strange and random happenstance

A Room with a View
Based on the book by E.M. Forster
Starring: Elaine Cassidy, Rafe Spall, Laurence Fox, Timothy Spall, Timothy West, Sinéad Cusack, Elizabeth McGovern, Mark Williams, Sophie Thompson, and Tom Stewart
Release Date: November 4th, 2007
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Lucy Honeychurch and her chaperon, cousin Charlotte, are in Italy to be tourists. But the pension they have chosen is letting them down. They were promised a room with a view. Well, the room has a sort of view, not the kind they were expecting. At dinner their grievances are met with a solution, a father and son, the Emersons, have offered their rooms to the two women. Charlotte thinks this is beyond the pale and insists they switch pensions first thing in the morning. But the arrival of Mr. Beebe, a clergyman they know and respect, means they rethink their decision to leave, and Lucy convinces Charlotte with the help of Mr. Beebe to rethink the Emersons's offer. As Lucy awakes that first morning in Florence, it's to a glorious view. Lucy is very proper and polite and does all the things that tourists should do, but as Mr. Beebe notices when she plays the piano, there is something in her that is very exciting. Lucy isn't the staid Edwardian that she seems. This hidden nature of hers is very much in line with the outspoken Emersons, and before Charlotte whisks them off to Rome practically in the middle of the night, Lucy will share a kiss and maybe her heart with the young George Emerson. But in Rome she is reintroduced to Cecil Vyse, an opinionated and upright Englishman, but opinionated in all the right and not outspoken ways. Lucy eventually condescends to marry Cecil when they are back in England, but the arrival of the Emersons into their small little community is going to change Lucy's life forever.

After watching so many confined and staid and uptight and stagy adaptations of Forster's work it was such a relief to watch one that has real passion. An adaptation that could move you literally to tears. While there might be those who criticize Andrew Davies's adaptation for playing fast and loose with the storyline, I counter that he cut to the quick of the story and kept that which was vital intact. If you weren't a Forster purist or had never read the books, just watch the old Merchant and Ivory adaptation and then watch this one, it is without a doubt that this version makes a better film. That is what it comes down to in the end, which is the better movie, and this one will always win, even with the weird transfer error of blurred behinds and a lackluster score. What I think made this version work was that, like the book, the integration of Lucy's piano playing as a window to her soul was actually incorporated throughout the movie. Instead of a few set pieces with Helena Bonham Carter rigidly sitting at a piano and obviously not knowing what to do, here Elaine Cassidy throws herself into the music and bares her soul. It is distinctly a plus that you can actually see that she is playing the music, even if the ADR team might have dropped in a more accomplished version later. One can not stress enough that to make a good movie you have to connect with your audience, and this connected with me, with passion and empathy and yes, love, and sometimes it hurts.

All the feels in this movie just made it more real, more human, more alive. There's affection and attraction. If you look at the kiss between George and Lucy in the Merchant and Ivory adaptation, it's like watching two people who don't even like each other being yelled at by the director to kiss and they are going to try to stop the inevitable for as long as possible. That kiss is painful to watch. Here, well, the kiss is painful to watch for different reasons. There is abandon and discovery in it. True feeling. True connection. It's joyous. In fact, I would say that is what is at the very center of this adaptation, there is joy. Life is breathed into the story and we connect to it because it's joyous. There's this message that we are to live life now. Live for today. Don't settle, don't do what you think is expected of you. Don't go for the passionless Cecil, go for the man who makes your heart race as he sneaks a kiss behind the bushes. In this version by downplaying Cecil and actually giving George all his lines you actually connect to George in a way Forster wanted you to but was never quite able to accomplish. The speech that George gives to Lucy and Charlotte in the dinning room before he is banished from Windy Corner makes you realize how they are meant to be. I was like Charlotte, in the corner weeping, because this is what love looks like. You fight for it, you make your case, you don't go off like a wounded dog wrapped in a blanket in a carriage.

Yet, all the success of the Emersons comes down to the genius who cast the Spalls as father and son. By having an actual father and son play these characters you don't get that weird disconnect between father and son that Denholm Elliott and Julian Sands had. They felt like strangers, and Julian was way too posh. Here you not only see their love for each other, but they are able to play off each other, have the same inflection in their voices, the same infectious grin. They are true kindred spirits and by having this love offscreen it bleeds over into the film. It doesn't hurt that both of them are superb actors, in fact can we perhaps get Timothy some more well deserved awards STAT? As for Rafe, I've talked about my love of Rafe before... But seriously, now and forever, they are the Emersons for me. You love Mr. Emerson for his sweetness, his befuddled charm, his strong opinions and his belief that love conquers all. And George, I can understand why Lucy would love you, I love him watching this adaptation. He is a good man with a big heart and that grin. I'm sorry, but that grin could steal anyone's heart. He exudes vulnerability and likability and you can't help but love him. Whereas Julian Sands, I can never nor will never get that. There isn't anything inherently likable about him that makes you want to take him home and never let him leave. But Rafe, he is a good man.

This likability combined with this seize the moment and live your truth today feeds into the coda that Andrew Davies created. Now a LOT of people have expressed their displeasure about the coda, which isn't really a coda so much as a framing device for the entire story. Andrew Davies has written it so that George dies a hero in the first world war and that Lucy has come back to Italy to remember the good man that she loved. Hue and cry from all around. Firstly, have these people read the real ending that Forster tried to omit later? The one where George is a conscientious objector and then cheats on Lucy? Um, I don't think so. So right there, this ending is better, love till death do they part and all that. Secondly, Forster loves his tragedies in his final act, to leave the reader with a little slice of life and a lot of what the fuck. He had apparently toyed with the idea of killing George and having a rather different ending. Perhaps that is why in the book the ending doesn't quite work. There's something off with it. He could never get it quite right so he seems to have given up. This ending fixes that imperfect fit. Yes, it's sad. But the melancholy has a truth to it. This makes the story something more. Something greater. It's a true love story that lasted as long as it could, but reality gave us that final gut punch that Forster loved so much. Yet Lucy, while sad, is still happy, in her way. She knows that she loved a good man, that she lived the life she was meant to have, even if she was only able to hold on for a short time. It's truth and love at it's most human level.

But I really want to know, what is it about Andrew Davies that he just knows? He just gets how to streamline a story, how to take something that is good or near prefect and make it perfection. His unerring eye as to what needs to be kept and what needs to be ditched and how to sum up something that was long winded but still keeps it's essence with just a few words? Of the twenty-eight adaptations of his I have watched, I only disliked six of them, and none of the problems I had with those could be laid at his feet. Well, maybe B. Monkey, because he wrote the book as well.... But still, of my favorite miniseries of all time, almost ten of those were done by him. Is he some sort of magical adaptation fairy that comes along and sprinkles pixie dust on the production so that it will be perfect? Does he have a knack for channeling the authors and just knowing how they'd write it and exactly in what way with the perfect cadence? I remember in one of the adaptations I didn't care for, Tipping the Velvet, the one thing that really added to the miniseries was the music hall songs. Watching the extras on the DVD I found out that all the songs were Andrew Davies's idea AND he wrote them all. He is a genius and has the special power of just knowing. He gets it. That is why I think he should be the only one to adapt certain pieces of literature, and I for one am beyond gleeful that one of the pieces he did adapt was A Room with a View.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Room with a View, Andrew Davies, B. Monkey, E.M. Forster, Elaine Cassidy, Forster Fall, Helena Bonham Carter, Italy, Julian Sands, Laurence Fox, Passion, Rafe Spall, Timothy Spall, Tipping the Velvet, WWI

A Room with a View
Based on the book by E.M. Forster
Starring: Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Daniel Day-Lewis, Simon Callow, Rosemary Leach, Rupert Graves, Patrick Godfrey, Judi Dench, Fabia Drake, Joan Henley, Amanda Walker, Maria Britneva, Mia Fothergill, and Peter Cellier
Release Date: December 13th, 1985
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Lucy Honeychurch is visiting Florence with her cousin and chaperon Charlotte Bartlett. They are there merely as tourists, and as tourists they expected a room with a view at their pension, which they don't have. A forward, if tactless man, Mr. Emerson, offers the ladies his and his son's rooms, which both have delightful views. Charlotte is insistent they refuse the offer and then snub the men. But the Reverend Mr. Beebe says that they should feel free to take the offer of the rooms, and so they do. The Emersons are omnipresent to Lucy, they are at the church she ventures into to look at the frescoes, young George rescues her after she witnesses a brutal murder in one of the squares, and they are on the fateful picnic outside Florence when George kisses Lucy. Charlotte sees the incident and whisks Lucy away to Rome. Things settle into their old routine back in England. Lucy becomes engaged to Cecil Vyse, a move that surprises no one. Life is much as it was, till a twist of fate, as George Emerson would put it, brings him and his father to this small town and back into Lucy's life. If Lucy thinks that her engagement will deter George, she is much mistaken. He knows that they are meant to be together and that Cecil is the type of man who goes about life never knowing anyone. Can Lucy face the lies she's been telling herself and everyone around her about her true feelings? Or will she live a life afraid of the passion and truth within her?

Despite being touted as the pinnacle of achievement in period films I have been coming to realize more and more that Merchant and Ivory productions aren't nearly the best out there. They take themselves far too seriously and they don't strive for balance, allowing the dour to overtake the levity necessary to create a satisfying and well rounded viewing experience. I think that this is a feeling that has been developing in me for quite some time. That is the only reason I can think of as to why I had no desire to watch A Room with a View. Not back when I first watched it, not even now when I rewatched it. This is a movie that could disappear off the face of the earth and I would have no opinion about it one way or another. The main fault lies in the leads. Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands have absolutely no chemistry at all. Without this passion the film is as cold as a dead fish.

In order to distract us from this failing the post production crew has filled the film with pretentious theatrics in order to make up for this passionless void. They think that by playing enough classical music loud enough that we will be stirred into the epicness of the passion and love awoken in Lucy and George, but instead it just focuses the spotlight on this failing. But the truly absurd device they use to make us "believe" in the grandness of the story is painted and pretentious cue cards announcing each section of the film. I should have guessed they were coming after the opening credits were presented as a laughable dramatis personae. Usually it is the chapter titles done in a Florentine flourish, but occasionally it's just superimposed over the film. Any way you look at it the intrusive nature of these cards dividing the film into "acts" smacks of the academic superiority that underlies the entire film and makes it a prime example as to why I don't like Merchant and Ivory all that much.

To continue with the film's pretension I want to discuss an odd little device they used throughout the film. The absurd lady novelist played by Judi Dench, instead of waxing lyrical over the city and Italy is obsessed with a scandalous story she has heard. How she has heard of it we never know, but she does know all the details. The story she tells happens to be E.M. Forster's first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread. While this little meta call out with it's self-referential humor should be an amusing nudge and wink to Forster fans, instead because of the superiority complex of the filmmakers it comes across as smug and self-indulgent. Plus, are they maybe hinting that Forster's first book was actually written by Eleanor Lavish? Because that is an insult. I can't help thinking that with Monteriano this and Monteriano that this movie would have been better served by filmmakers who were concerned with actually telling THIS story, not another story entirely. But if we are to talk of something that links the stories together let us talk about the violets and the COMPLETE OMISSION OF THEM! Violets are key to the beauty of Italy in both these stories by Forster, yet they are easily replaced in two scenes with Cornflowers, and in their most important scene, with the kiss between Lucy and George, they are completely missing. The description of these humble flowers by Forster add to the beauty of his story and are symbolic, and their omission is yet another sign of the filmmakers narrow vision wherein whatever they do is right, even if it does a disservice to the source material.

Going back to the other main problem, the lack of passion between the leads; this alone destroys the film and makes it deathly. Let's look at the scene where they kiss in Italy. Lucy is supposed to stumble onto George on the hillside and he embraces her. Instead it is staged like it's being acted with puppets. She stops, he sees her. Slowly he moves towards her, he kisses her, in the most dispassionate way ever, Maggie Smith screams. What the hell people!?! Is this some weird post modern take on romance? They are meant to be together, but we won't let the passion show, they will just inexorably and snail like move towards each other and part as if nothing had happened. Seriously, we are supposed to believe this is passionate? Cecil and Lucy's kiss has more spark and spontaneity about it, and he freakin' asks her permission! This one defining moment in Lucy's life should not be stilted and laughable. It should be her awakening that there is more to life. But than again, even the piano playing that is supposed to show her soul is oddly lacking, perhaps because it's obvious Helena Bonham Carter isn't playing... I really, I just can't even. I wonder if there was some point when the filmmakers went, hey, you know what? They have no chemistry, this movie is screwed. Ugh, seriously, Cecil is better than George, and that isn't a good thing.

But this "George Problem" I think falls completely at the feet of Julian Sands. Yes, I have a Julian Sands problem. He can't act. He is atonal. Plus he comes across as pretentious and upper class and suave and confident and even a little supercilious. In other words, everything George Emerson is not. He's put together, amused, and not a muddled mess. This I think is why there is no chemistry, his inability to act. The whole point of George is that he is everything Cecil is not. But the problem here is Cecil is played by Daniel Day-Lewis, someone who not only knows how to act, but runs rings around the rest of the cast, save Denholm Elliott. He brings depth and intrigue to the character of Cecil who we should hate and want out of Lucy's life. Instead you can't help thinking that Lucy would be far better off with Cecil. I mean, seriously people, how is Julian Sands still getting acting gigs? Have you see Warlock? I have, and it totally is proof as to why his screen actor's guild card should be revoked. If that isn't enough, how about Boxing Helena? And, oh dear, he's now on Gotham. More reasons never to watch that show again. All I have to say is at least we have Maggie Smith to provide some balance. You can never get too much Maggie Smith, as the filmmakers wisely knew. In fact they just started throwing her some of Lucy's parts just to keep her onscreen more, which was fine by me.

The only reason that this movie isn't completely flawed is that the comedic figures were so well cast that they were able to rise above the problems of the film. Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Denholm Elliott, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Simon Callow are the only reasons to watch this film. They bring the world that Forster wrote to life. They understand that life, and in particular Forster's writing, isn't just people in the throws of passion and life or death decisions, life is made up of foibles and comedic turns of phrase. Of making something humorous by the proper delivery or inflection, or even the tangling of a comedic prop. Life, like a good story, needs balance. Of all the adaptations I have watched so far the only one not to strip away all the humor of Forster's was Where Angels Fear to Tread, and that, far and away, was the adaptation I have enjoyed the most. The more I watch Merchant and Ivory films the more I realize why people for so long have denigrated period pieces. They take themselves too seriously and just don't get it. Humor is the ameliorant of life, without it, what's the point? So what is the point of this film eh?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Room with a View, Daniel Day-Lewis, E.M. Forster, Florence, Forster Fall, Helena Bonham Carter, Italy, Judi Dench, Julian Sands, Merchant and Ivory, Meta, Simon Callow, Violets, Where Angels Fear to Tread

Howards End
Based on the book by E.M. Forster
Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, Joseph Bennett, Emma Thompson, Prunella Scales, Adrian Ross Magenty, Jo Kendall, Anthony Hopkins, James Wilby, Jemma Redgrave, Samuel West, Simon Callow, Susie Lindeman, and Nicola Duffett
Release Date: March 13th, 1992
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Helen Schlegel is visiting with the Wilcoxes at Howards End, where she becomes engaged to the youngest son Paul. In fits of rapture she writes a letter to her sister telling her of the happy alliance and due to her sister Margaret being unable to journey down to the house their Aunt Juley heads down to suss out the situation. Everything is muddled, the engagement was off before it really began and due to Aunt Juley's misunderstanding chaos reigns with the Wilcoxes and the two families go their separate ways. So how inconvenient that they happen to take a house in London directly opposite the Schlegels for the elder son Charles's wedding. Helen wisely takes herself off to Germany and Paul goes off to Nairobi. This gives Meg and the matriarch Ruth Wilcox a chance to become dear friends. Meg is Ruth's confidant, informing her of her illness, which she hasn't told her family about, as well as how Howards End is her place in the world. Meg longs to see Howards End with Ruth, but it is never to be. Ruth dies shortly thereafter. What Meg doesn't know is that Ruth asked her family to leave Howards End to Meg. The Wilcoxes think this is folly, not knowing the pain Ruth suffered on hearing that the Schlegels were to soon lose their house as the lease was up. But things have a weird way of working themselves out if they are meant to be. Meg ends up marrying Ruth's widower, Henry, and her possessions end up being stored at Howards End, much to the rest of the Wilcoxes displeasure. While Meg's life is sorting itself out, Helen's is spinning even more out of control. She has a hanger-on, Leonard Bast, a poor clerk whom she befriended after accidentally stealing his umbrella. Due to the interactions between the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes Helen hears of some advice for Leonard that she thinks is in his best interest. Instead his friendship with Helen slowly destroys him. Helen, unwilling to believe that anything is her fault, lays the blame on Henry and she cuts herself off from her family after a scene at Henry's daughter Evie's wedding. Helen's behaviour is odd. Something must be behind it. Could it be Leonard? Or could it be the end of everything they believe and hold dear?

I really don't know how many times I have watched Howards End. I wouldn't say it was overly much, in the realm of Clue and The Princess Bride, but then how do I know so much of the blocking and the gestures and the exact way the lines are delivered? So apparently, without my knowing it, I'm some kind of Howards End junky, or the film is just particularly memorable, you choose. But seeing as I had the recent and mortifying experience of learning a new brand of hatred for the book I was still willing to believe in the film. To believe that all this was just me. It was refreshing to find that I still like the film, but by watching it with a jaded and suspicious eye I picked up on the oddest things that I don't think I would ever have noticed were it not for my skepticism. The biggest change is in how the movie diverts from the book, what I call the music and meaning. When Helen first meets Mr. Bast at the concert of that title Merchant and Ivory basically show their hand as to how they are going to treat this film. Instead of Helen going on about the Goblins in the music, they assign that task to Simon Callow in his requisite cameo. Later Helen disagrees with this fanciful assigning of meaning and narrative to the music. She is more prosaic and that makes her differ from the Helen in the book. The film doesn't delve into the deeper meaning of the story. It doesn't dwell on the morbid thoughts of the leads, going instead for the flash and the gloss. This is why the film still works while the book now fails in my mind. The characters internal lives destroy them and make them unrelatable in the book, being petty and self centered asses. By taking things more at face value we are spared the shallow inner lives that Forster wrote and we are left with a satisfying story.    

The movie isn't hurt either by it's superb casting, it's a who's who of the best in British stars, from Antony Hopkins to Samuel West. Emma Thompson picked up her first Oscar for her portrayal of Margaret Schlegel, though personally, I could take or leave Emma Thompson. Yes, the film wouldn't have worked without her, but the truth is that Vanessa Redgrave deserved all of the awards for this film, because it is through her and her character of Ruth Wilcox that the entire tone of the film is set. I defy you to capture the whole feeling of the film better then the first few minutes where Ruth Wilcox is dreamily walking about the grounds of Howards End. It sets up her love of the house and the love of her family. This is the world entire to her and it is perfect. A role that in the book isn't more than a plot device to bring the two families back together after the rift of Helen and Paul is given such depth and pathos that you can't help but be moved. Through her carefully delivered lines we come to love Howards End as she does. Vanessa Redgrave sprinkles magic over the house at the center of the book and gives it a life. In the book you never quite get why the house is so important, why it is everything. Yet in that one speech where Ruth talks about the tree relieving the tooth ache, what in the book is an odd insignificant line, brings all the magic of home and belonging somewhere in the world. Because that is what Howards End is, a place to belong.

Yet if they hadn't found THE PERFECT house I don't know if all Vanessa Redgrave's magic would have worked. In fact, for quite some time this was my dream home. For the country that is. For the city I really wanted the Schlegels house... perhaps that's why I remember this film so much, I wanted to live in their homes. I wanted to live, not in their world or even with them, but in the places they inhabited. The one thing that Forster does and does better than anyone else is describe places in such a magical way that you feel as if you are there, walking through the fields blanketed with flowers. His world, despite the death and despair that always comes at the close, is a place for nature to show it's wonderful bounty. This film felt like the very best of Forster's writing on nature. While Leonard Bast's actual walk through the night isn't magical or mystical in the least on the page, the film captures the romanticism that is found on the road to Monteriano, the woods abundant and fecund with bluebells, even if Broadchurch has tainted my views on woods and bluebells ever so slightly, the magic is still there. There is a Pre-Raphaelite sensibility to the clothing and the flowers that romanticize the setting. Though I will saying that the coupling of Helen and Leonard might have taken the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic a little too far. Overtones of John Everett Millais's Ophelia, and John William Waterhouse's The Lady of Shallot, while apt for their love affair, just made you think how uncomfortable being seduced in a rowboat would be.

Though, for all they did right with the production of the film, whomever did the makeup needs to be called out. Seriously people. I am glad that I don't have a high definition television, because the horror of the men's makeup might not have been endurable. They all look like silent film stars, as in that very overly made up way. I kept expecting them to start mugging for the camera, or for ominous music to start as Emma Thompson was tied to the railway track, or even an Errol Flynn sweep across the screen on a rope as Samuel West showed off his swashbuckling skills. Across the board, their skin is a nice flat spray tan, with the eyes and eyebrows comically enhanced. So, was the makeup lady blind or just hired off the most recent Christmas Panto? Every time Anthony Hopkins wasn't shamefully hiding his face I was about to bust my gut with laughter. I wonder if he saw the dailies and came up with that clever hiding of his face when he had to talk about unpleasantness with Margaret just so that the hideous makeup job had less screen time. All I kept thinking of was the season seven episode of Red Dwarf "Blue," where in order to get Dave to stop missing Rimmer Kryten creates "The Rimmer Experience," a virtual reality ride of Rimmer's life seen through Rimmer's eyes. Everyone is heavily made up to the comical extreme. While it works in a comedy, I don't think that was the look they should have gone for in a period drama! As for how the women escaped this fate? I don't think all of them did, Helena Bonham Carter looks a little too Mary Pickford for my liking.

One thing that drove me crazy throughout was the film's heavy handed foreshadowing. So, if you don't want to be spoiled, stop now. Though it you've read my review of the book I kind of spoiled it without warning, oops. Anyway, so two key things that happen at or near the end of the book is that Charles Wilcox repeatedly hits Leonard Bast with the flat or a sword until Leonard dies of his heart condition, though it is manslaughter. The other is that it comes out that Henry Wilcox cheated on his wife Ruth with Leonard Bast's wife, Jacky, while he was in Cyprus. So how were they heavy handed? With Jacky and Henry, it's just a deliberate mentioning of Cyprus in both their pasts that is never mentioned in the book until they fatefully meet at Evie Wilcox's wedding. As for the killer blade? Oh dear me, even if you didn't know it is coming from reading the book, you would have known it was coming with how they handled every mention of the sword like it was semaphore code. "THIS SWORD IS IMPORTANT PAY ATTENTION!" First it's mentioned by Meg at a dinner party she has at her house with Mrs. Wilcox, then on Leonard's second coming to the house he plays with the hilt, then there's a big to-do with unpacking it at Howards End and hanging it under the mantelpiece, AND THEN Meg and Helen discuss how perfect it sits over the fire, AND THEN it's used as a murder weapon. Four, yes FOUR clumsy and obvious references to that damn sword. Couldn't they have alluded to it in a more sly way? Couldn't they have, I don't know, mentioned it twice and not felt the need to point it out with big flashing lights. The only thing they could have done worse is a giant lighted sign pointing at it going, "Keep Leonard Away!" So much for subtlety. But then again, they were painting the book in broad strokes, which overall worked, how can I fault them for doing a better job overall than the author himself?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Arnold Rimmer, Broadchurch, Clue, E.M. Forster, Emma Thompson, Forster Fall, Helena Bonham Carter, Howards End, Pre-Raphaelite, Red Dwarf, Samuel West, The Princess Bride, Vanessa Redgrave

Where Angels Fear to Tread
Based on the book by E.M. Forster
Starring: Rupert Graves, Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis, Giovanni Guidelli, Helen Mirren, Barbara Jefford, and Sophie Kullmann
Release Date: June 21st, 1991
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Widow Lilia in a flurry of goodbyes flees her in-laws for the romance of Italy. There her and her charge, Charlotte Abbot, enjoy the sights, sounds, and especially the people. It's the people that is worrisome. Or one person to be precise. One person who Lilia met at her hotel in Monteriano whom she is going to marry. Of course she may have embellished Gino to her in-laws back in England. He has no title, and is the dandy son of a dentist. Also Philip's journey to prevent the marriage is hopeless, as they married the second they realized that an emissary from England was on the way. Lilia wants to finally be free of the constraints that she has lived under for so many years, little realizing that she is changing one prison for another. Philip returns to England with Charlotte in tow, and Lilia learns to live with her mistake. Gino wanted her money, not an independent English wife. She is stifled by him and slowly loses her will to fight and dies in childbirth. Back in England the Herritons decide that they will inform Lilia's daughter Irma about Lilia's death but not about her marriage or her child. Yet Gino doesn't wish Irma to be ignorant and soon an inconvenient postcard arrives and the young child isn't able to keep silent about her new brother and father. Realizing something needs to be done Lilia's brother and sister-in-law, Philip and Harriet, head to Monteriano to buy the child off Gino so that Irma will have her little brother. They surprisingly run into Charlotte Abbot, who claims to be there as spy for their family, not traitor. But what might have looked like an easy mission turns complicated when dealing with the Italian mentality and love.

I find it interesting in looking up other reviews of this movie how it was criticized for it's lack of depth and exploration of social themes that Forster was known for. Yes, Forster was known for this, but for his later work. He struggled to try to incorporate them into his first novel and failed miserably. Only Ebert was wise and educated enough to point out the flaw in the source material verses the film. Coming from just reading the book I see the film not in comparison to other Forster adaptations but in comparison to the book. What this movie was able to do is grasp what Forster was trying and failed to do with his book. The film is a tour de force comedy of manners satirizing societal values. It's an interesting conceit. Because it's like taking the most staid of Sunday night television viewing from PBS and then filtering it through the lens of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Despite the death and despair, there is never a time when the film takes itself too seriously. The entire thing is done with a nudge and a wink, wherein we, the audience, are part of the joke. We are there to laugh at and make fun of the drawing room foibles of the characters and the petty lives these people live wherein an inlaid box that was "lent" not "given" is more important than anything else. The fact that the cast is comprised of the same actors that appear in the work they are satirizing, well, that's just the cherry on top of the sundae.

The movie is able to effect these changes from a lackluster book to a fun movie by the simple expedient of streamlining the story and adding a little movie magic. The movie magic is that instead of showing the deplorable and unseemly side of Monteriano that Forster focused on, everything has been covered in pixie dust. Lilia's house isn't a ramshackle affair, it's actually quite nice. The town is picturesque. We see the world through a cinematic haze that makes everything that much nicer. Also by the magic of cinema, the language barrier is whisked away. Instead of having laborious misunderstandings everyone seems to magically know what everyone else means. Sure it's a little unrealistic, especially in the case of the ignorant Lilia, but it's expedient and let's the story focus on what is important and not have a stumbling block. Also Gino hardly being around doesn't hurt the film in the least due to his horrific casting, but that falls under another category all together. The one thing that did mystify me though was that the film underused Helena Bonham Carter. Charlotte Abbot is a rather important character and almost all of her storyline was pushed aside in favor of showcasing the foibles of the Herritons. As for the subplot of Philip falling in love with her, it was only hinted at in two scenes. While this does work in the film's favor, I have to wonder why she even took the role.

Despite how much I liked this movie I can't say it was without flaws. What worried me the most at first was the Helen Mirren factor. Unlike the rest of the known world, I greatly dislike Helen Mirren. The only movie I liked her in was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, because she was a disembodied voice, and I tolerated her in Gosford Park because there were enough fabulous actors to balance her deficet. As for that atrocious Elizabeth I miniseries, NEVER mention that to me ever again. Of course my hatred of her was balanced by the fact she was playing Lilia and would therefore shuffle off this mortal coil pretty fast. So while I can't stand Helen Mirren, Helen Mirren doomed to die was acceptable to me. But her casting had more issues then just my dislike of her. She was too old for Lilia in my mind. In the book she is about 35, but Helen Mirren was 45 when she made this movie. Of course this makes the likelihood of her dying in childbirth more likely, but how likely was it that she'd get pregnant in the first place? Lilia is supposed to be believable to get with child AND be an older woman, but she has freakin' grey hair here! NOT the blond Gino boasts about. It's pushing credulity. And yet this is not the worst casting. Ebert nailed it when he said of Giovanni Guidelli who played Gino that he "never seems like a real character and is sometimes dangerously close to being a comic Italian." I couldn't have said it better myself! Gino is almost a pretty boy gangster who actually isn't that pretty and had more than a passing similarity to Lucky Luciano from Boardwalk Empire. If it wasn't for his character being minimized he might just have ruined the movie.

But above all there is one actress who raised this film to new heights. Who knew just how to deliver her lines and knew when a pause or a look would be better than something more dramatic and showy, and this talent is Judy Davis. While this film was made just at the beginning of her ascendancy to independent film darling, the epoch of The Ref being three years in the future, she is the star here. The way she keeps harping on about her lent inlaid box, the way she won't share a conveyance with an overweight woman who turns out to be a famous opera star, her trying to shush the excited audience at the opera, every line, every look, every interaction with her fellow cast shows that she was born to play this role. More than anyone else she understands the humor, though dark, that the film is trying to bring forth from the source material. She "gets" the film and takes the character of Harriet that is basically a catalyst in the book and makes her fully three dimensional and so wonderful that you are counting the minutes until she returns to the screen. The one scene I would highlight above all others is when Harriet and Philip have finally gotten the carriage to Monteriano and she just lays into him about his duty and how things are going to play out. Her exasperation is palpable. The way she sighs and glowers are too perfect, but what makes the scene perfection is how during the entire scene she is still worrying at her eye that got some smut in it back at the train station. Her belaboring of that injury perfectly captures he comedic capabilities and why you should watch this film just for her.

If there is one thing though I would change about this movie, it would be the score. Most people don't realize the importance of music in a movie, it shouldn't overwhelm, it should compliment. It helps aid in the emotional impact of the story. Rachel Portman's score did not aid this movie. Yes, at times it was suitably dramatic and had the right vibe, but sometimes it would try to force the situation. It would try to make Gino more menacing, so cue the menacing music. At times like this it felt like she was trying to do the evil music from old silent films that would accompany a moustache stroking villain tying the damsel to the train tracks. She could do grand panoramic music that is the standard miniseries fare but everything else was beyond her grasp. Even more perplexing to me is that I have loved some of her previous scores, for example Jim Henson's The Storyteller, that was fantastic. So one, being me, wonders where did she go wrong? Was it the director? Because he seemed to understand what he was doing all along and then just, what? Decided that he wanted to make the movie something more than it is and tried to fix it with the music? Seriously, that is never going to work. Music reflects the movie and vice versa, you can't try to change one with the other. Accept the brilliance that you have and enjoy. Because this is a movie to be enjoyed.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: E.M. Forster, Ebert, Forster Fall, Gosford Park, Helen Mirren, Helena Bonham Carter, Italy, Judy Davis, Monteriano, Mystery Science Theater 3000, PBS, The Ref, The Storyteller, Where Angels Fear to Tread

I remember when I was first introduced to the work of E. M. Forster. I don't think anyone can forget the juggernaut that was the 1992 adaptation of Howards End starring Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, and Anthony Hopkins. It was the darling of the awards circuit garnering nine Academy Award nominations and winning three, Emma Thompson winning her first Oscar. I was in high school when the movie came out and didn't do much reading outside of school, I know that's shocking. But when I finally graduated in 1996 I spent that summer luxuriating in reading. The complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy started my summer, followed by all of Jane Austen. After finishing Austen I was bereft, I was encouraged by a kindly soul to read Forster. I read A Room with a View and was enchanted, despite the shoddy ending, Howards End instantly became one of my favorite books ever, A Passage to India wasn't really my cup of tea, and as for The Longest Journey, the less said the better.

It was apparent to me that Forster was a very uneven writer, and hence I hesitated to read his final two books, even though both had had lavish movie adaptations, one even by Merchant and Ivory. Despite my feeling otherwise time hasn't stood still, and it's almost twenty years now since I first read Forster. Besides wanting to re-read my two favorites, I thought I might as well bite the bullet and finally get around to reading Maurice and Where Angels Fear to Tread. Because my first introduction to Forster was through the Merchant and Ivory adaptation of Howards End I thought it would be fun to combine the two sensory experiences of literature and film. I hope you will join me this month as I delve back into Forster's work, revisiting some old friends and hopefully making some new ones. The one thing you'll be guaranteed of is a lot of Helena Bonham Carter and Rupert Graves, seeing as they couldn't keep themselves away from any adaptation!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Passage to India, A Room with a View, Anthony Hopkins, E.M. Forster, Emma Thompson, Forster Fall, Helena Bonham Carter, Howards End, Maurice, Merchant and Ivory, Rupert Graves, Where Angels Fear to Tread