In watching this film on TCM, during the scene where Becket is consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London says all the prayers in English.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a serious goof? At that time (indeed, until the mid-1960's) all prayers would have been recited in Latin.
I presume the producers wanted the audience to understand and didn't want to have subtitles.
Yes. But aren't you getting a little carried away? This film is GREAT but it is FAR from historically accurate. For example, the real Henry II didn't speak English either! He lived most of his life in France and ruled England from there. When I was in College I was in a production of "The Lion in Winter" so I did a lot of research on Henry. This is, after all, a movie so there are a lot of "incorrect" things in it.
shareYes, and English is spoken at the court of France and in Rome as well. Surely it's obvious that we're meant to understand that they *are* speaking Latin / French / whatever the scene calls for, and that it's been rendered into English for our benefit. Do you complain about Hamlet not being written in Danish?
I'd much rather have everybody speaking English than have silly language goofs like the scene in Braveheart where the Princess and her maid speak French *in order not to be understood* at the English court, where French was still the official language in the 1290s.
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"An inglorious peace is better than a dishonourable war" ~ John Adams
You are one of the first people I've seen catch that ridiculous bit from Braveheart.
As for the language issue in Becket... You're exactly right in that the writers presumed the audience intelligent enough to understand that although they were "hearing" English, they would know that in fact the characters would be speaking in the language befitting the scene (Latin in Church, French at Court - both England & France).
Unfortunately, these days, writers/producers/creators (whatever you prefer to call them) seem to have little or no respect for the intelligence of their audience. So they "dumb" everything down, and then stick up silly subtitles or other forms of explaination.... just in case we didn't get it the first time... UGH!
If this is Hell, chain me to the wall! - Nick Gautier