"You see, I really am your friend, and you're wrong not to love me."
Becket (1964) is a very funny movie to me in how I personally think it is honestly one of the most MID things I've ever watched, but Peter O'Toole giving the pining, leaking Omega-in-Heat performance of a lifetime makes it worth it to me. Peak misogynist yaoi. The main weakness to me is that Burton's Thomas Becket in the movie is the most boring person alive, and doesn't capture how the real life Becket/Henry dynamic was that they were both unhinged in their own ways. I don't mind historical fanfic, I don't mind when authors make shit up--but why do people gotta make interesting characters so dull and moralistic? Anyways. I wrote a more extensive and in-depth review of the movie on my more Serious Writing Blog last year, which you can read if you're so inclined.
The best part of Becket '64 is the Gwendolyn scene, which, like most great scenes in historical fiction, is completely Made Up but it was the part where I was like oh, you can actually see the uncomfortable proxy heterosexual possessive tension going on which is my guilty pleasure in the same-gender ships. Becket actually seems like an interesting character for all of 5 minutes during the "Inside me is a void where honor should be" before he solves his mental issues with church and then it returns to the immature Henry carrying the show with his whole disaster self. I guess it speaks to the strength of Anouilh as a wordsmith; there are many beautiful lines that do haunt me, and when I listen to the play recording from LA Theatre Works I have to stop every 5 seconds because the characters are saying something devastatingly beautiful. But overall it's not enough to stave my annoyance.
"The Devil's gift–his most subtle trick–to give us what we pray for"
The Devil's Crown (1978) does a better job in my estimation for capturing that toe-to toe feeling, as well as placing the Becket controversy in the Very Interesting context of the marriage and later crowning of Henry the Young King. It's so weird to have a story about Becket but have it NOT also be about Young Henry, as he seems like a crucial part of that story. But then again, TDC is trying to stick to more historical events, Jean Anouilh was just vibing. I did, however, appreciate greatly how much TDC's Becket was both dorky AND he got to swing the crucifx around chaotically.Also the fact that they thematically linked both Henry's affair with Rosamund with his friendship with Becket, and that Henry's dream sequence about both of them flow into each other is extremely *thinking emoji.* I can and WILL chew on that.
It follows in the interesting context that The Lion in Winter (1968) set up where Eleanor also thematically links Rosamund and Becket as similar in spirit as "rivals" for Henry's affection, which is fun as the both of them, along with Young Henry, loom ominously over the story as invisible but tangible competing presences.
Perhaps this is what I like best when it comes to the weird relationships, in the angevin yaoiz as well as just weird relationship dynamics overall. It's never just about two people or Two Guys, but more about the fascinating disaster web and context in which they exist, which makes everything 1000x more interesting to me than just the chemistry or flawed personalities of two people on their own. Also, sometimes they're just really funny.
