Tonight, I watched for the first time Charlton Heston’s 1988, made for television version of “A Man for All Seasons.” So, of course, when I watch it, I’m comparing it to the 1966 film starring Paul Scofield. And that was a great movie. Great acting, all around. If I’m being honest the Scofield picture is better. But the later film is still a pleasure to watch. And that is because it is essentially the same story. Both movies are based on the same stage play and for that reason both provide the same story and characters. Even large chunks of the dialog are the same.
Both plays include an argument between Thomas More and his future son-in-law about the value of man’s law in God’s world. It’s one of my favorite parts of the play. He tried to make his daughter’s very idealistic and self-righteous fiancé understand that man’s law was made to deal with imperfect humans not angels. And without it we would all be at the mercy of the powerful.
‘William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!’
The image of the law as a windbreak that protects us from the winds of merciless powers that rule the Earth. Wonderful image. The author is a poet, I’d say and a good one.
So even though the later film is not as great as the earlier one it is true to the play and this trueness to the story, even if in the hands of less able actors still manages to provide the same general experience. There’s a satisfaction in watching a play that provides that successful theatrical effect. It draws the audience in and immerses them in the scene, in the words, in the interaction of characters that you care about and believe in for the short time that you sit there and watch and listen.
And that’s a theatrical experience. Most movies do not possess this. Because the rule of movies is, “Don’t tell them, show them.” And even a play is showing us something. But to pull together a scene where the characters are in a space together and they collide and we get to see who they are by what they say is still a very powerful experience. No special effects needed. No need for fancy camera angles. Think of how many great courtroom scenes you can think of. Or a death scene between lovers. The dramatic scene is charged with meaning and all that is needed is a poet’s soul to breathe life into it. Even mediocre actors can take a wonderful scene and give the audience the catharsis that the writer created.
But the truth is this is a relatively rare event. Out of the thousands or tens of thousands of movies that have been made in the last century or so what percentage have this quality? I’d guess it’s much less than one percent. I don’t have any figures to back this up but I doubt it’s a tenth of a percent. Most of the “entertainment” produced is awful. It has no soul. And I’m not even talking about its morality. I can imagine that art can be made that’s immoral or even amoral. But what it can’t lack is an honesty about what it’s trying to say. You can claim that the world is a meaningless maelstrom of death and destruction and out of that you can make art that could touch the human heart. Or you can show us sublime love and the selfless sacrifice of a mother for her child. And that could be art too. But mostly what we get is dreck. We might as well be watching a surveillance camera of traffic moving on a street.
I have three good movie versions of “A Christmas Carol.” And I like to watch all three of them. All three provide a close approximation of the story and therefore a similar feeling of catharsis. And likewise, there are some other classic movies that tell a story that was so good that they’ve been redone. One of Shakespeare’s plays or some other talented author’s work. So, I’ll own several versions of the same work. And seeing how different actors and directors bring the classic scenes to life is interesting to compare. But the underlying experience is based on the skill with which the story was crafted and given human meaning.
All that was a lot of words. Maybe it made sense to you. I guess it can be boiled down to the fact that there are such things as timeless classics and they exist because they resonate with something inside our brains or minds or souls. Look for these and own them so that when the crap that you can “stream” on some particular night is just too soul-deadening for you to stand you can reach for this DVD or Blu-ray or whatever technological incarnation exists and feed your soul with something that has meaning and maybe joy. Or at worst find the book.
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