Books |
The King’s Speech
directed by Tom Hooper
By
Published: Mar 06, 2023
Category:
Biography
Handicapping the Academy Awards is an American ritual. I find this weird. It’s not as if you and I made any creative contribution to these films or stand to profit from their success. And yet we cheer on our favorites with a passion that suggests some deep identification. Or used to. This year’s nominees for Best Picture have collectively grossed more at the domestic box office than any previous group in history — but only because “Top Gun: Maverick” took in $718.7 million, “Avatar: The Way of Water” grossed $598.4 million, and “Elvis” added $151 million. Although I’ve seen none of them, I’d bet none of them wins Best Picture.
Because the English monarchy has been in the news of late — see Spare, Prince Harry’s book, and Tina Brown’s “The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor” — my mind drifted back to the 83rd Academy Awards, which honored films released in 2010. The competition for Best Picture was between “The Social Network” and “The King’s Speech.” One was about Mark Zuckerberg and the rise of Facebook, a story we knew well then and are thoroughly sick of now. “The King’s Speech” had novelty going for it — I knew nothing of King George VI’s stammer or about Lionel Logue, the man who helped him lose it. It’s a period movie, about a period with pleasing clothes, cars, and manners. And it’s about something important: the fight against Hitler.
Kids and creativity and lawsuits vs. maturity and expertise and war.
A main character of uncertain integrity vs. a hero or two.
Money vs. history.
What would you choose?
“The King’s Speech” received 12 Oscar nominations, more than any other film that year, and subsequently won four, starting with Best Picture. Colin Firth won Best Actor. David Seidler won Best Screenplay.
For those who haven’t seen the film, you can do something about that —it’s streaming on Amazon Prime. The story is simple. The Duke of York, second in line to the English throne, has a horrifying stammer; when he’s forced to speak in public, the pauses and false starts are torture for him and his audiences. Then his brother abdicates to marry an American divorcée. Now he’s king, and forced to speak. Worse, with war coming, he needs to be, along with Winston Churchill, the voice of England, so he consults an eccentric Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue.
Starting in England in the late 1700s and moving on to the colonies and the United States, public speaking was a discipline, a spectacle and a sport. In Australia, 23-year-old Lionel Logue set up a business as an elocution teacher. In 1924, Logue, his wife and their three children traveled to London. This was to be a vacation. It became a new life. Logue had some money, but not enough to keep his family going. And he knew only one person in London. Yet, with astonishing self-confidence, he rented an office on Harley Street — home to all the chic doctors — and began trolling for business.
At that time, the cures for speech troubles ranged from cutting off bits of the tongue to training the patient to breathe differently. Logue believed the cure was a combination of physical and psychological work. The Duke of York — like Logue, we’ll take the liberty of calling him “Bertie” — became a patient in 1926, not in the mid-‘30s, when he was about to be king. They met 82 times in the next year. Logue was paid the equivalent of about $15,000.
In the film, there are only a few speeches. In fact, Bertie made many — and Logue was there to help him. The improvement was vivid. A Time Magazine headline: “C-C-C-Cured.” There was a gift of royal cuff links. And money. But even more, there were letters and visits, all testifying to an unusual friendship between a royal and his subject. And there are lovely flashes of humor —in a speech, the King fluffs a word. On purpose, he tells Logue: “If I don’t make a mistake, people might not know it’s me.” The royal friendship made Logue a rock star — he bought a large house: 25 rooms, with five acres of gardens and a tennis court.
“The King’s Speech” is a love story about two heterosexual men. It’s about trust and courage and, above all, the will to work hard to be better. Watch the trailer to see how Logue gets results. And then watch the King’s first, make-it-or-break-it radio speech.
Over many decades, I’ve coached dozens of writers. Their problems have, at bottom, been the equivalent of stuttering — they don’t write like humans speak. Since seeing this movie, I’ve found myself quoting the very last thing Logue says to the King, thirty seconds before his speech: “Just say it to me. Say it to me… as a friend.”
Now that… that is the kind of straightforward, underplayed, but hugely emotional line that wins Oscars. Or used to.
