Un homme pour l'éternité

It is a travesty that this film is not in the top 250. Something is very very wrong with rating system that says The Big Lebowski is a better film.

I can't add anything to what has already been said about A Man for All Seasons. Unquestionably one of the greatest films of all time, and stands the test of time. It will be revered as a great film 100 years from now. Will Lebowski? Doubt it. Winner of nearly every award it was nominated for. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, etc. One of the few movies that makes my whole being vibrate when I watch it. I am moved to tears in almost every scene because the scene is executed so perfectly.

Please IMDb, this must give you pause. Any system that does not put this film in the top 100 borders on insanity or uselessness.

This magnificent picture concerns Sir Thomas Moro'conflict with Henry VIII. Moro (Paul Scofield, in the title role) was Henry VIII's (Robert Shaw) most able chancellor, he was a man of the Renaissance, lawyer , philosopher, writer (his most famous work was Utopia), and statesman. He was also a devoted husband and father, and, above all, a pious Catholic. Henry was well aware of Moro's brilliance and the strength of his chancellor's religious faith. When Henry proclaimed himself 'Head of Church', it was inevitable that the two men would clash. The origin conflict takes place when Catherine of Aragon was married to Arthur, Henry VII's older brother, Arthur died six months later, and Henry VIII marries to Catherine. Cardinal Wolsey (Orson Welles) failed to obtain the Pope's permission for Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn (Vanessa Redgrave's cameo role) and his fall was swift, he was summoned before Henry and forced to surrender his seal of office. Then Henry breaks with Catholic Church and secretly married Anne Boleyn and after creates Anglican religion. But only Sir Thomas has the courage and conviction to oppose the king's wishes. Thomas is led to council formed by Duke of Norfolk (Nigel Davenport), Archbishop Cranmer, Cromwell (Leo McKern) and Richard Rich (John Hurt). Later on, Moro is judged by the court, those who stood in Henry's way, even those he claimed to love, invariably ended on the scaffold. The furious monarch launches a campaign to discredit More, but his steadfast refusal to abandon his principles will eventually lead to his place in history as a "Man for All Seasons." ..a motion picture for all times!. His silence was more powerful than words !. The award-winning stage triumph brings more excitement to the screen...with its grandeur and its gripping drama!. From The Celebrated Prize-Winning Play !.

This splendid costumer-drama contains excellent performances by all star cast. Paul Scofield won deservedly Academy Award as upright chancellor with fateful destination but he was led from his cell in the Tower of London and beheaded. Outstanding Orson Welles at a brief appearance as Cardinal Wolsey and extraordinary plethora of secondaries as a young John Hurt, Wendy Hiller as his wife Alice, Nigel Davenport as astute Duke of Norfolk, Leo McKern as Cromwell, among others. And of course Robert Shaw as selfish King who discarded his first wife Catherine of Aragon and executed Anne Boleyn-Vanessa Redgrave in a very secondary role, in fact she refused to be paid for her supporting role-. Colorful,luxurious scenarios by John Box with evocative cinematography by Ted Moore, also Oscar winner. The movie benefits from sensible and perceptible musical score by George Delerue. Brilliant direction by Fred Zinnemann who adapted perfectly Robert Bolt's screenplay. Fred directed good films, such as: High Noon, The Seventh Cross, Act of violence, The Men, From here to Eternity, Oklahoma!, The Search, The Nun's story, The Sundowners, A Man for all seasons, The Day of the Dead, Jackal, Julia, among others. Rating: 8/10. Worth seeing. Fans of historical genre will like the film. Essential and fundamental seeing for completists of Fred Zinnemann's prosperous career.

The story is remade in 1988, an inferior TV version directed and produced by Charlton Heston with John Gielgud as Cardenal Wolsey, again Vanessa Redgrave and Heston as Thomas Moro.

A Man For All Seasons is an erudite examination of the old Biblical maxim: a man cannot serve two masters. Sir Thomas More (poignantly portrayed by Paul Scofield) struggles to be true to both his faith and his monarch (the lusty and hearty King Henry VIII superbly played by Robert Shaw). I think it is difficult for citizens in our present secular society to truly understand just how central a role religion played in a man's life during the period of the film; it was an age of faith when Christianity exerted the most powerful of influences on one's thinking. On a side note, the American Republic wisely sought a nation that "divided church and state." However, the fine distinction remains that it would be a state informed by faith but not run by the church. The aforementioned exemplary performances by the leads are backed by excellent supporting turns, especially from Orson Welles as the less than saintly Cardinal Wolsey and the eternally ebullient Susannah York as Sir Thomas's daughter Margaret. This is a true masterpiece that richly deserves all the accolades and plaudits it has received.

Fred Zinnemann's one of our great forgotten directors, amazing considering that he was nominated for eight directing Oscars in four decades, winning two. Today's critics and auteurs don't champion him; you won't read much about him in "Entertainment Weekly." For Zinnemann, the script was the thing, what he worked from, and his greatest genius may have been in choosing the right scripts and knowing how to do them justice.

"From Here To Eternity" may well be Zinnemann at his highest tide, though IMDb voters seem to prefer "High Noon." Then there's "A Man For All Seasons," the film of the year in 1966, though its hard to imagine a film that represents the ethos of the 1960s less. "A Man For All Seasons" presents us with an unfashionable character who refuses to surrender his conscience to the dictates of king and countrymen, resolute instead in his devotion to God and Roman Catholic Church.

"When statesmen lead their country without their conscience to guide them, it is short road to chaos," Thomas More tells his nominal boss, Cardinal Wolsey, when the latter unsuccessfully presses him to give his blind assent to King Henry VIII's request for a convenient divorce. Perhaps out of pique, Wolsey makes sure More inherits his office of Counselor of the Realm, where More's sterling convictions are really put to the test.

More is a marvel of subtleties, tensile steel covered in a velvet glove, a mild-mannered lion trying at every turn to do well even though his political savvy knows how dangerous that can be. As a lawyer, More knows the angles, yet he is no sharpie. He respects the law too much for that. Rather, he sees in law the only hope for man's goodness in a fallen world. "I'd give the Devil benefit of the law, for my own safety's sake," he explains.

Paul Scofield plays More in such a way as to make us not only admire him but identify with him, and come to value both his humanness and his spirituality. His tired eyes, the way he gently rebuffs would-be bribers around Hampton Court, his genuine professions of loyalty to Henry even as he disagrees with the matter of his divorce, all speak to one of those great gifts of movies, which is the ability to create a character so well-rounded and illuminating in his window on the human condition we find him more haunting company than the real people we meet in life. It's a gift the movies seldom actually deliver on, so when someone like Scofield makes it happen, it is a object of gratitude as much as admiration.

The script, adapted by Robert Bolt from his stage play, is very literate and careful to explain the facts of More's dilemma. It moves too slowly and opaquely at times to qualify "A Man For All Seasons" as a true classic, that and a supporting cast full of one-note performances, though some are quite good (a few, however, are notably flat.) I especially liked Robert Shaw as a young and thin Henry VIII, full of vigor yet also a childish temperament and inconsistent mind. He demands More not oppose his marriage to Anne Boleyn, then decides he must have either More's outright assent or else his head. There's no bargaining with such a man. Perhaps More was better off standing on his principals as he did than climbing into bed with homicidal Henry. Just ask Anne.

Zinnemann presents some interesting visual images in "A Man For All Seasons," letting the period detail inform the story without overwhelming it. Several times, such as during the opening credits, inside More's cell at the Tower of London, and during More's trial, the camera shoots through narrow openings surrounded by high stone walls, a reminder not only of More's own trapped situation but the human condition. Aspirations of divinity may be unfashionable, even dangerous to one's health, but they present mankind with its one hope for overcoming its base nature, the dead-end character of temporality. "A Man For All Seasons" is a rallying cry for just such an approach to life, and remains undeniably effective in its artful, artless way.

If on occasions I babbled about some actor's performance being the best I've ever seen it was just because I hadn't seen "A Man For All Seasons". Well, up until today. And I definitely won't be that quickly amazed and impressed by a performance again. May I just say that Paul Scofield embodies great acting to it's very core. Comprehending his masterful and skillful acting is evident even to the greatest fool or layman and I (not being a big expert myself) could not believe how a man can attain such knowledge of perfection. His every word is spoken with the greatest skill, intonation and accent as well as his facial expressions and movements. His performance is so strong it's scary when I think about it. As if he knew(and he most definitely did!) EXACTLY how to perform his acting task. This movie is an explosion of outstanding acting and actors, showing their skills to the fullest and to the amazed viewers. It may well be the greatest movie ever made, but the reason for this lies also in the jaw dropping and mind opening script that deserves more credit than it could have ever gotten. If you thought "On The Waterfront", "Bridge On The River Kwai", "Glennary Glen Ross" or even "The Usual Suspects" or "Pulp Fiction" had some great dialogs then this inspiring and simply amazing script will definitely change your mind. There are so many memorable lines, monologues and great battling dialogs I can't even give an approximate number. Every moment is meaningful and the movie is full of smart and important thoughts. I won't go into the story, because as a previous commenter said, there are just too many points of view and meanings to it, but I will say this; Sir Thomas More was too moral and too strong to give in to the Church, and because of his reasons he was respected. But because he was, for some, this stubborn, he paid the price which in the real world when you play with the big boys, is a given. A movie every future actor, actress, director and screen writer should and must see and a movie that makes most of the later Oscar winners for best picture look like a joke. And a final though, Leonard Maltin was absolutely right; if Paul Scofield acted only in this movie he'd still be remembered as a marvel worth every praise and respect. 9/10