If you’ve been reading the news or watching TV this week you’ll know that the 84th Academy Awards are happening this weekend. All the hoopla got me thinking about last year’s awards, and about the film The King’s Speech in particular.
Did you see it?
Cinema has a great history of creating, portraying and interpreting inspiring speeches. From Mel Gibson’s call to war as William Wallace in Braveheart to Robin Williams’ “Carpe diem” speech as John Keating in Dead Poets Society to Sean Astin’s heartfelt speech as Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the film genre has featured a wealth of great speeches.
But The King’s Speech is different – it doesn’t just contain an inspiring speech, the entire film revolves around the challenges of public speaking.
The King’s Speech is a historical drama based on the true story of Albert Frederick Arthur George, better known as King George VI (played by Colin Firth), who struggled throughout his life with an irrepressible stammer. Nicknamed Bertie by his family, George VI was the second son of King George V and the younger brother of King Edward VIII. Bertie was not expected to inherit the throne, and so for much of his life his stammer went largely unremarked upon by the public.
However in 1936, not even a year after becoming king, Edward abdicated the throne to marry the divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson, thrusting Bertie into the role of king. Bertie was now required to make speeches to the public – and his stammer went from an inconsequential quirk to a matter of great embarrassment.
In an attempt to cure his stammer, Bertie reluctantly began working with an Australian speech therapist named Lionel Logue (played by Geoffrey Rush). The two men worked together to overcome Bertie’s stammer in time for the king to make his first radio broadcast concerning Britain’s declaration of war on Germany in 1939.
As every one who has ever made a speech knows, public speaking can be nerve-wracking at the best of times. When you add on the task of overcoming a stammer, King George VI’s speech-making feat was really rather remarkable.
Here is a clip of the culmination of the film: Colin Firth as King George VI, delivering the king’s speech. Inspiring, not so much because of the speech’s content – although that’s good too – but because of the challenges the speaker had to overcome just to present it.
If you’d like to see how close Colin Firth came to mirroring the speech made by the real King George VI, click here for a fascinating comparison.
And in case you’re wondering, at last year’s Oscars, The King’s Speech went home with the awards for best picture, best director, best actor and best writing for an original screenplay. Rather inspiring indeed.
Have a great weekend, folks!
