Well, The Lion in Winter. The
Lion in Winter may be more familiar to you as a film. And certainly
in Revelation, when we read of a lion, and in Isaiah, where
we read of a lion, and also in another passage we're gonna look
at in Genesis, when we read of a lion, we don't read anything
about a lion in winter. Lion in Winter was a tremendous
film, 1968, starring Peter O'Toole as Henry II and Catherine Hepburn
as his imprisoned wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. It was one of those
family Christmases, like the family Christmas from hell. I
don't know what your family Christmases have been like and whether or
not you've had any that have been, you know, just a little bit lively
or a little bit stone dead, but Henry II called all his family
together at Chinon, where he had a castle and where he was
with his mistress, Alice, and he called the whole family together
to see who would succeed him, who would get the throne of he
and his wife Eleanor's three children, Richard, Geoffrey and
John. It is, in some ways, an enormously
entertaining film. Brilliant performances from Peter
O'Toole and from Katherine Hepburn, both of them hamming it up as
only they could. It is a film which has some themes
in it which always grab people's attention and which are not inappropriate
to this evening. Christmas is one of them. It's
a Christmas family gathering. Royalty is there. It's a king
and his family. All sorts of family relationships
are there in what is a totally dysfunctional family, so it's
really quite up to date. It's a film about the battle
of the sexes and who's going to win. Sparks are flying left,
right and center. It's a film full of political
intrigue. It's a huge power struggle and there's even a reference
to Aristotle for those with a philosophical bent. It's the kind of film where
you expect to see Matt Damon striding through it at any moment
and some explosions to happen. It's full of terrific one-liners,
scathing as they often are in the battle that goes on between
Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Pietro Tull and Catherine Hepburn.
She arrives for Christmas at Chinon on a barge and as she's
getting off the barge, Henry says to her, ha, what shall we
hang? The holly or each other? And the three boys hate each
other and always have hated each other and are full of deceit
and intrigue and utter contempt for one another. So much so that
at one point Eleanor says, Henry, and he says, hmm. And she says,
I have a confession. Yes. I don't much like our children. And as the film progresses, you
realize why she doesn't like your children. Jeffrey says to
John on one occasion, if you're a prince, there's hope for every
ape in Africa. Which is just a great line from
a brother to a brother, isn't it? Now, the interesting thing about
the line in Winter is that it is all about kingship. It's all
about what happens when power is held by those who are corrupt.