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The Lion In Winter won Katherine Hepburn an Oscar for her role as Eleanor of Aquitane, the wife of King Henry II. Her rendition of the speech below was one of the factors that made the award a no-brainer for the Academy.
The screenplay also justifiably won an Oscar, for it gives Hepburn and Peter O’Toole, who plays Henry, some great scenes as they spar over their marriage, their family and the future of England. Also appearing is a young Anthony Hopkins as Prince Richard (that’s him on the left in case you don’t recognize him).
Originally a play, the title refers to Henry, who is in his last years, and to the Christmas gathering of the royal family Henry has called to choose his successor. Released in 1968, the film also clearly resonates with the year in which it was made as the Vietnam War and the political situation in the United States had an almost medieval atmosphere to them.
Perhaps one of the greatest scenes in the film occurs when Eleanor meets alone with her three now-grown sons, who neither trust each other or their parents as they maneuver to see which of them their father will choose.
The film captures probably as well as anything made for the screen the intrigue and manipulating that we associate with the Middle Ages, when brother murdered brother, father murdered son and vice versa, all in pursuit of the biggest prize of all–the crown.
Here is Hepburn’s speech, whose words screenwriter James Goldman crafted to suggest perhaps we have not progressed all that far since the barbaric times she evokes. Given the hate the brothers hold for each other and the contempt both mother and father have for all three, the speech also holds a certain irony which requires a very special tone if it is to be delivered properly. There may have been no other screen actress at the time who could have conveyed that tone as well as Hepburn.
Of course he has a knife. He’s always has a knife. We all have knives. It’s 1183 and we’re barbarians. How clear we make it.
Oh, my piglets, we are the origins of war — not history’s forces, nor the times, nor justice, nor the lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas, nor kinds of government, nor any other thing.
We are the killers.
We breed wars.
We carry it like syphilis inside. Dead bodies rot in field and stream because the living ones are rotten.
For the love of God can’t we love one another just a little?
That’s how peace begins.
We have so much to love each other for.
We have such possibilities, my children.
We could change the world.
Print Posted by: liberalamerican
