Top 5! - Best Lines from "The Lion In Winter"
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1968's "The Lion in Winter" is my favorite film. Extraordinarily well acted from a script that crackles with energy, I could watch this film over and over. I could listen to it over and over too, because the dialogue is better than any other film I know. Here are 5 of the lines that I hope represent the film. If you haven't seen it, do so - this weekend!
5 - King Henry II of England
I've snapped and plotted all my life. There's no other way to be a king, alive and 50 all at once.
4 - Eleanor of Aquitaine
I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How's that for blasphemy? I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted half-way to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn...but the troops were dazzled.
3 - Eleanor of Aquitaine
Is Philip here yet? Let's hope he's grown up like his father, Simon Pure, Simon Simple. Good, good Louis. If I'd managed sons for him instead of all those little girls, I'd still be stuck with being Queen of France and we should not have known each other. Such my angels is the role of sex in history.
2 - Eleanor of Aquitaine
Of course he has a knife. He always has a knife. We all have knives. It's 1183 and we're barbarians!
1 - Eleanor of Aquitaine
One son is all I've got and you can block him out and call me cruel? For these ten years you've lived with everything I've lost and loved another woman through it all and I am cruel? I could peel you like a pear and God himself would call it justice!
And a bonus exchange between Eleanor and Henry II, ending with the most blistering put-down in film.
H Out of curiosity, as intellectual to intellectual, how in the name of bleeding Jesus can you lose me? Do we ever see each other? Am I ever near you? Ever with you? Am I ever anywhere but somewhere else? Do I write? Do we send messages? Do dinghies bearing gifts float up the Thames to you? Are you remembered?
E You are.
H You're no part of me. We don't touch at any point. How can you lose me?
E Can't you feel the chains?
H You know me well enough to know I can't be stopped.
E I don't have to stop you, I have only to delay you. Every enemy you have has friends in Rome. We'll cost you time.
H What is this? I'm not mouldering! My paint's not peeling off, I'm good for years.
E How many years? Suppose I hold you back for one, it's possible. Suppose your first son dies. Ours did. It's possible. Suppose you're daughtered next? We were. That too is possible. How old is daddy then? What kind of spindly, rickett-ridden, milky, wizened, dim-eyed, gamey-handed, limpy line of things will you beget?
5 - King Henry II of England
I've snapped and plotted all my life. There's no other way to be a king, alive and 50 all at once.
4 - Eleanor of Aquitaine
I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How's that for blasphemy? I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted half-way to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn...but the troops were dazzled.
3 - Eleanor of Aquitaine
Is Philip here yet? Let's hope he's grown up like his father, Simon Pure, Simon Simple. Good, good Louis. If I'd managed sons for him instead of all those little girls, I'd still be stuck with being Queen of France and we should not have known each other. Such my angels is the role of sex in history.
2 - Eleanor of Aquitaine
Of course he has a knife. He always has a knife. We all have knives. It's 1183 and we're barbarians!
1 - Eleanor of Aquitaine
One son is all I've got and you can block him out and call me cruel? For these ten years you've lived with everything I've lost and loved another woman through it all and I am cruel? I could peel you like a pear and God himself would call it justice!
And a bonus exchange between Eleanor and Henry II, ending with the most blistering put-down in film.
H Out of curiosity, as intellectual to intellectual, how in the name of bleeding Jesus can you lose me? Do we ever see each other? Am I ever near you? Ever with you? Am I ever anywhere but somewhere else? Do I write? Do we send messages? Do dinghies bearing gifts float up the Thames to you? Are you remembered?
E You are.
H You're no part of me. We don't touch at any point. How can you lose me?
E Can't you feel the chains?
H You know me well enough to know I can't be stopped.
E I don't have to stop you, I have only to delay you. Every enemy you have has friends in Rome. We'll cost you time.
H What is this? I'm not mouldering! My paint's not peeling off, I'm good for years.
E How many years? Suppose I hold you back for one, it's possible. Suppose your first son dies. Ours did. It's possible. Suppose you're daughtered next? We were. That too is possible. How old is daddy then? What kind of spindly, rickett-ridden, milky, wizened, dim-eyed, gamey-handed, limpy line of things will you beget?