Judge Dennis Davis
Cromwell: the Movie
Judge Dennis Davis and Professor David Peimer - Cromwell: The Movie
- Alright, very good. Okay, let’s-
Okay, over to you, Dennis.
Yes, David and I are going to make one fundamental assumption, although I will try to clarify that in a moment. And that is that many of you would’ve listened to William Tyler’s very comprehensive lecture on the Civil War, and therefore on the events, which to some extent, and I use that word advisory at this moment, are depicted in the film that we are about to talk about, which is “Cromwell.” But in effect, perhaps the problem of the film, and probably the difficulty confronting any director dealing with this, is how in a sense to compress what was a decade of turbulence into our film. Just as you would’ve known from the lecture that William gave, and I don’t intend to repeat it, Oliver Cromwell, of course, was the critical military leader during the English Civil War. In excuse me, in 1649, Charles I, as a result of that, was executed. In 1653 Cromwell became what was referred to then as a Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England. That didn’t last very long. He died in 1658, handed over to his son. But by 1660, the crowd had been restored with Charles’s son. The events which are depicted in this film, sort of therefore have this difficulty of trying to compress into one film a decade of historical turbulence and of considerable amount of struggle one way or the other. And so one of the points that I wanted to make right upfront is the question, how does one address a film which deals with momentous historical events such as this in circumstances where the film is not particularly historically accurate? Now, I want to just make this further point, if I may, just in typical legal style, a sort of legal caveat. In my view as a film, this is certainly not in the same league as the two films that I have shown recently with regard to historical events, those being “A Man for All Seasons” and “The Lion in Winter.”
And I’m not going to traverse those, but as I indicated in the two lectures I gave on those, I think these are extraordinary forms, not necessarily entirely historically accurate, but fabulous forms with extraordinary acting by obviously very great actors such as Paul Scofield in “Man for All Seasons,” Peter O'Toole in “The Lion in Winter,” and of course this film, which has a slightly different situation with Richard Harris and Alec Guinness. But let me, I’ll say a little bit about them in a moment. Let me just say, to start off with. The film which was produced by Ken Hughes really hadn’t done a herd of a lot of really great films. I mean, probably best known for “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” draw on an extraordinary cast, particularly Sir Alec Guinness, known for his great acting and theatre, and for the fact that of course he won the Oscar for a “Bridge Over the River Kwai.” And then of course many other depictions. Whether he was as good in this is a matter I leave for your assessment, David might want to comment about that later. The film produced, as I said, written by Ken Hughes, oddly enough, the script consultant, and I say oddly, was of course an ex South African Ronald Harwood and sadly, one of our greater own, Antony Sher died I think yesterday, which was great tragedy. What an extraordinary actor, author, and multi-talented individual he was. But Ronald Harwood, of course, himself wrote some really interesting plays-
Dennis, sorry, I just want to add in a moment for myself-
Please.
just to say my incredible thoughts and profound just very deep emotion knowing that an Anthony Sher just died yesterday.
Yeah, I mean.
It moves many of us. And I just wanted to add that. Back to you.
Very, very sad. Ronald Harwood would of course produced, wrote “The Dresser,” “Quartet” and “Taking Sides,” which I’ve spoken about before, which is a very interesting play dealing with the Furtwangler and the famous German conductor. And it’s surprising therefore, that the script in this particular case was so heavily criticised and rightly so, for its lack of historical accuracy. One of the commentators said about this film, “Apart from some famous dialogue, any resemblance to actual history is coincidental and purely unintentional.” “But,” he added, “there’s still a decent amount of entertainment to be had.” It appears that Hughes became obsessed with Cromwell after reading a biography of Cromwell, I myself derived most of my knowledge from Cromwell from the classic book on Cromwell by Christopher Hill. Great, great Oxford historian and Antonina Fraser, “Cromwell, Our Chief of Men,” still probably one of the great biographies in relation to Cromwell. But he claimed that his Hughes to have read something like 120 books about Cromwell. And according to background, his purpose was to pull together what he referred to as a tragic drama, having all the haunting inevitability of Greek tragedy. And by the time the film began, the undertaking was enormous. They had more than 200 people at the studio building various sets. There were 4,000 costumes made. There were 16,000 separate props made, and thousands of wigs ordered from all over Europe. And we’ll see, some of the crowd scenes are quite extraordinary, however dated they may be. But the fundamental proposition that I wanted to put to you right up front was that this is not a film which reflects historical accuracy in any way.
And I’m going to just give you two illustrations, one, which I’m not going to show, but if you go and see the film afterwards, you’ll observe, the film starts with something that is historically accurate, namely that Cromwell was intending to go to America. One can only speculate as William titled it, what would’ve happened had he actually gone there. But the film starts with that intention, and he then meets up at this particular point with John Pym, the lead of the parliamentary opposition, and Henry Ireton who later became his son-in-law, and they arrived to meet him at his home in an attempt to convince him to stay, not to immigrate to America. The scene appears to be in 1640, at the time that Charles summoned parliament. And it shows Cromwell as someone represented as a really standing in parliament from 1628, but, here’s the point, which is true, but for the rights and privileges of the common man. And he’d become by this point such an important historical figure that Pym, the leader of the parliamentary opposition, had to ride out to try to persuade Cromwell to do something about the king’s egregious disregard of parliament. The king controls passionate, passionate commitment believer in the divine right of kings. And he wasn’t going to have any interference in his rule by parliament. The point of ballot is, that’s completely historical nonsense, because it was Pym who was the crucial figure. Cromwell at that point was a non-entity, really hardly known, and nothing more than a country squire. And so what is interesting is that the liberty taken already in the film right in its beginning is to position Cromwell as a heroic figure. Whereas it was clear that the heroes, and if I could put it that way, came much later as William Tyler quite rightly pointed out by virtue of his prowess on the battlefield. I’ll leave that for the moment because I want to show you a clip just illustrative of precisely what I’m talking about, which at least we can share with each other. We’re now in a position in the film where Charles has got to the point where he’s got to, as it were, suppress the opposition which is coming from Parliament. He needs money for wars. Parliament is resisting him, they wish to assert their own independence, their view being that he cannot just ride rough shot over them.
That they’re not some form of Pavlov’s dog simply to respond at any particular shock, and that they are not going to just cooperate with him willy nilly. And the scene that we are about to see is a very famous scene where Charles with troops invades parliament to arrest a group who he regards as the crucial players against him, ie, the central opposition to his, as it were unequivocal rule. The point about it is, as we’ll see, many of the people who are depicted here as being this target of the arrest, were not the right people. And most certainly, Cromwell was not one of them for the reasons I’ve already advanced. And yet in the clip I’m about to show you there’s a whole design of Cromwell, who was in fact known for his courage. But Cromwell now sitting there and insisting that he cannot be arrested because of parliamentary privilege. None of this happened.
Now, whether in fact this is particularly accurate or not is perhaps another argument, but at least in fairness, I wanted to point out to you that perhaps the fundamental criticism about this film, apart from a huge amount of overacting, particularly from Richard Harris, who was best known for his role in a film called “This Sporting Life,” and who very much later in his career appeared in two of the “Monty Python’s” films, but that was very much later, including Dumbledore, or that’s much later in his life. But the point that I’m making here is that this scene, which is partly true, and which definitely has one accurate line, which is where the Speaker of the House responds to Charles to say that he cannot tell Charles where anybody has gone to where these MPs have gone to because he speaks at the behest of parliament. That is a true line, but it does show a combination between the attempt to already position Oliver Cromwell as a hero in circumstances with his later historical justification for that with as it were, some aspects which are historically accurate. Let’s have a look at this particular scene. It also gives a real flavour of-
Mr. Speaker, gentlemen, you must pardon this infringement of your privilege, but I will not detain you long. Mr. Speaker, I must make bold with your chair. I have here a warrant for the arrest of five members of this house, John Pym, Henry Ireton, John Hampden, Oliver Cromwell, and Arthur Haselrig upon a charge of treason. I see that the birds have flown. Mr. Speaker, where are these gentlemen?
May it please your majesty. I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, except as this house gives me leave.
Well, sir, I have eyes. I see that one of them is here. Captain, take him.
Any action against any member of this house is a breach of privilege. And I move this house declares as public enemies, any who lay hands upon its members. I further move, I further move that any such action against this house be considered a crime against the people, and treason against this nation.
[House Members] Yes.
So be it. Mr. Speaker, you will inform the members of this house that their presence is no longer required by the nation. This parliament is by my authority terminated, dissolved.
Well, I just made a couple of observations. Again, as I indicated to you, this is historically inaccurate except for the fact that he did invade parliament, that in fact there was a dissolution of parliament, and the famous words of the speaker were in fact uttered. But you can see already the way the filmmaker’s trying to position by waving the camera of the, clash of rules between Charles, played by Alec Guinness, who I have to say certainly, I feel much more comfortable about in that role than what David thinks, than I do Richard Harris in his role. But that’s perhaps matter of taste, but certainly that’s my view. Of course, the one thing about Guinness was remarkable how he looked like the parts that he played. Anybody watched him in “Lawrence of Arabia” as Feisal would’ve noticed that. And then of course the last part, which is completely inaccurate, but it’s true that Charles withdraws, dissolves parliament, but the fact that this is a central battle at this point between Charles and Cromwell is of course totally inaccurate. But David, over to you. I having now posed the question.
Sure, okay, great, Dennis. I’m going to focus on four specific aspects in relation to the movie and Cromwell. The first is some critical, or yeah, critical aspects about the acting, the writing, the filming of it, and so on. Second, the real question is how do you represent history in fiction for a very contemporary audience or readership? Third, what does this film resonate in us today in the 21st century? Fourth, how can we extrapolate from a learning of this film, actually how does history work? And given all the the critical stuff I’m going to mention, nevertheless, I think it does ironically because it doesn’t succeed as a it succeeds by provoking these questions for me. And which is what I want to look at briefly as we go through today. And I agree, I mean Alec Guinness just, to show a little bit of a criticism of the film, he’s almost like a kind affable uncle, which belay with, with a sort of civilised exterior, never shouts, never raise his voice, considered slow speaking all the time. The body posture capturing that, this is the ultimate epitome of civilised gentleman, divine wright of kings. Say is this kind affable uncle almost, but underneath it is a profound Machiavellian streak of jealousy, pettiness, and astonishment, that of course, how can you question divine wright of kings, one man to rule everything. But he acts it, and weird is a superior acting because he has inner life of subtlety. He shows the subtlety by showing this sort of kind affable, uncle exterior. Richard Harris, as you’ll see in some of the other clips, and also he constantly acts with his broken voice, which gets highly irritating when you watch the whole film for two hours.
But he comes across as an angry and driven almost one dimensional character, almost a caricature in the end because he’s all the time so passionate, all the time so angry, all the time so driven by puritanical zeal, zeal to overcome the king, in reaction to support parliament. But when you watch it for two hours, it becomes predictable and very one-dimensional. And for me, I want to get onto here, this says to me a fundamental idea on a criticism of the film, but also how it provoke ideas for us today on how to represent history in fiction, whether it’s film or theatre, novels, whatever. And I want to suggest the key is when you write, and direct, and act character as social type, the leader, the priest, the village idiot, the princess, the king, the queen, when you write, and direct, and act it, only with the exterior social type as your character, it’s a problem for a contemporary audience because there is no inner life of character. There’s no inner dilemma, inner conflict, inner vulnerability, inner anxiety, thought, question, moments of self-reflection. There’s none of that in the portrayal of Cromwell. There’s a few of them in the portrayal of the King by Alec Guinness, but none of it with Cromwell. So as a result, who do we root for? We started rooting ironically more for the king ‘cause he has moments of subtle introspection, of subtle inner doubt, questioning.
Whereas Cromwell with Richard Harris, is so hell bent on proving he’s right, proving he’s puritanic, he’s more the puritan than anybody else, religious leader, everything, et cetera. He knows it all, but it’s the social exterior that is acted and not the inner life of character. And in our times, post Freud, post psychologists, in our times ironically of mass communications, social time, in English language theatre primarily and globally, it’s the inner life of character that grabs an audience. Whether we go back to ancient Greeks or we go obviously, Shakespeare bringing in the soliloquize. Shakespeare for me was the cusp between feudalism and individualist capitalism where he shows the rise of the individual and those soliloquies and the inner life and inner conflicts and dilemmas, vulnerabilities and anxieties with not only just Hamlet, but of Lear, of all the characters, Macbeth. And that’s the huge difference which Ken Hughes does not achieve in the script and the directing and with his actors. Thus, for a contemporary audience, we can’t feel for the inner life, we can’t feel for the character. The second problem for me, which will come out in this clip as well, the next one, is that he tries to show Cromwell as a kind of man of almost superhuman ability. He’s the great statesman, he’s the great military leader, he’s the great religious puritan leader. He’s the father. He’s like superb, he scores nine out of 10, on all these levels as a character, which is ridiculous for a contemporary audience. Maybe not for an audience of another era and another time, but for a contemporary, we cannot take it seriously, we don’t buy it. We need to see the inner life.
When you watch “Darkest Hours,” the film about the 10 days in May, 1940, when Churchill took over power from Halifax and continued the war. It goes so deep into Churchill’s vulnerabilities, anxieties, inner questions, his worries, his fears, and so on, together with the social perception of Churchill. And that’s where something like “Darkest Hours,” even “Dunkirk,” these contemporary films, they show inner life of character. And that is the heroic character for today’s times, for today’s audience and readership. Hillary Mantel tries to do the same in some of her novels about the Thomas Cromwell character, a very distant relation. And many others do, Martin Amis and others. And I want to suggest and argue that that is the key difference. You’ve got to show that to resonate to today still, if you want sympathy for the character and if you want to show more, if you like a character that we can relate to, which has got to show these inner qualities. And there’s a tradition partly from Central Europe and Africa and elsewhere, which focuses much more on character’s social type and stereotype and that’s the norm stereotype you need for comedy of course. But the growing tradition over the last, well, couple of centuries, particularly I would say parts of the west is this question of inner life and it’s vital. And I’m going to talk a little bit about George Buchner’s, I love Buchner, the great German playwright and his play, “Danton’s Death.”
Heiner Muller a much more contemporary playwright where they’ve tried to bring in aspects of this quality I’m speaking about. One little bit of trivia just to throw in for a bit of humour at the moment … The other thing by the way is that there’s no humour in this. Little bit of humour comes from the king, but there’s no humour in “Cromwell” whatsoever. And you’ve got to have a bit of humour in everything you do. The one thing I want to mention is “Cromwell” is so complex and is so influential in English and global history, I would argue, but once he was in power, which we’ll show at the end when he takes over, he did ban theatre, so I don’t particularly like him. He banned bear baiting, Christmas, playing sport on Sunday, you’d get whipped, swearing, makeup for ladies, and there was no allowance for working on Sundays. Okay fine. But some of these ridiculously small petty things that the Puritan mind was driven so far. Obviously there’s the clash in the film, which is accurate, showing the clash between the Catholic and the Protestants. and the Protestants emerging as the dominant religious force against Catholicism. So I mean that is pretty accurate. It’s also not accurate because it doesn’t show what Cromwell, what he really did in Ireland, and kind of a genocide policy almost. Okay, so I’m going to show the next clip if we’ll move on. And this is a scene where they’re meeting in the room, these parliamentarians with Cromwell. This is one of the great scenes with some of the great lines to discuss, do they have the legal power to take the king to court for high treason, which could mean beheading the king, it’s what they do eventually, and who really rules? Where does power lie in the state? Have we come thus far that you would betray us now?
CLIP BEGINS
There is nothing in the constitution of this land that entitles us to bring a king to trial.
Is not the king answerable to his subjects?
The trial is clearly illegal and I will have no time-
Is not the king answerable to his subjects?
The king, sir, is answerable only to God.
And by God when he dies, he shall have much to answer for.
We have gone too far in this man.
This commission has no lawful authority to bring the king of England-
Our authority lies with the parliament, sir. Parliament is the law in land.
If charges against this king, thee not proven, what terrible retribution may he not bring down upon us. In the name of God, what are we all? Men, cowering and quivering like downtrodden serfs. The king is not England, and England is not the king. It is not the survival of the king that is at issue here, it is the survival of England. And this king by his dishonesties, by his treasons, and by his secret treaties with foreign powers has shown himself to be ill fitted to govern this great nation.
As God is my witness, Oliver, I desire not the king’s death, but the settlement of this nation in peace.
Do you think I don’t desire that? Go back to my farm and my family? Very well, go again to this king, offer him once more our terms, though God knows he should be well acquainted with them by now. Tell him he may sit upon his throne, but that this country will be governed by parliament, and parliament will be elected by the people. Now Sir Thomas, if you can achieve this where we have failed, this trial will end. Here is a warrant demanding the death of the king upon the charge of high treason against this nation. It will require all your signatures, sir Thomas.
I have come thus far with you, Oliver, in our great cause, but I will not sign this warrant.
Sign it.
Oliver, I cannot.
Is he guilty or not guilty?
He’s the king.
Is he guilty?
Yes.
Sign it.
CLIP ENDS
- Okay, so that gives a sense, that there’s a hint of a little bit of the inner life there where he doesn’t really doubt it, but he thinks quick how to solve the issue of his great friend, Sir Thomas not signing it. The great lines is, the king is not England and England is not God, which resonates all through, I mean the South African times, the French, in so many other moments of huge historical change in many societies of revolutionary change, whether it be the American War of Independence, French Revolution, South Africa after Apartheid, so many things. And that line does resonate down the ages and I think it’s so powerful. And moving away from the divine right of kings to parliament, to people, to the landed, to the aristocracy, all these different groups with their own power interests, not only economic, but their power interests as well, and ultimately the jostling and going to civil war for it. in many countries, how you actually finally move towards having the seismic shift, tectonic plates where the society radically changes in terms and how you represent it in form of theatre. This for me is the one of the most successful scenes in the movie, because it captures that moment of incredible tension 'cause they know what they’re doing with the death of the king, means the death of the ancien regime. It’s interesting, Louis XIV had this great phrase when he said he was aware that revolution would come. And he said he was aware century and a half before longer, “After me, the deluge.” He knew the divine right of kings at some point would end.
Louis XIV knew it. Would come later of course, but it couldn’t carry on, it couldn’t sustain itself, “After me, the deluge.” That great line. And all the great revolutions that we’ve known in the last centuries, it comes as a deluge when so many of the opposing forces in history build up and the turn happens. Just one or two other points to briefly mention here is, with “Cromwell,” what interests me, and this is a contrast with Buchner’s play, the fantastic one, which I directed in Johannesburg, I translated and directed years ago, and it’s “Danton’s Death.” For me Buchner, and I’ll talk about it in another lecture. When he died in his early mid 20s, remarkable writer, studied as a doctor, and would’ve gone on I think to be at least as good as Shakespeare, whatever. And “Danton’s Death” focuses on the French Revolution and Buchner’s disillusion where he focuses on Danton, Robespierre and then a little bit Marat. And Danton being the larger than life, wine, women and song, social connected, loved life, loved living, passion for life, and everything, but neglected his duty. He was meant to take over the French army to defeat 'cause all Austria and all the other countries were trying to smash it because they didn’t want the revolutionary ideals, of course to spread to the other aristocratic and kingly led countries around, of course of the French Revolution. And then Robespierre, who’s this Machiavellian, very cold clipped, I guess almost like a steely image. And Buchner captures both those images, but he captures the public image of those leaders or the French Revolution. But their inner doubt. Danton is plagued with doubt.
Can he , is he too much because he loves life, wine, women and song and enjoying getting drunk and having fun, and Robes’ here like clinically calculating everything five steps ahead. He captures the inner life together with the social image. And that for me is the greatness of Buchner writing about the French Revolution as a massive tumultuous event of Europe, almost, one of them anyway. And this event here as well. And I don’t think Ken Hughes and the other writers have achieved it. Some of the ones that Dennis mentioned earlier, Mantel others, they do. The contemporary ones, and I would include even defiance. The brilliant German film on the last 10 days of Hitler in the bunker. And I’m not going to talk about Hitler in any moral sense, but from a purely theatrical performative point of view, it’s inner life. And that is for the contemporary audience. And when you touch that, it’ll last, and it’ll last for a long, long time. Even some of the ancient Greeks we’re aware of it. So I don’t want to harp on that as one of the fatal flaws. But this scene for me captures much better ‘cause we get us a little bit of a sense of all of that. And how authoritarianism is shifting from the rule of the king, and is Cromwell becoming an authoritarian in this film, in that scene? We don’t know yet what’s going to happen at the end or not, but there’s a hint of it. And so there’s, it’s a complex scene, which for me captures a hell of a lot. Dennis, I dunno if you want to add anything here.
Yes, well, a few things. I mean, I’m not sure. Buchner of course, was one of the great playwrights. I mean, I think he died at 24. It’s ridiculously young.
Yeah.
But I mean, that play is just a different league to this for the obvious reasons. I mean it’s a reflective play. One of the lines which I’ve always struck by in that play was the line, “The world is chaos and will give birth to a child called nothingness.”
[David] Yeah.
I mean there’s a real sense of reflection of what happens when you leave the dogs of revolution, as it were, to be free. This is an a, to use our soccer analogies, David, Buchner is like Liverpool, Manchester City, and Chelsea. This play is really right down in the second division.
All respect to Scunthorpe United. Okay, yeah.
Yeah. But I think the point that you make in all seriousness about this clip is not only correct but also reflects the point in which I do the sympathy with directors and screenplay writers, which is how do you compress a whole range of extraordinarily complex and nuanced parts of history into a two hour production? Because what’s going on here is effectively a whole lot of conflation of events that took place at different times. In other words, by the time they get to this particular idea of the king having to be executed, all sorts of historical events have occurred, which are not entirely depicted in the film. The king doesn’t just lose a series of battles as indicated in the film. He desperately tries to use the Irish and the Scottish as it was a bull walk against what he considers to be an assault on his thrown, and he’s really not in London at all. There are a whole range of issues which essentially are conflated in the scene. But I think the scene does raise two really interesting points, which you’ve mentioned, but just worthy of further development. The one is of course that, and as part of the context of the play, the film, I’ll give 'em credit for that. In the film, there is some reference to the attempt to negotiate with the king, some reference to the negotiations that take place in which what the king is being asked to do is become to a large degree of ceremonial king, or at least to withdraw the scope of his authority so that he no longer would cleave to the idea of the divine right of kings, which would override or suppose what would be an appropriate word in this particular context, which would trump the power of parliament.
And he’s being asked to sign that so that effectively he can continue, and he stalls and stalls and stalls and refuses to do that, which does finally give rise to this particular scene. And why that’s relevant is because what it shows in the context, and that is why when one of them says, “I’ve gone this far with you Oliver, but I will not go any further.” It’s precisely because the aim here was never, as it were to execute the king, and to throw away the monarchy, but it was to totally reform the monarchy into a congruent governance pattern with parliament. Now of course, that’s, and so therefore there’s a sense almost in which they’re trying their best to reform within terms of the law, hence the word, what’s the authority to arrest a king, et cetera, as opposed to persuading him to do the right thing. And the second point, which David quite rightly mentions is the way in which again, and this is of course because it’s inaccurately portrayed, Cromwell was never a Democrat in real life. In the film you get this kind of complex situation that he’s a man of the people who’s asserting the idea of democracy, and therefore this famous line, “The king is not England and England is not the king.” The idea being that you can’t conflate an entire nation with one person being the king, therefore asserting some form of democratic position. That wasn’t really Cromwell shtick at all. But that having been said, of course it’s ascertained here. And that’s why if you look at, if you drill down a little bit, it’s clear that now the film is swinging to what is perhaps the relatively more accurate portrayal of Cromwell, which is that the king having not acquiesced to their demands, well, there’s only one route left. And then what is true is Cromwell demanding and effectively compelling people to sign the warrant of execution. So I agree with you that all of this takes place, but it takes place, I think within this very complex context of trying to compress a range of history which is so inaccurate that one is left somewhat bemused by the logic of the entire presentation.
- Yeah, okay, we can go to the next short clip. Just one thing I would add is that the contemporary way of showing it is to take a period in these iconic, great historical figures’ life, which is precisely what Buchner achieves and others, and show that instead of trying to encompass decades and all the aspects of the historical life. And let’s be honest, one of the problems with the Mandela films is that again, they try to take on 60, 70 years of remarkable life, resulting in the similar issues that we mentioned earlier. Okay, let’s just show, this is a scene where Cromwell goes to church, and acting almost like Christlike when Christ goes into the synagogue, into the temple in Jerusalem and overthrows the tables of money, et cetera, et cetera in the house of worship and so on. And here he does a similar thing in the church, Cromwell, which shows the religious aspect of the Puritan versus the Catholic and how devout and profound the change happening in England is, where Puritans are gaining in ascendancy against Catholics.
CLIP BEGINS
Good morning
Good morning, Mrs. Cromwell.
Squire, have you with my husband?
It’s in God’s hands, Mrs. Carter.
And in the king’s.
Aye.
Let us pray. Almighty God, look down upon this thy house and we thy humble servants. Grant us the spirit of thy grace, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.
Who has done this? Answer me, who has done this?
An edicts choir from the Archbishop himself. And by order of the king.
By order of the king? Is the church of England or a Protestant church? Will the king turn the house of God into a Roman temple?
Mr. Cromwell, I beseech you?
Does the king think that God can be bought with gold, trinkets, and deluded rubbish?
I know only that I have been instructed.
Has this king forgotten the reformation?
Mr. Cromwell I-
Away with this paupers, idolatry. Did the Lord not say unto Moses, thou shall not make unto thyself any graven image? Nor bow down to them. Has this king forgotten the Spanish inquisition? Is the Roman Catholic church to have a seat in Westminster.
CLIP ENDS
Okay. It is showing obviously an echo or resonance of Christ going into the temple in Jerusalem. Similar thing here. Wanted to just mention this clip because it does bring in the very important Protestant, the Puritan Protestant Catholic versus-
Yeah, I wanted to say that. I think that’s that, yeah, sorry to interrupt. I think that’s really important, that of course these were puritans, and your description of Cromwell and the abolition of all sorts of things when he became ruler is precisely, I think, that’s where, here the script writer is trying to show just the clash between the puritans and the fear that Charles having married a Catholic woman, was going to actually, as it were, dilute the Protestant religion and almost as it were, kind of have some reverse takeover by the Catholic church. So this is, I think, an attempt to show precisely why the Puritans had a particular view of this. And Cromwell was very, very much in that particular line.
And I think on that, it’s also very important to see what the film, the ideas in the film, which still resonates, if not so much of the performance, which are this is the beginning of trying to really assert the sovereignty of parliament over the divine right of kings or the divine right of the strong man, individual, great leader, the emperor, whatever. The rise of individualism, the rise of the merchant middle class. For me Cromwell represents the rise of extending the vote. Trying to begin what we would call, I guess the beginnings of a modern society in all of these ways. And together with that, is not only a political thing, but it’s also economic and it’s also religious. So it’s a lot of all these things happening in this remarkably tumultuous moment in English history. And that’s where doesn’t maybe not capture it so well, but the ideas echo, I think all the way to today, where so many of these ideas are in question, in challenge, or there’s a kind of anxiety if you like of all these aspects. Okay, should we show the next one, Dennis?
Yes, please.
Okay, so this is the last one, which is, it shows Cromwell going back to parliament and he’s already, the king has been executed, and he goes back and he’s been the law, he goes back to parliament and he accuses them all of being corrupt and incompetent, not knowing how to lead, not having established the sovereignty of parliament, his ideals of democracy, of justice, of religious purity as well. All of these things, he regards them as utterly corrupt and incompetent. He goes back to parliament and just like we saw in the very first clip that we showed, King Charles did it. Here, he dissolves parliament to establish himself as the so-called law protector, which is really the dictator.
CLIP BEGINS
Much has been said in this house about the so-called iniquity of certain members being financially involved in national projects. Members have ascribed to the state of affairs, dark and sinister motives. I say if we in parliament cannot gain from ruling the country, there’s really very little point in our being here at all.
I move that this house be given power to remain in office a further three years without reelection.
Investigate the financial involvement-
It is six years since I handed over to you this great responsibility in the hope that you would make good and wholesome laws which the people of this nation expected of you. I must confess to some abatement of my hopes for what has happened in my absence. Instead of uniting the good people of this nation with righteousness and peace, which would’ve been a glorious and Christian thing to have done, what do I find? Anarchy, corruption, division and dissatisfaction. I say that the enemies of this nation have flourished under your protection. You are from the beginning, a provisional government not truly representative of the people. But have the people elected you as this house gone once to the people it purports to represent? No, it has not. And now after six years I’ve missed government, what do we find? That Thomas Fairfax move the bill to give this house a further lease of his reckless and dishonourable life. Gentlemen, an immovable parliament is more obnoxious than an immovable king. drunkards, tricksters, villains, whore masters, godless self-seeking ambitious tricksters. You are no more capable of conducting the affairs of this nation than you are of running a brothel. You are cancer, and a truly elected scam at that. This is no parliament. I should put an into your sitting. I hereby declare this parliament dissolved. Remove them.
Dictatorship, dictator!
CLIP ENDS
- Okay, so we have here Cromwell doing exactly what the king did, dissolving parliament, taking over, and he became law protector, dictator for the next five, six years. Just, I suppose a couple of thoughts that I wanted to mention here is, in showing the shifts of history, not only that he becomes a dictator at the end, but in a sense, how is history, how do we take, and I think, I mean, by the way, his speech I think could be used in a lot of parliaments and democratic places in different parts of the world right now. The corruption, the incompetence, the self-serving, et cetera itself, all of that, but how it really does work to destroy from within. But a bigger question that we wanted to look at was, how does history work? How does it evolve? Is it a transfer of power from bunch to bunch? Does it represent class or economic social interests only? Is it more driven by individuals? Are there almost unconscious collective narratives that go way back, that drive movements in history, that changes? Is it because people have had enough and not fed up and it’s just too much and it takes the leader and a whole lot of others to articulate, and moments of huge tumultuous change can happen?
The distinction between belonging to the inside and then the outsider coming in, as Dennis was saying earlier, Cromwell wasn’t the great, he was a squire in a sense, and represents the middle class, not necessarily representing the working class, the rights of the middle class against some of the aristocratic landowners, and of course the king. So it’s a complex character, which I think the film throws out all these questions doesn’t resolve, but it throws endless question for us today in terms of resonating how to represent history and fiction. I mean, Hillary Mantel’s written some fantastic interviews and some of her books recent, but I don’t want to get into the, now we don’t have time, but she tries to do exactly the same with the Thomas Cromwell character. And how are these shifts in the movements in history, and I guess for us, in our times, when there are so many shifts and potential shifts happening in many countries, what are the forces actually driving, and they are complex and contradictory. It’s not just in one individual, a Boris, or Trump or whatever, but you know that there are many forces moving as we almost sense, I think, anyway, huge changes to come. And if I may add in Heiner Muller’s, the brilliant German playwright who died recently, originally from East Germany, Heiner Muller, and I was a director of some of his players, but he had this great phrase, “The revolution devours its own children, beware.” Dennis, I don’t know if you want to add any thoughts.
- Well, that’s a very interesting point. I’m going to make two points, just in relation to the revolution devouring the children. As always, when I do these things, I kind of think partly because every Friday night I do this partial of the week portion of the Torah for a little webinar that we have on a Friday night during COVID. And it’s interesting that this particular, the portion of the Torah that we’ve read this week would’ve had to do in part with Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams. And there’s the dream, as you know, where Pharaoh dreams that the healthy ears of corn are swallowed up by the sick and really decayed an ears of corn. And the question is, what is that about? And we know the traditional interpretations, I’m not going to bore you with that. But there’s a very interesting mid rush which suggests this, that what it means is if you don’t take care during your times of plenty, the instability caused when you get to famine means that the unrest of the famine will destroy all of that which you built during the time of plenty. Or to put it differently, in circumstances where those in need are in desperation, they will destroy better than they know. And it seems to me that that is a positing something that does come out of this thought. I could develop that theme in many ways, but let me not do that. In other words, what I’m suggesting is, in the film itself, there is just before Cromwell dissolves parliament, the manifest dissatisfaction that people have had, saying essentially what on earth did we fight for? Is just as bad as it was.
And therefore the question is, when you ask yourself, does a revolution, as it were, produce a better world? Well, you should have a pretty reasonable idea of what it is that you want, and you need to essentially ensure better rather than worse conditions. Otherwise what you land up with is arguably a same kind of tyranny or even a worse one when you had before. And I think that message does come through in this film because of course we’ve just shown the last scene. But the scene before that, I think contextualises this last scene. The last point I want to make is this, that I did read a critique of this film, which did intrigue me. The film was made in 1970, and it was basically at the end of that very revolutionary era, the revolutionary era of the Sorbonne and the almost complete destruction of much of French democracy during that time, if you recall correctly. Daniel Cohn-Bendit that held a series of episodes. And indeed you may recall that not something dissimilar was occurring in America, not necessary a revolution, but a huge amount of unrest, both because of the way in which African Americans felt as a result of the assassination of Martin Luther King and the failure of the civil rights movement, coupled to the Vietnam War, the protests against that. And Ken Hughes was writing at this time, and it might well be that what he was reflecting on was precisely this, that revolution promised something, a better world, a world in which ordinary people would in as sense get their share, to use my metaphor of the sheaves of corn.
And of course by 1970, much of that hope had been dissolved, and that the film could therefore, its own context be seen as a warning shot that unless in fact conditions change, any kind of revolutionary activity merely reproduces that which it sought to replace in the first place. And there were already all sorts of indications of dictatorships, whether it be in Greece or in other parts of South America, which were relevant to the time that he was writing about. But of course we can always judge those kinds of questions for ourselves. And I said, David and I were just throwing out a series of ideas that you may want to ponder about if you actually watch this film. So let’s just move briefly to the questions if we can, of which not that many, and I’ll share them with David.
Q&A and Comments:
Sandra and Penny, I’m so sorry that you were offended by my comments about Manchester United and Arsenal. Let me say, in all seriousness, I’ve suffered since Fergi left. You’ve got to gimme one moment of joy. Gita, I heard-
Sorry, Sandra, can I just say all my thoughts to you and Bernie and hope that you’re doing well. At Stratford. I didn’t have the privilege to hear at Stratford, but I did see many, a number of times, in fact, I was privileged enough to watch him do the famous Richard III, and what great joy it gave to know that somebody from Sea Point, in Cave Town, which is where I was born, could rise to such incredible heights.
[David] Yeah.
The film came out David in 1970. David, our soccer commentaries, David, I think we should do more of those. Margaret.
I’m happy to do soccer commentaries anytime.
Any day of the week.
Soccer and boxing.
I saw Alec Guinness on stage in London, early ‘60s, spoke quietly with such projection, almost memorising. You know you’re right Margaret. I saw him as a young person when I first tripped to London and it was incredible. He aged on stage in circumstances where it couldn’t have been the makeup, it was just the way he acted. He was just spectacular there. David it’s safe that we did not talk about Liverpool versus Wolverhampton. Chelsea versus .
Q: Rodney asked the question, Do you think today’s audience has the same interest in inner life as past audiences?
A: - It’s a really important question, Rodney. No, I don’t. I think that this has evolved over centuries and more in particular in countries which have got good few centuries of at least beginning or implementing democratic rule of law, democratic institution, separation of church, executive, sorry, well, of church, executive and judiciary, and this of a blurring. And where there hasn’t been the charisma of the great leader to take over. I think the inner life has emerged slowly and it’s been a battle. It’s a fascinating battle in theatre because there are ancient Greek players where you get that. I mean Oedipus is freaked after he discovers he slept with his mama, and I mean, he’s killed his father. So, you get that inner, and in many of the other plays, Medea and so on. Medea is freaked that Jason is having affairs all over and her revenge to kill her kids. So you get that from the ancient times and in very contemporary. But I think it’s been a slow gradual, and I do link it to the rise of democratic individualism, and sense of human rights and the individual. And I do get a sense of that in those countries where there’s been more number of centuries of that evolving in theatre, and of course the influence of psychology in the 20th, Freud and all the others. And the fascination today to have the inner life, and because that’s what the audience empathises, identifies with. I think in times past centuries past, it would’ve been much more the social type. Because you can imagine, no electricity, you perform out in the open, only at summer, it may rain. You’ve got people shouting and screaming selling sweets, this, that, et cetera. So it was much what we would call over the top exaggerated acting, so the exterior character, the social type would act. And that’s interesting 'cause that’s a similar novel to what Sir Walter Raleigh would write, and Hillary Mantel talks about in the novels where I haven’t heard nor read, it’s the social image of the character, and that’s what people were reading and responding to. Charles Dickens also represents in the novels a bit of a combination of the two. But I think, in our times it’s absolutely inner life. It’s taken over for these reasons.
- Thanks David. “The Last King,” a couple of lessons about that, “The Last King” was about Norway, not about Cromwell, but it is true. “The Charles II: The Power and Passion,” was a BBC series if I recall correctly. Yes, it does start with the beheading of Charles I, but it reflects on his son, Charles II.
Q: What is the relationship between Thomas and Oliver Cromwell?
A: There is a relationship. I think Thomas was a great, great, great, I think, sorry, Oliver was a great, great, great uncle or something of Thomas Cromwell. There was a family relationship.
No, well Thomas was the great-great uncle, distant cousin. 'Cause he was under Cardinal Wosley, and then Cromwell came, Oliver came a bit after, yeah. And but he was working with Wosley with-
Of course, but that but much later, yes.
[David] Exactly, def, yeah.
The Revolution divides own original , Swiss political journalist according to Andrew Papa. I’m not going to argue at all about that.
Sandra, thanks for reaction.
Q: How do historians regard Cromwell?
A: Well, it depends on which book you’re going to read, really. I think the certainly thing is that the books I’ve read, as I say I mentioned too that Fraser and Hill, they’re very nuanced. So the question is that Cromwell, Cromwell is certainly not a hero in a classic sense of the word, but there was a great deal of nuance in the history, so it depends which history you read. They’re new books that have come out of him as well … And continue, yeah.
Yeah, also, I would add in there, how you show, going back to this idea of how you take from history and how you represent it in fiction, and notions of the hero in theatre, and of course in our times in film and internet and so on have changed. So what is heroic before ancient Greece, it would be heroic, but the fore would be hubris. So when hubris hit the character, the fore would happen. But that would be showing the heroic in the tragic genre.
Yeah.
And in our times, then it changed a lot. The heroic was just a social, the Ivanhoe character like Walter Scott and others where it’s just the external life, even “Braveheart” the movie to a degree. It’s just a social image, their external life. And that would be seen as heroic, not necessarily with hubris. And then at our times, the hero, I think the audiences want to see the hero as a little bit like us, with these human flaws of hubris and doubt, and anxiety, and questions, but still being a man of action, still being the statesmen, the others. And that’s where I think somebody like, I guess Mandela, really stands above because you see the vulnerabilities and you see the action. You see so many of these qualities, the Gandhis, et cetera. I think some of these films have really tried to capture this very contemporary sense of how you represent an historical figure in terms of the notion of the hero. And it’s fascinating study to look at how that changes.
I do think-
and the ordinary man, become hero is such a common new approach as well.
And I just, I’ll merely say as a way of conclusion that for me, Christopher Hill’s book written in early '70s gives an extraordinary nuanced account of Cromwell, both of the strengths and the weaknesses, and allows you to judge it in a way that I still find no other book does. And I’d highly recommend that. Anyway, thank you very much to everybody. I’ll see we’ve done questions. Lauren, again, terrific. David, thank you very much. Please everybody in the light of Omicron do stay safe and have a lovely week.
Yeah, please stay safe. Dennis as always, love working with together.
Pleasure.
And Lauren, thank you so much. And Wendy hope your parents are okay.