(no subject)
For once, I want to have free time to post at work. I'm starting to get REALLY annoyed at not having the internet at my apartment. I don't know if there's anything I can do to change that at the moment, so I will have to endure.
FILMS!
I have three at my house: Howards End, Persona, and The Ruling Class. I've only watched Howards End in its entirety. I still have to finish Persona, and I only got The Ruling Class yesterday.
Howards End
Starring Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter; Directed by James Ivory; Based on the novel by E.M. Forster; Set in 1910 in "good manners" England. Howards End is the family home/estate of Mrs. Ruth Wilcox (as opposed to her husband, Henry, played by Hopkins). At the last minute, Mrs. Wilcox wills Howards End to her already-wealthy friend, Margaret Schlegel (Thompson), instead of anyone in her family, without even telling Margaret. After her death, when the family realizes her wishes, outraged daughter Evie rips up the will and throws it into the fire, to no objection by the rest of the Wilcox family, citing ancestry as the reason her mother should've left the estate to the family.
In an odd exchange of feelings, Mr. Wilcox eventually proposes to Margaret, effectively making Howards End hers, even though she had no idea of its original intentions.
Meanwhile, Margaret's sister, Helen (Bonham Carter) takes up a social project assisting a poor man, Leonard Bast, with getting and keeping a prosperous "situation". When she brings Leonard and his wife Jackie to a wedding celebration at the Wilcox's, it comes out in the wash that Mr. Wilcox already knows Bast's wife...
It's a story about relations, traditions, and ancestry, but mostly hypocrisy. It is very good. Like a lot of these period movies, it may be too slow or pretentious for some tastes, but it is in no way a flashy or lofty period piece. I've read a Forster novel, A Room With A View, but not this one. The internet says I should read it, though. Says it's one of the best novels of the 20th century!
FILMS!
I have three at my house: Howards End, Persona, and The Ruling Class. I've only watched Howards End in its entirety. I still have to finish Persona, and I only got The Ruling Class yesterday.
Howards End
Starring Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter; Directed by James Ivory; Based on the novel by E.M. Forster; Set in 1910 in "good manners" England. Howards End is the family home/estate of Mrs. Ruth Wilcox (as opposed to her husband, Henry, played by Hopkins). At the last minute, Mrs. Wilcox wills Howards End to her already-wealthy friend, Margaret Schlegel (Thompson), instead of anyone in her family, without even telling Margaret. After her death, when the family realizes her wishes, outraged daughter Evie rips up the will and throws it into the fire, to no objection by the rest of the Wilcox family, citing ancestry as the reason her mother should've left the estate to the family.
In an odd exchange of feelings, Mr. Wilcox eventually proposes to Margaret, effectively making Howards End hers, even though she had no idea of its original intentions.
Meanwhile, Margaret's sister, Helen (Bonham Carter) takes up a social project assisting a poor man, Leonard Bast, with getting and keeping a prosperous "situation". When she brings Leonard and his wife Jackie to a wedding celebration at the Wilcox's, it comes out in the wash that Mr. Wilcox already knows Bast's wife...
It's a story about relations, traditions, and ancestry, but mostly hypocrisy. It is very good. Like a lot of these period movies, it may be too slow or pretentious for some tastes, but it is in no way a flashy or lofty period piece. I've read a Forster novel, A Room With A View, but not this one. The internet says I should read it, though. Says it's one of the best novels of the 20th century!