Sense and Sensibility (2008)

February 5, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

This 2008 adaptation of Jane Austen’s first published novel stands out as the best so far, not because it is utterly faithful to the novel, although it is the most faithful of all adaptations over the last twenty-five years, but because it really penetrates the emotional heart of the novel.

This version begins by revealing the two actions that fuel the story. The first is only alluded to in the novel: the seduction of Eliza Williams by John Willoughby (Dominic Cooper). It is shown in close-ups lit with the bright red of a fireplace, so it isn’t possible to truly identify either the seducer or seduced. The second action is the true beginning of the novel: the death of Mr. Henry Dashwood. On his deathbed, surrounded by his second wife, Mrs. Dashwood (Janet McTeer), and her daughters, Elinor (Hattie Morahan), Marianne (Charity Wakefield), and Margaret (Lucy Boynton), he entreats his son John (Mark Gatiss), from his first marriage, to make sure they are adequately taken care of, given that the English system of inheritance will exclude them from all but a paltry yearly stipend.

John inherits Norland Park and his wife, Fanny (Claire Skinner), immediately wants to move in and convinces him that his promise to his father certainly wouldn’t any kind of financial security. When the Dashwoods arrive, Marianne is quite upset. She feels the mansion should be rightfully theirs, but Elinor, the more sensible of the two reminds her that the house is not legally theirs. Fanny is unbearable. They decide to look for a new place to live, but Mrs. Dashwood simply has no idea of how little money they have. Elinor suggests that they will only be able to afford a cottage.

Fanny’s brother, Edward Ferrars (Dan Stevens), the oldest son in their moneyed family, comes to visit and he and Elinor are deeply attracted to one another. Just the opposite of Fanny, he is nice to Margaret and makes friends with Marianne. Fanny, seeing the attachment between Elinor and Edward, counsels Mrs. Dashwood that Edward is destined to marry a very wealthy, well-placed society woman. Shortly after that, Mrs. Dashwood receives an invitation from her cousin, Sir John Middleton (Mark Williams), to let a cottage on his estate at Barton Park in Devonshire and she immediately accepts.

The family relocates to a beautiful cottage by the seaside, surrounded by rolling hills and the rough rocky cliffs of the shoreline. Sir John and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings (Linda Bassett), immediately set about trying to find husbands for them. They introduce Colonel Brandon (David Morrissey), a wealthy former military man of thirty-five. He falls in love with Marianne, but she thinks he is too old and lacks passion. In an attempt to evade him, she takes a fall in the hills and is rescued by Willoughby, who is visiting his aunt at nearby Allenham. Thinking him very romantic, Marianne falls in love with him, not realizing that he has already seduced Eliza Williams. Brandon, confronts Willoughby, but the latter proclaims that his intentions toward Marianne are honorable.

Mrs. Jennings’ nieces, Lucy (Anna Madeley) and Anne Steele (Daisy Haggard), come to visit and Lucy confides in Elinor that she has had a private four-year engagement to Edward. It comes as a shock, but Lucy swears Elinor to secrecy. Every time they meet thereafter, Lucy reminds Elinor that’s Edward is her lover.

As the whole group prepares to go on a picnic to Brandon’s estate, Delaford, but receives an urgent letter that causes him to cancel. He rides off leaving the party confuses, but Willoughby takes advantage of the situation to take Marianne to show her Allenham, while his aunt is away. Since he has taken a lock of her hair and seems to be completely in love with Marianne, Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor assume that they are privately engaged, but when it looks like Willoughby will make a formal proposal, he suddenly leaves for London at his aunt’s bidding.

Later, Mrs. Jennings decides to visit her home in London and takes the girls with her. Expecting to see Willoughby, Marianne writes to him every day, but hears nothing. Then, at an Assembly, she confronts him and he coldly turns his back on her. Nearly fainting, she is rescued by Brandon. He returns all of her letters to her, apologizing for giving the false impression that he may have cared for her. Marianne is distraught. Mrs. Jennings then discovers that Willoughby is engaged to a young woman of great fortune and Brandon reveals to Elinor that Willoughby seduced his young ward, fifteen year old Eliza Williams and left her with child.

The group goes to a gathering held by Fanny’s mother, Mrs. Ferrars (Jean Marsh), where Lucy Steele hopes to gain the good will of her future mother-in-law, but when Anne accidentally reveals the engagement, Mrs. Ferrars tells Edward that unless he breaks the engagement, she will cut him off from his fortune. A man of honor, Edward sticks to his promise to Lucy.

Brandon escorts the family back to Devonshire, stopping at Delaford along the way. Seized by her grief at losing Willoughby, Marianne gets lost in the rain and is found by Brandon. She is put to bed, but develops a life-threatening fever. Elinor waits at her bedside while Brandon brings their mother, but Marianne’s fever breaks and she recovers. Realizing that Brandon loves her and seeing how he has cared for her, Marianne switches her affections to him and becomes engaged.

When Edward returns, everyone assumes that he is married to Lucy, but he reveals that Lucy has also switched her affections to his brother and has married him, leaving Edward free to marry Elinor. Hearing this news, Elinor tries to cope with her feelings as Edward proposes. A happy ending is thus concluded, with Marianne happy as the mistress of Delaford while Elinor marries poor Edward in his country parsonage, happier than she would have ever believed.

Fans of the book will note that several changes have been made, but nothing truly drastic. Many other versions of the story have managed to lose characters, such as little sister Margaret, who plays a great part in this version, and Anne Steele, who also plays a big part. The script is written by Andrew Davies who did such a masterful job with the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which is largely regarded as the best version of that masterpiece. Even with the few changes that Davies has made, the script remains more faithful to the novel than any other version. The characters of Elinor and Marianne are beautifully written and take their part at the heart of the story. Marianne’s passion is appropriately tempered with Elinor’s restraint.

Casting is frequently the cause of either the success or failure of a novel adaptation and that is certainly the case here. Hatty Morahan’s Elinor is staid, but always, beneath the surface, you see her emotions whirling. This care to show us how much Elinor feels, while outwardly appearing in control, is simply a beautiful job of acting. Charity Wakefield’s beauty certainly compliments her passionate view of life and the acting is superb. These two bring us full circle as Marianne learns some of the restraint of her sister, while Elinor finally opens up her heart and allows us to see deeply inside. The chemistry of these two as sisters is truly great. Janet McTeer is marvelous as Mrs. Dashwood and the charming restraint of Lucy Boynton as Margaret is simply delightful.

All the technical aspects are very well done, the sets beautiful and especially landscape of Devonshire is a delight to the eye. One great little detail is Margaret’s collection of sea shells which she strings together to make a visual motif that the camera repeatedly comes back to. The beauty of the sea side is lovingly captured.

Sequenced into a three episode series, each episode lasting one hour, it comes out to three hours compared to the five hours of Pride and Prejudice, but compared other movie versions, constrained to a two-hour format, this covers the scope of the book very well indeed. If watching the DVD, you may as well skip the self-congratulatory “Making of” featurette and go immediately to Disk 2, which has a movie length BBC production called “Miss Austen Regrets.” This is a fictional biography of Jane Austen and is fairly well done.

I highly recommend this version of Sense and Sensibility and it would make a great addition to any Janite collection.

Notorious

January 27, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

The sexiest and most mature of all Alfred Hitchcock’s films, Notorious is also one of his most suspenseful movies. It’s a torchy love story set among dangerous ex-Nazis in Rio de Janeiro, with Ingrid Bergman putting her life in danger to prove to the American agent she loves that she has become an honest woman. Beautifully shot in black and white, all of Hitchcock’s mastery drives a story that is thrilling right up to the end.

This review contains plot spoilers.

When her German immigrant father is convicted of treason in 1945, beautiful Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) goes on a binge. Her reputation as a party girl has been well earned, so American agent T. R. Devlin (Cary Grant) tries to keep some distance as he prepares to recruit her to spy on her father’s old friends, but he can’t seem to help getting involved with her. Although she claims not to care about it, Devlin has wiretapped proof that she is a patriot and so he gets her to fly to Rio de Janeiro for a job.

By the time she is settled in Rio, Alicia is in love Devlin and she goes off of alcohol and dedicates herself to him, but he doesn’t quite believe her. He is still suspicious that she will take another lover when she can.

Her job is to hook up Alex Sebastian (Claude Rains), one of her father’s friends who made advances to her in the past. She practically begs Devlin to tell her not to take the job, but he thinks that she should refuse it on her own. This test of wills leads her to accept the challenge. She is successful with Sebastian, but he keeps seeing her with Devlin and suspects that she may not really love him. He dares her to prove her loyalty by marrying him. Alicia brings her dilemma to the American agents, all of whom want to leave the decision up to her, except for Devlin. In love with her and angry that she has actually taken Sebastian for a lover, he advises her to go through with the marriage.

Alicia becomes convinced that whatever Sebastian is hiding is kept in his wine cellar, but he has the only to it. On Devlin’s urging, she steals the key and plans to investigate during a large party. She invites Devlin and the two of them sneak away during the party to look in the wine cellar. He accidentally breaks a wine bottle and it is full of uranium. Although he cleans up the mess and they make their escape, Sebastian has discovered that his key is missing when he goes to get more wine. He sees Devlin and Alicia together and they kiss to cover their escape from the wine cellar. Sebastian sees them and realizes that Alicia doesn’t really love him, then, when his key appears on his key ring the next morning, he realizes that she is a spy.

At the urging of his mother (Leopoldine Konstantin), they begin a slow process of poisoning Alicia. When she grows more and more ill, she cannot make a meeting with Devlin and he becomes suspicious. He goes to the house to investigate and finds her deathly ill. Confessing his love for her, he takes her from the house right in front of all of the Germans. Sebastian begs to go along with them, but Devlin refuses, leaving Sebastian to face the wrath of his ex-Nazi friends.

In its restored version, this black and white film is absolutely beautiful. Ingrid Bergman was made for the black and white film medium and the camera certainly loves her beauty. Alicia is a very complicated role and her performance is dynamic and powerful. Likewise, Cary Grant plays Devlin as a very complicated man and gives probably the best performance of his career, nuanced and detailed. Hitchcock uses his camera masterfully, creating some of the best shots of any of his films.

The suspense in this movie is palpable, at times so thick that it is almost impossible to watch, but the story is so compelling it is difficult to turn away. The kisses between Bergman and Grant are incredibly sexy. In one shot, they kiss, nuzzle, talk, and kiss over and over again for minutes. The movie also contains one of Hitchcock’s most well known shots, a long crane shot from the second floor of the house, moving inexorably down to a close-up of Bergman’s hand, behind her back, holding the key.

Written by Hollywood’s legendary screen writer, Ben Hecht, Notorious is a masterpiece that must be included among the very best of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies and it should be seen by everyone!

Wallander

December 15, 2014 | Paul Wake Baker

This BBC mystery series is actually a chain of films based on the novels by Swedish writer Henning Mankell featuring Ystad police detective Kurt Wallander, a middle aged man coping with the deterioration of Sweden’s utopian ideals as the country wades into the 21st Century. The Wallander novels have attained a world-wide popularity based as much on the character’s accessibility as the gripping nature of the crimes he solves.

Although many of the novels had already been adapted into Swedish films, in 2006 Mankell formed a production company called Yellow Bird for the express purpose of bringing the novels to the English speaking part of the world. Producers Anne Mensah of BBC Scotland and Andy Harries and Francis Hopkinson of Left Bank Pictures were brought in to shepherd the project. Although many distinguished British actors were considered for the series, Kenneth Branagh was a fan of the books and directly interceded the process. He met with Mankell at an Ingmar Bergman film festival and literally talked the author into hiring him to play the role. Various locations were considered for the movie including Scotland and the state of Maine in the United States, but the importance of the country the books were set in, Sweden, ultimately won out. The country is so important that it is like a co-starring character.

The first three books to be filmed were Sidetracked, Firewall, and One Step Behind, although eventually the other novels would also be filmed. This article deals exclusively with the first three movies.

Sidetracked introduces us to the character of Kurt Wallander by immediately dousing us in the beauty of a Swedish field abloom with rapeseed (a bright-yellow flowering member of the mustard family–see the photo) that dominates the camera. Wallender has been called in because a young woman is hiding in the field. He tries to approach her, declaring himself as a policeman, but she pours a can of gas over herself and sets herself afire. Wallander is appalled and perplexed. “What’s our country coming to,” he asks, “when fifteen year old girls set themselves on fire?” In this first movie we discover that he is recently separated from his wife and that his grown daughter Linda (Jeany Spark) who is deeply concerned about his lifestyle, especially his hideous eating habits and his devotion to his job that frequently leaves him burned out and exhausted. He has a very difficult relationship with his father (David Warner), but Linda eventually brings them back together and Kurt discovers that his father now has Alzheimer’s. We also meet Wallander’s co-workers, most of whom are as devoted their work as he is. Anne-Britt Hoglund (Sarah Smart) works most closely with him, but the group of detectives also includes Kalle Svedberg (Tom Beard) and Magnus Martinsson (Tom Hiddleston) His investigation of the self-immolation eventually leads to a former police executive who is running a forced prostitution ring, supplying young girls, many foreign, to provide as virgins to wealthy businessmen.

Firewall begins with the murder of a cab driver by two young women who calmly turn themselves in and then wallow in a fatalist state that reveals nothing of why they did it. In this movie, Linda sets up her father to participate in an internet dating site and he eventually dates the first woman to respond, but his faith that he might actually be able to start over is severely shaken by developments in the story. His investigation of the murder uncovers a plot to bring down the European banking system by way of computer hacking.

The third film, One Step Behind, is a much more personal story as Wallander investigates a serial killer who is so random that no pattern can be discerned, even though they bring in a professional profiler to help them. He forms a close bond with a girl who might lead them to the killer, but she is murdered practically before his eyes. This leads him to a much deeper love for his own daughter, Linda. He also meets a very interesting woman who seems to understand what he is going through. Ultimately, the killer becomes more daring and brings his carnage to Wallander’s front door.

The directing, under the guidance of Philip Martin, is very smart, combining both documentary and drama film techniques to bring alive the landscape of Sweden. The films capture the modern architecture and the nearly surreal beauty of the countryside by using a very lightweight, high resolution digital camera. They create a kind of stark beauty that makes the movies each stand out as a visual delight, a rare and extraordinary imagery that doesn’t just bring the stories to life, but brings the landscape front and center. The use of color in the imagery consistently keeps the viewer in a state of hyper-realism that is bold and addictive.

Branagh is perfect as Wallander, creating a character that is completely believable and engaging, so personally involved in his work that the viewer is allowed to see a fully realized person, with all of his faults as well as his good points. He is very easy to identify with and that is part of what makes the movies so special. All of the supporting actors are also well cast and believable.

If there is any fault to find with the movies, it is that the first two mysteries are pretty easy to solve and there are points where you wonder why Wallander hasn’t put it all together. In those first two films, I knew who committed the murders long before the detective did, even though the directors did not tip it off. At a certain point, I realized that even though I knew who committed the crimes, the films concentrate so well on the personal aspects, Wallander’s character, and the nature of the landscape that it just wasn’t important. The third movie, however, works both as a mystery and as a great real-life drama and it makes me eager to see more.

I confess that I’m not a great fan of crime drama or murder mystery, but Wallander goes far beyond simple genre filmmaking, into a depth of character and landscape that makes each movie very special. I look forward to seeing more of the Wallander movies in the future!

Torn Curtain

December 11, 2014 | Paul Wake Baker

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1966 cold war thriller is unique among his films because it contains some of the best filmmaking since he moved to America and also some of the worst. I will discuss the plot in detail, so there will be spoilers.

American physicist Michael Armstrong (Paul Newman) arrives in Copenhagen with his fiancée, colleague Sarah Sherman (Julie Andrews) to attend a conference. Receiving a call that a book is waiting for him at a local book store, she picks it up for him. Taking it into a toilet at the hotel, he reads a secret message telling him to “Contact π.” His behavior disturbs Sarah and when she discovers he has changed his plans and will be flying to Stockholm, she decides to follow him, but he isn’t going to Stockholm, he’s actually boarding a plane for East Germany. In a state of shock, she watches as he defects, stating to the press that he was disappointed that the United States shut down his missile program and he plans to develop an anti-missile system in Leipzig with Professor Gustav Lindt (Ludwig Donath) that will end the threat of nuclear war. They have been shadowed by Professor Karl Manfred (Günter Strack) who arranged the defection.

Michael is angry that Sarah has followed him and repeatedly tells her that she should go back home while she can, but the East German government asks her to stay and work as Michael’s assistant. Despite her disillusionment, Sarah decides that she loves Michael enough to stay and support his work. At the time of the interview, he is informed by East German Security that he has been assigned a security watchdog, Hermann Gromek (Wolfgang Kieling) who is to follow him around and watch his actions.

The next morning, Michael leaves the hotel and hops a bus. Gromek follows him on his motorcycle to a museum where Michael tries to lose him. Going out the back, he hails a cab and gives the driver an address. At a farm outside Berlin, Michael has the cab wait while he meets an American agent (Mort Mills) who is under cover as a farmer. It turns out that π is an escape network and Michael is going to attempt to get information from Professor Lindt that will aid the United States in their own anti-missile system. Before he can leave, Gromek shows up. Seeing the π symbol in the dirt where Michael had drawn it for the farmer’s wife (Carolyn Conwell), Gromek interrogates him. As Gromek attempts to call the authorities, the farmer’s wife throws a pot at him and Michael attacks him. As they fight, she stabs Gromek with a knife and they wrestle his head into an oven. She turns on the gas and he dies. Indicating that she will bury both Gromek and his motorcycle, Michael leaves.

In Leipzig, Michael is about to be debriefed for Professor Lindt when state security bursts in with the news that Gromek is missing, so they decide to debrief Sarah first, but when confronted with revealing American secrets, she can’t go through with it. Speaking to her alone, Michael finally reveals to her that he is on a spy mission and gets her cooperation. The cab driver (Peter Lorre, Jr.) sees the missing Gromek’s picture in the paper and comes forward, telling the police that he drove Michael to the farm. When they arrive, the farmers are gone, so they commence digging and find the motorcycle

After Michael gets the formula he is looking for, he and Sarah begin a convoluted escape route that includes assistance from a university clinic physician Dr. Koska (Gisela Fischer) and another man from π (David Opatoshu), eventually landing them back in East Berlin. Their instructions call for them to go to a post office and along the way the meet exiled Polish countess Kuchinska (Lila Kedrova) who wants them to sponsor her to the United States. Their escape plan calls for them to go the ballet where state security hunts them down. Michael’s only resort is to yell “Fire!” During the ensuing chaos, they are taken backstage and put in ballet trunks for shipment to Sweden, the ballet’s next stop. As the trunks are about to be offloaded, the lead ballerina (Tamara Toumanova) blows the whistle and a guard shoots up the trunks, but they are the wrong trunks. Michael, Sarah, and their rescuer have jumped into the water and swim safely to shore.

Normally, Hitchcock’s scripts have been worked over for many months, if not years in advance of shooting. In this case, the script by Brian Moore was not ready. Both Hitchcock and Newman knew it and Hitch sought additional help with the dialogue, but the studio had foisted Julie Andrews on him as his leading lady and she had a very short window to film the movie, so they went ahead with a faulty script. It did not help that longtime Hitchcock collaborators Robert Burks (cinematography) and George Tomasini (editing) had both passed away, so he was working with people he wasn’t completely certain of. He also had a falling out with his longtime musical director, Bernard Herrmann, and even though Herrmann scored part of the film, Hitch fired him and had John Addison complete the work.

The second problem in the film is that the climax occurs when Michael finally gets the formula from Professor Lindt, but the film continues on for nearly forty-five minutes after that as the elaborate escape, done with Hitchcock’s usual sense of suspense, plays out. It simply goes on too long and it should have been edited down to fifteen or twenty minutes tops. It makes the movie drag exactly where you don’t want a movie to drag. At two hours and eight minutes, the film feels like it goes on forever.

That being said, the movie also contains the best scene Hitchcock ever filmed: the killing of Wolfgang Kieling by Paul Newman and Carolyn Conwell.

Although both Herrmann and Addison had written music to accompany the gritty scene, in the end Hitchcock opted to only use the natural sound of the three people in their life and death struggle. We hear grunts, scuffling, and very little dialogue as the two men struggle with each other. Hitchcock intercut the scene as montage, so the viewer gets glimpses of arms and hands, short close-ups of faces, and two-shots of the struggle. Almost forgotten is Conwell’s terrific contribution to the scene. They can’t make any loud noises because the cab driver is still waiting outside, so they can’t shoot him. She tries to stab him, but in the struggle the knife only goes into his shoulder, the blade breaking off and blood soaking his shirt. She takes a shovel and bangs his knees to make him go to the floor. Kieling gets both of his hands around Newman’s neck and tries to choke him, but Conwell begins to drag them across the floor, her face sweaty and creased with the exertion. In the final moments, Hitchcock shoots the scene from above the oven and we see Newman and Conwell gasping for air as Kieling’s hands go through the paroxysm of death, fighting against the gas and gradually giving in, eventually resting with no movement at all. If feels like an absolutely real death.

The reactions of Newman and Conwell afterward is just as important. As they regain their breath, the viewer can see the emotional scars of the act of killing: the trembling, the sweat, the redness of their faces, the disbelief that they have just taken a man’s life.

It is overpowering cinema.

When I first saw this movie in a theater in 1966, that scene haunted me and I have never forgotten it. I think it has a much greater impact than the shower killing in Psycho, which is generally considered Hitchcock’s best murder scene.

There are other wonderful things in the movie to delight film students and Hitchcock fans. The scene in the museum, for example, where Hitchcock never shows Gromek following Michael, but we hear the echo of the pursuer’s footsteps. The tension on the bus on the escape back to East Berlin is almost unbearable.

However, even with all of the wonderful techniques of Hitchcock at his best, the film as a whole has too many problems to be considered one of his best. A flabby script, lenient editing, and way too much time at the end all work together to sink this movie. In fact, in the canon of films that Hitchcock made in America, it must be considered one of his least successful.