1. George VI's Stutter Was Not Quite As Terrible As Was Depicted In The Famous Opening Scene - The King's Speech
The King's Speech opens just as any movie about a stuttering King should - with said King stuttering in front of a large group of people, and making a bloody fool of himself in doing so. Now, although it is true that King George VI did suffer from a stutter and did partake in many of the scenes you saw in the Oscar-winning dramatisation, it was nowhere near as noticeable - nor anywhere near as overtly obvious - as was depicted by Colin Firth and friends in the flick. Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF8q45vwf-0#t=133 That's King George VI delivering a similar speech to the one that he does in the opening scene of Tom Hooper's movie before he had his therapy with Lionel Logue: you'll notice instantly that there's barely a word wrong (nor a stutter) until about 2 minutes in... and even then, though you can hear it, it's nothing akin to what we glimpsed on-screen. Which is to say: yes, sometimes filmmakers take liberties when bringing true stories to the big screen... but how far is too far when it comes to warping people's perceptions of what actually happened in real life? It begs us to ask the question: do we want our movies to be more entertaining, or do we want them more factually? And can they be both? Like this article? Let us know in the comments section below.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
