"I have a voice!"

Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech is one of the few movies where the actors enthrall and enlighten the viewer by presenting the emotion of the situation by their mere gestures and actions, fitting of the morals and philosophies of the film. At it’s simplest, the film deals with the overcoming and conquering of a physical defect that prevents the protagonist from realizing his full potential and his royal duties. 

The film circles the concept of the battle against the effects of physical defects, of stammering and the inability to speak as well as the external circumstances within that moment in time that affect the speaker, in this case, it is the Duke of York, future King of Britain. There is the looming threat of war with Nazi Germany and the discrimination, from society and familiar, towards those with any sort of defect or incapacity. Discrimination  as well as abuse towards those with any sort of difference or those who are not as charming is as present in the royal world as it is in the world of commoners. 

It is pain and the quiet elegance that it takes to overcome it. One of the most poignant of these moments of quiet pain happen early in the film, when the Duke and the Duchess of York arrive for the Duke’s first appointment with a controversial speech therapist. The scene is cold and dark, the colors of the receiving hall dark browns that border on black with a sense of chilliness in the air. A young boy, shy and stammering, receives the couple timidly, barely able to get his words out. The pain in the faces of the couple couldn’t be more evident, pale faces growing ashen and eyes glittering with unshed tears that aren’t allowed to fall. It is more than clear that the little boy is meant to symbolize the Duke in his childhood. 

Quiet elegance overlays the entirety of the film, the rich backdrops of London and of royal palaces doing nothing to overshadow the film, adding to it’s depth rather than detracting with any possible gaudiness. None of the colors present within the film are overpowering, rather, they are almost faded, perhaps, due to the historic nature of the film and the image of it that is ingrained within the cultural perspective.

Audio is an integral part of the film, more so than usual considering that the theme of the film is the simple notion of a voice being heard. Perhaps the greatest moment in which it is used is the moment in which that the King to be, the Duke of York, Bertie to his friends and family, is in his first visit to the Antipodean speech therapist Logue and is reciting Hamlet’s soliloquy in the “Nunnery Scene” whilst the Duke is listening to classical music. The audience hears only the first six words of the soliloquy before the music drowns him out, the entirety of the speech is only heard later, when the Duke listens to the recording for the first time, and hears himself speaking without a single stammer. 

There is another moment of musical importance in the film, the moment when Bertie, now King, is about to give his first wartime speech regarding Britain’s entrance into war with Nazi Germany. It is at this moment that the Allegretto of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony begins, at the moment that the King is hesitating before delivering his speech over the wireless to the entirety of the British nation. The music itself is melancholic and gentle with moments of greatness that are built up to gradually after having started with ominous chords that time perfectly with the King’s struggles at the beginning of the speech. There is irony in this moment as well, that the music used at this moment is that of a German when it is Britain declaring their intent of war with Germany. 

It is fitting that the score as well as the visual components of the film are comprised of quiet elegance when those two words are what one of the themes of the film can be narrowed down as, quiet elegance in the face of battle.

Film Aesthetics

The application of aesthetics within film, to me, is a prime example of philosophy. It is philosophy at it’s finest, a experiment into what it is that the human mind is attracted to and repulsed by, essentially, what makes the human mind tick. Art is what has separated humanity from the variety of other species that inhabit the Earth, and film encompasses nearly all, if not all, the fields within the world of art. It is music and rhythm, sculpture and fashion, it is art itself. And through art, that is how humanity is to be understood and it’s true face discovered. 

Having said this, aesthetics within film are as varied as there are philosophies and periods of art. There is a philosophy behind each style, a reason for why this was placed so and why a specific color is prominent within the film or scene. Nothing is without reason, it is organized chaos, just as human emotion and thought is organized chaos. 

Within these styles of organized chaos and distortions of beauty, there is the concept of Ma within East Asian cinematography, a single moment in time which encompasses nothingness and everything. It is rarely used and appreciated by Western audiences, for the thought of a moment of nothing within a film is pointless and without purpose, serving little reason to propel the story and feel of the film. But that is the aesthetic, a single moment in time in which nothing occurs which propels the story or the feel of the film, yet, in truth, it has. These moments without seeming purpose are within the world of film due to the philosophies of Asia, of Buddhism and Shintoism, in specific, Zen Buddhism. It is a moment of escape and peace within world of chaos, a moment of organized chaos in which everything has it’s purpose and said purpose is revealed, a moment of simply being. 

Ma, this concept of a moment in time, that is my preferred style of aesthetics within film. A simple elegance where you do not need 120 minutes of sequential action and physical turmoil to deliver beauty to the eyes of a viewer and invoke an emotional response. Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahara are two such propellers of this movement who have heavily inspired me, their Studio Ghibli films invading Western film culture with the concept of Ma with mythical and dystopian films that touch upon upheaval and destruction with peaceful moments of nothing, of moments without hate and despair and equally without love or happiness. 

There are Western films that touch upon these concepts, the first that come to mind being Equilibrium with Christian Bale and UltraViolet with Milla Jovovich. Within both films there are heavy Eastern influences within the cultures and societies presented, least of which is not the concept of moments of nothingness. Both films are minimalist in the sense of a Zen garden, there is nothing that is not needed, there is purpose behind each movement and each placement that may not be obvious at first, but is after enlightenment has occurred. Dark purple against a background of stark white in UltraViolet, the white following the Eastern belief of white being a color of death and mourning, and in Equilibrium, blood splattered white against a background of lifeless stone grey are examples within the film of the Eastern sense of there being only what is needed, only being said what must be heard with layers and layers of depth.

Aesthetics within film is as varied as the cultures within the world. The concept of it is being rather fitting to be studied in a class of anthropology or philosophy since aesthetics, especially in regards to cinema, is what shows humanity for what it is and how to understand humanity.