The reign of King Henry the VIII has enough drama to fill up a life time of books. That has proven to be so with the amount of information in our history books about him and his reign. We mostly hear about just him and the his wives. We don't really hear much about the people in his inner circle. We don't hear about the controversies when it comes to him changing wives so many times against the church's wishes. A Man of All Seasons sheds some light on a man by the name of Sir Thomas More. He was Lord Chancellor of England that is until King Henry decides to overstep he bounds. Henry was becoming upset that his wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, was not producing a male heir. He starts sneaking off to be with the now legendary Anne Boleyn and declares that he would like a divorce so he can marry Anne. He starts to ask the members of his counsel to put pressure on the church so they will grant him a divorce. Everyone is with the King and his decision, except for Thomas More. He is a man a faith that does not believe that the king should be able to do whatever he wanted because it is what he wants to do. He should be held to the same standards of faith as everyone else. When Henry is not granted a divorce his counsel comes up with a plan to have King Henry declared the "Supreme Head of the Church of England" by parliament so he can do what he wanted and get a divorce to marry Anne. When More neglects to go to the wedding the King claimed him to be a traitor. When a new oath starts to circulate More must make a choice to sign it and go against everything he believes in, or not sign and be charged for treason.
The most dramatic part about filming A Man of All Seasons was probably learning about the life of King Henry VII. When is comes down to it this film appears to have been shot very smoothly with nothing out of this world happening. What ever Columbia did it worked because they took home top prize at the 39th Annual Academy Awards beating out: Sheldrake Films' Alfie; United Artists' The Russians Ae Coming, the Russians Are Coming; 20th Century Fox's The Sand Pebbles; and Warner Brothers' Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
Most of the time when I comes to biological movies they either are not that great or they become epics! This is one of those that does not fit into either category. This film in more interesting than anything else. Paul Scofield, who plays More, is so very well spoken and is so captivating when he speaks that he alone keeps your attention through the whole film. His speech at the end is one of the best to very appear on the screen. I am not one for biological films but if presented this film to watch again I totally would.
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