Terence Davies' "The House of Mirth" - Classic or Dud?

Terrence Davies is a hero. i wish Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes were available on DVD.

here's the (short) ILB thread on the book

House of Mirth

That's the shot to which I was referring in my first post. It's gorgeous, but too lyrical for Wharton, maybe?

xxp

I have to write one for next week!

yesyesyes! that casting was brilliant. I think the people who think Anderson was miscast are just being kind of physically literal, because Lily Bart is supposed to be a universally-acknowledged fox and Anderson is unconventional-looking. At least, that was the reason I thought she was miscast before I saw the movie. She's really amazing in it.

Also, it is so, so much better than Scorcese's Age of Innocence.

i have no basis for this but it's possible that Anderson is the kind of beauty that might have been thought striking at the time the book is set.

scorsese's film... davies likes it a lot. i liked it when i saw it (when it came out). should see it again.

"A 'hat movie'" -- Richard Roeper

Love it (especially Linney), of course.

Scorsese's TAOI wasn't guilty at all of "tasteful lit adap" shit -- as he said, it's Goodfellas by other means. All that great stuff he did w/ lighting, irises, slo-mo etc.

feminism = trendiness ???

Dr. M - i like the film, but visual tricks are always part of his act, i guess he just used more genteel ones in this instance. it's been ages since i've seen it, but i remember the narration as being a bit too much at times.

I'm not sure what Wharton would have made of it, but I'm not absolutely convinced that she wouldn't have approved. Scorcese, otoh, made the unforgiveable mistake of casting Winona Ryder in his film.

I kept imagining Sigourney Weaver in the part.

Really surprised to see no other thread on The Long Day Closes or indeed the new film, OF TIME AND THE CITY. I haven't seen his others, just this new one, tonight. It's been hailed as the beautiful elegaic work of Britain's greatest surviving auteur, or something, etc.

Guess what?

It's pretty terrible !!!

aye DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES = the best british movie of the last 20-odd years.

Sure, that's an error. But the piece as a whole, if I understand it at all, seems to me wiser than the film.

Your go to guy on all questions of memory:

http://daily.greencine.com/monaco-resnais.jpg

They're showing the Liverpool film at MoMA tonight at 8:15, but his Trilogy first at 6, so I'll probably see that alone as I ned to eat...

http://moma.org/exhibitions/film_exhibitions.php?id=11551

(I've never seen the trilogy)

it's v depressing. i'm not sure i like it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/3562734/Of-Time-And-The-City-by-Terence-Davies---review.html

^^ hardstyle takedown of 'OTATC'

has anyone read this?
http://media.us.macmillan.com/jackets/500H/9781844571390.jpg

I wasn't much impressed by OTATC, but I was by his sonorous, guttural voice.

That book seems like it should be the best thing ever, if you revere Farley and Davies as I do, but it's a bit disappointing.

^^that's what I feared : /

pretty psyched for this:

http://www.empireonline.com/news/feed.asp?NID=29778

So am I!

Saw The Deep Blue Sea and really won't say much (before the review in late March) other than I quite like it, and that either Tom Hiddleston or his body double has a real nice ass.

Has Terence Rattigan been totally rehabbed in the UK for his centennial? I only know a few of the film adaps, like The Browning Version and Separate Tables, but he was scorned as utterly fusty 20 years ago, no?

The House of Mirth is still my favorite "costume drama" of the last twenty years.

Yeah in the UK he has been out of fashion after 'the angry young men' came along. I would suggest that - given what I saw of Deep Blue Sea - a 'hidden' reason for that could be he happened to write great, involving parts for women. But its all pure speculation on my part.

Not sure about 'rehabbed': give it time. Love to see the play tho'.

I liked it a lot, the tough opening was well made. Didn't think the flashing forwards and back added much. Read an absoluetly hilarious review saying that My Week w/Marilyn was the better flick from the 50s (released in the same wk over here) bcz its vision of celebrity infested Britain that it portrays is something that we live more with today. Not seen in, but besides the inaccuracies in that assertion (the obsession with stars and celebrity surely did not start in the 50s) it sounded hilarious: Deep Blue Sea is a classic story of a person going from order to chaos, taking chances (which often don't go well). These are all questions we are all likely to find more relevant.

I also watched The Long Dy Closes, which I loved even more. Seems like a total musical in the manner of Demy, rather than Cinema Paradiso (as I think Marcello said on ILX)

watching that Mark Cousins show The History Of Film i was thinking 'i bet he doesn't mention Terence Davies' but then he did, and raved about him and interviewed him too.

I've watched this film at last. Beautifully made, shot, designed. Gillian Anderson seems to perform tremendously. But I couldn't really understand on what basis her character was 'ruined'. Maybe this social scene is beyond my ken.

great movie is this. All the characters in it have few redeeming features but still the path to ruin is a universal theme and I always get a bit teary at the end.

one of my favs

If you feel that way, Calzino, you should read Wharton's book. It may be my favourite novel and have read it 5 times at least. The End of the film is not quite the end of the film or, at least, you're not quite as sure as you are in the film, what actually happened.

Actually, an ex of mine bought me a beautiful old copy of the book as a "sorry I broke up with you" present because he knew how much the book meant to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

weird that it came up on two different threads though, Plax mentioned it on another thread.

I've never read any Wharton nor felt inclined to, but now I feel like I should try some!

I reread The Custom of the Country 10 days ago to remind myself of how merciless she can be. Please read her.

Wharton is absolutely amazing. Please do.

xpost yes, Alfred. It's merciless and humane at the same time. There's nothing like it. I don't think even James made a character as ruthless as Lily Bart that you care about and root for.

That Davis carried that off in his adaptation is a big achievement

I love the neon Bible but I think everyone hates that movie

I've never seen it but everyone hates it, yes. I've hated Davis films that were well received but Distant Voices, Still Lives is all-time great, top 5, at times top 1, for me. I had to stop watching the Dickinson film because I was embarrassed for him, that he put that put there, so I'm all over the place with him.

Yeah distant voices is amazing. I basically had a nervous breakdown the first time I saw it

Neon Bible shares aspects of it s staginess and the very mannered idealised refraction through a child's memories. It's sort of too weird to 'fail' imo whereas the later stuff looks atrocious. I feel like mirth is the only time he managed to do a ,'straight' film well. Gillian Anderson is excellent in it, I like her in theory but this is the only thing I've seen her in that I thought she was amazing in, she gets the messiness of the character over so well

Yes.

xps

I thought the Dickinson film was brilliant as well tbh. But I recall you not liking Sunset Song either, Jed - which also I liked! I think I might have to overcome my hatred of Tom Hiddlestone and get round to watching Deep Blue Sea soonish.

yeah Gillian Anderson is burning bright in HoM. Amazing performance.

amazing direction from TD as well. Her transition from arch-socialite playing the game to realising the game is finished is done without any mawkish nonsense. Which makes it all the more powerful.

I did but I don't really want to get into it :)

GA has been brilliant, at times, and is VERY good in this. I think she's a bit too pleased with herself now and that gets in the way. Helen Mirren is the same, like she can't get over herself.

xpost

There wasn't anything wrong with Dan Ackroyd's performance, it just seemed to me that he was trying very hard to Be Serious and it came across as stilted.
Otherwise this was great, although with a little less mirth than advertised.

laura linney is also quite a force in this

i had a crush on eric stolz in this film lol

i recall a particularly beautiful scene where we see a garden pond being rained on for a solid minute or so? i should really watch this again soon but i'm afraid i don't have the heart for this kind of story anymore, i'm too fragile now lol.

Yes, it blends very slowly into a shot of the house with the furniture covered with dust-sheets.

The fade-in showing the bow of the ship from which Lily's eventually banished is just....

Terence Davies' "The House of Mirth" - Classic or Dud?

Heh, sorry meant to put on the POLL thread

inspired by discussion here, tried to watch last night on Paramount+ and the image quality was so poor I had to bail (local libraries don't own, unfortunately)(watched Cop Land instead, sticking with a New York story, lol)

Laura Linney's smile would stop bullets.

lol

Was wondering about that Paramount+ copy

Eleanor Bron audiobook seems good

this screen at moving image this past weekend in 35mm, sorry to have missed it!

Yeah, luckily I saw the reminder on the other thread. I went on Sunday so I missed the Koresky intro but I’ll live.