Classically Abby - HUSBAND V. WIFE MOVIE REVIEW： BECKET ｜｜ What did we really think？？

00:00:00.000 Hello, beautiful ladies and handsome gentlemen, and welcome to today's video where we're going to be doing husband versus wife movie reviews. 0.83

00:00:07.000 Today we're going to be doing the movie Beckett, which was directed by Peter Glenville.

00:00:11.000 What do you think?

00:00:13.000 Oh, we're right off to the core of it.

00:00:16.000 What are we attacking first?

00:00:17.000 I don't know. Should we talk about the plot first? Or do you want to, like...

00:00:20.000 I'm going to give it over here.

00:00:21.000 Okay, you give the overview of the plot.

00:00:22.000 I'm going to give it over here.

00:00:23.000 We are in 1100 England.

00:00:26.000 We have the Norman conquering elite who came over in 1066.

00:00:31.000 The great-grandson of the king who came over and conquered all the native Britons. 0.74

00:00:36.000 This king, Henry II, is in command now.

00:00:39.000 His right-hand man, his best friend, is Thomas Beckett, a native Saxon who Henry has uplifted to the nobility, has made a noble.

00:00:49.000 It's controversial.

00:00:50.000 So real quick pause.

00:00:52.000 The movie of Beckett isn't historically accurate.

00:00:54.000 So Beckett himself was not actually Saxon, but...

00:00:57.000 He was Norman.

00:00:58.000 The movie is based on a play called Beckett.

00:01:02.000 The play itself was historically inaccurate based upon the plausible, apparently, notion at the time it was written that maybe Beckett was Saxon.

00:01:12.000 When the playwright was asked, oh, but isn't he actually Norman?

00:01:16.000 He said, uh, something to the effect of, right now, history has decided he's Norman, but I'm writing this in case history thinks again that he's Saxon.

00:01:24.000 Right.

00:01:25.000 The old archbishop dies.

00:01:27.000 Henry II thinks he has the cleverest idea ever, and he has his best friend, his chancellor of England, nominated to be the replacement wife.

00:01:35.000 The movie is how the rest of that plays out.

00:01:37.000 Now that he's been given religious responsibility, he discovers for himself deep well of religious sentiment and honor and that he won't betray his religious mission.

00:01:50.000 Right.

00:01:51.000 Being steward of the Catholic Church in England for the sake of what the king wants as an expedient thing.

00:01:56.000 Spoiler alert!

00:01:57.000 Spoiler alert!

00:01:58.000 For something that happened 900 years ago.

00:02:00.000 Beckett is killed.

00:02:01.000 Oh, yeah.

00:02:02.000 At the end of the movie.

00:02:03.000 Also at the beginning of the movie.

00:02:04.000 I wanted to talk about the, because you're starting to get into it, the, um, really intense relationship and chemistry in a way.

00:02:12.000 Yes.

00:02:13.000 Between, uh, the two main actors, who are Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, and in the script, in the story, are Henry II and Thomas Beckett.

00:02:21.000 Peter O'Toole was incredibly cast.

00:02:24.000 I mean, these are two of the best actors of their time, and they're kind of at the peak of their performances.

00:02:32.000 They're both really incredible Shakespearean actors, and even though this isn't Shakespeare, they're using all of the tools that they had, um, been trained with to, to really delve into these characters.

00:02:47.000 Yes.

00:02:48.000 And, what I found impressive about it, and it took me aback.

00:02:53.000 Yeah.

00:02:54.000 Is that both men, they play their parts with a manfulness, a confidence, a charisma, a stridency.

00:03:02.000 So you get the full range of emotions of the character, but you don't get that kind of over-acted sentimentality that people do as acting nowadays.

00:03:12.000 I, you see a lot of actors in movies, especially male actors, and it's, it's either guys who can't act, and so it's more of an action movie thing, or a CW hunk type thing.

00:03:21.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:03:22.000 But, when it comes to a grown man who has some measure of responsibility, some measure of a cause that he represents, it doesn't come across, it just, it doesn't feel like there's a seriousness there.

00:03:35.000 Yeah.

00:03:36.000 It feels kind of mawkish.

00:03:37.000 It feels, uh, modern, or sentimental, or this, or that.

00:03:40.000 It's just so over-performed.

00:03:41.000 It doesn't seem like any of the men, the actors that we see nowadays, I, I could name a couple, I could name a couple from today, but I think that it's rare to find actors who can actually embody a king.

00:03:52.000 Yes.

00:03:53.000 Or embody a, you know, a saint, essentially, who, Thomas Becket wasn't a saint in the, in, in, at the time.

00:04:00.000 No.

00:04:01.000 But the idea of the character.

00:04:02.000 Brackably canonized.

00:04:03.000 They're, yeah, you're correct.

00:04:04.000 I think that they're both incredibly masculine, and not in the sense that we kind of mean it today, where they're built in a certain way, or they look a certain way, because that's not what it's about.

00:04:15.000 It's entirely psychological, and kind of social role, and purpose-driven.

00:04:20.000 Yeah.

00:04:21.000 And that's, that's the thing to me about this movie, is its representation of characters as either tied to purpose, or not tied to purpose.

00:04:28.000 Mm-hmm.

00:04:29.000 Whereas, before he was a toady to the king, a fixer for him.

00:04:32.000 But, yeah.

00:04:33.000 Now he's found a principle worth living and dying for, instead of just kind of doing anything to preserve his own life.

00:04:40.000 And I think that the, the mastery in the filmmaking is that the movie takes its time.

00:04:46.000 It takes, I want to say, almost 40 minutes for us to just get to know Becket before he becomes Archbishop of Canterbury.

00:04:54.000 Yeah.

00:04:55.000 So you actually have time to see him as a person who thinks of himself only as a survivor, because as a Saxon, Saxons were treated very, very poorly.

00:05:05.000 And that wasn't really their land anymore.

00:05:08.000 It had been taken from them.

00:05:09.000 And so he was constantly, he says throughout the movie, he doesn't really, or at least at the beginning.

00:05:14.000 Bless you.

00:05:15.000 Excuse me.

00:05:16.000 He, um, he says that he doesn't have honor.

00:05:20.000 He doesn't recognize honor.

00:05:21.000 He doesn't know how to live with honor.

00:05:23.000 And it's because he, in my opinion, and I think that it's kind of shown throughout.

00:05:28.000 It's because he was living his life with survival as the main, the only function.

00:05:36.000 And so his honor just gets pushed to the side.

00:05:39.000 He's like that secondary, I can do that. 0.99

00:05:41.000 I can deal with this when it's important.

00:05:43.000 And it's not until he gets to the point where he's the Archbishop that he actually realizes, even though it's been this way for years, that he's not just surviving.

00:05:53.000 And so when he doesn't have to just survive, he can find purpose.

00:05:58.000 So a brief note on the way honor is used in this movie.

00:06:03.000 Honor is higher principle, purpose, anything that would give life the meaning so that you are living for something other than just the mere act of living itself.

00:06:17.000 You can imagine the comparison of, oh, if you were just, uh, yeah, if you were kept alive in a coma, are you living for something?

00:06:23.000 No, you're just, you would be preserving life that is merely the physical act of being alive versus you are alive to do something, experience something, serve something, maintain an ideal, help other people, build up a nation, honor God, any of those things.

00:06:38.000 So honor here for Thomas Beckett, he is a collaborator.

00:06:42.000 He is, um, someone who is selling out his fellow oppressed Saxon because he has the opportunity to get away with having the fine material pleasures that attend with being the King's best friend. 0.72

00:06:54.000 And a wonderful developed theme in the movie is you see him kind of ironically joining in with King Henry II in the debaucherous, disgusting things that he does.

00:07:08.000 Thomas helps him out with that, rides around with him, is a fixer for those kind of things, but you see that he is a disdain for it all.

00:07:18.000 And he hates himself for doing it, but he has no hook in to anything that he believes that he would actually do rather than this.

00:07:27.000 And so he is that kind of nihilist, well, when they'll suffer from this kind of impulse of there's nothing that I find that I can honor.

00:07:37.000 Nothing exalted that I'm willing to lower myself before and be humbled beneath to serve, but the mere act of living is so hollow.

00:07:46.000 And I recognize how kind of degraded and unfulfilling what I'm doing is that I feel this hollow emptiness, right?

00:07:52.000 I won't check out a life. I won't let myself die. I will work to preserve my own life, but the mere act of living makes me hate myself for just doing it.

00:08:00.000 And so you see him in this one foot in, one foot out kind of mentality. And it's kind of interesting because they have, he, the way the movie is structured, the way the play is structured going off what you're saying is that you see him at the beginning kind of joyfully partake in what the King is doing.

00:08:23.000 And then he sees the King actually talk about Saxon people as its.

00:08:31.000 Yes. It, dog, dog, pig. 0.99

00:08:34.000 And you see him suddenly Beckett's character starts to kind of have a change of heart.

00:08:40.000 And then slightly...

00:08:42.000 I wouldn't say entirely.

00:08:43.000 No, even though he says to the girl, like, you're, don't come.

00:08:46.000 Well, so I don't think that's a change of heart. I think that's Beckett, one foot in, one foot out. So he enjoys his debaucherous carousing with Henry II.

00:08:59.000 And then when there are quieter moments or moments in which it's not just fun and games, but instead the darker turn to it is just there.

00:09:08.000 It's when he is in the mode of recognizing and thinking about it.

00:09:12.000 And you get the sense that this is the way it's been for a while, that this is the dynamic of the relationship.

00:09:17.000 So a thing in the movie is Henry II, even after Beckett is Archbishop and opposes him, Henry II loves and adores Beckett.

00:09:27.000 And it's because he recognizes in Beckett that though Beckett, first half of the movie, doesn't have his honor, he is a man of great moral yearning and capacity wasted on serving Henry II.

00:09:40.000 So Henry...

00:09:41.000 You think Henry recognizes that?

00:09:43.000 He does, because he recognizes when his mother and his wife speak ill of Beckett, he yells at them, he eats them for it, he moans to Beckett after he causes Gwendolyn to die.

00:09:55.000 You're gonna hate me now and I can't trust you.

00:09:58.000 He yearns for Beckett's love because he knows Beckett is a man of great spiritual and moral potential.

00:10:04.000 He says that it's his friendship with Beckett that caused him to realize the idea of his empty style of living.

00:10:12.000 And so he hates Beckett now for actually acting on being moral and actually striving to live for something, which means that it's now made apparent. 0.96

00:10:20.000 And so he can't live, as he says of his barons, you know, you don't think, you just wench or whore, you drink, you fight, you take what you want. 0.96

00:10:29.000 The thought goes through your heads, you're like hounds, I envy you, I wish I were like you. 0.93

00:10:35.000 Instead Beckett has ruined me and now that Beckett has actually taken moral action and won't just bring himself down to Henry II's level,

00:10:44.000 Henry feels acutely the comparison, kind of the spurning that came with it.

00:10:49.000 And because Henry II won't act morally, he won't uplift himself, he will remain a utterly insufficient moral person,

00:10:59.000 it burns and rots him and so he needs to tear down Beckett, he needs Beckett to love him and validate him,

00:11:04.000 or he needs to just get rid of Beckett so that he doesn't feel the comparison.

00:11:07.000 I feel like there's a couple layers to the King's obsession with, with him.

00:11:12.000 The, I think that the relationship between Henry and Beckett is also, like that obsession also has to do with the fact that Beckett is unattainable.

00:11:21.000 Beckett talks about how he can't love and how he doesn't find love until he finds God.

00:11:29.000 And when he, when Henry talks about him, he, he can't not use the word love.

00:11:36.000 He has to express how much he loves Beckett.

00:11:38.000 And Beckett was never able to feel love for Henry.

00:11:42.000 And I think that for Henry, when he could have everything he wanted,

00:11:46.000 and he had, in a way, Beckett's body and mind, but he never had his heart.

00:11:52.000 Because Beckett was always there for him, but not actually there for him.

00:11:57.000 So I'm going to hook off this.

00:11:59.000 So the love of God phrase here, really important, because what does it mean to love God, at least in this context?

00:12:07.000 It means to recognize purpose in God and validate that the purpose there is, is in God, in serving God and walking with God.

00:12:19.000 Whatever that is thought to mean, that's what it is.

00:12:22.000 Love of God is the recognition of the value of God and necessity of trying to follow through on that purpose.

00:12:28.000 So love of the person here is finding purpose in that person.

00:12:35.000 Whatever the relationship is.

00:12:37.000 It's you find your meaning, you find the justification of what you're doing with your time on earth.

00:12:42.000 The very purpose of your life is in that person in a way, right?

00:12:45.000 Yeah.

00:12:46.000 You love your child.

00:12:47.000 The way in which one loves a child is the sense that it is for this that I live.

00:12:51.000 You love a spouse.

00:12:52.000 One of the most relevant ways in which you love your spouse, and what that means is, it is for this that I live.

00:12:58.000 So, Beckett cannot love Henry because Beckett is a collaborationist.

00:13:05.000 He is there for the finery, the joy, the material pleasures.

00:13:10.000 For the survival.

00:13:11.000 For the survival, and survival is a big thing here.

00:13:13.000 Like, there's no ethic in the survival of Beckett because he could be poor and on any given day beaten, abused, plundered, or murdered by one of the barons of Henry II.

00:13:26.000 Instead, he's joined in on that, so it won't happen to him and he has a good time of things.

00:13:30.000 But he's a smart enough man with enough of an innate moral instinct that he recognizes how hollow that is.

00:13:37.000 So, he has no love for that which he does.

00:13:39.000 And he hates himself because he knows that he himself is not worth loving because there's no purpose in his own life.

00:13:45.000 You can love your life in the sense that it is a life for serving a purpose that you love.

00:13:49.000 So, love of God can lead to love of someone.

00:13:51.000 Yeah.

00:13:52.000 Stuff like that.

00:13:53.000 And so, he just kind of coldly detached from Henry.

00:13:57.000 Yeah.

00:13:58.000 He takes like an ironical amusement.

00:13:59.000 Even coldly detached from Gwendolyn.

00:14:01.000 For all four minutes of it.

00:14:03.000 It is interesting, isn't it?

00:14:04.000 For all one scene of it.

00:14:05.000 I was going to say, isn't it interesting that this big important moment you would think could be a huge plot point, or is a huge plot point, is only given this much screen time.

00:14:15.000 And is not revisited, and is not discussed ever again.

00:14:17.000 But it's because they, that's not the focus.

00:14:19.000 The focus is between him and Henry.

00:14:20.000 They don't even want to get to, in my opinion.

00:14:23.000 It's not about any woman in the movie.

00:14:24.000 Yes.

00:14:25.000 It's like, let's not get into any romance.

00:14:27.000 Let's not try and fuzzy, make the issue fuzzy.

00:14:30.000 Is this the greatest bromance movie of all time?

00:14:32.000 Maybe.

00:14:33.000 Maybe.

00:14:34.000 It's a tragedy.

00:14:35.000 It's the Bromio and Juliet of movies.

00:14:37.000 Well, I guess you could say, I mean, I also think that Frodo and Sam have a Bromio, a Bromio and Juliet relationship.

00:14:44.000 Not like this.

00:14:45.000 Not like that.

00:14:46.000 They save the world.

00:14:48.000 It's a whole different thing.

00:14:49.000 They don't save the world.

00:14:50.000 They do.

00:14:51.000 They save one civilization.

00:14:53.000 It's their world.

00:14:54.000 One set of species.

00:14:55.000 One set of species.

00:14:56.000 What?

00:14:57.000 They save the whole world.

00:14:58.000 The orc and goblins would be alive. 0.99

00:14:59.000 It would be their world.

00:15:00.000 It'd still be around.

00:15:01.000 Okay.

00:15:02.000 Nevermind.

00:15:03.000 Not totally unrelated.

00:15:04.000 So back to the.

00:15:05.000 Yeah.

00:15:06.000 Bromio and Juliet.

00:15:07.000 It's that there's a tragic falling apart of a friendship, except that it was doomed from

00:15:13.000 the beginning because there was an asymmetrical basis for why they were close.

00:15:19.000 As degraded as Henry's, as degraded as Henry's approach to life is and what it draws out of

00:15:26.000 Beckett in terms of their actions in the world, such as with women or whatever.

00:15:29.000 Yeah.

00:15:30.000 The relationship between the two of them, what's relevant concern is on as high an operating

00:15:36.000 plane as you can get of purpose for a life itself.

00:15:40.000 Right.

00:15:41.000 Right.

00:15:42.000 Right.

00:15:43.000 There's no higher question to ask because it's the first question of why every other question

00:15:48.000 would stem from that.

00:15:49.000 But if you answer why a specific way, then everything's going to go one way.

00:15:52.000 If you have no answer for why, then what is there?

00:15:56.000 There is no sex next step because there's nothing to justify it.

00:16:00.000 There would not be anything.

00:16:01.000 Yeah.

00:16:02.000 So the why of each man trying to pursue his purpose, except Henry doesn't, hates himself

00:16:06.000 for it, then hates Beckett for making him realize he hates himself for it.

00:16:10.000 It's absolutely fantastic.

00:16:11.000 Yeah.

00:16:12.000 No, it's a, it's a great movie.

00:16:13.000 And I think that the, you can analyze it.

00:16:15.000 I feel like we could talk about it for a while.

00:16:18.000 Yes.

00:16:19.000 I think that what I'd like to touch on is kind of more of the cinematic elements of it,

00:16:24.000 because I think we talked about the, the story and the writing and the acting, which

00:16:31.000 is all fantastic.

00:16:32.000 But the costumes are incredible.

00:16:34.000 The pageantry.

00:16:35.000 Yes.

00:16:36.000 Oh, the pageantry.

00:16:38.000 The, um, the actual.

00:16:40.000 The set design.

00:16:41.000 Yeah.

00:16:42.000 The set design is really gorgeous.

00:16:43.000 The whole movie feels like it was shot on a high budget and it feels like it was happy.

00:16:48.000 It's happening in that time period.

00:16:49.000 The phrase maybe from back then, I'm taking this from the way that they spoke about it

00:16:54.000 in Hail Caesar.

00:16:55.000 So grain of salt, but a prestige picture.

00:16:57.000 Yeah.

00:16:58.000 This came across like there was a lot to do.

00:17:01.000 A triple A production that would be marquee figuratively and literally.

00:17:05.000 It's a dark movie in the sense that what Henry does and what his character represents

00:17:10.000 and him being in command as the ruler and just the grotesque animal aspect of him is so morally

00:17:19.000 revolting and self aware.

00:17:22.000 So that it really turns your stomach, but the movie doesn't dwell on it.

00:17:28.000 There's no sting.

00:17:29.000 Dun, dun, dun.

00:17:30.000 The people around him go.

00:17:32.000 Oh, and speak about it.

00:17:33.000 Hush.

00:17:34.000 No, because he's still the king.

00:17:35.000 He's the king.

00:17:36.000 And it's also the times in a certain sense of, yes, the people around the king are the

00:17:40.000 guys who get to enjoy it and participate in it with them.

00:17:43.000 Yeah.

00:17:44.000 His own mother.

00:17:45.000 Well, she's the mother of a king. 0.99

00:17:46.000 She's grotesquely immoral as well. 0.99

00:17:47.000 His own wife, immoral as well as kids. 1.00

00:17:50.000 Little, uh, little rats as well. 0.96

00:17:53.000 Like, it's just the movie doesn't need to have the world unrealistically bounce back at you.

00:18:00.000 This is dark.

00:18:01.000 Don't you know it's dark?

00:18:02.000 Again, the movie assumes so much more intelligence from its audience.

00:18:06.000 It's a story that you can pick up on without it being a moral story.

00:18:11.000 What's, um, what's the phrase?

00:18:14.000 You'll remember the answer a lot more if you can do the math.

00:18:17.000 So, two plus two equals four is nowhere near as memorable as two plus two equals.

00:18:22.000 Yeah.

00:18:23.000 And if you fill in four, it sticks out in your head.

00:18:25.000 Right.

00:18:26.000 Not that you need to memorize that, but, you know, you apply the concept.

00:18:29.000 So, this movie, I've, you know, put a bow on it.

00:18:32.000 Yeah.

00:18:33.000 Uh, this movie is two plus two equals, like, the script.

00:18:38.000 Yeah.

00:18:39.000 I think that style of prestige picture from that time, because we saw a man for all seasons.

00:18:43.000 And it was also very similar.

00:18:45.000 It doesn't talk down to its audience.

00:18:47.000 No.

00:18:48.000 It's also not like a high concept movie with abstract thinking or an inscrutable art house

00:18:54.000 style of we're going to just not tell you things and you take away your own meaning.

00:18:58.000 No, it's, it's right there in front of you.

00:19:00.000 It has one meaning.

00:19:01.000 It's just that because it's realistically subtle and portrays people as people, it's that

00:19:08.000 much more compelling.

00:19:09.000 Right.

00:19:10.000 So, yes.

00:19:11.000 I, I think that this movie, I'm trying to think of something that I didn't like.

00:19:17.000 The last half went third dragged a little bit.

00:19:23.000 I can see that.

00:19:24.000 And I can see that there's, you know, you kind of have to go in with the expectation

00:19:29.000 that it is a play.

00:19:30.000 Yeah.

00:19:31.000 First and foremost.

00:19:32.000 And not a film written for the screen.

00:19:36.000 And that means that there's going to be a lot of dialogue, which is really important.

00:19:40.000 But as compared to movies written nowadays, it's going to take some time for things to

00:19:45.000 develop.

00:19:46.000 And as well, there are the moments that happen in the church where they show the entirety of

00:19:52.000 him becoming Archbishop.

00:19:53.000 I didn't even mind that.

00:19:54.000 That was not something I've minded.

00:19:57.000 I can imagine that it might seem kind of like, ugh, why do we have to sit through this?

00:20:02.000 And there is a, there's a purpose that you want to see the gravity of this moment for

00:20:07.000 him.

00:20:08.000 But it is, it can feel, yeah, I think it can feel a little bit slow.

00:20:12.000 Yeah.

00:20:13.000 And there were a couple of shots that took me out of the movie I thought that were a

00:20:15.000 little funny looking, but like there were, there was twice in the movie that they shot

00:20:22.000 Peter O'Toole in the foreground and then the person he was talking to in the background.

00:20:27.000 And it looked slightly odd.

00:20:29.000 So would you recommend this movie?

00:20:32.000 I'm going to say.

00:20:34.000 Would I recommend this movie?

00:20:37.000 Are we at the point where people still don't know whether or not we would recommend this

00:20:41.000 movie?

00:20:42.000 Would you recommend this movie audience?

00:20:44.000 Based on what you've been talking about?

00:20:47.000 Based on just the hearsay aspect of, oh, these two people were rambling on about the movie.

00:20:52.000 Would you recommend it to a third party?

00:20:54.000 I'd recommend it.

00:20:55.000 I loved it so much that based on the way we were talking about the amount of love we

00:21:00.000 have, you should recommend it to another person before you watch it.

00:21:05.000 Get another person.

00:21:07.000 Watch it with them.

00:21:08.000 We hope you enjoyed this video.

00:21:10.000 Please subscribe to my blog, subscribe to my channel, and we'll see you in the next

00:21:13.000 one.

00:21:14.000 Bye.

00:21:15.000 Bye.

Classically Abby - March 26, 2019

HUSBAND V. WIFE MOVIE REVIEW： BECKET ｜｜ What did we really think？？

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