10 / 10
Official trailer
The Lion in Winter is one of the great chamber pieces in cinema, written as a stage play by James Goldman and adapted by him for the screen with all the dialogue intact. Anthony Harvey directed it. Peter O’Toole plays Henry II of England, six years older than he was when he played the same character in Becket.
Katharine Hepburn plays Eleanor of Aquitaine, his estranged queen, whom he’s kept imprisoned for ten years and now releases for Christmas court at Chinon in 1183 so they can argue about which of their three sons will inherit the kingdom.
I could listen to these people fight forever. Every line in the script is sharpened to a point, and Hepburn and O’Toole go at each other like two old prizefighters who still enjoy landing a punch. It’s a 10 because I can’t find a wasted scene anywhere in it.
The film is two hours of family members trying to destroy each other with words. Anthony Hopkins plays Richard the Lionheart in his film debut.
John Castle plays Geoffrey, the middle son who knows he won’t be chosen and is therefore the most dangerous. Nigel Terry plays John, the youngest and the favorite, who’s also the most disappointing son anyone has ever had. Timothy Dalton plays Philip II of France, in his film debut, who wants Henry’s kingdom and uses the family’s hatred against them.
Jane Merrow plays Alais, the French princess Henry has been sleeping with for years and was supposed to marry to one of his sons.
The Dialogue
The script is one of the great pieces of English-language dialogue. Goldman writes the medieval royal family the way Shakespeare writes the medieval royal family, with the difference that Goldman has been to a twentieth-century therapy session and Shakespeare hadn’t. The arguments sound modern and they sound ancient at the same time, and that’s what good historical writing always does. The characters are people you’ve met. The throne is the only difference.
Lines that have entered the language: “I’m at the breaking point. I’m in pieces. You’re losing me.” “What family doesn’t have its ups and downs.” “Of course he’s a knife. He always has a knife. We all have knives. It’s 1183 and we’re barbarians.” The barbarians line is the thesis statement of the film, delivered roughly halfway through and never built on. Goldman trusts you to keep it in mind.
The barbarians line is my favorite in the script, and Goldman is smart to drop it halfway through and walk away. A lesser writer would have hammered it home in the final scene, and I’d have liked the film less for it.
For Writers
Theatrical dialogue translates to film if the writer trusts the actors and the director trusts the writing. Most film adaptations of plays soften the language to feel less stagey. The Lion in Winter doesn’t. It runs the play’s language at full strength and lets cinema accommodate. The lesson is that artificial-sounding dialogue can be more powerful than naturalistic dialogue if the artifice is consistent and earned. Naturalism isn’t the only valid mode.
Hepburn and O’Toole
Katharine Hepburn won her third Best Actress Oscar for this performance, in a tie with Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl. Hepburn was sixty-one years old. She’d recently lost Spencer Tracy. She brought a real grief to a part written for a fictionally grieving queen. Her Eleanor is one of the great female performances in mid-century cinema.
O’Toole was thirty-six and playing a Henry who was fifty. He’s enormous in the role. His Henry is a man whose appetite for everything in life remains undiminished even as he can feel the kingdom slipping. The scenes between Hepburn and O’Toole are some of the best acting between any two people in any film of the period.
Those scenes are as much the reason for my 10 as the script is. O’Toole roars and Hepburn cuts, and I can’t pick a winner in any of their exchanges. I don’t think Goldman wanted me to.
For Writers
A long marriage built on equal parts love and hatred is one of the hardest dynamics to write convincingly. Most fiction simplifies it into one or the other. The Lion in Winter lets it be both at once. Henry and Eleanor would die for each other and have spent years actively trying to destroy each other. The contradiction is the relationship. The lesson is that contradictions in characters and relationships are often what make them feel true. Resolved emotions feel false because real long relationships don’t resolve.
The Sons
Anthony Hopkins makes Richard the Lionheart a man whose violent reputation hasn’t yet fully formed but is clearly inevitable.
The scene where his mother realizes he’s been intimate with Philip is one of Hopkins’s best early-career moments. John Castle makes Geoffrey the smartest and least loved of the three. Nigel Terry makes John exactly what John was: the youngest, the favorite, and the worst.
Timothy Dalton’s Philip is a quiet horror. He’s been waiting for this Christmas for years. He knows what each member of the family wants. He gives them just enough to make them turn on each other. The film’s manipulation plot is almost entirely his work. Dalton is the one who surprises me most. He plays Philip so quietly you nearly forget he’s in the room, and then you realize he’s been running the whole evening. For a film debut, that’s startling.
For Writers
Three or more siblings in conflict require careful differentiation. Goldman gives each son a distinct strategy. Richard is direct. Geoffrey is conspiratorial. John is whining and incompetent. The audience never confuses them because the script never lets them act alike. The lesson is that ensemble characters survive only if each one has a different relationship to the central conflict. Pile up indistinguishable characters and the reader gives up tracking them.
Craft Note
Anthony Harvey directed. James Goldman wrote, adapted from his own 1966 Broadway play. Peter O’Toole as Henry II. Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine. Anthony Hopkins (film debut) as Richard the Lionheart. John Castle as Geoffrey. Nigel Terry as John. Timothy Dalton (film debut) as Philip II of France. Jane Merrow as Alais. John Barry composed the score (Oscar). Set at the Christmas court at Chinon, 1183. Released October 1968. Three Oscar wins from seven nominations: Best Actress (Hepburn, tied), Best Adapted Screenplay (Goldman), Best Original Score (Barry).
Does The Lion in Winter still hold up?
It’s a 10, and I have nothing to set against it. The dialogue is the best I know of in any historical film, Hepburn deserved that third Oscar, O’Toole gives his best work, and Anthony Hopkins makes an entrance most actors would kill for. The script will be quoted as long as English is spoken. If you haven’t seen it, you have a treat ahead of you.
