This was a marvelous film. The Lion in Winter is an epitome of power, seduction and intrigue.
This movie hinges upon witty repertoire, excellent admonitions and parallel tragedies. It breeds contempt and exudes clever reciprocity.The roles of each character were contemptuous at best, each more clever and heartless than the next. What is more important? Love or money? Everyone in the movie is a pawn in the sick, twisted game of Queen Eleanor and King Henry. Each plays off the other and admires the one for ambushing the other.
Each is seduced by his or her own power.Eleanor and Henry have three sons; Jeffrey, John and Richard. The king also has a concubine, Alice. Each character has a love/hate relationship. King Philip plays into the sadistic plot as he surprises the king with a secret about his son. John is the favored of the three.
Henry wants him to be king and promises him the throne.He constantly reminds them all that he is 50 and wants to see an heir before his death. Jeffrey is the most charismatic of them all. He is the middle son, very clever, much the wit of his mother. Richard is the best fighter of the three.
He is the eldest and as such feels like the throne is rightfully his.Although Alice is the concubine to King Henry, she is in a quandary for he makes many promises he does not plan to keep. Her naivety of the situation keeps her as his pawn, for he is fond of her but she is no match for Queen Eleanor. When he speaks of his epithet on his grave, he says that never before has there been any woman like her and never again will there be.
Alice says that she pities the queen because the queen loves Henry as much as she does power, but Alice loves only him. However, Alice is not aware that this is what draws him to the queen. He admires every bit of her scheming, power driven manipulations.The queen is one to be dealt with. She is fair and brilliant.
She knows how to manipulate the king. She loves him and feels that he is a formidable opponent. He loves and distrusts her, but thrives on the very game that they play. He keeps her in a dungeon, where he can keep an eye on her and promises to never let her go.
Henry is not much without fight. Fighting is all he knows and all he does. He lives for it and cannot see himself without it. He has bred his sons to be manipulative, selfish and power driven. However, he has met none in the land, aside from his wife that brings forth the fight in him, hence the name, The Lion in Winter. He is not as vicious or tenacious as when he lets out his bride of many years.
Each time he lets her out, she plots against him. He only lets her out in the winter for Christmas and she has a year to plot against him. He enjoys her spirit, her threats and attempts to overthrow him. In the movie, he asks that she give him but a little peace and her reprieve is, why not eternal.
She speaks of his many affairs and illegitimate children. She appears to be jealous of her husband’s concubine and despite this torrid affair; she appears to wear the eternal crown.There appears to be a love/hate relationship between the two. She tells him that losing battles would not bother her. She refuses to lose her crown.
She speaks of all of the wrongs that he has done to her and says that if she peels him like a pear, God himself would not call it justice. She looks in the mirror and does not see her beauty of yesteryears.After his son’s attempt to overthrow him and plot behind his back, he puts them in the dungeon and makes, yet another eloquated promise to betroth the young Alice. He tells her that all of the maidens are waiting and all that he has to do is send his wife packing and sentence his sons to life in prison. Meanwhile, Eleanor enlists a guard to do her dirty work and get her in to see her sons, to whom she delivers daggers.
They say that they will kill their dad and she bades for them not to. Jeffrey threatens her and keeps her in the dungeon until the arrival of the king. At this point, he is about to bear the bad news; they will be locked away forever.This is what Alice wishes because that is the only way that a child she bears by him will be the king and she will be able to be free. Henry says he will go to the pope and get an annulment from Eleanor. Eleanor watches and tells him to kill their sons for treason.
John and Jeffrey look terrified, but no fear is upon the eyes of Richard as his father draws his sword to bear down upon him; and rightfully so, for his father does not have the will to kill his own flesh and blood.Henry then tells Alice to go. He says that he wants no woman in his life. This is where I began to realize that it is all just a game, for he has a woman in his life.
It is his fair Eleanor. The bearer of his legitimate children, the one that he will never let go of, the one who brings him a fight every winter. She makes him who he is and enables him to sharpen his skills. She fiercely guards her territory and though she plays second string to concubines throughout the year, she maintains the heart of her lion in winter.
