A man paralyzed by the sound of his own voice. A family in turmoil. A world on the brink of war. A country that needs a king. A friendship forged with fire.
Those are the things most people will see when they watch The King’s Speech, and rightfully so. It’s a beautiful movie about the leader of a nation overcoming his own fear for the good of his family and his country. But, more than that, The King’s Speech is about the power of words.
Directed by Tom Hooper (The Damned United, John Adams), written by David Seidler (Tucker: A Man and His Dream may be his most famous work) and starring Colin Firth as King George VI and Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist, Lionel Logue, it features a smattering of excellent supporting performances by a gaggle of great Brits; Helena Bonham Cart as Queen Elizabeth, Darek Jacobi as Archbishop Lang, Jennifer Ehle as Myrtle Logue, Guye Pearce as Prince Edward, Michael Gambon as Ging George V and Timothy Spall as a spot-on Winston Churchill.
In 2010 David Fincher gave us The Social Network, a film that presents us with a character who thinks only his actions, not his words, matter and delivers legal negotiation as if it were a murder mystery, for which The King’s Speech makes an odd companion piece.
In the film, “Bertie”, the man who would become King George VI, knows that it isn’t his deeds that matter, it is most assuredly what he says that counts. Moments before the finale, and in the last session we’re witness to, he laments “If I am King, where is my power? Can I declare war? Form a government? Levy a tax? No! And yet I am the seat of all authority because they think that when I speak, I speak for them.” He is a man that knows the power of words, if only because he has so much trouble producing them.
It’s very much a slow, methodical film (again, the anti-thesis of The Social Network) and deliberately so, I think; there are awkward pauses, silences that go on for too long, painful scenes that seem like they might not end and ones that do end with an eruption of violence. I mean none of that negatively, just to say how fascinatingly like it’s main character it is.
The only word I have for the performances in the film is “brilliant”, and it’s one I use far too often. It’s bursting at the frames with talent, from the performers down to the costume design. But, I imagine you’ll be hearing about all of that come time to hand out the golden statues.
No, instead, as I’m want to do, I wanted to focus on what I thought was the single most powerful scene in the film:
After his coronation, King George sits in an room empty of everything except a few deck chairs and a projector. His daughters and wife, as well as the Archbishop, join him in re-watching the footage. It is their own private cinema. After the King has been crowned a newsreel of Adolf Hitler begins to play. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before; soldiers marching in formation, the salute, Hitler screaming in German. King George’s daughter Elizabeth turns and asks him what the man is saying. George’s response is: “I don’t know, but he seems to be saying it rather well.”
A man who cannot put a sentence together to even defend himself in a verbal battle with his own brother, sits in a dimly lit room, watching another unite a nation with the power of what we would now deem hate speech. In that moment you see jealousy and regret in the face of a King.
As I’ve said, he is a man that knows the influence of words. They can unite us, divide us, conquer nations and crumble walls. They can replenish our soul and level our spirit. They can comfort, they can kill; they can inspire and they can devastate. Words brought the world into existence and they have torn countries apart. But, in the end, he realizes what so few ever do, they are JUST words. The only power they truly have is the power we ultimately give them.
