Judge Dennis Davis
A Man for All Seasons
Judge Dennis Davis - A Man for All Seasons
- All right, Dennis, I think we can get started.
- Right, let’s start. Well, good evening to everybody. Good afternoon, good morning, wherever you are. This is a sort of movie night, as it were, in Lockdown University. As you know, I’ve done quite a few films over the last little while, all of which focus on law. And tonight to a large degree, I want to suggest to you that this is no exception. A film that I’m going to show clips of, and which is quite a magnificent film, of course, “A Man for All Seasons,” started off in 1960 as a play, which was written by Robert Bolt and which saw the light of day on the West End with the character of Sir Thomas Moore, which more in a moment, being played by Paul Scofield, about more in a moment. And then in 1966, it became a film under Fred Zinnemann. He was the director, which won then six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Paul Scofield. And although it’s a play that takes place within the context that many of us will now know well, thanks to Hillary Mantel’s magnificent trilogy about Thomas Cromwell and the whole period of the Rule of Henry VIII intertwined with Cromwell, this focuses on one little aspect thereof. But of course the play is less an historical drama than, it seems to me, a moral and ethical one. And so what I want to suggest you to start with just to think it through, I just want to foreshadow my lecture by giving you two illustrations of what I mean, which lies, in my view, at the heart of the play and the film. So the first of the illustrations that I want to give comes from, as I suppose many of you who’ve listened to me would not be entirely surprised, from the Parshah of the Week, which we read last Shabbat, and which has come up again in discussion this week at Lockdown.
And with that of course is Parshah Vayera in which , the “Sacrifice of Isaac” is read. Now, there are numerous interpretations that can be given to the “Sacrifice of Isaac”, , I myself have had quite a lot of fun in a way by giving sermons on Rosh Hashanah, on secondary Rosh Hashanah, offering to my small KEE-LAH, about 15 different interpretations of the Akedah. It is in a sense perhaps, in my view, the most enigmatic and maybe the most important single section of Torah which we actually read. And unfortunately, it’s subjected in the minds these days to sort of a discussions among Rabbis, which I refer to as naughty religion, which means that really the depth is never explored and the implications are never discussed. So let me offer you one explanation, one thought, which is relevant to this particular play. In a famous book called “Fear and Trembling” by the Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, he speaks about the “Sacrifice of Isaac” as being the paradigmatic version of what he refers to as the teleological suspension of the ethical, the teleological suspension of the ethical. And what he means by that is this, that given our tradition, given that which Avraham Avi knew, Abraham our father, had accepted as being central to the belief system of which he was the forerunner, namely the sanctity of life and a certain code of justice and morality. The idea that he’d been instructed to go and sacrifice, effectively kill his son, is such that it was a totally conflicted position to that of his ethical conception of what God wanted and what the world was about in terms of his faith.
In short, the teleological suspension of the ethical means that his conception of the ethical was being suspended by God. God was saying to him, doesn’t matter what you think, what you think the ethical is, you have to suspend that in order to show complete obedience and authority to me. We can go onto various interpretations of the consequences of that, but that’s not the point I’m making. The point I’m making, which is not my point but Kierkegaard’s point, is that what the arcada actually shows you is the difficulty in terms of any belief system of when do we know, when we have to follow our conscience, when we have to follow the ethical, which we think is the ethical and effectively regard that as superior to some conception of authority, which we may greatly respect, maybe even admire, but which seems to be totally and utterly antithetical to that of our own belief system. So the arcade was about the teleological suspension of the ethical. The idea was, can a moral person actually say, I have a code of morality, notwithstanding the authority that you demand that I obey, I will not do so or do I effectively suspend my ethical in subservience to the authority which has demanded of me?
And one could debate this at great length, but I just give this you as a framing of the ideas, which seem to me to be central to this particular play and film. The second of my anecdotal observations to frame the lecture that I’m giving is an experience that I had in the mid 1980s. It was somewhere in the eighties in which I was asked together with my very distinguished colleague, Edwin Cameron, who later became one of the great constitutional judges in South Africa, and in a sense, a person of great ethical stature for all sorts of reasons that I don’t need to go into now. We were asked to address the Catholic Bishop’s Conference in the mid eighties. I suspect that there were also other priests from the Anglican church there as well. And our brief was to answer the following question, was it legal, not moral, legal to disobey the apartheid laws? Was it, could we find a legal argument by which the church could then say there was no legal obligation as opposed to a moral obligation to obey the laws of apartheid?
And of course, both Edwin and I struggled with this. It’s the classic, those of you who are lawyers on this conversation know, the classic debate between natural law and positivism. But at the end of the day, we had to reluctantly say that whilst it’s a moral position that you can take, we can’t really suggest to you that we could legitimately argue in a court of law in South Africa that you had a legal basis by which to disregard the laws. Now, I mentioned these two because I’d like you to bear that in mind as we think our way through this particular play. But before we do, so, let me just again give the background. It’s a play which is based on one component of the Henry VIII saga. So Thomas Moore is one of the outstanding men of Christiandom at that time, he’d been a scholar and author. I come back to the author in a moment, a lawyer, member of Parliament, and he eventually became the Lord High Chancellor. The problem for him was that his sovereign, Henry VIII, who hoped his chancellor would find the ecclesiastical reasons for annulling the king’s marriage with Catherine of Aragon, could be sustained. Now, of course, he didn’t need more to endorse this decision that he could annul the, that the marriage could be annulled because others, including Thomas Cromwell, who we of course meet right through Mantel’s strategy, had already, as had KREM-NUH, had already assured him that the church law afforded ample grounds for the annulment.
But Henry was a shrewd fellow and he had no illusions about the motives of those whom he regarded somewhat as sycophants. He wanted Thomas Moore’s support because Moore carried with him some moral weight. He was learned in both secular and canon law. He had a moral and intellectual stature, which meant that if his opinion was behind that of the king, the king’s case would be stronger in ecclesiastical courts and may will have some persuasive value with regard to the Pope. And so the drama in the play is about that particular issue. Now, it was written by Robert Bolt, who was an English playwright, who wrote, “A Man for All Seasons”, which as I say, became a hit, and who himself had political background. In 1961, he was, he spent a month in jail because he had participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. And then thereafter he became coupled with David Lee, and made two of the great British movies of the time of Lawrence of Arabia in ‘62, and in '64, Dr. Zhivago. And a little bit later in 1970, Ryan’s Daughter, those were all screenplays that he had written. And of course, but he was perhaps most famous for this: In 1960 when the play came to the West End, so Thomas Moore was cast, the role of Thomas Mo, of course was Paul Scofield, who once it was said that he had bags under his eyes by the age of 17, a sort of timeless character. But there’s no question about it that Scofield became one of the great English actors.
So Peter Hall was to describe Scofield’s talents as a passion. And he’s acting provided a whole new range beyond that of the AHL-LIV-EE-UHS, the GIHL-GEHTS, and the Richardsons. Peter Brooks Hamlet in 1955, which became known as the Moscow Hamlet because of its run in Moscow, where Scofield was the first English speaking actor to play the role since 1917, was regarded as the greatest Hamlet of the generation. And much of his work on stage was regarded in similar fashion. I, myself have spoken at Lockdown University about his role in Amadeus, which I still think is so extraordinary that I, I’m almost unable to see the play anymore because of the privilege that I had of watching Scofield do it. And he was, as I say, he was effectively cost in this role for which he won the Oscar in 1966. He didn’t do a huge amount of film work, but there’s no question that throughout his career, is regard as one of the great actors. And some of what we will see in this particular clip that I will show you is quite extraordinary. One other aspect about the cast of characters, there is of course Fred Zinnemann, the director, a Jewish born director from Austria, who made his name in a number of films, 25 in all, including High Noon, from Here to Eternity, for which he won the best director in Oscars and which of course made that very, very famous scene involving Bert Lancaster on the beach. And of course he also then directed this, which of course won him the Oscar for the best director. So those were the cast of characters. Moore himself, as I say, was an extraordinary individual and wrote a book called Utopia. And Utopia was regarded certainly, that’s where the name comes from.
He wasn’t the first person to write a play around with policy ideas, dreaming of a better life for all. Plato had wrote his dialogue, The Republican, which Socrates describes what could almost be called the communistic egalitarian city state, ruled by philosopher kings called guardians. And in a sense, utopia follows that. It’s an attempt to clinging to a mediaeval conception of a contemplative life in which Scofield, sorry, Scofield, Moore talks about the contemplation of nature, talks about an ideal state in which all can contemplate, in which all can enjoy the fruits of the society, again, not in quite markedly in the direction of some sort of socialistic society to come. Now the problem for Moore, of course, was the fact that he ran out of luck and probably also because of two obstetrics, because Henry wasn’t given a son, as we all know, and he blames the queen. He wants to dump her. Moore is then summoned to Hampton court to see the chancellor Cardinal Wolsey who demands England needs an heir, he says. And of course Moore essentially then suggests that whatever the case may be, his private conscience is more important than public duty.
And that’s really the first of the clips that I want to show you. It’s a remarkable clip and I will point out a couple of the actors to you other than Paul Scofield when we’ve watched it. It’s about four, five, about five minutes, but it is extraordinary acting and it’s where Wolsey as the cardinal sets the framework for the entire play by demanding Moore’s support for the king’s move to essentially annul the marriage so he can move on and get himself a son. And Lauren, if we could watch the first of the clips please.
CLIP BEGINS
Sir Thomas is here, Your Grace. Sir Thomas.
Master Cromwell.
You opposed me in the council this morning, Thomas.
Yes, Your Grace.
You were the only one.
Yes, Your Grace.
Am I a fool?
Thank God there is only one fool on the council.
Why did you oppose me?
I thought Your Grace was wrong.
Matter of conscience? You are a constant regret to me, Thomas, if you could just see facts flat on without that horrible moral squint, with a little common sense, you could have made a statement.
King?
Where has he been? Do you know?
Aye, you, Grace?
Oh, spare your discretion. He’s been to play in the muck again. He’s been to Mistress Ann Boleyn. Moore, are you going to help me.
If Your Grace will be specific.
Ah, you’re a plotter. Alright, we’ll plot. The king wants a son. What are you going to do about it?
I’m very sure the king needs no advice from me on what to do about it.
Thomas, we’re alone. I give you my word there’s no one here?
I didn’t suppose there was, Your Grace.
And do you favour a change of dynasty, Sir Thomas. Do you think two Tudors are sufficient–
Your Grace.
He needs a son? I repeat, what are you going to do about it?
I pray for it daily.
God, he means it. That thing out there, she’s fertile.
She’s not his wife.
No, Catherine’s his wife and she’s barren as a brick. Going to pray for a miracle?
There are precedents.
Yeah. Alright, good, pray. Pray by all means. But in addition to prayer, there is efforts and my efforts to secure a divorce. Have I your support or have I not?
The Pope gave a dispensation so that the king might marry his brother’s widow for state reasons. Now we are to ask the Pope to dispense with his dispensation also for state reasons.
I don’t like bloody Thomas, well.
Clearly all we have to do is to approach His Holiness and ask him.
Oh, I think we might influence the decision of His Holiness.
By argument?
Argument, certainly. And pressure.
Pressure applied to the church, church houses, church property.
Pressure.
No, Your Grace, I’m not going to help you.
Then goodnight, Master Moore. Let the dynasty die with Henry VIII and we’ll have dynastic wars again. Blood-witted barons ramping the country from end to end. Is that what you want? Very well. England needs an heir. Certain measures, perhaps regrettable, perhaps not as much in the church which needs reformation. Alright, regrettable but necessary to get us here. Now explain how you as a councillor of England can obstruct these measures for the sake of your own private conscience.
Well I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos. And we shall have my prayers to fall back on.
You’d like that, wouldn’t you, to govern the country with prayers.
Yes, I should.
I’d like to be there when you try. Who will wear this after me? Who’s our next chancellor? You?
Bishop for me.
Aye, but for the king, what about my secretary, Master Cromwell.
Cromwell? He’s a very able man.
Me rather than Cromwell.
Then come down to earth. Till you do, we are dire enemies.
As Your Grace wishes.
As God wills.
Perhaps, Your Grace.
Moore, you should have been a cleric.
Like yourself, Your Grace.
CLIP ENDS
- Thanks Lauren. We can stop that one. I wonder how many people realised, wonderful if I could be in a hall with you and ask you who in fact Wolsey was. But of course I’m sure many of you did work that out, that it Olson Welles who has this five minute role in this film, quite remarkable. Apparently the way he looked was not dissimilar to the way Wolsey looked. And of course I wonder how many of you worked out who the actor was playing Thomas Cromwell. Well he was Leo McKern, the Australian actor. Who’s Leo McKern? The man who later in life played Rumpole of the Bailey. So we’ve got quite extraordinary cast here, but just observe this the way, in fact, the way Zinnemann the director, because the play depends on words, the way he focuses on the faces, the way in which the faces and the sort of dark backdrop are accentuated is, is really central to the whole process of direction throughout this film in one way or another. Other than a few broadened scenes of the Thames River, many of the scenes of this particular kind. Now this particular clip that I’ve played you basically sets the scene in all sorts of ways for the theme, because ironically, Wolsey dies shortly thereafter. Of course he’s never seen in the film again. And then Moore in a sense becomes, in a sense Moore becomes the transfer. But he knows he’s a doomed man. He knows that he’s trying as best he can to avoid an open break with the king who is appointed in the transfer.
But he also knows this that whilst he might not have any thirst for martyrdom and probably never dreamt of it, by the way he was canonised in 1935, but that’s another matter. It’s a very long time thereafter. The point is that he’s now, his conscience is already troubling him. And in this particular scene, what is really crucial to my argument is we can see the basis of it that at the end of the day you cannot just bend the law to the whim of authority. It just doesn’t work that way. And that’s what he’s warning Wolsey. But Wolsey makes a powerful point, does he not? Which he says that if you aren’t pragmatic, you may well create a situation of such tension in the society, thanks to what Henry might do, that the whole country may split apart. How many times have we heard those debates? Because what effectively Robert Bolt’s drama is about, whilst effectively it is true, it’s a portraits of Moore living in the shadow of death. It’s interesting in the programme note for the 1960 play, Bolt said, quote, “All the events essential "to the action of his life, "Moore’s life, during the period covered or present "in the play and none of the events essential "to the action in the play is entirely my own invention.” So in a sense you could argue that he was trying to produce an historical drama, not necessarily the richness that did in the trilogy. But it does seem to me that the play focuses much more on a human’s character, a person’s fortitude for faith.
The the question of whether moral conscience should trump authority as I indicated in an introduction. Now we come then to the second clip. Let me give you some background here 'cause it’s really important. We see for the first time in the film Richard Rich, who later becomes chancellor after Henry’s reign and is one of those wonderfully expedient rent seekers of whom we know, certainly we know in this country, but the characteristic right through the world who’s totally opportunistic and who ultimately becomes a witness against Moore in the trial which will end this play and which we will come to shortly. But, what Rich is about is an utterly expedient amoral human being only interested in who’s going to essentially promote his career. And so he comes to visit Moore in his home at a point where it is now particularly obvious that Henry is putting sufficient pressure on Moore to say, You either support me in the annulment or you’re in big trouble, and big trouble meant with Henry the end of your life. And I want you to observe something which I’ll come back to: A remarkable passage towards the end of this clip. A remarkable passage in relation to the question of law and what a person like Moore is now saying in this character about law, notwithstanding his moral fortitude against the king’s egregious and expedient behaviour. Lauren, so if we could watch clip two. We are back to clip one.
CLIP BEGINS
Sir Thomas.
Richard.
I fell. Lady Alice. Lady Margaret.
Good evening.
Do you know William Roper the Younger.
By reputation, of course. Good evening, Master?
Rich. Oh… You’ve heard of me?
Yes.
In what connection? I dunno what you can have heard. I have sense that I’m not welcome here.
Why Richard? Have you done something to make you not welcome?
Cromwell is asking questions about you. He’s continually asking questions about you and your opinions.
Of whom?
Of him. Oh what, that’s one of its sources.
Of course that’s one of my servants. Alright Matthew.
Will you look at me as though I were an enemy?
Why would you do shaking?
Help me.
How?
Employ me.
No.
Employ me.
No.
I will be faithful.
Richard, you couldn’t answer for yourself even so far as tonight.
Arrest him.
For what?
He’s dangerous.
For libel? He’s a spy.
That man’s bad.
There’s no law against that.
There is God’s law and God can arrest him.
While you talk, he’s gone.
And go he should if he were the devil himself until he broke the law. Sir, now you’d give the devil benefit of law.
Yes, what would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil.
Yes. I’d cut down every law in England to do that.
Oh, and when the last law was down and the devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide while the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, man’s laws, not God’s, and if you cut them down and you are just a man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the devil benefit of law for my own safety’s sake.
CLIP ENDS
- Okay, and we can stop this one, Lauren. I would give the devil the benefit of the law, says Moore. This is extraordinary. This is a debate in which the son-in-law of of Moore, a political radical argues that the law must be made more malleable to the interests of justice. Moore then launches interest defence of the importance of laws that they are all that exists to protect citizens of the realm. And when they were swept away to ensure justice, then all would stand unprotected. The actual metaphor is used whether the law should apply to the devil. In other words, one who we know is evil and thus should have no protection of positive law. This is the extraordinary defence of law. It’s the idea that we do not use law just to suit ourselves when we want to. It’s the idea that we do not use law to essentially persecute our enemies by abusing the law. There’s no matter, no wonder that my dear friend and a very distinguished dean of the law school University of Cape Town where I teach, Professor Hugh KOHR-DER, in his inaugural lecture in the heart of apartheid quoted this particular sentence in two of the, of this play to point that particular point out, that law matters but it matters when you actually use it in circumstances where it’s not just for your own benefit.
It’s an extraordinarily powerful insight which, which Bolt makes it that point. And it really does essentially invoke the whole debate about to some extent that law does matter and that you can’t, as it were just shape it to your conception of justice in the way you want. Calling back all of the problems that I prefigured in my earlier part of the presentation. Now of course Moore refuses to sign any oath in which he would agree to that which Henry wants. And basically as we watch the last two clips, we come to a very foundational distinction in a sense, not us in political philosophy, but in politics generally. One perhaps articulated best by John Rawls, the famous philosopher who drew a distinction between civil disobedience and conscientious objection. Civil disobedience for rules was a form of debate. A non-violent action aimed at the public and guided by a set of political principles. change with with civil disobedience was the fundamental objective. Now rules differentiate this from conscientious objection, which is the non-compliance with laws one sees as immoral. Conscientious objection is not meant to change the political sphere, it’s just a decision to risk punishment rather than violate one’s own moral principles. The character of Moore in this play falls into this category of the conscientious objector.
He does not use his position to rail against the king’s oath. He does not counsel others on the immorality of the oath itself. He doesn’t seek to persuade anybody else what or Henry should or shall not do. But he’s guided by his own moral conscience and says that moral conscience is sufficient that it trumps any obedience that I have to legal authority. It’s exactly the advice that Cameron and I gave to the Catholic bishops all those years ago. It’s exactly the debate that we probably still are having in all kinds of societies which are under democratic threat at the moment. And in a sense what we’ve got you is precisely that, that what Moore, what is the harm, you could argue, that Moore has essentially initiated by his argument. Well it’s exactly the one that Woolsey spoke about earlier, that if one didn’t do this you risk possible civil strife. But here again, we now come to the trial and the trial which of course is a trial of the 16th century. But no matter, Robert Bolt is writing this to talk to us. Even though he’s writing it in 1960, it still talks to us about the political trial. And here we see now Cromwell in very, very strong position, and he calls Richard Rich, who we’ve just met who now basically subverts the entire basis of what Moore was about by perjuring himself. So let us first have a look at what this very classic scene before we move on to the final one.
CLIP BEGINS
I solemnly swear any evidence I shall give before the court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
So help you God, sir.
So help me God.
Now on the 12th of May, you were at the TAR.
I was.
For what purpose?
I was sent to carry away the prisoner’s books.
Did you talk with the prisoner?
Yes.
Did you talk of the king’s supremacy of the church?
Yes.
What did you say?
I said to him, supposing there were an act of parliament to say that I Richard Rich were to be king, would not you, Master Moore, take me for king? That I would, he said. For then you would be king.
Yes?
Then he said, but I will put you a higher case. How if they’re an act of parliament to say that God should not be God.
This is true, and then you said–
Silence.
Continue.
Then I said I will put you a middle case. Parliament has made our king head of the church. Why will you not accept him?
Well?
Then he said Parliament had not the power to do it.
Repeat the prisoner’s words.
He said Parliament had not the competence or words to that effect.
[Man] He denied the title?
He did.
In good faith, Rich, I’m sorrier for your perjury than my peril.
Do you deny this?
Yes. My Lord, you know if I were a man who heeded not the taken of an oath, I need not be here. Now I will take an oath. If what Master Rich has said is true, I pray I may never see God in the face, which I would not say were it otherwise for anything on earth that is not evidence.
Is it probable? Is it probable that after so long a silence on this, the very point so urgently thought of me, I should open my mind to such a man as that.
Sir Richard, do you wish to modify your testimony?
No my Lord.
Is there anything you wish to take away from it?
No, my Lord.
Have you anything to add?
No, my Lord.
Have you also Thomas.
To what purpose? I am a dead man. You have your will of me.
Then the witness may withdraw.
There is one question I would like to ask the witness. That’s a chain of officer wearing. May I see it? The red dragon? What’s this.
Sir Richard is appointed Attorney General for Wales.
For Wales. By, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. But for Wales?
My Lords, I have done.
CLIP ENDS
- Just stop there for a moment before we get onto the last clip. I mean I find it’s quite extraordinary acting as I’m sure you may for– The fact of the matter is that any show trial and Bolt basically foreshadows further show trials. And of course we knew about the both the German and the Nazi and the Stalin show trials where people did exactly the same. And of course they didn’t profit necessarily for very long. Richard Rich did. He basically became the attorney, the little chancellor, and in fact he turned against Cromwell who he had conspired with in this particular case became the end of Cromwell, which just goes to show. But the point about the story here is again the simple proposition that I that’ve advanced right at the beginning is precisely how far does the authority base of parliament and the king go? When does the reach of law end and when does our moral conscience as it were not just give us a moral duty to do differently but perhaps a legal one. These are really profound questions which essentially vex all societies, particularly authoritarian ones. But let us watch the last clip and then I’ll make a couple of final concluding remarks.
CLIP BEGINS
Considering the evidence it shouldn’t be necessary for them to retire. Is it necessary? And is the prisoner guilty or not guilty? Guilty my Lord.
Sir Thomas Moore, you have been found guilty of high treason. The sentence of the court–
Your lords, when I was practising law, the manner was to ask the prisoner before pronouncing the sentence if he had anything to say.
Have you anything to say?
Yes.
Since the court has determined to condemn me, God knows how, I will now discharge my mind concerning the indictment and the king’s title. The indictment is grounded in an act of parliament which is directly repugnant to the law of God and His holy church. The supreme government of which no temporal person may by any law presume to take upon him. This was granted by the mouth of our saviour, Christ himself, to Saint Peter and the bishops of Rome whilst he lived and was personally present here on earth. It is therefore insufficient in law to charge any Christian to obey it. And more than this, the immunity of the church is promised both in Magna Carta and in the king’s own coronation oath.
Now we plainly see you are malicious.
Not so. I am the king’s true subject and I pray for him and all the realm. I do none harm. I say none harm, I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, then in good faith, I long not to live. Nevertheless, it is not for the supremacy that you have sought my blood, but because I would not bend to the marriage.
You have been found guilty of high treason. The sentence of the court is that you’ll be taken from the court to the Tower of London until time and place will be appointed for your execution.
CLIP ENDS
- And indeed that’s exactly what happened. And we are told that Henry had ordered Moore’s execution before the trial even started. As we saw, he wasn’t permitted to call witnesses on his own behalf. The jury deliberated for no more than 15 minutes of your life, they built a case, found him guilty and sentenced to death. The speech which we heard a little bit extract from at the end clip was very much the speech he made and he stated that the act of supremacy that the king could basically overrule everything was repugnant upon the laws of God and Church. And on the scaffold as in the film 'cause we, I didn’t show that to him, he said that he died the king’s good servant but God’s first. Now the interesting thing about this play and therefore the film is the way it poses for all of us a series of dilemmas.
Recall, I’ve emphasised on a couple of occasions during this talk to you, the famous passage from the second of the clips that I read, that we saw when in effect we noticed that he had been begged as the Lord chancellor to arrest Rich who was central to his conviction. Let me read again what he said. This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast. Man’s law is not God’s and if you cut them down, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow them? Yes, I’ll give the devil benefit of the law for my own safety’s sake. And yet the interesting thing was that although he refused to use the law for purposes for which it was not intended and therefore regarded the law as absolutely vital to the fabric of any civilised society, on the other hand, he also took the view that there were some laws such as a law which suggested that the king could, as it would override all of the basic faith which was central to the country at that particular point in time, i.e. trump God’s law, that that was just not acceptable to him. And he was therefore the quintessential conscientious objector, because as he says in the play, and it’s really a classic example thereof, I’m not trying to persuade anybody else but I stand on my moral conscience that is more important to me even than my own life. And I think therefore this a particular play as I thought about it again, really speaks to us, it speaks to the Lord, speaks to the question relation between law and morality. It speaks to the possible teleological suspension of the ethical. Of course, let me just conclude. Moore in the play is almost portrayed as some kind of liberal existentialist figure, whereas actually he was quite a dreadful person who, who ordered the execution of all sorts of people.
So Bolt takes that whole part of the Moore character out. Of course if you want to read Mantel, you’ll see that in fact history has a very different view of Moore even though as I say, he was canonised in 1935. I’m not that interested in that. What I was trying to show you was a film which essentially not only has the most remarkable acting and just looking at those scenes brilliantly done seems to me, and extraordinarily acted by Scofield for which quite obviously he was going to win the Oscar. But more than that, when it goes down in history, one of the great performances, but it does raise for us a film which prompts us to debate a whole series of these questions. And for that reason it seems to me as relevant today as it was in 1960. And that basically is is my take on a remarkable, on a remarkable play and a very, very fine film. Let me see if there are any questions before I have conclusion.
Q&A and Comments:
Francine says, let me read this. My problem with this portion, I think we’re talking about the, okay, oh goodness, I’ve got, I really let the cat out of the bag there. I compare Abraham obeying God’s wanting the sacrifice of people like the who believe that they’re following the Quran’s orders.
Yes, Francine, there’s a very, very important set of , which essentially warn against the kind of fundamentalist approach to religion. Of course rabbis are lied over that today, hence my rather sarcastic remark about some of the contemporary expositions. But you’re dead right. It is a most troubling set of passages, which is why it’s worthy of very careful study, and I agree with you entirely that the fundamentalist spin is there. I mentioned he was made a Catholic saint in 1935. Q: Jonathan, how does one square the Moore in the movie with the real Moore who had religious parents?
A: As I indicated he did. And I think the answer to that is that what Bolt was trying to do, Jonathan, was in a sense, although using this snapshot of history as a relatively accurate depiction, what he was trying to do is pose a whole series of moral and if I may say legal problems, and therefore the historical concept of Moore was perhaps less important than the purpose of which he had in mind, and so superbly articulated by Scofield.
Q: Arlene, was it important for Henry to get Moore’s acceptance?
A: Well, as I indicated right at the beginning of my talk, Arlene, no strictly not, but Moore did have great authority as I indicated at the beginning. He wrote Utopia, this conception of the ideal society. He was regarded as a great lawyer. He was certainly one of the most preeminent members of Christiandom at the time, and what I think why Henry wanted him was because he believed that if he could get Moore on his side, this would have a persuasive effect with the Pope, his attempt annul the marriage.
Louise and Quentin, I saw Orson Welles in Dublin, Ireland, was touring late 1950s. He had Donald Wolf starring with him. He toured the British Isles with his production of great critical claim. I had the pleasure meeting him at that time. He had a larger than life personality. It was one of the greatest actors of his time. I agree entirely. And in fact that five Minute clip of his, my goodness, was that an extraordinary exposition.
Q: Could you please tell us what your next film review will be?
A: Yes, I’m doing The Lion in Winter, I think in about 10 days time.
Thank you Yolanda. Thank you Eleanor. And thank you Julius. I would, your honour, I can think of doing murder in the Cathedral. It wasn’t what I was asked for.
Paula, one of my favourite plays to teach because it gives the students so much to think about and talk about for how they want to live their lives. Thank you very much for your compliment and I agree, that’s why I thought it was a really great film and play, half, in fact, I just love the Scofield acting, and I think Robert Bolt had a lot to say to us even now, 60 odd years later. has an interesting suspensions of teleological ethics forever. Is that the test that Abraham passed or failed.
Q: Much to think about?
A: Oh goodness, there is. And we could spend a lot of time, maybe we should, of actually passing that particular text. I can give you about 10 different interpretation. 15 actually I think there are at least, and there are probably more in which we can debate exactly what this means, which is why I indicated to you, it is such an enigmatic and important passage and why it irritates me that we don’t have sort of in-depth discussions of it because it is so important and certainly it’s the one that my teachers emphasised to me considerably when I studied with them.
Yes, it’s The Lion in Winter, is what I’m doing next.
And thank you very much to everybody and particularly thanks to Lauren for doing everything for me. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to do it. So good night and I will see you for Lion in Winter. I hope you’ll all be there with your seeds and popcorn and Lauren will be there to help me, or otherwise, it will be be a disaster.
Thank you very much and goodnight to everybody.