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Becket
By admin | August 7, 2007
If there was a singular movie that made me fall in love with old films, this was it. I remember seeing this movie on one of my insomniac nights, during the late 70’s. I must have been about 11 or 12. Peter O’Toole became a life-long secret crush at that very moment.
My mother, who was always awake at odd hours caring for my sister, thought my obsession with Peter O’Toole was funny. She said, if you like this one, you should see Lawrence of Arabia. That’s when I laughed at her and realized she, too, had a crush on Peter O’Toole. One of the reasons I believe she chose my father was because he looked like Peter O’Toole and could be just as giddy and fun loving when not drinking. You know those tall, lanky Scottish/Irish men with sparkly leprechaun eyes. They will cajole you into just about anything! I’ve never been able to ignore those fun loving eyes.
In Becket, Peter O’Toole plays King Henry the II for the first time. He plays him again 3-4 years later in The Lion in Winter. In this first role, he plays Henry II, so superbly. His pairing, as a lanky King against the manly-man form of Richard Burton, was no doubt to raise questions of sexual preference at a time when you didn’t talk about what cowboys did beside a campfire. But Peter took it so far beyond that - showing the weaker juvenile emotions that adults - especially adults in power - secretly conceal.
If you have ever had to parent or take a leadership role of any kind, your first instinct is to hide your most human qualities. The qualities that many would perceive as weak, like say, nepotism, love, friendship, desire. Henry did not care! He wore his heart out on his sleeve and defied anyone to touch it. He knew how to use and manipulate people and did not worry about such things as obedience or loyalty beyond the risk of getting emotionally scarred. After all, He WAS King. Who would dare deny him? Well, his most trustworthy and loyal saxon friend, Becket would, but only for the Love of God. Which in the end, Henry begins to realize was an enormous show of their friendship and love for eachother - yet, he realizes this, tragically, only after Henry has Thomas killed.
Becket is a wonderful story of courageous conviction; the need to feel so strongly about something as to even have a conviction, and the situations one puts themselves in just to feel a part of human existence.
I think that for an artist, especially of Peter O’Toole’s caliber, the name of the game is having the courage of your convictions. Many actors must feel so dead to emotion, yet must play the roles of others to remind themselves of passion and desires of life.
As an artist, I crave the feel of paint, or pencil to paper, or the smell of printing ink, in order to capture a particular moment that describes one of life’s passions. Peter O’Toole’s aged old man in Venus craved the scent of his friend’s niece’s vagina. Peter O’Toole can turn over every ugly, beautiful, cragged, bug ridden stone - even sometimes crushing it - only to discover hidden jewels of emotion. Then, as if he were my 6 yr. old son, bringing me flowers, Peter shares his discoveries with us. He uses something, even as disgustingly secretive as the desire of an old man for the scent of a young cunt to gain our insights into the sadly aging body and mind of an old man. An old man who desires, just as King Henry II, to just participate in what will be the all too few, simple pleasures of human life.
Just as Henry II didn’t give a damn if people found him to be politically correct, neither does Peter O’Toole! Yes, I could have married this man! Alas, he was already married and half a world away and like his real life wife who appears in this movie with him, probably could not have survived it with my self-esteem intact. But what great fun it would have been to try.
God Blesses the artist with immeasurable gifts to gain insight into a world few choose to even look at it! Thank you Peter!
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