If you were waiting for a remake of Evelyn Waugh’s masterpiece “Brideshead Revisited” without all that icky Catholic stuff, have I got a movie for you.
Hollywood is set to release a new theatrical version of Brideshead next month.
The trailer promises a new and improved Brideshead.
The ominous words set to violins on the trailer are, “She welcomed him into her home,” and “Into a world of privilege” and then “Into a life he never imagined.”
First published in 1945, Waugh wrote that the novel “deals with what is theologically termed ‘the operation of Grace’, that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to Himself.”
The movie makes it appear as if it’s a thriller, of forbidden love in high society.
The trailer’s background music goes from screechy violins to synthesizers and the big angry drums as the plot of the new Brideshead is explained.
One man’s desire.
One man’s ambition.
One man’s passion.
One woman’s control.
One woman’s decision.
One woman’s power.
Hmmm. No God in there.
The new and improved (and seemingly Godless) Brideshead features Lady Marchmain (played by Emma Thompson) as not the saintly and suffering if somewhat manipulative wife and mother from the book but as…the evil villain akin to Glenn Close in Dangerous Liasons. We see her speaking to Charles threateningly, “I hope you didn’t let Julia mislead you. Her future is not a question of choice.”
Obviously, the movie portrays Lady Marchmain as separating the two lovers.
In the novel, things are a little different. Charles plans to divorce his own wife — who has been unfaithful — so he and Julia can marry. However, motivated by a return to the faith, Julia decides that she can no longer live in sin with Charles, and for that reason can no longer contemplate marriage to Charles.
One of the theatrical posters has these ominous words, “Privilege. Ambition. Desire. At Brideshead everything comes at a price.” Another slogan claims that “Love is not ours to control.”
Even in 1947, Waugh received interest in his novel from Hollywood. In the end, he said of Hollywood, “None of them see the theological implications.” The movie was not made. Waugh famously wrote that Hollywood is “[a] community whose morals are those of caged monkeys.”
Seems like Hollywood is a place where privilege, ambition and desire reign.
July 3, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I haven’t read the book, but it seems clear that they are missing the point when they say “Love is not ours to control.” The problem is that love really is ours to control. Feelings come and go. But control of them is ours.
July 3, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Synopsis of the film from Yahoo! Movies:
“Adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel, focusing on the doomed love affair between Charles and Julia Flyte and how Catholicism destroys their relationship and their families.”
July 3, 2008 at 9:32 pm
ARRGGGHH, it has always been my feeling that without Catholicism, the story is meaningless.
are you sure this isn’t another “Dark” spoof?
July 4, 2008 at 3:26 am
When I saw the preview, I was beyond sad. Sebastian is just a “flighty flit” and Lady Marchmain is as you say. It is heavy on the “queer” and the intrigue, completely – or so it would seem – devoid of “that God fella”.
Sad. It is my all time favorite novel and the very inspiration to the name of our group blog, The Black Cordelias.
I shutter to think of what will happen to Cordelia. Than again, I would not be surprised if she were not even in it.
July 7, 2008 at 4:25 pm
The 10 part BBC Miniseries is wonderfully acted, and faithful almost to the word of the novel. Why would anyone need a 2 hour hollywood wreckovation of a timeless classic. Rent or buy the miniseries and spend 5-10 Blessed evenings immersed in it and forget the dreck that Hollywood tries to peddle.
July 21, 2008 at 1:48 am
This from today’s NY Times and an interview with the director (Brock): His quote at the end is priceless. Fundamentalist religion?
“A scene toward the end, when the Marchmain family tussles over the soul of Lord Marchmain (Michael Gambon) as he lies on his deathbed, is wrenching and even shocking. After abandoning his wife and her self-sacrificing piety for a life of sensuality and ease in Italy, Marchmain has returned home to die. But what sort of role should Catholicism play, with its ability to pull in lapsed members with a “twitch upon the thread,” as Waugh put it, citing G. K. Chesterton, at the end of Marchmain’s life? To Charles’s fascinated horror, the question is of central importance to the family, and there is only one possible answer.
“In that tug between individual freedom and fundamentalist religion, there’s a story that’s apposite for our time,” Mr. Brock said. “In the modern age that’s something we’re all dealing with.”’