by Allan Fish
(UK 2000 140m) DVD1/2
Life is very expensive
p Olivia Stewart d/w Terence Davies novel Edith Wharton ph Remi Adefarasin ed Michael Parker m W.A.Mozart md Adrian Johnston art Don Taylor cos Monica Howe
Gillian Anderson (Lily Bart), Eric Stoltz (Lawrence Selden), Dan Aykroyd (Gus Trenor), Eleanor Bron (Aunt Julia), Terry Kinney (George Dorset), Anthony La Paglia (Simon Rosedale), Elizabeth McGovern (Carry Fisher), Jodhi May (Grace Stepney), Laura Linney (Bertha Dorset), Serena Gordon (Gwen Stepney), Ralph Riach (Lord Hubert Dacy), Penny Downie (Judy Trenor),
Is there any justice in the world? Julia Roberts wins Best Actress for 2000 for Erin Brockovich; her best performance admittedly, but she beat Ellen Burstyn for Requiem for a Dream, while Gillian Anderson didn’t even get nominated. Nonetheless here’s another entry in the ever-increasing number of superlative performances that, quite frankly, are too good for the academy. The same could also be said of Terence Davies, whose film was similarly ignored by the public and many critics. It’s enough to make one doubt one’s own sanity.
Based on Edith Wharton’s celebrated novel, it is set between 1905 and 1907 in New York in the upper echelons of society, and finds Lily Bart, niece to a rich aunt, trying to get into society by marrying a rich husband. She loves Lawrence Selden who loves her in turn, but she won’t marry him because he works, as a lawyer, and is not independently wealthy. She turns down various suitors, and then comes to regret it when she is falsely accused of an affair with a married man and ostracised by society, first becoming a paid companion to a social climbing woman wanting into society herself, then failing as a milliner’s apprentice before finally committing suicide when at the point of starvation.
When one considers the budget put into recreating turn of the century New York in that other Wharton adaptation Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, the fact that Davies manages to top it off such a fraction of the budget is a real testimony to his, and his location scout’s, skill. Scorsese was of course influenced by the opulence of Visconti’s films about the Italian aristocracy (The Leopard, L’Innocente), whereas Davies is a social filmmaker more interested in the class divide and the intricacies of life in a time and a place. The viewer really does believe we are in New York in the 1900s, and it’s almost incredible to comprehend that it was shot nearly entirely in and around Glasgow. That he managed to assemble such a magnificent trans-continental cast is also testament to his standing among his peers, and his command of that cast is beyond reproach. La Paglia, Kinney and McGovern are merely excellent, Aykroyd is magnificently hypocritical and there are two superb turns as vastly differing vipers in the heaving bosom of society from Laura Linney and Jodhi May. At its heart, however, it’s a tale of the heart, and of hearts kept under lock and key, trapped like the incriminating letters that would save Lily’s reputation but perhaps destroy her beloved’s. Stoltz certainly has never been better than as Selden, instantly making us forgive innumerable poor choices, his cynical smirk and fateful realism sitting perfectly atop his stiff collar. Anderson, meanwhile, is simply extraordinary in every sense of the word as the jeune fille non mariée. As in Bleak House a few years later, she does more acting with her eyes than many actresses can manage with a speech, putting as much inflection and emotion into the quivering hand rattling a cup in a saucer as her dialogue, and, in the fateful, tragic final act, entering and leaving rooms like a malnourished ghost who’s forgotten she has the ability to walk through walls and doesn’t need to open the door. Gorgeously shot, costumed, scripted and directed, and touched off with sublime use of old Wolfie on the soundtrack, this is every bit the masterpiece the likes of Peter Bradshaw and David Thomson proclaimed it. As Geoff Andrew observed, it’s a “triumph which puts most recent screen versions of the classics to shame.”
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I liked this film quite a lot. I did not see at as being so “cinematic” as many critics claimed it – indeed, not knowing the context of the production, I initially thought I was watching a Masterpiece Theatre program (I have not seen many installments of MP but your own rave reviews of some of their episodes has led me to expect higher production values than I might have in the past) – but I didn’t mind. Anderson was completely captivating. I watched the film for my 21st Century series and the review, already written (I’m following your suit, which makes for remarkable peace of mind) will be up in August.
Not knowing the context of HoM – how did Davies come to direct it? From what I know of his work – in large part from you – it seems a somewhat idiosyncratic choice (not in terms of subject, as you point out, but perhaps in terms of period and especially style). Was he essentially a director-for-hire who knocked the ball out of the park? Or did the idea for the adaptation originate with him?
The reason why Gillian Anderson’s performance wasn’t accepted can be summed up in two words– Dana Scully. “The X Files” was still going strong (that is to say, hadn’t yet been put out of its misery) when this came out, and that being the only role that audiences knew her as, it was going to be tricky to pull off a performance people would accept from her in a different character. But the movie’s profile was too low to really win anybody to the fold, and frankly nothing in the film itself (even Anderson’s performance) really attracts enough attention to overcome the X-Factor, either. Frankly, I was never really convinced by anything in this film– it was too dramatically and cinematically innert, its mis-en-scene too passive and static for me to really emotionally or psychologically connect with anything. Davies mounted a handsome production, but then seemed to forget to do anything with his camera besides maintain expert lighting and compositions. It pales next to Scorsese’s take on Wharton, which frankly might be the finest thing he’s done in the past twenty odd years.
Also, is it just me, or was this film shot on video? It certainly has that awkward new millenium digital look that many features had before cinematographers figured out how to work with DV.
Bob, like you & others I approached House of Mirth through the Scorsese framework too, comparing and contrasting the very variant approaches to adaptation. I think Davies’ approach works for the story here – both House and Age are stories about repressed passion, but it seems to me that Age places the emphasis on the passion, and House on the repression (of course, I’ve read House and not Age, so perhaps my appreciation of the former’s plot is filtered too much through Scorsese’s interpretation; still if he was at least somewhat faithful, I think it may be accurate). I can see why you weren’t engaged – it’s definitely not your cup of tea, knowing your taste, but I think one could argue that Davies was wise not to do a Scorsese-style 90s/00s gloss on the material.
Fair point, but when I brought up Scorsese, it wasn’t really comparing Davies’ approach out of an expectations that all Wharton adaptations should be alike– it was simply, to my eyes, that “Age of Innocence” was good, and “House of Mirth” was not.
Though perhaps that’s a bit of an oversimplification for this site. Davies’ style is valid, but it’s very uncinematic. Maybe it’s the nature of Whartons’ source material, but at times it seems as though Davies merely adapted the work for the stage, happy to keep everything expressed through dialogue alone, and making sure to photograph each scene attractively. In one sense you can say it’s the bare minimum necessary for a movie– not for a “good” movie, but for something you could actually define as one to begin with. So much of the story feels as though it’s outside of actual actions, however, that I really can’t rate it any higher. I can’t even say I really understand the excitement for this movie, as I can with even stuff I outright hate, because there’s so little to latch onto here.
Actually, in some ways the book is more cinematic than the novel – the tableau sequence could have been savored here, but instead it’s quickly passed over. Nonetheless, I do think something in the spirit of the book suggests this treatment, and I found it compelling. I would not have guessed a “star” director was at the helm, though…
Can’t say I felt the same way. In fact, I was more than a little surprised to see the running time was a mere 140 minutes. It felt much, much longer.
Looks like it was shot on film (according to IMDb). I think it’s the “TV feel” I spoke of earlier. Again, I’d be interested in the context of how the project came about – I think it definitely plays as less overtly cinematic/”open it up” than a lot of other high-profile adaptations do. As I said though, I think this works here.
One of the greatest of all period pieces, the best film ever based on a Wharton novel, and another cinematic jewel from the great Terrence Davies.
It absolutely deserves this high placement from where I’m standing.