by Allan Fish
(UK 1981 640m) DVD1/2
Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas
p Derek Granger d Charles Sturridge, Michael Lindsay-Hogg w John Mortimer novel Evelyn Waugh ph various ed Anthony Ham m Geoffrey Burgon art Peter Phillips
Jeremy Irons (Charles Ryder), Anthony Andrews (Sebastian Flyte), Diana Quick (Julia Flyte-Mottram), Laurence Olivier (Lord Alex Marchmain), Claire Bloom (Lady Teresa Marchmain), Stéphane Audran (Cara), John Gielgud (Edward Ryder), Phoebe Nicholls (Cordelia Flyte), Simon Jones (Bridey Flyte), Nickolas Grace (Anthony Blanche), Jane Asher (Celia Mulcaster-Ryder), John Grillo (Mr Samgrass), Mona Washbourne (Nanny Hawkins), Bill Owen (Lunt), Charles Keating (Rex Mottram), Jenny Runacre (Brenda Champion), John le Mesurier (Father Mowbray), Stephen Moore (Jasper Ryder), Michael Gough (Dr Grant), Kenneth Cranham (Sgt.Block), Jeremy Sinden (Boy Mulcaster),
It’s difficult now, over 25 years on, to judge the impact of Brideshead on not just British television, but prestige drama in general. It had long been, as Leslie Halliwell observed, an albatross round the neck of Granada, described as an incredible folly in the long months leading up to its transmission. The strain of classic TV drama serials had reached both its zenith and its end in the mid seventies with Jennie, Edward the Seventh and I, Claudius. Yet however superb in terms of their acting and writing those productions may be, there’s nothing cinematic about them. They look like BBC Shakespeare productions or series shot on left over sets from Upstairs, Downstairs. Brideshead changed everyone’s conceptions; virtually entirely shot on location, punctiliously adapted from the original source to the extent that any faults it may have had were those of the original. As with Jesus of Nazareth, two lead actors had changed roles (then Robert Powell and Ian McShane, here Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons), and thank God they did. For it is no more imaginable that anyone other than Andrews could play the faintly homosexual, hard-drinking and doomed Sebastian than it is for any other tones than Jeremy Irons could provide the soulful commentary provided by Charles Ryder. Here were actors to their parts born, perfect in every way. It is a great credit to the other cast members that they don’t get lost, but there are gems everywhere, from Grace’s definitive old queen Anthony Blanche to Bloom’s suffocating Lady Marchmain, Queen Henrietta Maria reincarnated in the 20th century. Not to forget one time Arthur Dent Simon Jones as the blissfully boring Bridey, John Gielgud as a deliciously supercilious and witty Mr Ryder and Diana Quick as the tortured Julia. And we haven’t even mentioned Geoffrey Burgon’s truly hauntingly fitting score, at once a theme tune for stately houses nationwide.
Charles Ryder, in his first year at Oxford, becomes charmed by the lifestyle of Sebastian Flyte, a future Lord descended from a Catholic aristocratic family. He will become involved, in one way another, with all the family over the years, and become almost like one of them himself. The story is told in flashback, as Charles returns to the Flytes eponymous ancestral seat, now used as a garrison command in World War II.
Though Brideshead is essentially an attack on the suffocating nature of the Catholic church, it’s also the journey one man makes through a life where his acquaintance with one family changes his life, for better or worse – at times both. That halcyon time between the wars is captured quite splendidly, and the choice of settings for the family pile could not have been better; Castle Howard had earlier been immortalised by Kubrick in Barry Lyndon, but to everyone, the sight of the infamous dome of John Vanbrugh conjures up remembrances of the Marchmain seat, which is oh so appropriate for a series so tied up in nostalgic regret. A series perfectly summed up in Irons’ final soliloquy in the old chapel; “something quite remote from anything the builders had intended has come out of their work, and out of the fierce little human tragedy in which I played.” Still a benchmark for small screen literary adaptations, its performances inseparable from the source material, it demands preservation as a masterpiece of its art, much more than just TV.
This is a magnificent series in every way. I have been a fan since it first released and have “revisited” it (excuse the pun!!) several times. It is far better than the (mostly inept) recent remake.
Outstanding capsule review by Allan!
Nice review for this great series, much enjoyed reading it. I am confused by one thing mentioned, though. Did you mean to say that Robert Powell had originally been cast as Judas, and Ian McShane as Jesus in Zeferelli’s Jesus of Nazareth?
Yes, Lulu, according to some reports, but I think it’s more likely true that McShane was only considered for Christ. Powell certainly was first up to play Judas.
I’d have to give this production the highest marks, and agree that in essence it’s about the “suffocating nature of the Catholic Church.” Waugh’s work does remind of E.M. Forster, but it’s a beautiful and sweeping miniseries.
Allan, is there not a new adaptation?
Many nany years, since I watched this, but it remains in the memory – I am always jarred by seeing the no longer young protagonists in other roles – they seem fixed in an eternal youth defined by this drama.
…………..Mr. D’Ambra, there is a new adaptation, but it stinks. The version that Mr. Fish reviews here is the definitive one, and one I happily join ranks with him on……….
I would have to agree with the assertion that this is a television masterpiece. It’s beautifully mounted and it’s great in a sociological way too. Acting on the highest level too.
I’ve heard nothing but pans on the new version, but I join with the others here is toasting this splendid miniseries in the annals of tv history.
“The strain of classic TV drama serials had reached both its zenith and its end in the mid seventies with Jennie, Edward the Seventh and I, Claudius.”
Good review, but I would have to say that there are factually incorrect elements within it. Hidden behind the hands of time, the strain of period drama serials continued with Granada’s critically lauded “Hard Times” (1977, 4 Episodes x50mins, ITV and which was probably their answer to the BBC’s adaption of “Our Mutual Friend”), “Edward and Mrs Simpson” (1978, 7 Episodes x50mins, ITV1), “The Devil’s Crown” (1978, 13 Episodes x60mins, BBC1), Dennis Potter’s “The Mayor of Casterbridge” (1978, BBC), ect, ect.
Second point…
“Yet however superb in terms of their acting and writing those productions may be, there’s nothing cinematic about them.”
Untrue… as the “Golden Age” of British Television is cited as the ’60s and ’70s, cinema wasn’t the only show in town. The great tv of those decades in sitcoms, anthologies, plays, serials, drama series strands, were shot on video and those making them saw no limitations in it (though the technology was primitive). It was influenced by the theatre from it’s inception and the camera movement of film-making to create a unique hybraid. Or as the writer Alfred Shaughnessy declared at the time in the “Upstairs, Downstairs” writers’ guidelines, “Television is electronic theatre and not second-rate film.”
It’s not that “Brideshead Revisited” was shot on film that made it “cinematic” though it did make the outside countryside gleam. It wasn’t the first. (hence, Wessex Tales – BBC 1973, a “visually stunning series of six stories adapted from the works of Thomas Hardy. Hardy’s sombre world of late 19th century poverty, repression and superstition, of despondent country folk controlled by the passage of the seasons was depicted through some extremely impressive photography by Brian Tufano (who would become Director of Photography on the successful British features Trainspotting, East is East and Billy Elliot), Peter Bartlett (who had photographed ‘Edna, the Inebriate Woman’), Peter Hall (who had photographed Ken Russell’s ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ for Omnibus, BBC tx. 15/2/70) and Ken Westbury (who had started out at Ealing Studios as clapper/focus puller, 1944 to 1956” – BFI Onscreen).
Cinematic to me means the way the camera is used and the uses it’s put to (rather than merely film a scene as if it were in the stalls at a theatrical production). Here’s how the camera was used cinematically in “I, Cluadius” : the close-up, the ‘point-of-view’ over-the-shoudler framing, subjective camera (as all the characters lined up to talk to Cluadius in a hallucination in the Senate towards the end -we see through his eyes), the flowing camera pan and tracking movement within the set as Augustus swoops past a long line of senators asking “Is there anyone who hasn’t slept with my daughter”. And I would state that these serials, drama series, anthologies, sitcoms and plays are so great because they used all these resources. That’s why a segment like “The Last Lonely Man” from the legendary BBC SF drama series “Out of the Unknown” is the equal of anything made in the magnificent American show “The Outer Limits”, and why “A Warning to the Curious” from the superb “A Ghost story for Christmas” is the equal of “Pigeons from Hell” in the superb US “Thriller” series.
Point Three….
“punctiliously adapted from the original source to the extent that any faults it may have had were those of the original.”
So reputedly was Jack Pullman’s epic BBC adaption of “War and Peace”.
Point Four…..
What made “Brideshead Revisited” different was that it was shot on film giving it a film gloss. Coming in an age when every series on tv, from children’s dramas to soaps and game shows and daytime talk shows were shot on video – the same as expensive, beautifully designed, costumed prestige dramas, it stood out. Had everything on the telly been done with film and prestige drama serials shot on video, video would be the one with a halo around it. Just the way the human mind works, linking it to quality acting, writing, production richness.
Video has it’s own strengths – the softness of its image in comparison with film allows for a warmth and intimacy ideal for an intimate medium. Think of “The Good Life”, “The Goodies”, “Yes, Minister”, “Upstairs, Downstairs”, “Callan” being shot on film. Mind you, when six episodes of “The Twilght Zone” were shot on video to cut costs – they did look washed out and cheap but they were either using inferior form of video-tape or poor quality cameras…..anyway, just my six cents….
Bobby J:
I don’t know how to thank you for gracing us today with both this super-comprehensive comment on BRIDESHEAD (whic I expect Allan will be responding to you on) and that fantastic 1940’s list!! We appreciate your tremendous contributions to the site!
Yes, great piece, Bobby. You’re right on the video and film point, Granada made a point of using film for Brideshead – and the later Jewel in the Crown for that matter. I agree video is ideal for TV, but my point on being uncinematic was rather than it turns it into filmed theatre, but with close ups. It depends how you view cinematic, but I was meaning that it isn’t opened out – there’s not a single exterior shot in the entire series of I Claudius. It all plays out on sets left over from BBC Shakespeare productions.
Nice to see a mention for Warning to the Curious, but I prefer the earlier Whistle and I’ll Come to You, which wasn’t an official entry in the Ghost Story for Christmas series, but was a magnificent James adaptation (I have reviewed it for the site at an earlier date).
As for The Devil’s Crown, I am well aware of the series, but have never seen it, as it seems to have disappeared into the ether. I have been praying for its release, but I don’t think it will happen.
Hm. This is one of this entries I never would’ve considered, as a television miniseries. It just doesn’t work as a piece of cinema for me, really. If I were looking at American films of the 50’s and 60’s, for example, I wouldn’t include episodes of “Playhouse 90”, no matter how good the work Rod Serling or John Frankenheimer was. It’s just not the same thing, at least to me.
And again with the hmm….
This has already been discusse at the outset of the 1970s poll, Clark. The likes of Heimat, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Fanny and Alexander and Scenes from a Marriage are considered films despite being made for TV. So long as they’re single serials, self-contained, they’re eligible.
No, I know. I’m not confused on your rule, just questioning it a bit, myself. Things like “Berlin Alexanderplatz” and “Scenes From a Marriage” have never bothered me because they were created by directors who built their reputation in film, and their work was often created with the knowledge that they would live on in other countries as theatrically exhibited films, and not just as nationally broadcast television. Sometimes that involved a lot of unfortunate cutting down, but filmmakers like Bergman, Fassbinder and Wolfgang Petersen were aware that their small-screen works would be recieving significant exposure on the silver screen, as well.
The expectation was always there for their work to be treated as film, but I don’t see that expectation present in all TV serials, no matter how self-contained they may be. “Brideshead Revisited” is a masterpiece of television, but is it really a masterpiece of filmmaking, no matter how cinematically it was made? Lumping stand-alone miniseries like this with theatrical cinema by virtue of their self-contained nature, in my opinion, does a disservice to both mediums, as it represents a failure, or unwillingness, to look at both as equals. Why should a great work for television necessarily be seen as a great work of filmmaking? Isn’t it enough to have mastered the demands of its own medium, rather than having to live up to those of another?
Furthermore, your cut-off point seems a little arbitrary, as far as self-containment goes. What if the serial in question was meant to last for years, but only ever amounted to a single run? Would “The Prisoner” be excluded because it was meant to live on beyond 17 episodes, or is it allowed because once they realized the show wasn’t going to continue, that final 17th episode was produced to wrap up all the loose ends in its own absurdist, surrealist way? Will “The Kingdom” be accepted as a masterpiece of television that enjoyed a significant theatrical run outside of Denmark, or will it be denied because it ran for more than one season, and would’ve kept going had its elderly stars not passed away? And where the hell would Godard’s seemingly endless “Histoire(s) Du Cinema” fit into all this?
Like I said, “Brideshead Revisited” is a marvelous piece of work, with fine acting, scripting and directing from everyone involved. But it’s a great piece of television, not cinema. That’s not a put-down to it, bear in mind, but a statement of objective reality. “Brideshead” was created to be viewed on the small screen, in people’s living rooms on television sets at regular intervals, over a period of nights and weeks. It was not designed to be screened in a cinema, not even internationally– unlike works by Bergman and Petersen, it wasn’t made with a global thaterical version in mind. Like “Berlin Alexanderplatz”, it was shown in the United States (for example) on PBS, but unlike Fassbinder’s epic, it wasn’t released theatrically in any capacity. Around the world, “Brideshead” has only ever been a work of television. Yes, it’s excellently done in a cinematic way, but that alone doesn’t make it cinema.
Of course, this is a larger media-oriented question, and since you’ve already made up your mind about it, there hardly seems any point in arguing it here. Still, it’s a point that shouldn’t go ignored, which is why I’m raising it here. Perhaps your more liberal definition of what cinema is and isn’t allows for a gray area such as this to thrive, but I can’t help but feel something is being misplaced, here. Should Shakespeare be seen as a poet, or a playwright? Is Dante a master of religious verse, or a novelist of spiritual storytelling? Were the live-broadcast dramas of “Playhouse 90” works of theater, television, or some hybrid blend of cinema? If the medium is the message, as Fellini’s understudy in “Annie Hall” once said, then what exactly is being said here?
Yes, but that doesn’t make Berlin Alexanderplatz less TV either, just because it was made by a director. Likewise say a half dozen Rossellini historical pieces. Ken Russell, Ken Loch etc started out in TV and made their way into film, does this mean that once they got credibility in film their TV work was fine.
If Brideshead is disallowed then all TV shown dramas muc be ommitted, which leaves too big a gap, especially in the 80s.
“Berlin Alexanderplatz” actually feels like a good case study for this whole television-cinema debate. When it was first shown on German television, many people complained because the image was too dark to see what was going on throughout much of the series. This was because Fassbinder and cinematographer Xaver Schwarzenberger made the mistake of lighting it as though it were a film, meant to be shown in a theater, rather than as the television miniseries that it was being shown as. As such, the dark imagery literally didn’t work in the lower-resolution environment of 80’s era television, and it wasn’t until the show was projected on the big screen that audiences actually got a chance to see the great work that Fassbinder had done.
There’s a danger in treating one medium as nothing more than the off-shoot of another. David Lynch spoke about this at great length in the book of interviews he had with Chris Rodley, discussing the differences a director seasoned in film had to bear in mind when creating a work for television, keeping track of all the audio and visual limitations of the technology in question. When Lynch did the pilot for “Twin Peaks”, he had to carefully shoot it both ways– as something that would work on television (where he wanted it to be) and as something that would work in theaters as a standalone feature (which is what it did in Europe– with closed-ending footage that was later incorporated into the body of the show as a dream– and would’ve done in America, had the series not gotten picked up). He was much more careful than Fassbinder was in creating both good television as well as good cinema. Perhaps one of the reasons “Berlin Alexanderplatz” has to be considered film is because it didn’t really work too well on television. “Brideshead” doesn’t suffer from that.
Excuse me, Bob, but I’ve got Marshall McLuhan right here (he was hiding behind the donkey insignia on the sidebar) and he’s got something to say to you…
Sorry, I already did the “Annie Hall” bit, Man. Little late to start beating the proverbial dead jackass now. Joke’s over.
“Sorry, I already did the “Annie Hall” bit, Man”
Seeing as my “bit” was obviously a response to yours, I must admit I’m somewhat perplexed by your statement here. Perhaps you should start prefacing every comment with “hmmmm” …
Sorry, but there’s a confrontational streak in the Marshal McLuhan scene that always makes me bristle up, even when people make reference to it. That’s why I cloudied it up a bit, though really it was just a lead-in for the quote from the Canadian media-prophet. In the future, I’ll remember to use Brian O’Blivion as a springboard, just so we can avoid these occasional mishaps. Either that or I’ll just start quoting Norman McLaren. He was Canadian too, after all.
Intriguing choice, Allan. I have a penchant for stories of decline and nostalgia, particularly aristocratic… this past spring I read a book “The Decline & Fall of the British Aristocracy”. Enjoyed some parts more than others – I’m not particularly a fan of the style which has the author simply list familys who lost their homes, in excruciating detail, for page after page after page after page, but nonetheless it left me with an appetite for reading Waugh’s book and seeing this movie – though it looks like I’ll have to aim for the miniseries rather than the recent adaptation.
Movieman, avoid the film at all costs, it’s thoroughly mediocre. that’s for the short attention span generation who don’t want to read novels, just be pitched the absolute basics of the plot.
Yes, I quite concur with Allan. The choice here is an exquisite one, while the recent film is forgettable.
Terrific choice!!!!! I would have never seen this one coming even if it stood a mile tall and only centimeters away. My head must have been preoccupied with other films from this decade, for if it weren’t I’d have assuredly included this in my top 25. The performances and settings are the key here and everyone involved with the production brings their A game. I rons would become a major player in the movie world after this airedan and I dare say his star flew BECAUSE of his tremendous turn here. Also, its grand to see Olivier still pumping it out in one of his last performances. This isn’t just tremendous television work, its tremendous work PERIOD. This must be a personal favorite of Allan’s as I’ve never seen the Grand Inquisitor put up two screen caps for an essay before. I share his admiration for this film totally.
Great review, Allan – I love this series and must agree that the recent film was dreadful and to be avoided at all costs. I like your description of the haunting theme music, and agree that it’s unthinkable to have Andrews and Irons the other way round because they are so right for the parts they did play in the end. But then the whole cast is superb.
I do wonder why there was this outpouring of bitter-sweet heritage nostalgia in the UK around this time – ‘Brideshead Revisited’ came in the same year as ‘Chariots of Fire’, and Merchant-Ivory really started to come into the their own in the early 1980s too… and there was ‘Jewel in the Crown’ three years after ‘Brideshead’. Maybe partly a reaction against Thatcher? All these productions show up the snobbishness, racism and cruelties of the past, but also make the country house world so achingly beautiful – and yes, Catholicism is shown as suffocating, but it is made seductive, too.
I was impressed by Bobby J’s comments and only wish I had seen the 1973 ‘Wessex Tales’ or that it would be released on DVD or repeated… I’ve been searching for it fruitlessly for years. Sadly, it seems as if older TV productions are far more liable simply to disappear than with films. I would love to see a number of classic adaptations from the late 1960s or 1970s which have never been repeated or brought out on DVD. ‘The Pallisers’ is one of those that is available, with Andrews and Irons starring together in the final episodes, which I suppose probably led to them being cast together in ‘Brideshead’.
Judy, first The Wessex Tales ARE coming to DVD…
http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/8850183/Wessex-Tales/Product.html
What I really want to see is the 1978 The Devil’s Crown.
Wow, thanks, Allan, you have made my day – I had no idea this series was being issued at last. I’d love to see The Devil’s Crown too.