More on Brideshead

My post on Brideshead Revisited was at least 2 paragraphs longer in its first draft, and after getting some comments on my post, I felt I should spend a little more time on it, specifically on the "romantic friendship"/gay relationship aspect: Were Sebastian and Charles lovers? Does it matter? Anything I have to say here is based solely on viewing the mini-series and the recent movie, as I haven't read the book (though I intend to soon).

I was in my mid-20's when the TV production first aired; I'd been "out" as a gay man for some time and had been living with my first real "partner" for at least a year. My degree was in English and one of my formative academic moments was in a class in which we read Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice"; I raised the question of the main character's sexual orientation (the aging Aschenbach is swept up in a sexual obsession with an adolescent boy; he flirts like crazy, though no sexual activity actually occurs) but I was dismissed by the patronizing teacher who said that the story wasn't really *about* that. While I understand that literature is rarely *about* one thing, certainly there's something going on concerning sexual identity; after all, Mann could have had Aschenbach fall for a girl.

Before I go on a multi-paragraph rant, let me get back to Brideshead. In the early 80's, there were still not many "positive" representations of homosexuality in popular culture. Watching the first few episodes of the mini-series, I was convinced that Sebastian and Charles were meant for each other and were indulging in a mad, passionate physical affair, even though there was no clear-cut evidence for that. What was clear was that they did have a "passion" for each other, and in the midst of that, Charles meets Sebastian's sister Julia. My reading of what happens is that Charles transfers his feeling for Sebastian to Julia, she being a safer vessel for his yearnings. Sebastian is upset by this; in fact, this may be the event that determines the course of the rest of his life.

A "romantic friendship," according to Wikipedia, is "a very close but non-sexual relationship between friends, often involving a degree of physical closeness beyond that which is common in modern Western societies." I suspect this is what's involved in many "phases" that teenagers go through when they have crushes on people of the same sex. In England, this kind of thing seems to be taken much more in stride, particularly in schools where the sexes are segregated. Now that I've mellowed a bit, I can accept that Charles' relationship with Sebastian may have been "unconsummated"; in some ways, that even adds depth to the sad yearning feeling of the entire miniseries.

Sebastian, however, is clearly a homosexual character, and it is somewhat problematic for us, as Roscoe points out in his comment on my earlier post, that his "condition" seems to be inextricably tied to his downfall. On the other hand, Sebastian does accept his "fate," not trying to hide behind a false heterosexual relationship. Yes, he seems to meet a sad end, but so do Charles and Julia, and it seems clear to me that the real cause for all the sadness and unfulfilled passion in the story is God (and Lady Marchmain). The movie seems to imply that, in the closing WWII scene, Charles is about to convert; I don't remember getting that sense at the end of the miniseries, but that could have been due to my own cultural blinders at the time. At any rate, I think I will take Roscoe's advice and read the book soon.

Below is a cobbled-together YouTube video which features the original TV theme song which I find so wonderfully sad, and which seems to be stuck in my head now for at least the next few days.

Why I love my iPod: Reason #73

My iPod is on alphabetical play of roughly 2700 songs, so in effect, it's like a shuffle mode in that I really have no idea what's coming next. This morning, on my way into work, I heard "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, a sublime peak moment for 60's bubblegum. Ah, the rising, twinning voices of yearning, confused about the difference between love and friendship, desperate for news of "what she's doo-ooo-ing to-niiii--iiii-iiight...ahh!"

Next came "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" by the Pet Shop Boys, a sublime serving of 90's British synthpop. Ah, the joy of the usually cynical and dour Neil Tennant with clouds of happy synthesizers burbling underneath him as he proclaims, "I feel like taking all my clothes off / And dancing to the "Rite of Spring."

Then came "If" by Bread, a sublime slice of 70's vanilla-whitebread soft-rock, a lushly romantic song of non-specific love. Ah, the gentle apocalypse evoked by David Gates; with the stars going out, he and his loved one "will simply fly away."

Finally, "If Anybody Gets Funked Up (It's Gonna Be You)" by George Clinton, a sublime chunk of Parliament/Funkadelic funk. Ah, the growl of Mr. Clinton as he proclaims the funk illegal even as he tells us that some folks are "funkin' all through the night."

I would never have played these four songs together, and you damn sure wouldn't hear them together on any radio station I can think of, even the satellite stations. But my iPod gave me a wonderful little trip through four different musical worlds in the 20 minutes it took to get from home to work. Ah, sweet gadget that makes life (mornings especially) so liveable!

Brideshead Revisited revisited

I loved the early 80's British mini-series adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. For starters, it was 11 hours, a good length for a mini-series, not like the pathetic little 3- or 4-hour shows that pass for mini-series today. I was in my mid-20's when the show first aired, and I remember it being one of first times I felt like I was watching something truly "adult" on TV--I don't mean something naughty or pornographic, but something that actually had to be taken in and thought about; its meanings yielded themselves slowly and the drama resonated long after the series was over. I tried reading the book but it was so much like the show that I felt not much new could be culled from it--I'm more than willing to admit I might be wrong, but I've never gone back to the book to find out. I do, however, own the show on DVD and have re-watched it in the last several years to find that it holds up remarkably well.

This weekend we watched the 2008 feature film version of Brideshead Revisited. Though this glossy 2-hour film cannot hope to compete with the series in terms of depth, narrative sweep, or character, it does have some pleasures of its own. In the end, its disappointments were largely balanced by small successes so that I was pleased to have seen it, even though it will never replace the TV version.

[Hayley Atwell, Ben Whishaw, and Matthew Goode]

The plot of both versions concerns Charles Ryder, a middle-class lad who goes off to Oxford and falls in with an upper-class crowd, led by the whimsical but troubled Sebastian Flyte. The two have a "romantic friendship" of the kind that the Brits tend to tolerate but that we like to think never happens here in the States, but more importantly, Charles also falls in love with Sebastian's sister Julia, with the family's monied lifestyle, and with the Flyte's estate, Brideshead. Charles' love for Julia triggers jealousy in Sebastian (which leads him down a tragic path), but a bigger obstacle for Charles in his desire to live the life of a Flyte is their religious faith: Charles is an atheist but the family is staunchly Catholic. More to the point, the matriarch, Lady Marchmain, is. Her estranged husband has fallen away from the faith and Sebastian and Julia are stuck in the middle, both wanting to disavow their mother's notions of a stern god but not quite being able to let go entirely. For 10 years, Charles' fate is tangled up with the Flytes until a final break which leaves no one happy.

What this movie version does well is to make the central conflicts of love and friendship and class and religion quite clear. Unfortunately, to do this, the script has to cut back drastically on the rich supporting cast of characters. One of my favorites from the show, the stuttering, flamboyant Anthony Blanche, gets only one small scene in the movie, and sadly, it's not even the luscious "One brandy alexander... two brandy alexanders..." drinking scene. It's also beautifully photographed, far more so than the drab-looking TV show (its flat look was the only thing about the series that disappointed me in the recent re-viewing). Michael Gambon does a better job as Lord Marchmain than Lawrence Olivier did (Olivier was obviously quite ill, which in fact suits the role near the end), and the always fabuous Emma Thompson (pictured) does more with Lady Marchmain than Claire Bloom could do. I do, though, miss the wonderful John Gielgud who had a field day in the TV series with the role of Charles' clueless father.

The acting in the central triangle here is a bit off. Matthew Goode, as Charles, is just OK; perhaps the fact that he sounds a great deal like Jeremy Irons (the 1981 Charles) helps. Hayley Atwell is actually quite good as Julia, but poor Ben Whishaw is totally at sea as Sebastian. I admit that it's difficult to get the image of Anthony Andrews (pictured below with Irons) from the original out of my head--he embodied Sebastian perfectly, and was able to seem loveable and dreadful, admirable and pathetic, at the same time, often in the same scene. Whishaw just comes off as spoiled and irritating. Here, I can't see what this Charles sees in this Sebastian that entices him into a platonic "amour fou" which alters his life forever.

Finally, this film made me realize something about my own prejudices concerning the first version. The character of Sebastian is clearly a homosexual, but when I watched the 1981 version, I believed that Charles was, too. I didn't buy the "platonic" aspect of their romantic relationship (the picnic scene under the tree with the strawberries was so lush, I just knew they'd had sex, and lots of it), and felt that part of Charles' weakness was that he simply tried to transfer his physical feelings for Sebastian to Julia. 20+ years down the road, I can see that this is a misreading--whether or not they had sex is beside the point (in the 2008 version, they do share a kiss in addition to the strawberry scene); Charles was more in love with the family's way of life than he ever was with either Sebastian or Julia. I can recommend this film, but if you watch it, you really should dig up the original series and watch it, too, if for no other reason but to hear the achingly beautiful theme song by Geoffrey Burgon which for me will always conjure up the sadness of lost dreams and desires.

Catching up with Woody

Between 1971 (Sleeper) and 1987 (Radio Days), Woody Allen could do no wrong in my book. I know he's not everyone's cup of tea (and I'm not even gonna go into the Mia/Soon-Yi thing here), but I loved his movies during this period, some more than others, but they were all worth seeing and most still reward re-viewing. My favorites are Annie Hall, Love and Death, Manhattan, Stardust Memories, and Hannah and Her Sisters, and even his much-maligned straight drama of the period, Interiors, was not a bad movie. After 2 rather boring "serious" movies in a row (September and Another Woman), I sort of drifted away from him. I still saw most of his films, though often waiting for the video rather than rushing out to the theaters. A handful since then, including Crimes and Misdemeanors, Deconstructing Harry, and Small Time Crooks, have been quite good.

But most of his movies of the last decade have been at best lackluster (Hollywood Ending) and at worst absolutely excruciating (Celebrity). Even his big commerical comeback, Match Point, was more interersting than enjoyable. The problem for me is that he keeps making the same movies over and over: the same themes, the same characters, the same speech inflections, even sometimes the same dialogue (perhaps not literally, but in the pretty bad Anything Else from 2003, he seems to have recycled everything from Annie Hall to no purpose). As an actor, he now seems tired and lazy (the sad Curse of the Jade Scorpion), so to his credit, he is appearing less and less in his own movies.

I recently caught up with his latest films. Both are mixed bags but both seem different enough from his other films that I see some promise for the future. Vicky Cristina Barcelona is about two young women on holiday in Spain who get involved with a sexy artist (Javier Bardem); one of them (Rebecca Hall) has a one-shot fling and the other (Scarlett Johansson) winds up living with him for the summer. When his crazy ex- (Penelope Cruz) shows up, she and Bardem and Johansson have a menage-a-trois arrangement for a while, but it all turns out to be just "midsummer madness," to quote Vera Charles in Auntie Mame. There's not much heft to this little romance--I wish I felt like there was more a stake for the characters--but the acting is good all around (Cruz, who is up for an Oscar, is fine, but Johansson, who I don't typically like, is also good) and the honeyed golden tones of the cinematography are gorgeous.

Cassandra's Dream, his next-to-last film, with Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor is even better, although it got a bum rap on its initial release. Farrell and McGregor are working-class brothers who both dream of better lives; Farrell's an auto mechanic who has a steady girlfriend and a yen for gambling--he tends to lose and lose, then suddenly win (because we see him when he's losing but never when his luck turns and he comes into lots of money, I assumed that he wasn't really winning but was stealing the money, but that's not the case); Farrell, the family golden boy, is in his dad's restaurant business, but is itching to make a big break. With some money from one of Farrell's dog racing hunches, they buy a small boat (from which the movie gets its name), Farrell becomes modestly upwardly mobile, moving into a decent flat with his girlfriend, and McGregor gets involved in an investment business and starts dating an actress who is at least one notch above him in class.

When bad times hit and both need money, they go to their rich uncle (Tom Wilkinson) who agrees to help them if they'll do him a little favor: kill a man who is threatening to expose some of Wilkinson's shady doings. The brothers eventually agree, though both, especially Farrell, are stricken by conscience along the way. I won't divulge how it all plays out, except to say that this is another examination of issues of good and evil and guilt and chance as done before in Crimes and Misdemenors and Match Point, though things end quite differently (though satisfyingly) this time. Both lead actors are excellent, and they have resisted the temptation to ape Allen's speech and mannerisms, which in part is what makes this the least Allen-like film that Allen has made in some time. As good as Farrell is, it still feels like a dry run for his even better performance as a similiar character in In Bruges. Wilkinson feels all wrong for his part, like he can't keep up with Allen or the lads, but he doesn't spoil the show. Both these films give me hope that Allen's creative juices aren't yet exhausted, so I guess I need to keep him on my pop culture radar.

2 quick book notes

1) Just finished a cute little British novel called The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp, written in 1953 by Charles Terrot. A young, angelic woman pawns a harp to get some money for a vacation, and affects the lives of several people including Mr. Webman the pawnbroker, his old friend Ned, and his young and naive clerk Len, all of whom assume that she is, in fact, an angel who can perform miracles. I found this in our library's junk books and saved it; I'd never heard of it, but it seemed to have promise as a cute bit of whimsy along the lines of The Bishop's Wife, and it is indeed a charming, lightweight story, if perhaps a bit too predictable. I discovered it was made into a movie in England in 1954 (the poster is pictured), though it doesn't appear to be widely available. Though the pawnbroker is supposed to be the central character, it's Len, with his smothering mother and his long-time crush on a seemingly unattainable girl, who really draws you into the story. Perhaps because of the whimsy of Pushing Daisies, I was picturing a younger Lee Pace as Len, and Kristin Chenoweth as the angel (with a little less personality, as she isn't really a very active character). As I've probably made clear, it's cute and whimsical, nothing more.

2) I'm almost finished with Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master by Michael Sragow, a huge biography of the man who directed two of the biggest Hollywood hits of all time, The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. However, Fleming's name has not endured like his contemporaries John Ford or Frank Capra, mainly, I think, because he didn't have an obvious personal touch (he was not what would today be called an auteur), and instead excelled at making mainstream middlebrow entertainments (Red Dust, Test Pilot, Captains Courageous) which are still highly watchable movies but which don't have cult followings or the air of genius about them. It's also interesting that his two biggest movies were projects that he did not initiate but instead inherited from other directors by studio decree--Richard Thorpe had done the set-up for Oz and King Vidor shot all the Kansas scenes; three other directors, most notably George Cukor, had put in time on GWTW.

This book is one of the best popular biographies I've ever read: it's well written and well researched, it does a nice job balancing the subject's life and works (and, without relying too much on unsubstantiated rumors, does find a place for the occasional bit of gossip), and its reach is both wide and relevant: unlike the recent book on Reagan in Hollywood, this one includes lots of peripheral material--particularly about Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy--but manages to make it all seem important to Fleming's story. I only have one more chapter to go, but I'll be sorry to see it end. More importantly, I want to go back and re-view some of Fleming's work that I haven't seen in a while, primarily Red Dust (pictured, with Jean Harlow and Clark Gable) and A Guy Named Joe. I suspect most of his movies aren't really great ones, but they are well made and usually boast fine performances. This book is a must for classic-era movie fans.

Effin' Ineffable Bruges

In my usual way of being a bad, even inept, fan/potential stalker of hot celebs, I have seen very few movies with Colin Farrell even though he always gives me the vapors. In fact, until this weekend, out of the 20 movies he's made so far, I'd only seen two: Minority Report, in which he has a supporting role, and the indie movie Home at the End of the World, which I can barely remember. But after seen In Burges, I'm gonna try to be a committed fan: I've got Cassandra's Dream on hold at the library, and I may even put the supposedly dreadful Alexander on our Netflix queue.

In Burges, written and directed by acclaimed Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, follows two hit men (Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) who, after they bungle the killing of a priest (they get him, but Farrell accidently kills a small child at the same time), are sent by their boss (Ralph Finnes) to hide out in Bruges while things cool down. This film has been described as a crime thriller or an action movie, and elements of those genres are certainly present, but it's better described as a dark comedy of character, as for the bulk of the film, we simply follow the thugish but dim Farrell (who we come to care for when we see how the death of the child has affected him) and the older, smarter Gleeson (who has a past tragedy of his own still haunting him) as they sightsee, get bored, pick up girls, do drugs, get bored again, etc.

The main running gag is that Gleeson keeps trying to get Farrell to appreciate the rustic beauty of the medieval town, but Farrell keeps getting distracted by, not only girls and drugs, but by a film crew shooting in town, and specifically by a dwarf actor from the film (Jordan Prentice), who, in a very clever plot twist, plays a surprisingly crucial role in the film's bloody climax. Eventually, the meandering narrative gets more sharply focused when Finnes, via phone, orders Gleeson to kill Farrell for his blunder. Gleeson can't quite bring himself to do it (in a wonderful scene which could be a textbook example of "black comedy"), and things build to a climax when Finnes comes to town to check up on things.

The supporting characters include a lovely young drug-dealer who Farrell is taken with, her inept thug of a boyfriend, and an even lovelier young woman who runs the hotel where Farrell and Gleeson are staying--normally, the fact that she's pregnant would exempt her from physical harm, but in a movie like this that keeps you off-balance, you can never be sure. Farrell is quite handsome, sometimes looking goofy on the edge of insane, and gives an excellent full-blooded performance while things real. Gleeson does a nice job fleshing out a character who seems as though he didn't amount to much on the page. I thought Finnes was OK, though many critics really like him here, I suspect mostly because he's playing against type. I liked this movie more than I thought I would. The movie is filled with hysterically funny vulgar dialogue (you might start to think that the name of the town is "F**kin' Bruges") and has a nicely ambigious ending. And the town manages to seem both like a precious fairy-tale place and like a shithole (in the slighly less vulgar words of Farrell). Recommended.

There were pumas in the crevasses!!

As I well know, revisiting the mass media joys of one's past can be a dangerous thing. I loved the fantasy movie The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (co-created by Dr. Seuss) when I was a kid, but when I saw the movie again some 20 years later, I was sorely disappointed. I think it's letting such a lot of time pass between viewings, as I still love The Music Man and How to Succeed in Business and the old I Love Lucys which I loved as a kid and continued to have access to as I grew up. Still, I forge ahead bravely, risking disappointment, when I get the chance to re-view some of my childhood pleasures.

Hence, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour: The Best of Season 3 on DVD. In my memory, I have lumped this show in with another hip, controversial 60's comedy-variety series, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. A few years ago, I watched some old Laugh-In episodes and, while some bits still made me laugh, I appreciated it more as an exercise in nostalgia. I got pretty much the same feeling with the Smothers Brothers, who took their existing comic folk-music act and gave it a political jolt with lots of satirical jabs at the war, the government, and parents, and made lots of references (some veiled, some not) to drugs and the protest movement. By the third season (1968-69, the season during which they were cancelled due to their controversial material while still being a top 20 show), they had pretty much dropped their sibling rivalry schtick (slow Tommy whining to pompous Dickie, "Mom always liked you best!") for topical humor, and as we all know, that's the humor most susceptible to becoming quickly dated, and that's definitely true here.

However, the musical performances are still quite enjoyable, and not lip-synched. The Doors do "Touch Me" with horn players sharing the stage, Mama Cass sings "Dream a Little Dream of Me" to a napping Tommy Smothers, and on an episode that was taped during a musician's strike, the theme song and other musical backing for the evening is done acappella by a singing group, and Donovan (at right) performs "Happiness Runs" as a round with the audience--quite enchanting. Some comic bits by an improv group called The Committee (with Rob Reiner and Peter Bonerz among the members) don't hold up very well, and surprisingly, Jackie Mason, who is still performing today, seems outdated as well. The Smothers' banter is still mostly fun, and I was surprised how vividly a bit came back to me in which Tommy, while deconstructing a old work song, insists that American railroad workers of yore had to deal with the dangers of pumas in crevasses. You have to hear him insist on that over and over, his voice rising in pitch and volume, to really get it. If you don't mind having your misty memories get a little jaded, this set would be fun for most boomers.

I couldn't embed the video of Donovan's "Happiness Runs" performance, but here's a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkxRoCdYG0U