21. A Room With A View (2007, made for TV), dir. Nicholas Renton

[strange_complex]

IMDb page here.

Just a quick write-up of this before I go to bed.

The trailers promised a 'fresh look' at Forster's novel, and to a degree this was true. Mr. Beebe was played as explicitly gay (well, as explicitly gay as anyone can be in Edwardian England), which I don't think is true of his character in the 1985 version with Helena Bonham-Carter. And actually Elaine Carter rather outshone the latter as Lucy Honeychurch. Somehow, when characters around her said how wonderful she was, and how exciting it would be for everybody when she at last began to live, it was actually quite believable in her case. She played her many confusions very convincingly, and her piano more truly passionately, whereas Helena Bonham-Carter sometimes came across as simply petulant. In fact, now I come to think of it, the portrayals of Cecil Vyse, George Emerson and Mr. Emerson were all profoundly human and believable, too - and if Sinéad Cusack annoyed me as Eleanor Lavish, and Sophie Thompson as Charlotte Bartlett, that probably just shows they were doing their jobs well, as those characters are supposed to be annoying.

But something was lacking, and I suspect it was the subtle artifice of Forster's novel. His characters are beautifully delineated, and his plot smooth yet inevitable. You couldn't call either of them unrealistic. But each character stands for something specific, as does each place, and what's being played out isn't entirely a drama between individuals but a drama between attitudes and ideas. And that felt lost in this production - especially given the rather bizarre ending they tagged onto it. Far from the story coming full circle, so that Lucy and George offer their rooms with a view to another young girl on the brink of self-discovery, we see a few brief and steamy sex scenes between the two of them, then him lying dead in a First World War bomb-crater, and finally her returning to Florence to take up with the Italian carriage-driver who had propelled her into the arms of George Emerson in the first place. I'm sure it's a very literal representation of Lucy's emancipation. But it doesn't convey the sense that her story is only representative of a wider, continuous truth that Forster's ending does.

I'm also sorry that, by forswearing the captions used in the 1985 film, my favourite chapter heading from the entire book (which practically tells the whole story in itself) did not appear on screen:

"The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a View; Italians Drive Them."

A worthy use of an evening, but what it's really made me do is want to read the book again. Which just ain't possible right now with so many other things queuing up to be read.

Comments

[white_hart]

What? They changed they ending? How dare they? Especially when Forster himself wrote 'A View Without a Room', which is a far more believable epilogue than some I could mention and makes it absolutely clear that they had a long and happy marriage.

*Is glad she missed it*

[ellroy.livejournal.com]

I missed it (apart from the first 5 mnutes or so). I wonder if it'll be repeated soonish?

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

I wasn't surprised that I didn't much like it, as I have a huge affection for the Merchant Ivory film, despite only having seen it in the cinema by mistake. Timothy Spall was lovely, but then he always is - but I continually found myself hankering after Maggie Smith, Rupert Graves and Simon Callow. I couldn't help feeling sorry for Sophie Thompson, an actress I generally like, because playing a part Maggie Smith owned must have been dreadful. I thought it was interesting that the Emersons' lower-middle classness was played up, but Rafe Spall played George as an unappealingly crass youth, I thought, which made the Cecil/George choice a bit grim... I agree that Elaine Cassidy was less petulant and livelier than Helena B-C's version of Lucy. But oh, the loss of the chapter titles!

[richenda.livejournal.com]

>>>Far from the story coming full circle, so that Lucy and George offer their rooms with a view to another young girl on the brink of self-discovery, we see a few brief and steamy sex scenes between the two of them, then him lying dead in a First World War bomb-crater, and finally her returning to Florence to take up with the Italian carriage-driver who had propelled her into the arms of George Emerson in the first place

This is a sick joke - yes?
Surely the book ended with L and G occupying the R with a view?

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I thought A Room with a View was a Bond film for an embarrassingly long time.

I love the Noel Coward song of the same name, but I don't know if it's connected with the story in any way?

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

I was tempted to watch it, but gave it a miss. I absolutely love this book, as I studied it for A Level, and also enjoyed the mid-80s version. Sometimes, I feel that if things aren't broken, don't try and fix them.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Returning after checking the book - with very msny thanks for your warnings. I am still tempted to suspect that someone somewhere thought that this was a humorous thing to do.

A View Without a Room

[sirlizard.livejournal.com]

At the following URL you can read the entire Forster follow-up to "A Room With a View," which he wrote in 1958, fifty years after the original story: http://www.stormpages.com/afernandes/arwout.html

Also, I wanted to correct one thing that I read on this page. At the end of the 1985 film, George and Lucy don't give up their view for the young Lucy doppelganger. George merely mentions that they (Lucy and George) have a view. As we can see in the final scene, they are back in their room and it is clear that did not give up their own view.