The King's Speech Analytical Essay
God Save The King’s Speech Academy award winning film, The King’s Speech, is a motivational movie where voice and courage become a matter of life and death. Prince Albert, later known as King George VI (Colin Firth), stammers excessively and uncontrollably through his inaugural speech closing the 1925 British Empire Exhibition due to a speech impediment. After finishing such a disappointing speech, Prince Albert decides to give up on himself and accept his fate as a stammering heir to the throne. However, his wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), enlists him to see an Aussie speech therapist that goes by the name of Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) whose “Antipodean methods are known to be ‘unorthodox’ and ‘controversial,’” (“The King’s Speech (2010)”) but effective . The setting takes place in London, during the early and late 1930s as problems surfaced between the UK and Germany. In one scene, King George V (Michael Gambon), stresses the need of communication as a foundation for personal life, relationships, professional success, civic life and in his case a monarchy. As King George V lies in his death bed, his successor David (Guy Pearce), is left in a troublesome situation where he eventually renounces his spot on the throne. Throughout the movie Lionel works with Bertie, as he likes to call him, to enhance his nonverbal behaviors of kinesics, haptics, physical appearance, and artifacts in order to make him an articulate king. In the end, King George the VI learns how to properly use his nonverbal behaviors such as: proxemics, environment, chronemics, and silence to give a dynamic, and epic speech. A clear, strong and projecting voice is essential when leading the masses especially when your kingdom depends on it. The King’s speech teaches us a great deal about communication especially when dealing with daily life conversations and nonverbal behaviors. The Duke of York was born into royalty, but what is royalty without a voice? Communication plays a major
Cited: Reed, Joquina. Texas A&M International University. July 18,2012. Class Lecture. The King’s Speech.Dir.Tom Hooper. The Weinstein Company, 2010. Film. Wood, Julia T. Communication Mosaics: An introduction to the field of communication. 6th ed. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning, 2011. 109.