A Man For All Seasons

“To frighten a man there must be something in the cupboard, must there not?”  Paul Scofield as Saint Thomas More in “A Man for All Seasons”

“A Man for All Seasons” was the “Oppenheimer” of its day.  The film was released on December 12, 1966, and although it was anything but Christmas cheerful, it became extremely popular and won multiple Oscars that year.  This film made it noble to be a lawyer and through More, put out some guidelines on conscience and integrity we could use today more than ever.  It was More’s integrity that caused him to refuse to condone King Henry VIII’s divorce from his first wife so he could marry Ann Boleyn and have heirs.  More was executed for treason for that.  Four hundred years later the Catholic Church named him a martyr for his faith, and a saint, the patron saint of lawyers.

Saint Thomas More’s feast day is June 22nd.  I wanted to mark this personally by channeling Saint Thomas More.  It came down to either reading More’s epic work “Utopia” (too deep for me) or watching this film (deserved its Oscar).  I opted for the flick and I’m glad I did.  People like More don’t exist anymore, and films about saints don’t win academy awards.  I wouldn’t want to hang out and have a drink with More, but I would like to have met him and listened to him on the issues of this day. 

Here's the thing I like most about More.  He respected women.  He believed that women should be educated.  And that was in fifteenth century England!  He should have been canonized on that alone.

It’s a heat emergency across most of the country today.  Find a cool space and watch “A Man for All Seasons” this weekend.  You will be glad you did, and you might be a better person for it.