Screenwriting Lessons: “The King’s Speech” — Part 4: Shadow

[Note: This was originally posted February 10, 2011.]

As I watched The King’s Speech recently, I was struck by how many screenwriting lessons could be gleaned from the movie. So I decided this week and next to analyze The King’s Speech and The Social Network, the most likely winners of this year’s Academy Awards for Best Screenplay (Speech for original, Network for adapted) to see what takeaway we could derive from both movies and their excellent screenplays.

Today: The King’s Speech — Shadow.

In almost all movies, key characters — especially the Protagonist — have a Shadow looming over them, some aspect of their personal past, psyche, or attachments. They can try to ignore it, repress it, fight it, but it will not go away. Indeed no matter how much of the character’s conscious life they have constructed acting like the Shadow doesn’t exist, in fact they have created defenses precisely to avoid confronting the Shadow — which means of course even though they might not admit it, they have been deeply influenced by their Shadow nonetheless.

In The King’s Speech, David Seidler makes great use of the Shadow hanging over the story’s Protagonist Bertie (Colin Firth): his father King George V (Michael Gambon).

We get an inkling of the father’s role in Bertie’s life in the opening scene where the Prince tries to make a public speech:

The King, growing impatient, hisses:

KING GEORGE V
Get on with it. Show what you’re made of!

Bertie moves forward diffidently, without an ounce of
confidence, knowing deep within he’s doomed. His stomach knots,
chest muscles contract, constricting his breath.

The pressure his father — the King — puts on Bertie can only contribute to the anxiety Bertie feels about speaking in public, thereby making his stutter worse. In a way, the father’s pressure on Bertie is a form of mockery:

LIONEL
Did David tease you?

BERTIE
They all did. “Buh-buh-buh-Bertie”. Father
encouraged it. “Spit it out, boy!” Thought
it would make me stop.

And a more direct example of the father’s communication regarding Bertie’s condition:

KING GEORGE V
Show who’s in command. If you don’t, this
devilish device will change everything.
Used to be, all a King had to do was look
reasonable in uniform and not fall off his
horse. Now we must creep cap in hand into
people’s homes that smell of boiled
cabbage, and speak nicely to them. We’re
reduced to that lowest, basest of all
creatures…we’ve become…actors! Don’t
give me a look of defeated pathos. This is
a family crisis!

So the pressure Bertie’s father puts on him in terms of his stuttering comes off as shame, personal failure, royal responsibility, and a “family crisis.” That’s a huge emotional and psychological weight on Bertie.

But then Bertie’s father dies, so the Shadow should be gone, yes? Not so because Bertie’s Shadow is not just the father’s persona, it is also — and perhaps more critically — his position: Being a King. That is the ultimate fear Bertie has looming over him his entire post-stuttering life — the possibility that one day he would have to become King:

He exits quickly. Cosmo continues nervously as they walk
through the Abbey, the Archbishop pointing out the preparations
in progress, particularly a booth for broadcasters.

BERTIE
Is this the scene of the crime?

That throwaway line as Bertie prepares for the crowning ceremony — Is this the scene of the crime — has so many levels of meaning. On the surface a joke, but reflective of the inner turmoil Bertie feels about ascending to the throne — a crime that he of all people, who can’t speak well in public, should be forced to assume the mantel of monarchical responsibility. How downright criminal!

It’s interesting to see how powerful the actual King’s throne is to Bertie. Note how he reacts when Lionel sits in it:

BERTIE (CONT’D)
What’re you doing? Get up!

LIONEL
I’m tired.

BERTIE
You can’t sit there!

LIONEL
Why not? It’s a chair.

BERTIE
It’s the Chair of Edward The Confessor! The
throne upon which every King for six and a
half centuries has been crowned.

LIONEL
It’s falling apart. People have carved
their initials into it. Needs a stone to
keep from blowing away.

BERTIE
That’s the Stone of Scone! The Stone of
Destiny that was once Jacob’s pillow.

By sitting on the throne, Lionel is attempting to demystify Bertie’s Shadow — his father / King / throne. Note where Lionel takes the conversation immediately following Bertie’s previous line:

LIONEL
You believe such ballocks I don’t care how
many royal backsides have sat on it, it’s a
building block with handles attached.
You’re just like me, an actor with tawdry
stage props you choose to believe are real.

BERTIE
Listen to me… !

LIONEL
Listen to you?! By what right?

BERTIE
Divine right, if you must! I’m your King!!!

LIONEL
Noooo you’re not! Told me so yourself. Said
you didn’t want it. So why should I listen
to a poor stuttering bloke who can’t put
one word after another? Why waste my time
listening to you?

BERTIE
Because I have a right to be heard!

LIONEL
Heard as what?!

BERTIE
A man! I HAVE A VOICE!!!

LIONEL
 (quietly)
Well then…you’re cured.

BERTIE
Stop trying to squirm off the hook.

LIONEL
Bertie, you’ll make a bloody good king. And
you know it.

And there you have it — the truth behind the Shadow. Bertie has been caught up in the power of his Shadow for so many years, he has been unable to see or unwilling to admit a reality that exists deep within his soul: that he could be a good king. So while on the surface Bertie’s journey has been about overcoming his stutter, in the story’s Internal World, it’s fundamentally about confronting his Shadow and ‘defeating’ it — symbolically by making it through his big speech at the end (Final Struggle) in order to claim a deeper reality: He is a king.

What about that story you’re working on? Your Protagonist? Do they have a Shadow? I am willing to bet — a shilling if you like — they do have one. Your story will be made all that richer if you explore your Protagonist’s psychological journey as they take on their Shadow.

Tomorrow: Moments.
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