revisiting Brideshead

Last night, I caught the express train up from Baltimore, past the backyards of America, to New York for a weekend's reprieve from workshopville. It being a reasonable hour when I arrived, there was nothing for me to do but to watch Brideshead (my excuse, anyway). I took the 'A' down to Columbus circle and went to buy a ticket half an hour before the session – just in case.

You will be surprised to learn that Broadway was not lined with crowds queuing to see the late session of a greatly panned re-make of a lavish, vaguely pro-Thatcherite, '80s British television series. I bought a ticket easily then ate some hideously over-priced but very good sushi (this is an Alice Springs perspective, mind you) at an al fresco cafe before heading into the cinema. The lobby was festooned with posters declaring: 'Emma Thompson: a masterpiece', 'Emma Thompson: wonderful'. Subtext: the movie sucks, but Emma Thompson is good, as you would expect her to be.

The cinema was a fairly squalid place, guarded by several dozy old Italian men. I descended into its lower levels to an old-style theatre (a bit like the Chauvel), packed with the faithful. On screen, Matthew Goode was wandering about Howard Castle in khaki in a faint imitation of Jeremy Iron's original performance. He was approached by Hooper, saying some rather over-obvious things about how the new generation was going to have their time and takeover. For a moment, I thought I'd missed the beginning but then the credits came up, and I realised I'd been caught out by the thing that happens in American cinemas: films seem to play on a continuous loop, and once you've passed the bouncers, you can browse around different theatres as if you're rifling through bargain bins.

I came out for air, and was apprehended by a tiny Italian woman wearing a Red Sox cap.

'That was filmed in Howard Castle, at one time the home of the most powerful Catholic family in England,' she said to me.

'That's right. It was used in the original also,' I said politely.

'But it's significant that they didn't use any other castle.'

'Evelyn Waugh probably used Howard Castle as one of his models for Brideshead.'

'Yes, but it's the home of the most powerful Catholic family in the country.'

And so on and so on. I'd definitely descended into some kind of kooky enclave of New York society, those who were interested in revisiting Brideshead. When I returned to the theatre armed with halva (definitely a better quality of snack here), I noticed pairs of middle-aged men with buzz cuts and white T-shirts, and earnest women couples in long skirts and flat sandals (sorry about the caricatures, folks: it was that kind of night, a night of caricature). I shouldn't jest too soon: perhaps they're the future audience of the Centralian re-make of Brideshead.

I tried to approach this film with an open mind, as much as a fan who's seen the original maybe a dozen times over the quarter of a century or so can do. I don't know if this will appease your hopes and fears, dear reader, but the re-make stinketh. Everything is less in this film (with the possible exception of Julia Flyte's bosom), and although less is usually more, it isn't in this case, as more, lavish more, is part of the point of Brideshead.

The film steals much of the TV's iconography: the scene under the tree with strawberries, the car trip to Brideshead, Sebastian greeting Charles in wheelchair, Charles in a hazy street in Morocco, etc. Except when the plot diverges wildly from the book: Julia choofs off to Venice with the lads to set a love triangle.

'I didn't know you were coming to Venice,' Ryder says to Julia, expressing the thoughts of all us who'd seen the original.

Sebastian is driven to drink after seeing Charles and Julia steal a pash in an archway during a carnival in Venice. Julia 'always knew' her marriage to Rex would be a hollow shamble on the basis of that one kiss, etc, etc.

Sure, it all makes a lot of sense to me. I always wondered about those motivational aspects of Brideshead, whether mummy and Catholicism would be enough to send you to the bottle... It was like something from an Australian soap. One of the scriptwriters is the execrable Andrew Davies. Yes,truly, I'm not a fan, especially of the 90s Pride and Prejudice,though I'm probably warmer to his adaptations of books I know less well. I reckon Davies thinks he's doing a service to the public by Bowdlerising classics (or maybe that should be anti-Bowdlerising, given his predilection for adding wet nudie scenes) by rendering the language down into late twentieth-century plain speak and laying all subtexts bare.

Much of the original tension (believe me, there was some) in Brideshead relied on the capacity of the (rather creamy) language to hint at subtext. I understand the impulse to de-bulk Brideshead.I speak as a fan of the original who would cheerfully agree that maybe one, two, even three or four hours of the TV series, could be cut. There are also some truly terrible passages of purple prose in the text that made it into the voice-over in the series. But I don't think this is served by 'bringing out what the original omitted': the concentration should have been more on choosing epigrammatic moments or grabs of dialogue that allude to what lies beneath the surface. (In writing this, I'm reminded of how crap the dialogue is in my script, so yeah, it's not easy.)

This Hooperisation of the original language is exactly what would make Waugh turn in his grave: after all, it's about a fading way of life that's not meant to be accessible to the masses,not without special acts of providence (like the 80s Granada TV series). There were also moments when it seemed Davies might have thought he was revising Pride and Prejudice again: Edward Ryder is very like Mr Bennet, Cousin Jasper is like Mr Collins. And about five bumshot scenes to the TV series' one, a bit like all the 'running about' and the wet shirt scene in the '90s Pride and Prejudice. Emma Thompson and Matthew Goode kept on meeting to have discussions about their 'wants' as characters, as if they themselves were in a scriptwriting workshop. There are also terrible mechanical plot-moving scenes. e.g.: 'Let me help you hang that picture. By the way,I'm Celia Mulcaster, Boy Mulcaster's sister', etc. It was telemovie rather than film.'

As for the characterisation... yeah, Emma Thompson's good in a glacial, British, mommie-dearest kind of way, though it wouldn't be my favourite performance of hers, by any means. (My workshop tutor in Tasmania referred to her as 'frahgrahnt Emma Thompson', so I kept on hearing the word 'fragrant' said in fruity British tones every time she appeared on screen-- and suspect I always will now.) At times, she seemed to be struggling with the pacing of her dialogue, although she could have been struggling against the tide of the Hooperised script.

Both Charles and Sebastian are considerably less good-looking than the original actors, which works against the idea of tragic, gilded youth, etc. In Charles's case, this is less of an issue, and I think Matthew Goode's impression of humdrum middle-class-ness is closer to the book than Jeremy Irons' performance, although it's still redolent of Irons's Ryder, in the way that Colin Firth's Darcy is derivative of the '70s TV series Darcy. (Personally, I've always thought that Jeremy Irons has an irritating languor and I've never been entirely convinced that he can act, and suspect his looks have gotten him places.) Matthew Goode in many ways seemed to give the only grounded performance; for my money, the best in the film.

The Ryder children were somehow, with the exception of Bridey, consumed with fiddling with hair and other props to indicate character. It was impossible to believe that any of them were members of a fading aristocracy. I seem to remember that some British critic complained that Anthony Andrews was a like a barrow boy schlepping round Oxford in the TV series. In the film, he's more like a cranky little queen Charles might have picked up at a club in Soho.

I was relieved that Ben Wishaw hadn't tried to imitate Andrews' performance in the TV series but his endlessly fey, effete, faun-like and all those kinds of words performance grated and did so soon. When I saw Andrews' Sebastian in the TV series, I found him so mannered after his much more restrained performance in UXB (which got him the part) that I thought he was overacting. But Andrews' languorous glances from beneath lowered lids and honeyed delivery of innuendo is far preferable to Ben Wishaw's capering about like a camp Gollum. (Not to mention the fact that he doesn't look as tho he's dying from AIDS in Morocco.)

And then there's the luscious, ripe, fleshy Hayley Attley (sic?) as Julia... Although Diana Quick was less conventionally good-looking than Attley, she had something of a fish-eyed, sullen, spidery quality that seemed more appropriate to the period. (Diana Quick was also about five years older than Attley at the time she played the part,which may have lent her more gravitas.) Attley looks like a Melbourne girl with a dark bob and Poppy lipstick: I could even have seen her sauntering about an open-air concert in Alice. There was little about her that said 'tragic', 'decadent' or 'twenties.'

The person playing Anthony Blanche had an uphill battle at which they couldn't possibly succeed.

Anything else you want to know? If you wonder at the length of this post from a person who professes to be in New York, well, it's pelting down on the pavements of Harlem at present.

So, see Brideshead-the-movie it if you're someone who feels compelled to collect 'all the cards'. Or wait till it comes out on DVD. But don't, if you're the kind of person liked the book and the TV series, and are likely to stamp and pout.

Comments

[Angus]

When I heard E.T. was in it I thought she'd be doing her usual age-defying thing and playing Julia, but after reading this I realise she must have been playing Lady Marchmain - much more sensible. Lady M. is for my money the most memorable character in the book, pretty hard to spoil really but also hard to displace the memory of Claire Bloom in the Granada.

My other favourite character is Charles's father - who did they have stepping into Gielgud's shoes? Or did they cut the character altogether?...that would be a pity.

[Pavlov's Cat]

I'll go and see it for Fragrant Emma (wish someone would call ME fragrant. Note to self: get that level in the Chanel No. 5 bottle going down faster) but it doesn't sound like there's much other reason.

Re J. Irons, I could never see the looks myself (stick-like limbs, lips of string, flaccid hair and the big black circles under the eyes -- nah) but as for acting -- I thought he was fantastic in that rather nasty movie Damage, viciously shagging Juliette Binoche against his better judgement and looking as if he was about to spontaneously combust.

[Angus]

He was also rather good (twice over) in "Dead Ringers". He has a good line in perverts.

[Laura]

Jeremy Irons has a wonderful voice though, Pav, and he used it so well in BR where there was all that voiceover to be made bearable.

I'm pleased to hear it's so horrible, El. Calling it Hooperisation seems to be perfectly apt. The director's last offering was Becoming Jane which sucked enormously. It also had a sort of psued Revel at which the woman receives erotic awakening by looking at extras rushing about in masks.

[elsewhere]

Angus -- I think patrick malahide plays edward ryder.the character was like a corruption of Mr Bennet and the gielgud performance.

Actually, I thought Irons was well-suited to his role in Lolita, which supports the pervert theory.

Rushing about in masks? not leftovers from Eyes Wide Shut, I hope.

[David Kubiak]

Castle Howard is not, by the way, "the home of the most powerful Catholic family in the country." The Howards who own it are the Protestant branch of the family; the Catholic branch which holds the Dukedom of Norfolk failed in the male line and is now called Fitzalan-Howard. Their ancestral seat is Arundel Castle.

This movie only proves that Waugh's remaining children inherited from their father the willingness to do almost anything for money. It is a complete travesty of the book.