"I ain't saying Charles a gold digga...
...but he ain't messin' with no broke nigga."
Ok so I went to see Brideshead Revisited at the cinema. My curiosity over the extent of it's fail gained control of me...
Basic details of the plot, should you need them are that Charles (Matthew Goode), a middle class artist from a family noone would have heard of is captivated by upper class Lord Sebastian Flyte, (Ben Whishaw) at Oxford. Special friend Sebastian then takes Charles back to his stately home where Charles falls ardently in love with the homestead and then Sebastian's haughty sister Julia, (Hayley Atwell). Sebastian then finds out that Charles wants his sister and spirals into alcoholic despair but Charles and Julia are prevented from being together by the interference of Lady Marchmain, (Emma Thompson) - the matriach of this group of dsyfunctional aristocrats and then in the end by the Catholicism of Julia herself.
I will begin by saying I adore the book and this film was quite a bit different to the world Evelyn Waugh painted. Another thing is that upon exiting this movie I made a plan to reaquaint with Waugh's words (which was thwarted by that fact that the book cost 9 quid). Which should tell you ultimately how little I appreciated the additions and excisions from the book that the film makers made.
From the start I had tried to view it as a seperate thing entirely from the book. Thinking there can no other comfortable way to watch an adaptation of a book like Brideshead that is so basically plotless and beautifully subtle, as the film was guaranteed to remove all that lovely languish and sexx up anything of event that occurred in the pages.
Having prepared myself for it's redundance I hoped it would at least be an attractive redundance. It was attractive, very attractive in fact but not enough to make a strong case for it's existence.
By that I mean in the end the most beautiful things in the film (and some of it was legitimately lovely) were those already done ten times fuller in both the book and mini series and the most awful parts of this film were those which deviated substantially from the book.
The good points were that this film was well cast overall so that the actors were able to lend sympathy to parts that were too lacking in motivation because of the excisions. Goode who I'd never heard of is reliable as Charles, still and serious he reminds me subconsciously enough of Irons for me to accept him. He is surprisingly beautiful to look at as well, what with his rosy cheeks and green eyes. Whishaw, whose casting as Flyte I'd previously disagreed with was also quite brilliant at times. Far better at acting drunk than Andrews was and desperate to mine the dignity of a Sebastian who was very disempowered by the additions.
The film was also gorgeously shot. Truly, truly beautiful with a careful attention to aesthetics.
The romance between Charles and Sebastian was overally nicely attended to as well, even if it was a little awkwardly written to begin with. Seriously some of the initial dialogue was like bad slash fic. Anyway once it settled it was lovely and romantic and even the addition of the kiss was sweet really. But then the picture becomes seized by the determination to hype up the HETEROSEXUAL romance between Julia and Charles, which in the book was little more than the slow burn left in the wake of Sebastian's emotional abandonment. In order to do this it introduces some major changes to the beauty of the book that set about spoiling all of the film's previous goodness.
A part is invented where Julia accompanies Charles and Sebastian to Venice and there Charles kisses Julia and is seen by Sebastian. This is the first truly atrocious bit in the film. Truly unecessary and stupid. Firstly because it is a very out of character act of betrayal on Charles part as it occurs at a point in the story, where the reliable, faithful ol' Charles is still very devoted to Sebastian.
No plausible reason is give for the kiss by the script and it's placement makes it smack of gay panic - that Charles or the film is trying to make him seem heterosexual. Which is cliche and horrible and something the story did well without. Or maybe it's just that his concern is to marry into the family to get their wealth which is another suggestion. Either way it just doesn't reflect well on Charles at all. No matter how Goode tries, Charles just comes out of that liason looking horribly shallow in his love for Sebastian and so unsympathetic that it's hard to retain any for him from then on. Which just shoots the film in the foot because Charles is the main character.
Another thing marring this piece overall is the amplification and simplification of all of Waugh's characterisation. Here Sebastian is a gay man tortured by his sexuality, mother Marchmain is evil and outrightly abusive and Charles is by the end revealed to be a gold digger. They were far more subtly drawn and reflected the concerns of their era a bit better before and rendering the characters so obvious and am dram, reduces their interest and makes them pretty laughable and in the case of Ma Marchmain pretty awful.
So the film comes across as a constant barrage of posh people being incessantly dysfunctional for no established reason. A little like a period soap opera, just as lolsomely stupid and psychologically simplistic, but better shot and populated with better looking people.
I mean from the moment you meet these characters their psychologies are transparent in a strangely modern sense. Sebastian, even without the device of carrying a bear around with him is never anything but a little boy lost. A truly tragic, pitiable, abused and neglected character from the very first scene where Whishaw sits at a table of friend's in utter misery, desperately clinging to Charles with his eyes as his last hope for happiness his fate is obvious. I mean like I said Whishaw tries so desperately hard to give him dignity but he really has been given so little by the script that it's a failiure.
It's galling because in the book, in the mini series he was given a set up, he was charming and attractive. He had a veneer that was expected of people of his class that took a realistically long while to unravel to the jealousy and insecurity beneath but there is no time for it here and though Whishaw tries it all felt too cheap and convenient when on fast forward.
The gayness was another issue. In the book it is rather ignored (as I'm sure it would have been in the era and religious background it's set in) but in this film Sebastian is persecuted by everyone for it. The emotion that destroys him in the end is subtly made to be guilt and shame at being gay and that it's a betrayal from the book that cannot be justified even by saying they are different beasts. It takes up more space to insert this modern sexuality consciousness in than it would have done to adapt Waugh's novel and leave modern commentary on sexuality out of it but they chose to put it in there.
I mean I would have been ok if it was well written but the bridge between Waugh's characterisation and the modern social isshues of the MODERN writers is glaringly anachronistic and obviously horrible. I mean as a for instance Sebastian says at some point. It's not you is MEEE. I mean it's as though the writer's are unable to portray the psychology of their characters as anything but a series of modern pop psychology psychobabble buzz phrases.
There are some other examples of this in the film actually but I can't remember them all now, all I will say is that they were terribly lol and indicative of disgustingly clueless writing.
Charles characterisation doesn't fair better in terms of simplification. Shown up repeatedly as distracted from both Julia and Sebastian by their wealth. His character comes accross as pretty odious by the end. Nor does Julia, here just a repressed and manipulated woman tormented by the sexism of Catholicism and forced into an arranged marriage. Positively sounding the horn for feminism with every line she speaks.
Lady Marchmain has changed from being a misguided religious woman into some snake/dragon hybrid - she was so evil that I'm surprised she didn't have a forked tongue, I actually laughed at the things coming from Thompson's mouth sometimes. They were so over the top and unecessary.
As a result most of the enjoyment I got from this film was in laughing at it.
The confusion of motivation was rife, again from contradiction of Charles love for Sebastian, which goes from total encompassing depth to shallowness if Julia is there, back to depth again when she isn't because of the addition of the kissing scene. To another scene, where as he does in the book Charles defends Lady Marchmain at some point by saying she's been good to him, even though in this version from first to last Lady Marchmain is a stereotypically villainous as it's possible to be.
Like I said though I didn't utterly hate it. It was so highly camp, highly beautiful and highly well acted but the writing was absolutely atrocious from first to last and I don't know why they had to tarnish Brideshead by associating with it so overtly because it captures nothing of the delicate spirit of the book at all. None of it.
Ok so I went to see Brideshead Revisited at the cinema. My curiosity over the extent of it's fail gained control of me...
Basic details of the plot, should you need them are that Charles (Matthew Goode), a middle class artist from a family noone would have heard of is captivated by upper class Lord Sebastian Flyte, (Ben Whishaw) at Oxford. Special friend Sebastian then takes Charles back to his stately home where Charles falls ardently in love with the homestead and then Sebastian's haughty sister Julia, (Hayley Atwell). Sebastian then finds out that Charles wants his sister and spirals into alcoholic despair but Charles and Julia are prevented from being together by the interference of Lady Marchmain, (Emma Thompson) - the matriach of this group of dsyfunctional aristocrats and then in the end by the Catholicism of Julia herself.
I will begin by saying I adore the book and this film was quite a bit different to the world Evelyn Waugh painted. Another thing is that upon exiting this movie I made a plan to reaquaint with Waugh's words (which was thwarted by that fact that the book cost 9 quid). Which should tell you ultimately how little I appreciated the additions and excisions from the book that the film makers made.
From the start I had tried to view it as a seperate thing entirely from the book. Thinking there can no other comfortable way to watch an adaptation of a book like Brideshead that is so basically plotless and beautifully subtle, as the film was guaranteed to remove all that lovely languish and sexx up anything of event that occurred in the pages.
Having prepared myself for it's redundance I hoped it would at least be an attractive redundance. It was attractive, very attractive in fact but not enough to make a strong case for it's existence.
By that I mean in the end the most beautiful things in the film (and some of it was legitimately lovely) were those already done ten times fuller in both the book and mini series and the most awful parts of this film were those which deviated substantially from the book.
The good points were that this film was well cast overall so that the actors were able to lend sympathy to parts that were too lacking in motivation because of the excisions. Goode who I'd never heard of is reliable as Charles, still and serious he reminds me subconsciously enough of Irons for me to accept him. He is surprisingly beautiful to look at as well, what with his rosy cheeks and green eyes. Whishaw, whose casting as Flyte I'd previously disagreed with was also quite brilliant at times. Far better at acting drunk than Andrews was and desperate to mine the dignity of a Sebastian who was very disempowered by the additions.
The film was also gorgeously shot. Truly, truly beautiful with a careful attention to aesthetics.
The romance between Charles and Sebastian was overally nicely attended to as well, even if it was a little awkwardly written to begin with. Seriously some of the initial dialogue was like bad slash fic. Anyway once it settled it was lovely and romantic and even the addition of the kiss was sweet really. But then the picture becomes seized by the determination to hype up the HETEROSEXUAL romance between Julia and Charles, which in the book was little more than the slow burn left in the wake of Sebastian's emotional abandonment. In order to do this it introduces some major changes to the beauty of the book that set about spoiling all of the film's previous goodness.
A part is invented where Julia accompanies Charles and Sebastian to Venice and there Charles kisses Julia and is seen by Sebastian. This is the first truly atrocious bit in the film. Truly unecessary and stupid. Firstly because it is a very out of character act of betrayal on Charles part as it occurs at a point in the story, where the reliable, faithful ol' Charles is still very devoted to Sebastian.
No plausible reason is give for the kiss by the script and it's placement makes it smack of gay panic - that Charles or the film is trying to make him seem heterosexual. Which is cliche and horrible and something the story did well without. Or maybe it's just that his concern is to marry into the family to get their wealth which is another suggestion. Either way it just doesn't reflect well on Charles at all. No matter how Goode tries, Charles just comes out of that liason looking horribly shallow in his love for Sebastian and so unsympathetic that it's hard to retain any for him from then on. Which just shoots the film in the foot because Charles is the main character.
Another thing marring this piece overall is the amplification and simplification of all of Waugh's characterisation. Here Sebastian is a gay man tortured by his sexuality, mother Marchmain is evil and outrightly abusive and Charles is by the end revealed to be a gold digger. They were far more subtly drawn and reflected the concerns of their era a bit better before and rendering the characters so obvious and am dram, reduces their interest and makes them pretty laughable and in the case of Ma Marchmain pretty awful.
So the film comes across as a constant barrage of posh people being incessantly dysfunctional for no established reason. A little like a period soap opera, just as lolsomely stupid and psychologically simplistic, but better shot and populated with better looking people.
I mean from the moment you meet these characters their psychologies are transparent in a strangely modern sense. Sebastian, even without the device of carrying a bear around with him is never anything but a little boy lost. A truly tragic, pitiable, abused and neglected character from the very first scene where Whishaw sits at a table of friend's in utter misery, desperately clinging to Charles with his eyes as his last hope for happiness his fate is obvious. I mean like I said Whishaw tries so desperately hard to give him dignity but he really has been given so little by the script that it's a failiure.
It's galling because in the book, in the mini series he was given a set up, he was charming and attractive. He had a veneer that was expected of people of his class that took a realistically long while to unravel to the jealousy and insecurity beneath but there is no time for it here and though Whishaw tries it all felt too cheap and convenient when on fast forward.
The gayness was another issue. In the book it is rather ignored (as I'm sure it would have been in the era and religious background it's set in) but in this film Sebastian is persecuted by everyone for it. The emotion that destroys him in the end is subtly made to be guilt and shame at being gay and that it's a betrayal from the book that cannot be justified even by saying they are different beasts. It takes up more space to insert this modern sexuality consciousness in than it would have done to adapt Waugh's novel and leave modern commentary on sexuality out of it but they chose to put it in there.
I mean I would have been ok if it was well written but the bridge between Waugh's characterisation and the modern social isshues of the MODERN writers is glaringly anachronistic and obviously horrible. I mean as a for instance Sebastian says at some point. It's not you is MEEE. I mean it's as though the writer's are unable to portray the psychology of their characters as anything but a series of modern pop psychology psychobabble buzz phrases.
There are some other examples of this in the film actually but I can't remember them all now, all I will say is that they were terribly lol and indicative of disgustingly clueless writing.
Charles characterisation doesn't fair better in terms of simplification. Shown up repeatedly as distracted from both Julia and Sebastian by their wealth. His character comes accross as pretty odious by the end. Nor does Julia, here just a repressed and manipulated woman tormented by the sexism of Catholicism and forced into an arranged marriage. Positively sounding the horn for feminism with every line she speaks.
Lady Marchmain has changed from being a misguided religious woman into some snake/dragon hybrid - she was so evil that I'm surprised she didn't have a forked tongue, I actually laughed at the things coming from Thompson's mouth sometimes. They were so over the top and unecessary.
As a result most of the enjoyment I got from this film was in laughing at it.
The confusion of motivation was rife, again from contradiction of Charles love for Sebastian, which goes from total encompassing depth to shallowness if Julia is there, back to depth again when she isn't because of the addition of the kissing scene. To another scene, where as he does in the book Charles defends Lady Marchmain at some point by saying she's been good to him, even though in this version from first to last Lady Marchmain is a stereotypically villainous as it's possible to be.
Like I said though I didn't utterly hate it. It was so highly camp, highly beautiful and highly well acted but the writing was absolutely atrocious from first to last and I don't know why they had to tarnish Brideshead by associating with it so overtly because it captures nothing of the delicate spirit of the book at all. None of it.