Review of Becket (1964) by Ross P — 08 May 2007

Henry II is portrayed as someone who wanted love and Becket as someone.

Who wanted honour. Neither Becket nor Henry could link with the real.

Things as both of them were mentally tied to top-down power structures,.

Structures which empty the sovereign individual of self and suck it up.

Into the alienated lives of desperation we see all around us.

As for speculation about the sexual proclivities of aristocrats past, I.

Often wonder whether there is some not so hidden agenda at work--not.

That I doubt that there were homosexual adventures in the past. It's.

Just a question of the possibility of historical accuracy in these.

Cases. Jean Anouilh's Henry II may have had some homosexual tendencies.

They didn't appear to me in the filmed version of "Becket", but.

Then,that's me. Yes, Henry wanted Becket's love; but not in the carnal.

Sense. He wanted it in the power sense--confusing absolute loyalty with.

Love. He wanted Becket to give up his subjectivity, to become an object.

Of his lord's power and Becket was pleased to do that until Henry made.

The grand mistake of putting Becket under the domination of what Thomas.

Perceived as a greater power. Becket ultimately refused Henry's demand.

For total obedience when he discovered "God" to whom he granted his.

"love", his servility , under the guise of finding his "honour". Many.

Have gone down this blind alley of reified thinking throughout history,.

In vain attempts to regain their lost humanity. They know not of having.

Given it away to a grand abstraction. The delusional "Jesus" O'Toole.

Once played in "The Ruling Class" observed that he knew that he was Him.

When he discovered one day when he was praying that he was talking to.

Himself. Becket transferred his self-alienated love to his God while.

His more human, sensual affections were always weighted toward his.

People who, according to the movie script, were the Saxons. Even so,for.

Burton's Becket, obedience to perceived authority would always came.

Before human solidarity.

O'Toole's Henry II was given the best, blackest, most humorously human.

Lines in "Becket", while poor Richard had to play the Idealist, losing.

Himself and his life in an attempt to save the god of his own socially.

Engineered imagination from defilement.

Empress Matilda: Oh, if I were a man! King Henry II: Thank God, madam,.

He gave you breasts! An asset from which I derived not the slightest.

Benefit.

King Henry II: Don't be nervous, Bishop. I'm not asking for absolution.

I've something far worse than a sin on my conscience: a mistake.

King Henry II: Let us drink, gentlemen. Let us drink, till we roll.

Under the table in vomit and oblivion.

King Henry II: Your body, madam, was a desert that duty forced me to.

Wander in alone. But you have never been a wife to me!

King Henry II: He's read books, you know, it's amazing. He's drunk and.

Wenched his way through London but he's thinking all the time.

King Henry II: So what in most people is morality, in you it's just an.

Exercise in... what's the word?

Thomas a Becket: Aesthetics.

King Henry II: Yes, that's the word. Always "aesthetics.".

King Henry II: There. That's the Great Seal of England. Don't lose it;.

Without the seal, there's no more England, and we'll all have to pack.

Up and go back to Normandy.

King Henry II: I'm suddenly very intelligent. It probably comes from.

Making love to that French girl last night.

King Henry II: Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?

King Henry II: Am I the strongest or am I not?

Thomas a Becket: You are today, but one must never drive one's enemy to despair; it makes him strong. Gentleness is better politics, it saps virility. A good occupational force must never crush. It must corrupt.

King Henry II: Becket is the only intelligent man in my kingdom, and.

He's against me!

To be sure, the King, the Norman aristocrat got his taste of the.

Whippings he so freely gave to his Saxon dogs, (aka his subjects).

Thus, an interesting turn of the power tables frames the film: the.

Church militant lashing the State, in certain prescribed portions. And.

So the class cultural power game of dominance and submission goes : The.

Standard albeit confused love of dominance/submission and reification.