Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1964

The Contenders:

Peter Glenville: Becket
Stanley Kubrick: Dr. Strangelove
Robert Stevenson: Mary Poppins
George Cukor: My Fair Lady (winner)
Michael Cacoyannis: Zorba the Greek

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1964

The Contenders:

Becket (winner)
Dr. Strangelove
Mary Poppins
My Fair Lady
Zorba the Greek

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1964

The Contenders:

Richard Burton: Becket
Peter O’Toole: Becket
Peter Sellers: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Rex Harrison: My Fair Lady (winner)
Anthony Quinn: Zorba the Greek

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1964

The Contenders:
Becket
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Mary Poppins
My Fair Lady (winner)
Zorba the Greek

Becket

Film: Becket
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

I’m never really sure how to react to substantially religious epics. It’s always interesting to see someone willing to die for the courage of his or her conviction, but when that conviction is something I find so nebulous, I can’t help but ponder what I see as the waste of a life. That’s certainly the case with Becket, a story of warring ideologies and conflicted devotions. Admittedly, this is less a religious epic and more of a film about those divided loyalties and about perceived betrayal, but when so much of the film takes place inside a church and in characters wearing ecclesiastical garb, it’s difficult not to consider the intense religious overtones of the film.

What Becket really is at its core is the story of a friendship gone bad. The difference between a typical story of such a friendship and this one is that Becket concerns men at the height of temporal power. The two men in question are Thomas Becket (Richard Burton) and King Henry II (Peter O’Toole). The friendship is an interesting one. Henry is the heir of William the Conqueror, and thus a Norman in a still-hostile land filled with Saxon peasants. Becket is a Saxon raised to nobility by Henry. This leaves him in a very real sense as a man without a place to go. The other nobles hate him because he is a Saxon and the Saxons hate him because they believe he has willingly betrayed them for his position. This only becomes more the thought on all sides when Henry names him Lord Chancellor.