The King's speech

Sorti le 2 février 2011

De Tom Hooper

Avec Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter

Genre: Biopic, Historique

Britannique 

March 2011

The Hollywood Awards Ceremony has just awarded The King’s Speech for its best director, actor and original screenplay but most of all as the best movie. This can easily be explained by the fact that the feature film is excellent and touching.

As the title highlights it, the speech and also the way of speaking of a King is going to be exposed. What makes the story even more compelling and harrowing is that it is a true story. The one of King George VI of Britain (magnificently played by Colin Firth, A Girl with Pearl Earring, A single man) compelled to come to power and to the throne in 1936 when his brother Edward VIII (Guy Pearce) abdicated because of he fell in love with a married woman. Edward VIII’s lifestyle, his jazz, champagne, parties and love stories did not hold to the rank of a King.

George VI has to deliver a speech to encourage his people, his nation and his troops at the beginning of the war in 1939. However, since his childhood, he has struggled against a physical disability: stammering. The speech is even more important as new means of communication like the radio have developed faster and as new technologies have appeared, making the highest authority closer to the people. The late George V (Michael Gambon) had said clearly to his son that the King had to evolve with the times.

Thus, this very good historical reconstruction tells a human story. In fact, in the background there are settings and costumes of the 1930’s, airships in the sky; but this is also the drama of a man who couldn’t express himself distinctly as he wanted to. The tragedy of a prince humanized while laughing and playing the penguin with his two daughters but also formal when these two little girls cannot hug their father anymore and must bow because he has just been crowned. The sadness of a man wearied down by his stammer.

Hence his wife Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon is looking for an efficient doctor who could finally help him. Helena Bonham Carter, usually seen as freakish characters such as in Alice in Wonderland or Sweeney Todd, plays here a more restrained and traditional character, a wife helping and supporting her husband, in which suits her perfectly as well.

Lionel Logue (performed by the Australian Geoffrey Rush) is an eccentric, unconventional, extravagant character who is going to loosen the King up who is ruled by the royal protocol. With provocation he calls him by his nickname Bertie to establish an informal relationship which will ease the progression of the recovery, despite the King's stand-offish behaviour. With a humorous hint he makes him practice language exercises. For instance George VI has to swear many times, to shout dirty words articulating because the strong feeling of anger allows him not to stammer: “it’s actually quite a good fun!” says the King’s wife while seated on her husband stomach who is trying to control his breathing. With a tinge of irony, Lionel Logue laughs at the snobbish manners of George VI by making jokes about knights and some inappropriate remarks. 

The swearing scene seems inappropriate 

when in reality it is humorous and it helps the King

This underlines the social gap between the two men who have different educations, ways of life, ways of seeing the world that surrounds them, responsibilities... After all, the therapist is “only” the son of a beer salesman that is to say nothing compared to the King while the King is the King and this is enough to justify his importance and the deference people owe him. The scene when the two men fight is striking because we feel sorry for Mr. Logue who just wanted to help but instead was rejected.

Through the language exercises, the musicality of the English language and the importance of pronunciation are depicted. When George VI reads his speech, the sheet of paper is full of red shafts and annotations to help him to do the right breaks and pauses (musical silences) so that he can sing with the best intonations. The microphone is an imposing vector, almost becoming a full-fledged character throughout the movie. It is a monster which intimidates the speaker and finally becomes his instrument. We wonder until the last minute if the King will succeed in opening his mouth to utter the sounds during the so long awaited speech. The suspense reaches its climax. The English language is in this way valued. The dialogues are short (kind of stichomythia) but precise. The screenplay is amazing since each word is chosen cautiously and with minimalism. What is needed to be said is said, nothing less, nothing more. It conveys a “mise-en-abyme” of the stammer and the difficulties to speak and express oneself whether in arts, in a movie or in everyday’s life. It makes the viewer think about his own ability to talk and to yack about nonsense all the time. We feel a desire to choose better our words and to think twice before talking.

Furthermore, there is a Freudian and psychological dimension which can be observed since the King step by step confides in his friend his uneasiness and his pain as a child different because of his physical disability. At first, he thinks his stammering is physical but he understands it is more psychological. He needs even more than wants to assert himself and to be listened to. For example he yells in Westminster abbey “I HAVE A VOICE!” This cry for help is moving and heart-breaking. During the speech declaring war on Germany, people will finally listen to him. The images of different groups of people through England listening to the radio, soldiers or women, create an ekphrasis.

Thanks to many low angle shots, the camera gives the impression that even in spite of his disability the protagonist is powerful and superior. Many times the camera is “inside” George VI so the spectator feels his distress. Through his eyes, we see his hopeless vision. However we will never be able to understand his burden of “kinging” and ruling a country with a problem of elocution and on the eve of a major international crisis.

The excellent, dramatic, intense and dynamic music (the seventh symphony of Beethoven or the compositions of Alexandre Desplat) lingers on the action or stops as the red blinker stops. Light is also very important. The fog of London contributes to the poetic picture of escapism and blur in the scene the two men are walking in the park. Lionel Logue enlightens the darkness of the King’s problem.

At the end of the performance, the beauty, the strength, the talent of the director Tom Hooper, the screenwriter David Seidler, the cast and the movie left me totally speechless.

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