Last night I watched the first of the four DVDs of the 1981 version of the TV series, Brideshead Revisited, yet again. Oh my! How splendid! Since I have my new larger screen monitor, I decided to watch on my computer rather than on TV, and it worked out quite well. With my old monitor, I didn't care to watch movies on my computer, but I'm reconsidering now whether I want to subscribe to one of the movie sites like Netflix. I have a comfortable padded desk chair for my computer, and if I moved a footstool in place, I'd be all set.
Anyway, back to Brideshead. For the first time, I was able to watch the series with the closed captions for the hearing impaired. I could never get the captions to work when I watched the DVDs on my TV, although the notes on the container box said the captions were there. I was able for the first time to get all of the brilliant dialogue and voiceovers. What a pleasure! I've 3 DVDs to go, and I will go. Thanks be to God, my new computer screen, and the CC function that worked.
I love Evelyn Waugh's book, which I've read countless times, and the TV version is one of the few translations from book to screen of a favorite of mine that truly works for me. The scenes of Oxford University brought tears to my eyes as I remembered my first visit and my awe at actually seeing the 'city of dreaming spires' with my own eyes. Later, I took week-long summer courses on three occasions and stayed in student rooms at Brasenose College. On one of my visits to England, I visited Castle Howard, which is the location of the scenes which take place at Sebastian's ancestral home, and it was lovely to see the amazing castle again.
Me too, I adore it, Mimi...I even like the end parts (since you´ve seen it before) the lost-soul codependent part...yikes, such pain, such selfdeception/waste, all in the name of being of service to another all in the name of a convuleted sort of service=love!
ReplyDeleteLeonardo, I love it all, too. Even the convoluted service=love part.
ReplyDeleteI remember one line from last night. Charles' elder cousin visits his rooms to give him advice on how to get along at Oxford and says (him, not me!), 'Stay away from the Anglo-Catholics. They're all sodomites, and they have such horrible accents.' Right from the book, I believe. That's Waugh for you.
It is indeed a well worn winner.
ReplyDelete"Sir", I wore out my video version and purchased the DVD. The series is a delight.
ReplyDeleteIn one of my mini-courses at Oxford, I heard a talk by Nickolas Grace, who plays Anthony Blanche in the series. Grace told his story of auditioning for the part. He also shared with us bits of gossip about now well-known actors such as Jeremy Irons and Hugh Grant, who were at the university at the same time he was.
About to post on the aristocratic scandal on which a sub-plot of Brideshead is based but remembered we already discussed this, at some legth, back in 2007.
ReplyDeleteProgression toward obsession, Lapin? ;-)
ReplyDeleteIt's alarming to see that this was four years ago and fun to see one's old avatars, which stay put. Your "Jane" period, my walrus. Like your latest photograph, by the way.
ReplyDeleteThanks. The picture is from the lunch with Lesley and Alan Crawley, Cathy, Erika, and me. We stayed for hours in the pub after we ate - another three hour lunch. What fun!
ReplyDeleteThey don't make them like that any more. No, really, they don't. So lush (in all senses) and so much time given to great big fat luxurious extracts from the book read out by Charles the narrator as a voiceover!! It's like drinking straight out of a huge jug of rich cream and enjoying every second.
ReplyDeleteThey don't, and they won't, Cathy. It's rich, all right, a treat. I'm watching again tonight.
ReplyDeleteWe visited Castle Howard in the summer of 1980, and BR had just been shot there (we were informed)...
ReplyDelete...but that fall I was off to college, and didn't see it until quite a few years later.
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Waugh's view of homosexuality (the ol' immature "invert" thing, that one can grow out of) is quite ludicrous. Sebastian as a "precursor" of Julia? Girl, please!
The other thing that struck me: Charles grilling Sebastian on Roman Catholicism (Christmas, IIRC) ***AS IF*** the CofE didn't believe the same things? [It's not like the subject was Papal Infallibility!)
All that said, it WAS pretty awesome. One of my (beyond Anglophile to AngloMANIA!) mom's all-time faves. She had a thing for Anthony Edwards...even though he was hardly the romantic lead (for women) here [But, she'd already fallen for him in "Upstairs, Downstairs"]
Waugh's view of homosexuality (the ol' immature "invert" thing, that one can grow out of) is quite ludicrous.
ReplyDeleteYes, but perhaps it is understandable because of the amount of buggery in English public schools. Not all who engaged were gay. When only men or boys are around....
Charles was never a believer until well into the story and probably thought Jesus' birth narrative nonsensical at the time he asked Sebastian the questions. That's one of my favorite scenes, in the book and in the series
Maybe I should have clarified that when I finally DID see it (the miniseries), it was at seminary? (Over a Thanksgiving weekend at Union Theological in NYC. An independent seminary, for many years now). I recall one of my dormmates exclaiming during a post-viewing discussion, "Julia, you gave up Charles just because Daddy Dearest made the sign of the cross on his deathbed? Who do you think GAVE you Charles? GOD DID!!!!" [She was quite unanimous about this. ;-/]
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