A Man for All Seasons
Short description
A Man for All Seasons is set in sixteenth-century England and centres on the clash between King Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More, his Lord Chancellor. The king wants his marriage to Catherine of Aragon ended so he can marry Anne Boleyn, and he presses More, a respected humanist and man of conscience, to support his cause. More refuses to bend, and the court turns against him as honours and threats alike fail to move him.
Fred Zinnemann directed and produced the film, working from Robert Bolt's screenplay, which Bolt adapted from his own play. It sits between The Nun's Story and The Day of the Jackal in the run of features Zinnemann directed. Paul Scofield plays More, with Wendy Hiller as Alice More, Leo McKern as Thomas Cromwell, Robert Shaw as Henry VIII, Orson Welles as Cardinal Wolsey and Susannah York as Margaret More; thirty-three cast members are credited.
Made for about two million dollars, the film took roughly twenty-eight million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.7 from about forty thousand votes, and on TMDB 7.3 from a far smaller number. A critics' rating of 7.9 from eighty reviews places it slightly above both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- All members of the cast had to agree to a reduction in their fees in order to keep the total film budget under $2 million. Only Orson Welles (1915-1985), Paul Scofield (1922-2008), and Suzanne York (1939-2011) received fees exceeding $10,000.
- Orson Welles, who played the role of Cardinal Wolsey (1473-1530), used an exact replica of Wolsey's official seal, as well as authentic parchment made from sheepskin and a quill pen for writing.
- The trial and execution scenes are based on the testimonies of eyewitnesses anonymously published on August 4, 1535.
- Vanessa Redgrave was initially considered for the role of Margaret, but she was busy with theater. Redgrave agreed to appear on screen without pay in a cameo role as Anne Boleyn (1501-1536), but on the condition that her name would not be in the credits. However, her name is present in the final credits.
- The filmmakers ordered several trucks of polystyrene to simulate a snowy landscape. As soon as the polystyrene arrived, the weather deteriorated and it began to snow.
- Paul Scofield (1922-2008) did not attend the Academy Awards ceremony, believing that the Best Actor statuette would go to Richard Burton (1925-1984) for his role in Mike Nichols' (1931-2014) 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' (1966). The award went to him, and the statuette was sent to him by mail and broken during transport.
- The film shows that Thomas More (1478-1535) was beheaded for refusing to sign a document proclaiming the king head of the Church, as this conflicted with his beliefs. The film does not mention that More, as Lord Chancellor, knew many people whose beliefs conflicted with his, and that all those with whom he disagreed were declared heretics and burned at the stake.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
