The whole movie is pretty jawdropping by today’s sensibility standards. While I’m not a believer in the “no culture is superior to another”, 19th century Brits really didn’t have a lot of moral high ground and yet the play is unabashedly with a pro-Anglo mindset. The king is seen as near buffoonish because he speaks in broken English and his speaking of “scientific” virtue is seen as childlike- it’s never really addressed that he is speaking English for the benefit of a woman who comes to Siam speaking no Thai whatever and that the fact he is attempting to modernize his nation is incredibly bold and admirable. The scene in which the king’s wives don hoop skirts is irksome as well: they have to forego their not only traditional clothing but clothing that makes a helluva lot more sense in a tropical climate than layers and layers and layers of material to convince the Brits they’re not barbarians.
While the play/movie is not supposed to be a critical biography of Mongkut, the liberties taken make it pretty much a complete work of fiction. Anna Owens (Leonowens was a name she took to honor her husband, whose name Leon Owens), as mentioned above, grossly exaggerated her importance- it’s not even certain that Mongkut knew who she was as thousands of people lived in the palace complex and and several were European and he had many multilingual secretaries; he had his children schooled in several languages (English, French, Chinese, and Japanese) in addition to the languages of Thailand. Mongkut ruled over a nation as populous as England and one that was in great danger of attack so he simply didn’t have time to be pestered by disgruntled servants-she’d have dealt with one of his many chamberlains- and almost certainly would not have asked her opinion on anything of great note, and her continual hammering of him for a house of her own would probably have gotten her sacked.
Tuptim is an invention altogether- Mongkut passed an edict that any of his concubines were free to leave his service, the only requirement being that if they had children the children were to remain at the palace to be educated- and in one known instance in which a boatman kidnapped a (willing) palace concubine the harsh penalty levied against him was not being burned alive but a small fine. The real Mongkut also looked about as much like Yul Brynner as I do- Mongkut/Yul as Mongkut- and had spent most of his life as a celibate Buddhist monk before taking the throne as a middle aged man. He really was a believer in technology and fascinated by the west and much concerned with how to modernize without losing cultural identity and all in all was considered an admirable king.
The real Anna had been out of his employ for about two years when he died and had already begun pitching her idea for a book, which dealt less with the king and more with “Oriental” harem life. Her role as indispensible advisor to him came in a later edition of the book written years after he died. (Trivia: most of her family, like her husband and herself, lived in India where they were in various civil service jobs for the empire; one of her great-nephews who grew up there was William Henry Pratt, better known by his stage name of Boris Karloff.)
:eek: How, being a lifelong fan of Yul Brynner, did I ever miss THAT? Thanks for the link, that is remarkable…
Trivial but not accurate; William Henry Pratt was born just round the corner from here, on Peckham Rye, and grew up in Enfield before emigrating to Canada.
Well, sure it’s not accurate to the real history. One might as well bitch about Maria and Georg not really fleeing the Nazis by foot over the Alps after a big singing contest. It’s a musical adaptation of a biased autobiographical account – that’s two layers of fictionalization right there! I think you’re underestimating the sly digs the text and lyrics make that indicate the Siamese – and the play’s authors – aren’t 100% believers in Occidental superiority.
From “Western People Funny” –
Remember that Anna is understandably pissed off with the British when they announce a last-minute visit and strongly imply an imperial force might be headed their way unless the King “proves” he’s not a barbarian. While the plan is to show the English that the court can be gracious and welcoming to new ideas and western ways, they’re not intended to completely throw off their own culture (hence the altered version of “Small House of Uncle Thomas”).
As far as the King’s interest in science/efficiency, his language deficiency (though as you rightly say, much better apparently than Anna’s proficiency in Siamese) is played as humorous, but not buffoonery; I find the King quite dignified, if wrongheaded. His own craft is pretty manifest – this is no dummy who doesn’t contemplate subtleties, as seen in the last couple of stanzas in “Is A Puzzlement”:
To me, the musical isn’t so much pro-Anglo as it is anti-slavery, pro-compassion and pro-humanism – pretty much S.O.P. for Rodgers & Hammerstein. Of course there are simplistic characterizations and some stereotyping, not to mention exoticism of the “oriental,” but I just can’t get het up about such flaws when the musical’s heart is so firmly fixed in the right place.
Also: brilliant music.
I stand corrected. Karloff/Pratt’s parents lived in India and met/married there but moved to England shortly before he was born. (His daughter states that he may have had Indian ancestry on his mother’s side but this is not proven.)
I’m not “het up” about it, but I just don’t feel it’s aged very well and much of that is due to the paternalism of the characters and the writers. As for the historical accuracy (or lack of), I feel that after a certain point you should just change names and have done with any pretense of dealing with the real people and present it as a work of fiction.
I actually interpreted the movie completely the opposite way. It was the King who seemed intellectually curious and sophisticated in his long-term goals and dreams for his country. His actions seemed noble, but naive, only due to lack of experience. I think the Anglo perspective was being put down, if anything. The fact that the Anglos knew little of Siamese (sic) culture and yet the Siamese (sic) knew of popular American literature and could adapt it to have meaning to their own culture was a telling example.
For what it’s worth, my earlier take on Anna Leonowens is here. Includes what eventually did become of her son (AND how she was related to Boris Karloff :D).
By that time, he was almost too old to care.
:: raises hand:: Oh! Oh! I know this! Pick me!
Stills are not frames from the film. There’s usually an actual photographer on set. When I was doing set construction I got to watch one of them work when I was sitting doing the whole “hurry up and wait” thing. The camera set up was actually kind of neat. The boom mic would probably pick up the sound of the shutter going “CLICK!”, so the entire camera was in a soundproof kind of casing with a cable that triggered the shutter button. There was no flash of course, and probably none needed with all the lighting for the motion camera. The camera I saw looked like a medium format kind of thing, but it was kind of hard to tell with the casing around it.
If they used this same system back in the 1950s, they were probably using B&W film rather than color. Color photo prints bit more unstable than B&W, so if they were creating stills for the purposes of keeping archival records, it’s more likely they went with B&W because the color ones would fade even if stored in a cool dark place.
I have no idea how all this was affected by digital photography and/or digital film cameras. The one I saw, I know was a film camera because I saw some of the other gear.