HoM Sunday Times...will I stop with these??
Mo
> Another article - just tell me when you want them to stop :)
>
> Goodbye, Dana Scully... In The House of Mirth, Gillian Anderson puts The X
> Files behind her, says BRIAN PENDREIGH from Edinburgh
>
BTW it was From Sunday Times:
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html?999
Mo
Goodbye, Dana Scully... In The House of Mirth, Gillian Anderson puts The X
Files behind her, says BRIAN PENDREIGH from Edinburgh
Shooting the past
When Gillian Anderson walks out from the steamy shadows of a deserted
railway station, in her wide, fancy hat and long, corsetted skirt, at the
beginning of The House of Mirth, it is as if she is stepping, fully formed,
from a less hurried age when women spent their time in pursuit of eligible
bachelors, rather than aliens.
In that opening scene, Anderson conjures up images of Anna Karenina, and
over the next 140 minutes she lays the ghost of The X Files to rest. The
director, Terence Davies, had never seen the cult television programme when
he first came across Anderson's photograph, but he was struck by the
luminosity of a face that looked as if it belonged in a John Singer Sargent
portrait. She, fortunately, was a fan of his.
The UK premiere of The House of Mirth was the highlight of the second week
of the Edinburgh Film Festival and already there is talk of Oscars. Yet this
is the same film that was knocked back by both the Cannes and Venice film
festivals and which Variety dismissed as "emotionally dry" - not an
accusation one would normally level at a writer-director who made his name a
decade ago with Distant Voices, Still Lives, in which he painted a vivid and
haunting picture of impoverished family life in post-war Liverpool.
This has been a festival of quality films, and yet The House of Mirth, like
the opening film, Dancer in the Dark, has divided audiences into those who
believe it a heart-rending masterpiece, and those left cold by the whole
experience.
But the fact that anyone is talking about Oscars is an achievement in itself
for Davies, who first thought of filming Edith Wharton's novel 15 years ago,
but had so little money that he ended up using Scotland to double for New
York. It provided the streets and stately homes in which the drama unfolds,
and the opening train-station scene was filmed in a Glasgow studio, as was a
sequence that supposedly takes place on a yacht on the French Riviera.
With a great deal of effort, a £5m budget was cobbled together from a
multiplicity of sources, including the Showtime cable television channel in
America, advance sales of European rights, the Glasgow Film Fund and lottery
coffers on both sides of the border.
Anderson plays Lily Bart, an aspiring socialite in early-20th-century New
York. She is dependent on a rich aunt, and the prospect of a generous legacy
or a good marriage. Eric Stoltz is Lawrence Selden, the lawyer who falls
short of her social aspirations and is rejected by her.
Her position is compromised, first by Dan Aykroyd's oily wheeler-dealer, and
then by her "friend" Bertha Dorset (Laura Linney). Bertha already has a rich
husband and uses Lily as cover for her own adulterous schemes. Bertha
subsequently initiates Lily's expulsion from society, unaware that Lily
possesses potentially damaging love letters Bertha wrote to Lawrence.
Davies believes that, too often, period films spend too much time showing
off their sets, because they cost so much, and directors feel they have to
justify the expense. He makes a virtue out of necessity by focusing on
character, and elicits uniformally strong performances from a heavyweight
cast.
Lily's social ambition and snobbery are bound to alienate modern audiences,
at least initially, though viewers will quickly forget The X Files, so
completely has Anderson transformed herself from Dana Scully into Lily Bart.
As Lily makes clear, she is simply following a course determined for her by
birth, training and her place in society. And the viewer gradually warms to
a woman who is slowly realising she has blown it, big time, and determines
to fight to retain the last vestiges of self-respect.
Anderson's performance grows with her character's self-awareness. Sadly,
this self-knowledge is prompted by her own decline. As former friends drift
away, she is left to make her living as a paid companion and, ultimately, a
milliner.
Despite its period setting, Davies believes The House of Mirth is as
relevant today as it ever was. "It's about what you look like, and money.
What is popular culture about now? What you look like, and money ... The
only difference is the modus vivendi, and what they wear."
With its phoney role-playing, duplicitous friends, illicit notes and the
promise of a cash prize at the end, The House of Mirth seems curiously
familiar. It is ultimately closer in spirit and theme to Big Brother than
the work of Merchant Ivory, which Davies so dislikes.
It is, however, long and sombre and, for all its fine qualities, it may be a
difficult film to market. Awards would help of course. But after the Cannes
and Venice rejections, Davies's ambitions are more modest, at least for the
time being. "I just would like an audience," he says. "It would be nice if
it made its money back."
--
Mo