Posted by
Dain,
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
3:13 PM (Eastern)
Gosford Park (2001) is a very organic take on a very rigid, artificial society: English country life in its last throes, seen mostly through the eyes of the servants. There's so much going on that it is impossible to pick up on everything in the first viewing, and quite confusing to keep track of all 35 characters, mostly tremendous actors in tiny bit parts. Like real life, you overhear conversation, catch some events and miss out on others, and each character acts like they are the center of their own lives. You must watch it again and again to catch all the details and mine all the secrets. Above is only a clip, Jeremy Northam as Ivor Novello, singing a song to entertain the "upstairs" people. Plus, amazing costumes.
I'm not sure why I'm so captivated by Lolita (1962), because in spite of its transgressive material the movie is rather subtle. Somehow it does really capture the book, that queer mixture of depravity and high aesthetic in Humbert Humbert, the awful desperation of Charlotte (the only non-repressed character, and yet how we despise her for it), and Lolita's allure, "eerily vulgar" and yet she seems the least innocent of all—she knows her power. The movie has been uploaded in full, but I found it too choppy, so this tribute will do.
So Six Feet Under Under (2001-2005) is technically a TV show, but I don't watch TV, I watch DVDs, but like the best television, is deeply addicting. Everything bad I've ever said about LA, I must retract in light of this show, which is built around a rather dysfunctional family that owns a funeral home, and every episode begins with somebody's death, and yet it is all about life, and usually (darkly) hilarious. I've only seen the first season, but it is simply amazing, if only to watch the divine Rachel Griffiths at work.
I liked Gosford Park, though I found it depressing. One of the beginning scenes, where the "new girl" is standing in the rain, made me feel sad. The Helen Mirren part was amazingly sad. Yet there was also a great deal of realism, and the usual English style of trying to document a time and place.
Lolita, I suppose you could read in different ways...as a comedy (two perverts chasing the same kid), or metaphor (the youthful, ignorant, yet powerfully attractive United States, with a couple o' jaded old Europeans trying to suss her out), or just as a horror story (since you read the book, you know Lolita was 12, not 16). I dunno. Ultimately I went for the metaphor; I thought it was the perfect European novel about the postwar U.S.
In the book, Charlotte was a very attractive woman (and in the remake with Melanie Griffith). It's just that Humbert Humbert wasn't attracted to her. If you wrote the same book today, it wouldn't work...it all hinges on that time when people didn't talk about...much.
FWIW I liked the James Mason/Sue Lyon movie too. You can't beat the acting. The remake wasn't nearly as good (well it couldn't be, without Peter Sellers).
Yeah, I think there was some discussion about what he would do when she grew older, too old for his liking, whether her life wasn't in danger. I also in the book she is a lot less glamorizable. The movie highlights her power, which makes it really very eerie, but in the book she is really just worn out and gross by the end, old before her time.
What I like about Gosford Park is how it doesn't sugercoat it. You know, you watch those Jane Austen adaptations and it's like that kind of English gentry country life is sooo romantic and proper, but here is something that shows how human and flawed it is. There is a sort of willingness to let the ugliness show that I found really remarkable. Because, I don't know, really, Gosford Park seemed to be really truthful.
That was my introduction to Helen Mirren, as well as Alan Bates and Clive Owen. Watched Zorba the Greek many years later and it was strange to see him so young. And Clive Owen since has become ridiculously famous, as has Helen Mirren. No surprise to me that she's finally where she is. She seems like a pretty cool lady.
Colleen Shirazi
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January 31, 2008 1:57 AM,
I liked Gosford Park, though I found it depressing. One of the beginning scenes, where the "new girl" is standing in the rain, made me feel sad. The Helen Mirren part was amazingly sad. Yet there was also a great deal of realism, and the usual English style of trying to document a time and place.
Lolita, I suppose you could read in different ways...as a comedy (two perverts chasing the same kid), or metaphor (the youthful, ignorant, yet powerfully attractive United States, with a couple o' jaded old Europeans trying to suss her out), or just as a horror story (since you read the book, you know Lolita was 12, not 16). I dunno. Ultimately I went for the metaphor; I thought it was the perfect European novel about the postwar U.S.
In the book, Charlotte was a very attractive woman (and in the remake with Melanie Griffith). It's just that Humbert Humbert wasn't attracted to her. If you wrote the same book today, it wouldn't work...it all hinges on that time when people didn't talk about...much.
FWIW I liked the James Mason/Sue Lyon movie too. You can't beat the acting. The remake wasn't nearly as good (well it couldn't be, without Peter Sellers).
January 31, 2008 2:01 AM,
Erm? That's 14, not 16. Still, she was twelve in the book, and he was worrying she was getting too old when she hit 14?
January 31, 2008 3:04 PM,
Yeah, I think there was some discussion about what he would do when she grew older, too old for his liking, whether her life wasn't in danger. I also in the book she is a lot less glamorizable. The movie highlights her power, which makes it really very eerie, but in the book she is really just worn out and gross by the end, old before her time.
What I like about Gosford Park is how it doesn't sugercoat it. You know, you watch those Jane Austen adaptations and it's like that kind of English gentry country life is sooo romantic and proper, but here is something that shows how human and flawed it is. There is a sort of willingness to let the ugliness show that I found really remarkable. Because, I don't know, really, Gosford Park seemed to be really truthful.
That was my introduction to Helen Mirren, as well as Alan Bates and Clive Owen. Watched Zorba the Greek many years later and it was strange to see him so young. And Clive Owen since has become ridiculously famous, as has Helen Mirren. No surprise to me that she's finally where she is. She seems like a pretty cool lady.
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