A Man for All Seasons - Trial (2 of 3)
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- The second part of the trial scene from the 1966 movie "A Man for All Seasons". Thomas More is on trial because he would not take the Oath of Supremacy recognizing Henry VIII as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and failure to do so was treated as treason. Roman Catholics such as More had to take the Oath or were tried and usually executed.
"There is one question I would like to ask the witness. That's a chain of office you're wearing. May I see it? (looking) The Red Dragon. What's this?"
(Cromwell) "Sir Richard is appointed the Attorney General for Wales."
"For Wales. Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. But for Wales?"
I love the pause Scofield gives between " Why Richard it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world........but for Wales". The pause heightens the great contrast between the whole world and Wales. Wow
timestamp?
well, no, the pause isolates the insightful reflection on Rich's utterly flawed and self-serving nature.
Well, and also highlights the difference between the whole world and Wales as was commented.
' But for Wales ' What a scene .
And the withering delivery.
@me hee Trump would respond: They can't walk on land.
@me hee selling your soul even for the whole world is a horrible deal and wales is precious little compared to the whole world
the forlorn way he exhales "but for wales" is so weighty and damning.
The guys being taken pity on by a man about to be executed...Moore feels sorry for him. He sold his soul for a petty office.
It profits a man nothing... but for Wales. What an utterly brilliant and hilarious line. Right on, Thomas More. You just don't see that kind of script irony anymore.
Not hilarious as it could’ve been delivered or interpreted
As John Hurt said in a BBC documentary about Scofield it was performed with disappointment and sadness,
A totally different and brilliant reinterpretation by Scofield
Babylon 5?
If you did not realize, here Richard is asked three questions (2:56) by which he answers three times "No, my lord". This is a reference to Saint Peter's denial of Jesus three times.
Oh, I didn't pick up on that. Great scripting!
Problem: A man won’t take an oath, thus making it impossible to trust him. He must be prosecuted and convicted for this.
Solution: Lie under oath about key evidence, thus invalidating the concept of an oath’s capacity to engender trust.
One has to appreciate the irony.
The most beautifully constructed film I have ever seen- I watched it first when I was about 14 and was hooked on every word of it. I couldn’t believe that a film so full of dialogue, could be so riveting.
Indeed, so I bought the book.
Paul Scofield's delivery of the line "But for Wales!" is the most beautiful line I have ever heard spoken on the screen, on stage, or in any other medium. My understanding is that the line was conventionally performed with a more humorous (almost slapstick) tone. Scofield's brilliance as an actor was to deliver the line with so much pathos without losing any of the irony in it. Bravo Mr. Scofield!
"Thou shalt NOT bear false witness... " You're toast, Richard...
@sld1776 The man perjured himself after giving his oath to God. More's remark was not just a Bible reference. It was that the man gave his immortal soul and position in Heaven for a mere position in a small country in all the world. How cheaply did he hold his own soul.
He didn't believe in God.
How many people are like that?
@@Kitiwake Everyone does not believe in God at some point in their life. I have my reasons and my history to cause me to believe as well as the conviction and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
The scene is dripping in little metaphorical details to emphasize that effect. The way Richard forgets to complete the oath at first with "So help me God," showing that the judgement of God is secondary in thought to him. And the Red Dragon, as a chain of office no less... Well, that just speaks for itself, doesn't it?
In the UK we often use Wales as a measurement unit when comparing large areas, as in "an ice sheet the size of Wales." Maybe they did that in Moore's time as well.
"For the whole world... but Wales" would then be a bit like "for the whole yard... but an inch". 😉
lol I remember being a kid in the 90s. An area the size of wales will disappear from the rainforest each year... somehow the rain forest is still there, 25 years later
@@judyhopps9380 We shall all be Sir Thomas More sooner or later
I thought it was more like...."For THAT dump, Wales?" 😂😂
@@judyhopps9380that’s because Wales is about 2 million hectares and the rain forests about 2 billion.
At least Hurt got what was coming to him in Alien.
@Joseph Lomeo Bravo, both of you!
I love this film. I've seen it perhaps 12 times in the last 30 years, and it seems richer and more powerful with every reviewing.
Scofield is beyond extraordinary. His is certainly won of the greatest performances on film. But so many of the supporting actors are outstanding -- Welles, Shaw, McKern, Hurt, Hiller, York --
@akosigundam It's not a stab at the Welsh. More is reminding Richard that it is folly to sell your soul for the whole world, but he sold out for just a small corner of it: Wales.
"I profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world , but for Wales", What 's a word!
Profound and humbling. Thomas More, how great thou art. I have engraved these words on my very heart, for they were exactly what this great saint said. Listen, protestants, to his arguments.
More was very fond of torturing people including those whose only sin was wanting to have the Bible in English. More was far from being a saint but then when you look at some of those elevated to sainthood the bar wasn't set very high.
More actually WANTED Bibles in English, as long as they were approved by Church authorities to not include protestant footnotes and mistranslations. Read your history Tridhos. The "bar" was that he gave his head on the block for the Truth. Would you do the same?
@@thomashogan16 Why should he have to put his head on the block? The only reason would be if he was coerced into accepting a belief system that he didn't accept. Why shouldn't someone be able to choose their own beliefs, or just throw out the whole superstitious nonsense altogether?
Profound and humbling and great they are, but for many of the words in A Man for All Seasons, Thomas More must yield credit to Robert Bolt, a playwright and an agnostic.
@@hannotn More actually WANTED Bibles in English, as long as they were approved by Church authorities to not include protestant footnotes and mistranslations. Read your history Tridhos. The "bar" was that he gave his head on the block for the Truth. Would you do the same?
“That is not evidence” -
So true. Cold and concise.
Every company and govt dept has a Richard Rich....he's the original quintessential careerist who wants to get to the top but doesn't know why or what to do when he got therr. ..but would cut anyone's throat to get to it
And the Richard Riches don't get there because they're not smart enough. The ones who get there are the Thomas Cromwells - even more amoral and ambitious but far smarter.
Thankyou Paul Scofield.
& John Hurt who died yesterday.
Thank you Leo McKern
25 January 2017
I am sorrier for your perjury than my peril.
After so a long a silence I should open my mind to such a man *waves hand in disgust* as that
THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES! I JUST LOVE THIS MOVIE 🍿!
Makes me long for a time when audiences were clever enough to even understand, let alone appreciate such a scene. And when script writers were talented enough to produce them.
BUT FOR WALES... . Unforgettable!
Wow, these subtitles are something else. It's fun to both watch the movie and enjoy the abridged novelization at the same time!
We are all free to tell the truth and none of us free to lie. `Twas always thus, and always will be.
There was a famous atheist of the past century named Charles Bradlaugh. Before he was a staunch atheist, he was a zealous Anglican church school teacher. One day, though he looked at the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church and the Gospels. He confided in a Pastor of the Church that the two seemed to be different from each other. The pastor hastily denounced him as an atheist. Gradually he decayed into extreme atheism.
Now not all are like that pastor, but GOD HAVE MERCY on those who are.
Richard Rich watched this video once.
but Richard, It profits nothing a man to give his soul for the world, but for wales?
How a mealy-mouthed man with perjury for exchange of power...Condoned willfully his own actions even if perjurious...
It should also be remembered that Richard Rich was one of the worst men of English history. He himself was a torturer as well as a liar and a murderer.
20170328: ADDENDUM, FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich (1496/7 - 12 June 1567), was Lord Chancellor during the reign of King Edward VI of England from 1547 until January 1552. He was the founder of Felsted School with its associated alms houses in Essex in 1564. He was a beneficiary of suppression of the monasteries, and a persecutor and sometimes torturer of those opposed to the officially established church, whether it be Roman Catholic or Church of England.
Since the mid-sixteenth century Rich has had a highly negative reputation for immorality, financial dishonesty, double dealing, perjury and treachery that is seldom matched in all of English history.[3] The historian Hugh Trevor-Roper dismissed Rich as a man "of whom nobody has ever spoken a good word".[17]
Mr. A. Escoto: He sucks, and you know it.
+Richard L. Kent Garbage......he was chancellor of England and HE personally exonerated many more than he ever condemned......in no way a liar or a murderer. Try getting history from accredited sources and not showtime mini series
@@aescoto1523 The least that could be said is that he perjured himself to convict an innocent man and gain a political office, aiding a tyrant to execute a good man. That seems bad enough.
Apparently, even up to as late as Victorian times, the descendents of Rich were shunned by polite society as they were seen as having 'bad blood'. That's how bad his reputation and legacy have lingered.
But it is also a matter of record that Thomas More was a noted torturer and heretic burner when in office. The man was one of the foremost scholars in Europe, and was renowned as a man of unbending principle even before he quarrelled with Henry. But those principles included great intolerance for heresy and schism as "error has no rights". He lived by the sword and died by the sword.
Two brilliant actors in the same scene
This film becomes ever more relevant by the day.
"But for Wales." That was more savage than Fred and Randy Savage flying a Northrop AJ Savage to Savage, MN to attend a Savage Garden concert sponsored by the Savage Arms Corporation.
Who wrote those immortal words... but for Wales?
Trojan Horace Sir Robert Bolt.
Great post!
But for Wales?
I've watched this movie a dozen times. I've carefully read Bolt's original stageplay. I love the whole thing. But what I've always wondered was what Thomas was about to say before he was interrupted. I know it counts for nothing, since Thomas alleges that the incriminating statement was a fabrication and Rich's testimony perjury. But still. I've always wondered what Thomas was about to say.
No offense but a very good line, "for Wales?" 4:17
Sir Rich gave his sould ... for Wales!
😊...awww man, let's check out one more
Consider what happened to some in this scene:
*More was executed in 1535 for high treason.
*Thomas Cromwell was executed in 1540 (high treason, after Henry VIII's marriage to Anne of Cleves)
*The Duke of Norfolk was imprisoned in 1546 and would have been executed had not Henry VIII died before signing the warrant.
His son, the Earl of Surrey, was not so fortunate.
*Richard Rich was knighted and became the Solicitor General for Wales in 1533. He became a baron in 1547 and died in 1567. The third Baron would also be given the Earldom of Warwick; all of the titles became extinct on the death of the 10th Baron.
Like everyone else, I love "...but for Wales?"
But there's another great line, a great bit of acting, that's too often overshadowed: "Is it probable? Is it probable, that after so long a silence, on this, the very point so sought of me, that I should open my mind, _to such a man as that_ ...?"
And there's the tired, weak, but still dismissive, gesture: That sideways flick of the hand while he's saying "such a man as that." The shaking of the head, the very splaying of the fingers, shows how thoroughly Thomas regarded Richard Rich to be craven, devoid of character, and not to be trusted with anything more intimate than a polite "good morning." Brilliant physical acting.
The film doesn't actually include the conversation that Rich is reporting on so...inventively. But it doesn't have to. We know -- everyone in the court knows -- that Rich is a willing liar, and a bribe-seeker, and will sell another man's life for personal gain, and that whatever slight turmoil he feels in his conscience is a passing thing, more-than-adequately compensated-for by a sinecure.
The final line of the film notes that Rich "died in his bed." One presumes he's been keeping company with Adolf and Jeffrey Dahmer ever since; but the filmmakers were too diplomatic to say anything about _that._
Haunting
3:30 But for Wales?
@Joseph Lomeo Only New Yorkers will understand the true meaning of that.
Who said "My kingdom is not of this world"?
Do you not have the first part anymore?
@meiguoren777 It was sarcasm in disbelief and disdain. Sarcasm is not humor or "hilarious." The profit of the man was refered to rather than the country of Wales. So, your "Wales would not profit" is not relevant to the line.
Rich, like Cromwell, a yes man and a heretic to boot!
I agree that there was little or no irony intended. The intention is to uplift people with the biblical reference, not to make them laugh.
"But for Wales" to me is death row humor.
Sir Thomas More knows he is about to die, and he believes he will be going to heaven for upholding the Gospel of Christ.
He also knows that his accuser will be going to hell for all eternity ... "but for Wales?"
If it were dolphins, Mr. Rich, I would understand. But for whales?
Thanks.
JESUS himself founded ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC and APOSTOLIC CHURCH!
if so, where are all the apostles in the Catholic Church today? Incidentally, we have a Quorum of Twelve Apostles in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, just as was in the early days.
'if so, where are all the apostles in the Catholic Church today?' ==Catechism of the Catholic Church........77 "In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them their own position of teaching authority."35 Indeed, "the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time."36
+ mo O -- Name one organization that hasn't. I'll wait.
God bless you Seiki. I have said this for years.
They're called cardinals. The Mormons have absolutely nothing that resembles the earth Church. A quick read of The Fathers, and a bit of history will easily prove that. And now what Brad?
@SorokChyetirye Would that he had decayed from extremism altogether.
3:32
🏆
Wales seems to be an object of a degree of scoffing here,which is a little harsh as until the poison of Scottish Nationalism infected them they were always,in my opinion at least, really lovely people with a great bent for the arts.Poetry and music for example came to them so easily.
It's a fun film, but it has a tenuous grasp on historical fact.
It's more than a fun film - it is a great one. Though you are right about its tenuous connection to historical fact.
Deute. 18:10-14,
My favourite drama on film. More poignant today with its message about freedom of speech, especially with societies views of Christianity. They have nothing on Sir Thomas More, so what does Richard Rich do? He lies. “But for Wales”.
But Thomas More - brilliant, learned and principled as he was - was no friend of free speech, to put it mildly. When in office he had people burned at the stake merely for owning a copy of the bible in English. Of course it has always been the religious (of all religions) who hate free speech - because "blasphemy!". You can't get people to believe mystical nonsense if others are allowed to point out it is nonsense.
If people have a dim view of Christianity, I’d say they brought it on themselves.
Babble the fuck on.
highlandcommando thanks to Kevin smith I finally watched this
thank fuck for him
Great drama. But Wolf Hall is much more historically accurate.
Good riddance. More was an enthusiastic supporter or burning for Protestants and an ardent Catholic chauvinist, who believed ordinary human beings didn't have the right to follow their own consciences, or decide their own beliefs for themselves.
I don't want to be the Judge but sometimes we should put ourselves in the shoes of others. He was born and raised in a Catholic nation and served within the courts of the same Catholic nation where everything even the laws are based on the faith and everyone who calls himself British, is not only a vowed citizen but a vowed Catholic and then all of a sudden, there is a movement of defectors who practice the same faith but do it in protest/misunderstanding against the current Church and worse, has made vicious and highly abusive allegations against the Church, how is he supposed to react to a movement like that, ofcourse he would be against that movement. Not because he hates them or wants them dead, but there are vows that must be followed especially as a law maker. I am not sure off the allegations that he was a torturer or that he supported the killings of protestants strongly but as a law maker, yours is to keep the laws even though capital punishment is a part of it, of course we are better of without cruel executions especially for those that break national/religious vows which was next to high treason then, infact it is absolutely not of God but of human nature but Thomas had held the vow to defend the Church and ensured that the Church wasn't tainted, the executions where not under his authority or his support. I can be a lawmaker in a country that supports capital punishment, that doesn't make me a supporter of capital Punishment but one who is practicing the law because I want what is best for everyone. I am not saying that Thomas Moore was perfect or the church members were, but we should understand the oath behind his role. Ultimately, God would Judge.
Saint Thomas More is a heroic and holy man.
You protestants were nice people too..
Ah religionists, can rationalise any barbarity, as long as it's their particular brand of fairy stories. So much simpler and easier being an atheist.
@hannotn Your post belies that fact ( that you're atheist) you need to read it again..
"It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world......but for the government of the United States of America".---Statement to the Democrat Party
I posted this video. I think you're completely wrong. The Republican Party needs to be destroyed.
@Catholicdadof4: OUCH! What a stab at the Welsh!
I think we can all admire More's Supreme conviction, but let's face it, 99.9% of you cannot agree with him lol l, unless you're some devote Catholic. We are talking about one freakin divorce after all.
I agree with More
Wow. Still don't get it.
Thomas More was not that great of a guy either. Remember, this is Hollywood. More was a Catholic fanatic. There were a lot of religious fanatics in that era along with a lot of corruption.
At the time, the whole of England was Catholic.
@@stevetaylor8698 Not the whole of England, if you consider that religious lip service was enforced in so many ways. If they'd had free, compulsory, superstition-free education with no privileged power for the Catholic church then next to nobody would have been Catholic.
@@hannotn Not so. How many people believe in God still? It isn’t forced upon people
“More was a Catholic fanatic.”
You say that like it’s a bad thing
@@carsonianthegreat4672 In that time being a Catholic fanatic involved torturing and burning heretics at the stake - and in office More actually was well known for that. Brilliant and pricipled he might have been, but he was ceratinly not the humane and forgiving personality depicted here. He certainly did not believe in others following their conscience.
I can’t be the only person who finds Thomas Moore profoundly irritating
Read _Wolf Hall_
Jesus loves you, but He wants you to know that He is not in Catholicism. Ask Him..
I disagree.
I'll pray for you. The fullness of the faith is in the Catholic Church
Ask him? Do you plan to send him an email?
Christ Jesus founded the Catholic Church. To deny His Church is to deny Christ.
I did the last Sunday at Mass. When I took the Host into my mouth, He told me He indeed was "in Catholicism." To use your silly protestant term.
I wonder if it was worth it to Sir Richard to have born false witness against him ?