Becket on DVD
The forgotten 1964 spectacle is out in af ully restored version
Spectacles have been a part of cinema since the heyday of D.W. Griffith. As history, however, they have always come up short, preferring excessive amorality, allegorical overkill or visual wherewithal to factual accuracy.
There was a brief stage, however, after the debauchery of DeMille and before the modern mess that is The 300, when the form was one of substance, intelligence and wit. That time was the early sixties, when two actors, on Irish, one Welsh, began to don robes, breastplates and leotards as often as you I wear jeans, t-shirts and sneakers.
We are speaking of Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton, who appear together in 1964's Becket, newly released on DVD.
Becket, as in Thomas, is the Saxon sidekick of Henry II, great grandson of William the Conqueror, who defeated the Saxons at the battle of Hastings. Despite their backgrounds, Henry and Thomas enjoy a fun and fruitful friendship - a loyalty that comes to be dramatically divided when Henry, in an effort to win the tug of war of Church and State, elects Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury. When a fellow clergyman is murdered by the crown, Becket demands justice. Henry, in turn, is driven to frame his old friend for embezzlement, thus severing the only relationship he has ever taken pleasure in.
The film, particular in its restored state, is lush and memorable. It's dramatically well balanced, too, particularly the first act - the one that most deviates from Jean Anouilh's famed Broadway hit. Screenwriter Edward Arnhalt does an expert job of demonstrating the Henry-Beckett friendship while maintaining the cat-and-mouse tension that lies beneath. Neither he nor director Peter Glenville, however (who directed the stage production,) bothered to dramatize the film's turning point: the loyalty-dividing murder of the priest. Thus, for all of its filmic fatness, Becket is a little thin in the middle.
What cannot be cited as flawed, though, are the central performances. This is a chance to see two powerhouses at their height, each working off of the other like great gears set into synchronous motion. O'Toole's immature, high-living Henry may be the quintessential O'Toole performance. It's filled with every one of his trademarks: the fey, dreamy pain, the arch, vocal tenseness, the perfect use of those icy blue eyes. Burton, as Becket, confirms the intelligence that, with him, is always on display: he underplays it, sparing us what could have been one of the world's most expensive shouting matches. His direct deadpan, his Hamlet-esque brooding, his bemused sobriety (now there's a word I never thought I'd use in this context!) are the tools that allow him to hold his own against O'Toole's rafter-ringing panache.
As if that isn't enough, there's one more performance of note: the estimable John Gielgud as the King of France, ruler of the homeland to which the disgraced Becket returns. Gielgud, in Beatle wig and trim goatee, is a jaunty cad, in the kind of turn that a few short years earlier, either Claude Rains or George Sanders would have done.
All three performers were nominated for Academy Awards, as was just about every other aspect of the film. And yet, for the past forty years, the film has largely been forgotten - a situation that, unlike the Henry-Becket friendship, has found reparation.
