Why A Man for All Seasons is a Great Saint Movie

[@mantisshadow8990]

This was an excellent video, I'll be looking forward to more from you!

[@johnbryant1939]

This is a great video essay on a classic piece of cinema. I'm commenting to hope fully boost the algorithm.

[@rnhmbover63]

Class video mate.

[@isednom43]

Well done!

[@JoesMusicandMemes]

Great video, guys! I too love this movie (this is Joe L. from Letterboxd and Substack). The Broadway play of it comes highly recommended for very similar reasons, and you can watch a full recording on KZbin! The stage medium does a great job at communicating similar themes without sacrificing the theological/philosophical content, and the version with Patrick Page (aka Hades from Hadestown) as King Henry VII is particularly excellent because he’s just the perfect villain actor.

[@Reconquista_Media]

Thanks Joe! I've read the play many times, it's *very* good! Never actually seen a performance, though, I'll have to check that one out. Really want to see the Charlton Heston film from 1988 as well, which I believe hews much closer to the play in some respects (like keeping the Common Man narrator, a role originally played by Leo McKern on the London West End, who is Cromwell in this film!).

[@mitchcapps6021]

Well done! An all time movie and a well constructed essay

[@censoredanon8928]

I think you fairly defended him. I feel too often so many take a too cynical look at movies.

[@mapmuncher5587]

This is an amazing video! As an atheist I've never heard of the film before but will watch it now. Does it explore the difference between catholic vs protestant faith, or why people are religious at all?

[@DisposableSupervillainHenchman]

I don’t recall that it does. The movie mainly revolves around Thomas More becoming Lord High Chancellor, his resignation, his falling out with Henry VIII, his trial, and then his death. It’s a brilliant movie.

[@Reconquista_Media]

Thanks! I doesn't so much explore faith as contrast one character who is steadfast (Thomas More) with many others for whom faith is a secondary concern to power, wealth, or even frankly survival. The director and writer, Fred Zinnemann and Robert Bolt, were if my research is correct both agnostics themselves, and I think Bolt was an outright communist at times in his life, so they weren't as interested in the theology. But they do a good job of letting More speak for himself and display his historical beliefs, and they made a truly excellent film.

[@mapmuncher5587]

​@@Reconquista_Media@DisposableSupervillianHanchman, thanks for replying. I supose thats likely quite an accurate way to show the historical events of the time, I recall that Henry VIII wrote the book on papal supremacy, so clearly many were not as religious as they claimed!

[@mapmuncher5587]

Do you think the fact that the film is not actively about religion but instead focuses on a religious person is its strength as a religious film? I know there is a character in a Fallout game called Joshua Graham who put across religion very well, not by preaching just by the game betraying him as a religious person.

[@Reconquista_Media]

100%. I think religious films are often at their best when they aren't trying to preach, but instead meditate on a concept or show an example of a virtuous or religious person without banging you over the head with the message. Beauty and goodness attract; unsolicited preachiness often doesn't.

[@abrunosON]

McCarthy's mistake was that he loved too much, with hindsight we figured out that it is so much worse.

[@trashlag]

See, I feel people witch hunt for liberal ideology bleeding into great works, and eventually it becomes harmful to the truth when they accuse anything that moves of some sort of liberal collusion. A Man For All Seasons was unfairly called out on grounds it was liberal, but to me it seems the greatest movie to show protestants the Catholic position, especially St. Thomas's final speech to the court. He makes it very, very evident that it is through God that those temporal laws were granted, and that no man can alter it, something protestants tend to overlook when looking into Catholicism, simply because the history is lost on most of them, usually not by fault of their own.

[@tomgrimes8379]

Can I see one short video like this one, that does an analysis on one issue or another, without the intrusion of irrelevant music? First, the music is too loud, two, it makes no sense. Why is it used? What's it supposed to mean? How does it contribute anything meaningful? Is there music added simply because the producer CAN add it?

[@SamuelMorales1]

I would probably say the same about this comment...