Review to Howards End (1992)
Howards End (1992)
Dir. James Ivory
Starring: Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham-Carter, Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave…
*****
“We’re not odd, we’re just over-expressive.”
Three in a row: it’s the third Ivory film I watch, and the third adaptation from a novel by Forster, after Room with a View and Maurice. I have taken the care to read first the book, in order to understand if the screenplay adaptation made it justice.
I would say, as it happened with the other two titles, it did also this time — with some natural abbreviations, without which the movie might have lasted 3 hours at least (for me, the most remarkable is the very much reduced discussion between Margaret, Henry and the doctor, when she tries to prevent them from entering the house to see if Helen is “mad” or not — extremely intense and dramatic in the book).
At the base of the plot is the clash between “classes”, naturally: the Victorian, imperialistic and millionaire Wilcoxes, the intellectual and humanistic bourgeois Schlegel sisters, and the working class Leonard Bast with his peculiar wife Jackie. The wish to “connect”, as the book’s subtitle suggested (“Only connect…”) lies at the source of all coming troubles in the plot — the Schlegels’ feeling that they need to connect with both ends of the contrasting classes — in their quest for humanism and feelings. The person above the objects. This will lead to dramatic tensions which are not to be unveiled here. Even having read the book and knowing what would happen scene after scene, I found myself crying for two hours. I am helpless, I guess.
The visual aspect of the movie is absolutely fascinating — perfect locations, perfect photography and lighting. The film received an Oscar’s Academy Award for Artistic Direction, indeed. The music is touching too, with some Beethoven moments, as the book quotes the 5th Symphony (in the movie, a lecture about “Music and Meaning” on the piano instead of an orchestral concert as it happens in the book).
The cast is absolutely spot-on, as one would expect after having seen Ivory’s Room with a View and Maurice. We see some of those faces here as well. Bonham-Carter is the ideal Miss Helen Schlegel, temperamental, passionate, quixotic — with some glances reminiscing of her mad Ophelia in Gibson’s Hamlet (1990) and, of course, Miss Lucy in Room with a View. Emma Thompson (who received an Oscar for this role, plus Golden Globe and BAFTA award) is impeccable, emotional, deep, inspired as her elder sister Margaret — a true gem.
Vanessa Redgrave as the dying wife of Mr Wilcox was a surprise. I was expecting an affected performance. The character suddenly becomes incredibly sympathetic and moving, in her fond love for Miss Schlegel — her wish to make her the heiress to Howards End creating turmoil after her death. The actress depicts Mrs Wilcox with delicacy and a very touching way of using her eyes. The voice is also adapted to portrait the fading strengths of her character. Absolutely a marvelous appearance.
The men did extremely well too. Hopkins is a deluxe Mr Henry Wilcox, with commanding presence and depicting wonderfully Forster’s character — rich, upper-class, hypocrite, yet facing a change to some goodness at the end — what the Schlegels had always desired: him to connect. James Wilby as the “villain” son of Mr Wilcox strikes as completely different as was his title role in Maurice five years before — somehow exaggerating his psychic state, creating quite a picturesque couple with high-pitched wife Dolly (Susie Lindeman).
Very touching is also Samuel West as poor Mr Leonard Bast — imprisoned in his low-class situation, poverty and desire for knowledge and literature, very movingly portrayed in the movie by his dreams — the famous scene where he walks through a field of bluebells… “Ankle-deep, he waded through the bluebells….”
All in all: an extremely inspiring, poetic adaptation of an already incredible novel — possibly among the best of English literature.
