THE LION IN WINTER: 4K UHD/Blu-ray (Avco-Embassy, 1966) StudioCanal

The age-old axiom about ‘art imitating life’ has been exercised so often it has acquired legitimacy as though one was virtually synonymous with the other. History on celluloid has proven otherwise, if superficially, and far better to captivate the imagination than any textbook writ large by legit historians. This – at least, in hindsight – has been a constant source of sour grapes for those who diligently do the real archaeological heavy-lifting. Over the last hundred years, Hollywood has mined – and bastardized – virtually every period in man’s evolutionary l’histoire. Not even The Bible has escaped the movie’s delirious fermentation to polarize it into such flights into fancy. And it remains a genuine oddity about mankind, that what is presented to us visual is unquestioningly taken at face value. So, art overshadows life as history’s surrogate, canonized as truth, no matter how far afield it skews from ancient texts.

Such is the case of William Goldman’s superb 1966 play, The Lion in Winter reporting to be a dramatization of the headstrong conflict enveloping the court of Henry II. In truth, the high-stakes drama playing out in The Lion in Winter bears no earthly resemblance to history. Virtually all of the dialogue and situations are complete fabrications spawned from Goldman’s fertile imagination. There was no Christmas court at Chinon in 1183. And no evidence to suggest Alais, the half-sister of France’s Philip II Augustus, was Henry’s lover. By contrast, the real Eleanor of Aquitaine was imprisoned by her husband for plotting his overthrow, using their three sons as pawns in a diabolical game of botched succession. The Lion in Winter cleverly mangles this latter historical truth, using it as the crux of another intrigue-laden coup. As it stands, we can either fault or excuse Goldman for his ‘artistic license’ because The Lion in Winter is exasperatingly ambitious as a stand-in running parallel to the truth. We can also forgive director, Anthony Harvey’s 1968 film adaptation, perhaps even more since, not only has he assigned screenwriting duties to Goldman (allowing him to further improve upon and embellish his stagecraft) but also, because Harvey has assembled a superb cast for what is essentially a mesmeric – if slightly wordy- two-person battle royale.

The supporting parts, few and far between (for Goldman has chosen to remain relatively faithful to his play), are filled by some tremendous ‘new’ talent, including Jane Merrow as Alais; future James Bond, Timothy Dalton – her steely-eyed brother, Philip II; Nigel Terry (Henry’s preferred heir apparent, John), John Castle (the overlooked and malicious middle son, Geoffrey) and finally, future fava bean-eater, Anthony Hopkins as Richard, the eldest and Eleanor’s definitive choice for the throne. In the leads originally fleshed out on stage by Robert Preston and Rosemary Harris, director Harvey has sent forth for consideration two of the most accomplished actors of the twentieth century: the formidable, Katherine Hepburn and consummate Brit-wit, Peter O’Toole.  In hindsight, O’Toole is the more impressive, particularly when one considers he was a mere 38-years-young at the time, sufficiently aged to compliment Hepburn’s 61-year-old wily matriarch. It is the verbal sparring between these two legends that proves so perfect a counterpoint to this otherwise discordant mythology of deceit, lies, manipulations and insults.

Goldman is nothing if unapologetic about making Eleanor and Richard contemptible, often repugnant usurpers of each other’s authority. This aged hen and her wounded rooster, fighting for the same scraps of waning power neither shall possess in their own lifetime. It remains a tribute to Goldman, and Hepburn and O’Toole, that neither Eleanor nor Henry devolves into filthy hag or horror. Instead, each is carefully weighed with deliciously vial, impertinent things to say, expertly timed outbursts to challenge and defile the other’s reputation while, miraculously, never tainting their own. Instead, we empathize with every vicious barb. The aging King who has no viable heir to bequeath his throne, is under siege from the empress of these ineffectual male offspring, forced to concede her part in their bungled rearing. The Lion in Winter is essentially a familial tragedy where personal domestic crises threaten to topple a nation. It is a tale of one man’s legacy doomed to decay after his time because he has failed to prepare his kingdom for a flawless transition in authority.

Having avoided his duties as husband and father, Henry is now faced with a bitter decision; either, to place the sword of truth into the hands of his least effective son – John – or bypass his motley brood outright by taking Alais to wife and bed, despite her betrothal to Richard. Indeed, Alais would welcome this, as she loves Henry, yet cannot abide his adult sons. Time is not only of the essence. It has run out. Henry is old. His sons by Eleanor are of the ages to succeed him. As Alais points out, any chance for her, as yet unrealized son, supplanting Richard, John or Geoffrey can only be made concrete if the aforementioned are put to death or imprisoned for the duration of their natural lives. Despite her misgivings, Alais is hardly bitter. She is, in fact, a loyal and devoted lover – compassionate too, making it all the more difficult – if not entirely unbearable – to despise her.

On the flipside is Eleanor; her ace in preventing Henry’s plan to coronate John, her retention of the Aquitaine, a strategically important region Henry desires to possess, but Eleanor holds dear and intends to bequeath to Richard, thereby ensuring the power struggle endures in perpetuity. Of course, the wrinkle herein is neither is fit to rule; John, the slovenly and pimple-faced stunted adolescent, easily swayed by his misguided devotion to Geoffrey – who is loyal to no one except himself – and Richard, whose keen militaristic intellect and stern maturity bear the scars of a wounded childhood. This continues to haunt and slowly erode his sanity. Neither would make a good King for obvious reasons. Determined he should work out the kinks to his plan during the pending Christmas holidays, Henry commands his trusted advisor, William Marshal (Nigel Stock) to gather his scattered progenies to Chinon.

The first few scenes in Anthony Harvey’s masterpiece are devoted to establishing the psychological complexities of the three potential heirs. John is steadily improving in his swordsmanship under Henry’s expert tutelage. Richard is narrowly spared the torturous decision to decapitate his foe during a jousting tournament. Geoffrey is ever deluded by his bloodlust in battle. Alais questions Henry’s devotion to any of his sons. She loves him dearly, but is gravely concerned his lust for former mistress, Rosamund Clifford – recently deceased – has not abated. Alais also worries about Eleanor’s toxic influence. Perhaps, Henry’s panged silence suggests a lingering attachment to Rosamund’s ghost. However, he openly refers to Eleanor as ‘that bitch’ and ‘gargoyle’ who occupies no residency apart from her imprisonment in Salisbury Tower.

The Christmas reunification of these warring factions at Chinon will force familial enemies to face one another. Almost immediately, Eleanor pledges Henry a rough time. John, willy-nilly and blinded by his allegiance to Geoffrey, is acrimonious and confrontational toward Richard. Eleanor, however, calls out each son, exposing their deficits and venom toward one another. Eleanor is most enriched by her sinister revenge, goading her excommunicated husband with insidious innuendoes: how she bedded his late father, and throughout their marriage was passionately intertwined with some of Henry’s most ardent detractors and closest friends. She provides just enough speculation to make Henry question the loyalty of those closest to his heart. Mere lies or cynically unvarnished truths, much too difficult to digest? Who can tell? Eleanor is a devious hellcat, conniving one moment, tenderly affectionate the next, employing soft-spoken intellect to weed out the darker veracities concealed deepest from within.

An incalcitrant Henry refuses to bend. Stalking his lonely castle by night, Henry commands his inhabitance to stir and make ready for the instantaneous marriage of Alais to Richard. While Alais is crestfallen, Richard is stunned – and highly suspicious. Much to Henry’s chagrin, at the last possible moment he cannot bring himself to cast off his mistress, revealing far too much about his own devotion to her. Later, in private, Alais confides her great relief to Eleanor, also her enduring admiration for Eleanor and her silently wounded love for Henry. Try as she might, Eleanor cannot fault, condemn or despise Alais for her affections. Into the thick of things arrives Alais’ brother, Philip of France – an ambitious monarch with decidedly definite ideas about France’s future alliance with England. In the pact originally made between Henry and Philip’s late father, Alais’ was proposed in marriage to Richard. Regrettably, in the interim since – and, after having already spent Alais’ dowry, Henry has fallen hard for his son’s wife and lost all interest in preserving this tenuous alliance in order to make Richard the future King of England.

The Lion in Winter is not particularly interested in resolving any of these plot points in any concrete way. Henry briefly entertains the clumsy notion to free the Queen from Salisbury Tower. However, the price for her freedom is the relinquishment of all rights to the Aquitaine. It is an offer fraught with incalculable uncertainty – particularly for Eleanor. Alas, Henry has proven to be a fairly ineffectual King - fickle in his decisions. He contemplates imprisoning his heirs in the dungeons of Chinon for the rest of their natural-born days at Alais’ request, merely to ensure whatever children she bears will rule in their stead. Seizing the opportunity to bribe a guard, Eleanor skulks to the dungeon to free John, Richard and Geoffrey, instructing them with knives to rise up against their father. Enraged, Henry challenges his boys to take up arms against him. Even Richard is unable to comply. Coward that he is, John flees, followed by Geoffrey. Richard is disillusioned, startled perhaps to discover his deeply wounded conscience. He storms off in a huff. Alais now realizes her dreams of marrying Henry can never be. His heart begrudgingly belongs to Eleanor. As our story concludes, nothing is decided. Eleanor departs on a queer note of satisfaction for her return to Salisbury Tower with Henry promising to release her for Easter.

Deriving its namesake from the latter period in Henry's troubled reign, The Lion in Winter is an extraordinary medieval soap opera. Yet, rarely does it devolve into fits of subjective pique. James Goldman’s screenplay is occasionally slavish in anchoring politics to its platitudes. But these are neatly counterbalanced by an even wittier spate of salacious barbs situated in a place of less-than-cerebral palace intrigues. It really is an earthy and occasionally disturbing, lust-driven saga, sustained by the expertly nuanced performances of a superior cast. Goldman has taken every human frailty, the malicious and the fractured, and condensed its sincerity and sinfulness into a compendium or darkening will, as compelling and unbridled as the polarized ambitions of fateful/fitful greed. The magic here derives from the hurly-burly between Hepburn’s queenly harridan and O’Toole’s curmudgeonly liege, a subtly emasculated pussycat in lieu of teething lion.  Douglas Slocombe’s cinematography captures the bleakness in this winter’s tale, as black as Henry’s heart, and as coldly cruel as the vengeful gleam flickering in Eleanor’s eyes.

Oh, great. It’s déjà vu! In 2024, The Lion in Winter made its North American debut via Kino Lorber, cribbing from refurbished elements, reportedly transferred to standard 1080p disc via a 4K ‘restoration’ in 2017. Sounds good, except MGM – the present-age custodians of UA’s catalog – thoroughly missed their mark. So, fast forward to 2025, and StudioCanal advertising a ‘new restoration’ in native 4K, with a 1080p disc tossed in, derived from the same ‘new’ transfer. Good news? Think again. To break things down succinctly, the horrendous gate weave and edge enhancements that afflicted the main titles remain intact here. And it’s a perplexing mystery, as the optical titles are rock solid, while the backgrounds, depicting various stone-carved faces, ricochet uncontrollably and wobble, with amplified grain and some untoward pixilation, and edge effects that create jaggies in the fine detail. A more thoroughly ugly opener, I’ve not seen in quite some time. Whether or not anything more could have been done to ‘stabilize the titles (as in a complete rebuild from static images of each the stone images, recomposited with the titles, a la the work done for the main titles of My Fair Lady) is open for discussion. And while the color palette has now rendered these stone visages in a more natural state of grey granite (the previously Blu from Kino had a weird greenish cast), the atrocity doesn’t end with the titles.

The entire first reel of The Lion in Winter is plagued by a thicker than usual grain structure that has a highly digitized appearance. The subtleties in Douglas Slocombe’s cinematography, all those misty and/or fog-laden master shots of a dreary, desaturated England, now just look lost, slightly muddy, and lacking in crispness and fine detail, while paved over with a dense patina of film grain and less than adequate contrast. There are also age-related artifacts to contend with, as well as some noticeable streaking in the master shots of the distant castle and early scenes photographed on the beach. All of these imperfections are made more painfully obvious in the higher 4K resolution and are, to put it mildly, a real downer. The real/reel oddity here is that after about the first 30-minutes of runtime, the image quality steadily improves. Colors become more perceivably nuanced, contrast snaps together, grain settles into a comfortable range minus the distinct pixelation seen earlier, and, fine details in skin, hair, fabrics and background information are brought to the forefront focus nicely.

While Kino’s Blu sported a 5.1 pseudo-stereo mix, StudioCanal offers us only a DTS mono. Unlike Kino, the mono mix is very much in sync. John Barry’s score still sounds strident, rather than rich and vibrating. But dialogue is actually quite excellent throughout, with O’Toole’s bellowing occasionally crackling in the higher registers. Extras are nicely assembled. There are two newbees to consider here: first, the interview with Sir Anthony Hopkins, billed as The Heart of the Lion, and offering us some astute reflections on the making of the picture. Second, Shooting the Stars – an interview with camera assistant, Robin Vidgeon. Curiously, we lose the interview with sound specialist, Simon Kaye, but are supplemented with two other ‘heritage’ interviews: the first, with actor, John Castle, the other with editor, John Bloom.  Cumulatively, these are wonderful addendums to the film. We also get the vintage audio commentary with director, Anthony Harvey, a stills gallery, and the 2024 ‘restoration’ trailer, which plays with a considerably different color palette and image quality virtually scrubbed of all film grain. Go figure. Bottom line: The Lion in Winter is a masterpiece with two powerhouse performances at its helm. But it’s a move that still deserves better on home video. One final note: the Blu, included with this 4K set is marketed as region free, when it is actually region 'B' locked. The 4K will play anywhere. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

4