Brideshead Revisited... again?

[Matt Deckard]

Just saw the trailer for the new movie.

Hmmm the techno music, the bend in the trailer to make it very mother centric... I need to go watch the mini series again and pull out my teddy bear.

Remembering the BBC miniseries you see a tale unfold that is two love stories then folds back into it really only having been all a fantasy in a way. I saw it done well in the miniseries with actors and actresses portraying their parts in such strong ways I don't know how they can be reinterpreted or replaced.

I'm not sure I want to see this version for anything but the clothing.

Reading the book right now... really,
Matt

 

[poetman]

Brideshead Revisited

This releases in select theaters July 25th. Leave it to the British to do it right.

http://bridesheadrevisited-themovie.com/

 

[poetman]

There was a miniseries before? I gather from what you wrote, you preferred it?

 

[Mike in Seattle]

Leave it to the British to do it right.

Alas, apparently not this time. From what I've read and heard, there's no doubt in my mind it's going to be monumentally horrible. The book was slightly condensed for the mini-series, but to now make a movie that's well under 1/10th the length of the mini-series... [huh]

And then change several of the main plot lines... :eusa_doh:

I understand the script was so abyssmal that Jeremy Irons (one of the mini-series' three lead characters) refused a cameo role of Lord Marchmain in this version. :eusa_clap for Irons!

Myself, I don't even want to see the trailer, much less the movie... This is one train wreck I'm just going to avoid.

I have never understood the thinking in Hollywood the last couple of decades of taking a great story and then not telling it. Plot lines are changed, names & events changed for no good reason, existing characters deleted, new characters and disjointed plot lines added, to the point it retains little of the original story.

I understand having to cut out some things due to the time constraints. But they hire screen writers who couldn't produce a saleable script or book of their own, to "adapt" a story, and then end up, I assume, cramming in their own failed plots...and then everyone wonders why it fails at the box office. The clue phone is ringin' off the hook here, guys!

 

[Lucky Strike]

One of the things that make the original Jeremy Irons TV series so good, is the utter loyalty to the book - long passages are read in voice-over (I noticed this when I read the book after seeing the series - always a mistake, but there it is.)

Note: Waugh himself really rated the book as one of his worst, and written mostly during or right after WWII, out of sorrow for the upper-class, country house lifestyle that everyone than thought was dying with the war.

Brideshead Revisited is perhaps his most florid, saccharine book, and he spent much of his later years making excuses for writing it - his apologetic foreword to the later editions is worth a read.

How wrong he was - Ralph Lauren would have a much smaller fortune without Waugh's snob-appeal propaganda.

And how Waugh would have hated the RL phenomenon.

I like his comical novel series from the 20s and 30s; Vile Bodies, Scoop, Hang Up More Flags, etc.

Stephen Fry made a rumouredly very good adaptation of Vile Bodies, called Bright Young Things a couple of years ago. Haven't seen it, but I will.

I love the period, and the brits have the advantage over American adaptations that the art directors and set designers in the UK just go out and buy or rent genuine antique cars, costumes and props, while Hollywood fakes much of it. Never looks quite right.

 

[dhermann1]

I enjoyed the original miniseries, all 137 episodes of it, when it came out on the 80's. They showed it again 2 or 3 years ago, and when I heard Jeremy Irons say "I knew then there was nothing more I could do for Sebastian", for about the umpteenth time, I suddenly knew down deep in my tummy that I had just OD'ed on Brideshead Revisited.
BTW, I just saw an item about the real Brideshead Revisited, a British aristocrat who was persecuted for being gay over a several year period in the 20's. His children remained ferociously loyal to him in his exiled life, and eventually the charges against him were dropped. I'll dig thru old links to see if I can find it.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

I like his comical novel series from the 20s and 30s; Vile Bodies, Scoop, Hang Up More Flags, etc.

Stephen Fry made a rumouredly very good adaptation of Vile Bodies, called Bright Young Things a couple of years ago. Haven't seen it, but I will.

You have GOT to see that movie. It's hilarious, and it's beautifully done. One of my favorites, and freaky coincidence...it's in the DVD player right now because I thought I'd watch it later.

Another set around the same time period, this time in the US - The Cat's Meow, about what might have happened on Hearst's yacht the weekend when Thomas Ince died of indigestion (from the coroner's report) from a gunshot wound to the back of his head (which was strangely missing from the coroner's report).

 

[Vintage Betty]

A note from Aloysius and Vintage Betty

 

[Hemingway Jones]

Costumes!

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/07/20/movies/20080720_BRIDESHEADREVISITED_SLIDESHOW_index.html

The Brits always get the costuming right.

There was a nice article on this in yesterday's NYT.

 

[Joe_Frances]

First of all, the mini-series had a dozen or so episodes to develop the story. Second, the pacing was so great that you really came to know and understand the characters, and why they did the incredibly complex and sometimes crazy things they did. How could you possibly give this story its due in two or so hours? To see the Jeremy Irons/Anthony Andrews version of this is to see a classic. No way this "thing" could do anything new or better, and besides as Matt alluded to earlier, there's the Waugh book to deal with.

The NY Times review was pretty scathing, and suggested calling this movie "Brideshead Revisited" is taking that name in vain.

I may see it for the clothes, but probably not. At least not in a theater.

 

[Smuterella]

I'd see it for the clothes and for the astoundingly beautiful Miss Atwell.

 

[CAL-NOIR]

Bright Young Things

Bright Young Things is a great film ...Peter O' Toole as the barking mad aristo steals the show ! lol

As it happens , i was working at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich when they were filming there , if you look at the special features you'll see the bit about the fire engines being called to the set because people across the river thought the college was on fire ! I was on set that night & remember it vividly . They made a fake fire in one of the colonades to make it look like a blitzed London street ( it's the scene where Emily Mortimer is walking home to her flat, near the end of the film ) , only the location manager had failed to inform the people living directly across the river that this was going to happen so they being good citizens promptly called the Fire Brigade ...this didn't go down at all well with Mr Fry .

But i have to say , Stephen Fry is a wonderful actor & thoroughly nice bloke, he sat with the crew for meals & was in no way aloof . I also met him briefly at another Naval College function , Sir John Mills Birthday celebration ( i think he was 96) ...but that's another story .

 

[Lefty]

I saw it

yesterday without ever having seen this thread and without having known anything about the mini-series. The clothes and settings are fantastic. Though I really enjoyed the look of Atonement (which seems like a fair movie for comparison), I liked that the characters in B.R. wear the same hats and clothes more often, rather than looking like they've visited wardrobe between scenes.

The movie is just OK. Trying to understand why anyone would care about Sebastian is pretty difficult (regardless of his wealth or nice, but hardly beautiful sister), some of the characters are just overdone (especially the lesser characters like Rex, Julia's other brother, and Charles' father), and the ending uses a far too heavy handed metaphor. Between the two, Atonement is a far better film, with a far better story. I'll take a little bit of idealized costuming in exchange for that.

Any techno that may have been in the preview is not in the movie.

 

[cookie]

Irish spellings of names turned into recognisable English

Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh, the film's costume designer....[huh] [huh] the English translation please.... lol

 

[Kishtu]

Not sure I could see the film, I remember the mini series too well.... havign a huge crush on Sebastian (not on Anthony Andrews, but on the character) and it being on too late for a 10 year old to stay up for (9.30 I think?) so me sitting on the landing upstairs in the dark listening to the theme music....

 

[Doctor Strange]

I saw it on cable the other day. Nice costumes, attractive cast, and they certainly tried to tell the story as well as they could in a reasonable running time... but as the reviews said, it just doesn't compare to the old miniseries. (Which I haven't seen since its first airing, but in watching this version, I found that I remembered the plot and characters awfully well.) Much necessary detail was missing, and as a result, lots of character motivations were lacking.

And making Charles and Sebastian's relationship less "ambiguous" was not an improvement! The ambiguity was actually more interesting...

 

[klind65]

I loved the original miniseries and personally wouldn't want that experience to be "corrupted" by a modern day interpretation. I recently bought the series on DVD and it had a marvelous special feature of interviews with Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews and most all of the rest of the cast. I think it was the 25th anniversary edition.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Well, there's no question that the miniseries is the classic, and this movie is the also-ran.

But as somebody who enjoys comparing different adaptations of novels, I'm glad I saw it. As much as I generally detest "unnecessary" remakes, I find seeing multiple Jane Eyres, Pride and Prejudices, A Christmas Carols, Moby Dicks, etc., very interesting. Each adaptation brings out something different...

Anyway, I just can't help it: I'm a lifelong mega film-buff/scholar/collector, AND I was an English Lit. major back in my college days!

 

[Young fogey]

Saw the Jeremy Irons miniseries and years later read the book; I like them very much. I understand the more recent film is a travesty.