielding Friday night and Cash has said he wants to see ‘True Grit’ again so we might go see that Saturday. We’ll see…

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4. sheila says:

   January 6, 2011 at 12:10 pm

   I think he might really enjoy it. It’s VERY funny at times, and I think Cash’s sense of the absurd would really click with it. Like, a king in a waistcoat and top hat lying on his back, singing at the top of his lungs, because that’s what he needs to do for his training. You know, it’s very funny.

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5. Charles J. Sperling says:

   January 6, 2011 at 12:34 pm

   This is your third review, and it’s your third winner; in fact, it may be your best (to date — always another rainbow, you know), because while it covers “The King’s Speech,” it also elaborates on your “crowd pleasing” theme from an earlier post. Good reviews and essays always do a little more than you’d expect.

   Now, three makes for a hat trick, and I have no hat at hand — but I would like to give you a poem. So here’s Walter Savage Landor on the four Georges who came before George VI and his farher:

   “The Georges”

   “George the First was always reckoned
   Vile, but viler George the Second;
   And what mortal ever heard
   Any good of George the Third?
   When from earth the Fourth descended
   (God be praised!) the Georges ended.”

   George V and George VI were both second sons who came to the throne: the former became his father’s heir after the Duke of Clarence died in 1892; the latter succeeded his abdicating brother. (For what it’s worth, George III was the grandson, not the son, of George II.) As a younger son myself, I have a fondness for both kings, and think that they allowed England to dodge some bullets. The life of the Duke of Windsor suggests that he would not have been the right monarch for England during World War II (he spent most of it as Governor of the Bahamas); what I’ve read about the Duke of Clarence always makes me think of Jack the Ripper, which is a good recommendation for becoming Peter O’Toole in “The Ruling Class,” but not very reassuring for much else.

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   • Gillian says:

     January 7, 2011 at 11:22 am

     Thank you for posting this a lovely poem! We highlighted it over on Capital, under Sheila’s review.

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     • Gillian says:

       January 7, 2011 at 11:23 am

       Also, I agree, Sheila’s reviews have been lovely. A hat trick with no trickery, since she’s truly talented.

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       • sheila says:

         January 7, 2011 at 3:59 pm

         Gillian – thank you so much on both counts, for the compliment to my writing – and (on Charles’ behalf – who is an awesome commenter here) for adding the poem Charles shared (and the other information he provided) into the comments-section of the review over at CNY.

         I really appreciate it!

         Reply
6. sheila says:

   January 6, 2011 at 12:40 pm

   Charles – thank you! Yes, I was definitely working on that whole “crowd-pleasing” theme for a couple of days.

   David/Edward, the abdicating son (played by Guy Pearce) does NOT come off well in this picture – he’s a dandy and a bit of a fool. Nobody can believe that he would give up the throne to marry that …. divorced …. AMERICAN. And in such a tense time!

   I was interested in the political aspect of all of it and the film kind of touches on that, the sense of the growing threat of Hitler, a cameo by Churchill, etc. – Neville Chamberlain, all that – although the stammering-aspect was really the filter for all of those events. Could the man stand tall against these folks with such a disability?

   So there’s the whole underdog thing, which has been done to death, but Firth is so good you forgive a lot. At least I do!

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7. sheila says:

   January 6, 2011 at 12:44 pm

   Oh, and mistake: the King’s Speech is still rated R. But only because of that one scene of profanity. It would be totally appropriate for teens/tweens. There were kids and teens in the audience on Saturday. There’s no sex/violence in the film – and the swears are used in a comic situation. Ridiculous!

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8. sheila says:

   January 6, 2011 at 1:50 pm

   Charles – yes, we first see Edward/Prince David landing a small biplane in a field, and leaping out of it, in a dashing aviator helmet and goggles. And almost immediately he starts confiding in his brother about how much he “loves Wallis”. Ha. Pearce is very good, and there’s a cruel moment when he teases his brother about the stutter. And it certainly makes the case that he was not at all up to the task, besides the whole in-love-with-divorced-American thing.

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9. Charles J. Sperling says:

   January 6, 2011 at 2:53 pm

   A profile of the King in *Time* in 1944 observed that George “seems a bigger man” than his actual height, so he did manage to stand tall in the end. Quaint and curious war is: it lets all sorts of genies out of the bottle.

   American wives are fine for sons of dukes (Lord Silverbridge, the son of the Duke of Omnium, marries one in Anthony Trollope’s *Duke’s Children*; Lord Randolph Churchill married one, and around 1900, Mark Twain introduced Winston to American audiences as “the son of a British father and an American mother — the perfect man!”), but not for princes and kings, apparently. While Sir Joseph Porter, the Ruler of the Queen’s Navee, notes that “love levels all ranks,” he does clarify it to mean that “it does to a considerable extent, but it does not level them as much as that.”

   “David” (who wasn’t heir-conditioned, according to the Duchess, hence their lack of children) does become more and more dislikable upon closer scrutiny, and yet I still find the “without the help and support of the woman I love” speech he gave after his abdication very moving. And he seems so nice in “Chariots of Fire,” certainly compared to Patrick Magee’s grumpy old man!

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10. sheila says:

    January 6, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    God, I love how Porter says something, and then totally pulls back from it with the wonderful: “it does to a considerable extent, but it does not level them as much as that.”

    hahahaha Good god, man, you go too far!! Love levels ranks “but it does not level them as much as that.”

    I only know about Edward as a peripheral character in my WWII reading, and the event of the abdication is obviously known to me, but the way The King’s Speech lays it out is that it was really the DIVORCE that was the no-no. They would have been fine (in this version) if he had carried on with her in private, set her up in a little cottage as a mistress – but she couldn’t be “presented at court” having been divorced.

    And I agree: the guy had balls to do what he did. His own abdication speech was emotional and honest – and boy, it took guts. And clearly, the marriage worked. They lasted. If that isn’t “against all odds” I don’t know what is!

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11. sheila says:

    January 6, 2011 at 3:23 pm

    Oh, and Eve Best – cast as Wallis Simpson – is creepily perfect, and you wouldn’t think she would be when you just see pics of her on red carpets and at other events. Best seems quite natural and almost athletic in her beauty in real life. But the makeup, coiled hair, the expression, the posture – all of it makes her look EXACTLY like those photos of Wallis back in the day. You knew who she was immediately, although you just glimpse her across a crowded room at a house party.

    Reply

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