Murder in the Cathedral (1951) User Reviews

Not that bad

[philiposlatinakis · 6/10 · 25 February 2020]

This is a film of a play and resembles Greek classical theater in its format. Some of the dialogue from the chorus is a bit wishy-washy and goes on too long. There are a few silly moments that don't work. Most of Beckets dialogue was interesting. Too be honest I'd have too see it again to get what it was about, though the historical narrative just about exists and is interesting. However, filmically, it leaves a lot to be desired. It's like a minimalist cross between Ingmar Bergman and Carl Dreyer. Static shots are held too long. Inserts of ponds and waves on the sea shore could have been done without. This sounds like I'm painting an unflattering picture, but it wasn't really that bad. Put it like this: If you love Carl Dreyer then you'll love this film.

How much we would like to have the film!

[Dr_Coulardeau · 10/10 · 1 March 2007]

This concerns the only public artifact connected to the film, the book entitled "The film Murder in the Cathedral" The film itself, by T.S. Eliot and Hoellering is not available. A copy exists in the archives of the British Film Institute but it does not seem easy to get to it. What a shame for a cult play like « Murder in the Cathedral » ! The book presents the complete scenario with of course the text and all the directions necessary to imagine what is happening on the screen. Plus a great number of illustrations taken from the film, which gives us a sample of the atmosphere on the screen. And that makes this book really beautiful, like an art book of kinds. But we are altogether reduced to analyzing the script and comparing it with the play itself. A short introduction (in the film of course) is added to explain the audience the political situation at the moment when Thomas Becket comes back to Canterbury after a seven years' exile. Then there will be little change in the text till the end and the come-back of the knights after the killing. In fact in the film they don't come back but are confronted to a hostile crowd arriving in the cathedral. They have to explain themselves to save their skin. These explanations are a lot shorter and situationally directed at the crowd. Yet at the very end the tone will change with the changing of the target which becomes the audience today, eight hundred years after the event, which was the original target and tone in the play. The shortening of this section does not take too much out because in fact this section in the play is kind of a play in the play and has no dramatic justification on the stage. The purpose of this scene seems to be in the play the desire to name the four knights and the desire to alleviate their crime by a sound historical explanation that heavily burdens Thomas Becket with unsound political and religious judgment. Just after that the intervention of the priests is cut off and we get directly to the concluding Chorus. The most significant changes come in the various choruses. I will quote the chorus after the intervention of the four tempters. A first chorus is attributed to a priest in the film and then the chorus of the four tempters is split among these and that changes the meaning of the fourth tempter who is no longer a tempter but becomes very precisely the guardian angel Thomas Becket refers to at this moment, and clearly this guardian angel has advised Thomas Becket to keep along an unyielding line and hence to become a martyr. So, Becket's refusal when that tempter was tempting him is only cosmetic. Clearly then his attitude will be to provoke violence and be submissive to it. It sure is self-murder (to use the word in the German operatic adaptation), or plainly suicide. But we will note that the film makes the identity of this fourth tempter very clear and yet it cuts off the reference to « suicide while of unsound mind » that is contained in the play in the mouth of one of the knights. This splitting of choruses into their members enables the film to clearly demonstrate the existence of four knights, which is not at all clear in the play where you often have only three knights speaking together. In the film, systematically, the four are stated as speaking one after another or together. The splitting of the women's chorus after the first discussion between Thomas Becket and the knights is interesting because of the numerical symbolism we should analyze in depth in the whole play, or film. 1st woman – 2nd w. – Chorus (prose) – 3rd w. – 4th w. – 5th w. – 6th w. – 7th w. – 8th w. – 3rd w. – 9th w. – 10th w. – Chorus (8 lines) – 4th w. – 11th w. – Chorus (6 lines) – 10th w. – Chorus (prose). Without entering more details here (every single one of the numbers used to list the women is meaningful in Christian symbology, both in number and rank), it seems very clear that such elements reinforce greatly what we can find in a few strategic places in the play, such has the final quatrain : the crossing of three symbolism (at least), viz. Solomon's number or David's star (3 + 3 = 6), the trinity in all its values (christian, but also the basic disruptive element in the English tradition going back to the Elizabethans and the iambic pattern of English poetry), but also the simple, neutral, balanced binary element that gets into various associations and various values : 2 + 2 = 4 and Christ in his Passion and on his cross, hence the martyr ; 2 + 2 + 2 = 6 and we are back to Solomon's number, but seen from a binary standpoint ; 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 8 and the Christ in his glory of the Resurrection and the Second Coming, hence the martyr in glory after his death, and seven, here and there, as the holy week, the week of the passion, and once again the reference to martyrdom as suffering and glory at the same time since the glory comes within the suffering and from the suffering. When we see how the text of the film has been reworked upon to increase these symbolical elements we regret even more than before the absence of the film itself.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

Beautifully Done But Of Limited Appeal.

[TheCapsuleCritic · 8/10 · 10 May 2024]

If ever there was a cinematic labor of love, then George Hoellering's 1951 adaptation of T. S. Eliot's verse drama MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL is it. Shot in black and white on a limited budget and using mostly amateur performers, MURDER is nonetheless a very powerful film. That power comes from the simple settings, the striking cinematography, the authentic 12th century costumes, and the remarkable poetic dialogue of T. S. Eliot. The plot of the movie, like the play, centers around the murder on December 29, 1170 of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Within that historical framework, Eliot focuses on Becket and his inner conflicts based on the knowledge that unless he flees or submits to King Henry II, he will likely be murdered.

The crux of the movie takes place in the middle as Becket faces three tempters patterned after the Temptations of Christ. One offers him safety, another riches, and the third asks him to betray the King. Eliot adds a fourth tempter (who does not appear but is voiced by Eliot himself) that is Becket's own conscience who urges initially urges him to do the right thing (martyrdom) but for the wrong reason (self-glorification). Once Becket has resolved his spiritual crises then he is ready to embrace his fate. An earlier scene lays out the conflict between the Archbishop and King Henry II. The king hoped to combine secular and ecclesiastical law by making his chancellor Becket head of the Church but Becket turned against him determined to keep the two separate.

Director Hoellering casts a real life cleric, Father John Groser, as Becket. It is a perfect choice as Groser doesn't appear to be acting yet he knows how to deliver the lines that express conflict between the spiritual and the secular. There is also an amateur group of women that act like a Greek chorus. They comment on the action while speaking in Eliot's blank verse. Other non-professionals make up a combination of priests, knights, and barons. The few professionals that are used come from the Old Vic and include Alexander Gauge as King Henry II and Leo McKern as one of the four assassins. Gauge would later play Friar Tuck in Richard Greene's ROBIN HOOD while McKern had a long film career and is best known for RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY.

MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL was long unavailable until the British Film Institute released it as a dual format set in 2015. In addition to MURDER, the set contains 3 short films by Hoellering. They are the 1944 MESSAGE FROM CANTERBURY, the fascinating SHAPES & FORMS from 1950 which compares Primitive & Modern Art, and a tribute to the Scottish GLASGOW ORPHEUS CHOIR. All of the films have been digitally re-mastered with the look and sound being very good. The much needed subtitles are greatly appreciated. Both formats feature the 114 minute British release while the Blu-Ray also contains the uncut 139 minute Venice Festival presentation. It's definitely a title of limited appeal but for some, like myself, it's a remarkable achievement.