Plugging "The King's Speech"

It's not often that I feel a movie is so great that I need to blog about it. This is one of those exceptions.

"The King's Speech" won Best Movie at the Oscars for good reason. It is a remarkable story of a man working to overcome a serious speech impediment. (For those of you who have not seen the film.) Not the least important thing about the story is that it portrays a royal as a man, a man with the same problems as those who were not born to privilege.

What I find most fascinating is that the therapist who helps the Duke of York and future King to overcome his stammer has made the connection between past experience of a person with speech problems and the stammer. In the early part of the 20th century, it was so common to put a speech impediment down to a lack of intelligence. Lionel Logue also noted the connection between speech and being forced to use the right hand when one is left handed.

Being left handed myself, I can understand the kind of problems this would cause.

It took a man with no formal training or credentials to help King George VI to make the speeches that saw a nation through its most desperate years. It was necessary for England to feel that the man who lead them was competent, forceful and intelligent. In those days, those traits were best demonstrated en masse by radio and news reels. It staggers the imagination to imagine how the world would look if England had fallen to a lack of confidence.

If you have not already seen this movie, do make the effort. The story is told through a series of touching moments and burst of comedy.