November Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman: PEAKY BLINDERS 5 -- Tommy Shelby Meets a Fascist Power Player



Steven Knight’s magnetic (or repellant, depending on your tolerance for violence) gangster series* based on his working-class Birmingham roots (said to be bookended by the two world wars but, he hints, may go further) still gives you chills from the first sight of Tommy Shelby on his horse. Series 5 opens with the 1929 Wall Street crash which thundered across the pond. Tommy (Cillian Murphy, at right and below) and his nouveau-riche family (Aunt Polly Gray, played by Helen McCrory, two photos down, now has a Bentley and a boy-toy pilot to fly her to Monaco) have an overseas base in Detroit. It supports Shelby dealings in cars and motor equipment and is run by Aunt Polly’s long lost son, whiz kid Michael Gray (Finn Cole). Tommy told Michael to sell their U.S. stock holdings but Michael took American advice — now their pile is up in smoke.

Tommy, bookmaker turned socialist politician, is now a Labour MP, self-styled man of the people. He has married his secretary, former prostitute Lizzie (Natasha O’Keefe), after getting her pregnant. They are companionable, but in difficult moments, Tommy conjures true-love first wife Grace (Annabelle Wallace), murdered in series 3 but alive to him (and us). However, he pursues without drama what he does best — scheme, strategize, and direct subordinates. He operates under the theory that "the corridors of Westminster are very dimly lit, and for those who make the rules there are no rules... we own the ropes. Who's going to hang us now, eh?"

Knight’s smart, taut story-telling continues to attract fresh top talent, including Anya Taylor-Joy (Split, The Miniaturist) as American mob daughter, Gina, Michael Gray’s new wife. Aidan Gillen (Game of Thrones), as gypsy, Abarama Gold, is now a full fledged gang member; the recently dead Alfie Solomons, played by Tom Hardy, is happily undead, though beloved labor leader Jessie Eden (Charlie Murphy) is given short shrift. Knight reports that a part may be forthcoming for Brad Pitt who has expressed interest in joining the saga.

Episode one resets the Peaky template, its most potent imagery and sound tuned to doleful theme song, Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand and overall pungent scoring by British songwriter, Anna Calvi. (She has just released You’re not God, written for Series 5.) Loner Tommy rides out into the countryside to a lone red phone booth; he plugs in a coin, and orders a hit. Tommy describes the ensuing shoot out later to his querulous family Board (the Shelbys now avoid the bloody side of their business). As a one-time favor to a high court judge and House of Lords member, and, notably, for 50k pound in cash, a pimp was killed who traffics children — the pimp was blackmailing the judge.

"Now the pimp is lying in a ditch..and the world is in a better place," says older brother Arthur, above (Paul Anderson), whose moods range from docile to ferocious. His Quaker wife Linda (Kate Phillips) is done with her rescue mission of this most violent, damaged Shelby— she’s had it. And ‘Holy fuck’, exclaims sister Ada, below, (Sophie Rundle). "So now your business is improving the world?.....". (Rundle distinguished herself lately playing lesbian Anne Lister’s ‘wife’ in Gentleman Jack.)

Ada’s taunt turns out to be thematic: Tommy does good by doing bad but his intention is indifferent. In fact he operates stone-cold vacant, having been drained of emotion long ago by the war and the loss of Grace.

Before this episode ends, we have met this season’s nemesis: real politician and MP, Oswald Mosley, who led the rise of the fascist party in Great Britain. A swave, handsome devil married to the most beautiful of the 3 Mitford sisters, he’s played by Sam Claflin (Their Finest) in a role Claflin (below r; the real Mosley, l) calls his most grown up, that is, playing the conniving, manipulative, magnetic demagogue of the 1920’s and 1930’s.

The 1929 crash is the background noise of this season along with mob actions to replenish company coffers; also, lovely Michael Gray is now dour; he has returned from Detroit and his friction with Tommy is rough. But writer Knight has positioned the rise of Oswald Mosley of Ancoats, sixth baronet (1896-1980), as the focus, to coincide with the twenty-first century rise of demagoguery. Director Anthony Byrne (Ripper Street, Mr. Selfridge) describes the period as a breeder of fascism, which spread like an incurable disease. Claflin says of Mosley: “ ...he was both incredibly charismatic and incredibly manipulative...people fell for it without agreeing with anything he [said]...the same as the Trump situation.....”

Winston Churchill says to Tommy: “When I hear that man speak, I see the green shoots of another war growing up around his feet. And you see exactly the same thing I do.”

Mosley left the Labour Party to start the British Union of Fascists, was voted out of his seat in Parliament, but led the fascist party (50,000 members) from 1932-40 and its successor, the Union Movement, from 1948 until 1980, his death. (Below Mosley in 1934; Encyclopedia Britannica.)

Claflin gives Mosley the authority that seduced his followers but not quite the charisma. But we do get a hint of what’s coming in Mosley’s later populist campaigns — ‘BRITAIN FIRST’ and ‘FALSE NEWS’ — messages smartly rejected by the British electorate.

Tommy and Mosley take their measure of each other and joust verbally with mutual dislike — if Tommy were real, the two would certainly have interacted. Here Tommy has Churchill’s blessing to spy on Mosley with the aim of taking him down (“Do what you have to do, Mr. Shelby”); we look forward to seeing our bad man trounce that other bad one, so redolent of Hitler and other flashes in the pan who have punctuated recent history.

Series 5 has been panned as the worst and praised as the best — it churns with comic-book violence and super-seriousness; but the tone is depressed because Tommy is depressed. He fears he is losing his edge, his seat on the mountain top. He uses opium regularly. His successes offer no satisfaction and bad things keep happening. Tommy is less mindful of Mosley’s fascism than of his growing power — better have him out of the way. Nephew Michael Gray (second photo below with his new wife) is also a threat, having crafted his own path to the top. Tommy’s little daughter Ruby is afraid of him, and he’s shamed by son Charlie: “it’s what everybody says ...it’s what you do...shoot horses...shoot people .....”

Think of this outing with the Shelby’s as a dreary passage in the long story of their lives, more downer than upper. We leave Tommy seriously down, hanging by a thread. The series thrives on the stories about this extended family. The Mosley/fascist digression is especially noteworthy now and reveals how intently the British follow American politics — Europeans are reportedly carrying our impeachment hearings live. But one hopes Knight makes more stories about gritty, dusty, clanging Birmingham and the locals closest to his heart.

The Bafta-award winner has moved up from BBC Two to Britain’s premier BBC One channel (it plays on Netflix here) because the gang who weaponize razor blades are now popular and notorious. It’s the British version of our own crime sagas like ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and ‘The Godfather’, and will have its own distinctive place in film history — its characters are that well-conceived and entertaining. Steven Knight is currently writing the scripts for Series Six.

*Note: ‘Peaky Blinders’ beginnings are reviewed HERE

The above post was written by 

our monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman

July's Sunday Corner with Lee Liberman: GENTLEMAN JACK, a jaunty tale of Independence

“ If you have a problem with who I am, 

your quarrel is with my creator.” 

 --Mayor Pete Buttigieg

This is the story of Anne Lister (1791-1840) of the Yorkshire Village of Halifax, dubbed ‘Gentleman Jack’ after her death, the first lesbian known to ‘marry.’ Her neighbors gossiped that “she likes the ladies” but disapproval of her mannish affect was overcome by Anne’s charisma and strength of character. This when sex between men was illegal and lesbianism not a ‘thing’ -- life circumstance led some women to have companions but absent sexual penetration it was not thought transgressive. 

Sally Wainwright (at right) of Last Tango in Halifax and Happy Valley, the HBO/ BBC1 series creator and screenwriter, grew up in Yorkshire near the Lister family seat, Shibden Hall. Wainwright told this story using Anne’s own words, because while Anne strode her world, she was also writing a massive 24-27 volume diary of 4-5 million words (accounts vary) describing in copious detail her business dealings and social views. As for her romances — she wrote about that in code. In the 1890’s her descendent, John Lister, and an antiquarian colleague of his, deciphered enough code to be wowed by its incendiary content. Lister walled up the diaries in Shibden Hall to preserve them and also protect himself (he was gay) in the era when Oscar Wilde was on trial for homosexuality. (Below, archival portrait of Anne Lister and a diary page.)

Silence descended for near a century over Anne Lister and her diaries until Helena Whitbread of Halifax came along in the 1980’s. When Whitbread discovered the Anne Lister trove she began a multi-year project to decipher the coded parts. Three books followed with a biography in the works.  Another biography accompanies the HBO/BBC1 series, written by Anne Choma with a forward by Sally Wainwright. With her prodigious screen-writing talent, Wainwright has brought this entirely entertaining and amazing tale to life at a time public opinion is welcoming. 

The series star, Suranne Jones, is a multi-credited actress (see her fine WWI series, The Crimson Field, Amazon Prime, that lacks in flash what it has in depth and deserved more chapters than it got). Jones is so arresting as Lister that Sophie Rundle as Anne’s lover has been somewhat overlooked by critics. Rundle plays a scrappy gang moll in Peaky Blinders but here she amazes as an ingenue. Her Ann Walker is close to camp, a bird and-doll-like femme whose skirts sway, cheeks go pink, and curls tremble in the presence of her idol — clever, strong Anne Lister. But Ann is mentally frail; she frets about gossip and has terrifying dreams of public torture and ridicule — she thinks she should take Mr. Ainsworth, her pushy suitor. (Ainsworth is played by Brendan Patricks, Mary Crawley’s hapless admirer, Evelyn Napier, on Downton Abbey).

The first chapter introduces us to the domestic Halifax scene of 1832. Anne has just inherited Shibden Hall from her uncle, a wise judge of her competence and the likelihood she would not marry and convey the family estate to a husband. Anne sets about bringing the Tudor family seat (built 1420, occupied by Listers since 1615) up to her standards. Much of the filming is done in and around Shibden Hall, shown below, now a public tour site and park.

Anne's helpless elderly aunt and father (who soldiered at the Battle of Lexington in 1775) and jealous younger sister, Marian, a funny, droll Gemma Whelan (GOT's Yara Grayjoy, fresh off the Iron Islands) have their doubts as Anne boldly takes charge of management, but feel relief more. (Below, l Anne, sister Marian; front, Gemma Jones as Aunt Anne Lister and Timothy West as Jeremy Lister, Anne’s father.)

We are introduced to the tribulations of her tenants, such as the good-hearted Tom Sowden (Tom Lewis, below center) who kills his savagely-violent father in despair and turns him over to the pigs. 

There’s drama in her household staff ( Shibden staffer, below, John Booth, played by Thomas Howes, Downton Abbey footman, William) and ongoing tangle with a pair of mercenary Halifax brothers, the Rawsons, who have been stealing coal from her property. Anne will sink her own well and find them out.

The tone of ‘Gentleman Jack’ is set by a jaunty tune. In fact this story does not yield to labeling — it is comedy, satire, drama, and sexy romance rolled into one rollicking delight, and just renewed for a second series.

In the main we follow Anne’s search for partnership she felt was her due, in spite of terrible disappointments (her lovers marrying men). As Ann Walker crumbles tearfully under the weight of gossip (“I would rather die than have people know what we do”), Anne Lister goes all in to make her case:

“...Between men it is illegal, a criminal act. Between women it isn’t...we can’t be hanged for it. But if it were...well then, I would have to put my neck in the noose because I love only the fairer sex...I was born like this... If I was to lie with a man, surely that would be unnatural, surely that would be against God who made us.....” (There are reports of women being put to death in the Middle Ages for sex using dildo’s, which violated the transgression against penetration.)

Anne’s faith was bound up in her sexual identity. “Why should I compromise myself to lie with another man’s wife ... I would become a liar, a cheat, and a fornicator, and that is not what I want. And that is why our present connection without a more solemn tie for me is wrong. I want you to become my wife...according to God’s holy ordinance.....”

 Many troubles unfold before Anne and Ann solemnify their secret bond, but as this story was being filmed, a plaque ringed in rainbow was affixed to the 12th century church where the two took the sacrament together, signifying their commitment.

The above post was written by our 

monthly correspondent Lee Liberman

HBO's YEARS AND YEARS: Another surprising gem from the brilliant Russell T. Davies

We have been graced so far with only two episodes of the six-part series, YEARS AND YEARS, but if the following four are as good -- timely, prescient, frightening and utterly serious (yet with a lovely, light touch) -- this might just be the cable television series of the year. It is the creation of one, Russell T. Davies (shown below), who has already given us Torchwood, Cucumber, Banana, A Very English Scandal and Queer as Folk (among much else), so he hardly needs further bona fides. This new series, however, breaks new ground and may be his best yet.

Mr. Davies begins in the just-about now, in England, a country which, though frightened of the increasing stupidity, venality and craziness of America's Donald Trump, seems to be taking a turn toward increasing right-wing nationalism -- in the person of fledgling politician, Vivienne Rook (played to perfection by Emma Thompson, below).

Technology continues to give us new toys and surprises, a few of which are seen here, but employment and wages also continue to falter, even as the banking industry sleazes to new lows, while the wealthy grow even wealthier.

Same old same old, yet in Years and Years, the focus in on family, one extended example in particular. And Davies has created its individual members with his usual brilliant use of specifics and generics that join to give us a wonderfully alive and believable bunch.

Some of these folk are surprisingly into the politics of the scary-but-all-too-real Ms Rook (above), mostly because she seems to be speaking "truth to power" (just as some foolish Americans imagined was true of Donald Trump). Her slow, steady rise mirrors ironically the decline of our "group hero" family, as it endures problems of love relationships, immigration and deportation, Lehman Brothers-like collapse of banks, and a willingness to allow technology to take over one's entire body. (That last one takes us firmly into Black Mirror territory.)

Yes, we're only one-third into this series, but already we're hooked, frightened, amused, turned-on, and a whole lot more. The ace cast includes Russell Tovey (he of those magnificent ears, above, center right), Rory Kinnear (at left, top row, below), Anne Reid (below, above the computer), and lots more -- each of whom may be doing career-best work.

As is Mr. Davies. The man has given us the here-and-now, as well as a remarkably astute preview of what is to come. And while it ain't pretty, the fact that our family (some of them, anyway) soldiers on and maybe survives, is something to cherish. For as long as it lasts....

This British production, originally seen via the BBC, is being shown here in the USA on HBO, on Monday nights. Set your DVR.

Our June Sunday Corner with Lee Liberman: Grimdark tales -- THE FRANKENSTEIN CHRONICLES

Grimdark describes a particularly grizzled and surreal dystopian fiction. It features doom, gloom, and pessimism; stuff creaks, groans, clanks, is clouded in mist. Rulers are useless, heroes flawed, doing good is futile, might trumps right. The grimdark category is reportedly inspired by the tagline of the tabletop strategy game Warhammer 40,000: ‘In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war’ (grimdark imagery below).

George RR Martin gave us A Song of Ice and Fire which has spun out into the avidly obsessed-over grimdark Game of Thrones (GoT). Dickens favorites are more literary, while recent grimdarks include Peaky Blinders, Taboo, Ripper Street, Walking Dead and THE FRANKENSTEIN CHRONICLES, which lean to naked horror. Playing now on Netflix, it has been described as ‘brilliantly grim’ (The Guardian) and is well-enough reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes (80% season 1, 72% season 2). The series stars Sean Bean as a grungy policeman, a shambling contrast to his turn as lord of Westeros’ North.

Bean is himself a memorable character, with dozens of film, tv credits, and awards including a multi-year series based on novels by Bernard Cornwell about a rogue Napoleonic-era soldier named Sharpe. Bean resembles him too much, putting him on the outs in the Me Too era — he has recently married his fifth wife with domestic fray on the record. His character, John Marlott, is fated to live out a variation of Mary Shelley’s monster in her novel Frankenstein (art getting even with Bean, as it were).

Mary Shelley (1797-1851) is a character in the series, played by Anna Maxwell Martin (above l, with Marlott and Ed Stoppard, r, as Lord Hervey). The actual teenage Mary, daughter of two writers and wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote ‘Frankenstein’ anonymously in 1816, revising it for publication under her own name in 1831, having suffered years of pregnancy and loss. (Her story is very well told in last year's bio-pic, Mary Shelley.) For so young a woman at the time of its creation, it is extraordinary psychological drama, seminal science fiction, and a cautionary tale for modern technologists. The main character is science student, Victor Frankenstein, a young man absorbed by the challenge of creating life, who uses electrical current in lab experiments to animate a man-monster that has been stitched together of human parts. The unhappy creature brings tragedy to Victor, his family, and to the monster himself, in which one’s sympathies toward creator, Victor, slowly shift to his creation. Shelley observes: “People are rendered ferocious by misery and misanthropy is ever the offspring of discontent.”

Mary (above) constructed her morbid fiction on the dangers inherent in scientific manipulation of human life and her own losses—her mother died following her birth, invoking loss of love and guidance and Mary buried three of her own infants. In a 2018 The New Yorker review of the novel on its bicentennial, Jill Lepore describes it as “an allegory, a fable, an epistolary novel, and an autobiography, a chaos of literary fertility….”). Shelley was uniquely a mother as well as writer, (in contrast to Jane Austen, the Bronte’s, and George Eliot). Also, her incorporation of the intellectual hot topics of the day such as the work of Darwin and Galvani (the ‘father’ of electrophysiology) have made the novel a touchstone to this day for scientists, inventors of robotics and artificial intelligence, behavioral sciences, genetics. And Shelley’s work itself has more intellectual gravitas than any of its succeeding tellings.

The creators of Frankenstein Chronicles, Benjamin Ross (director, writer, above) and Barry Langford (writer), made crime procedurals about the underworld of Regency London, seeding its two series with real people and situations that allude to the Frankenstein tale but go their own way, using crime, prostitution, drug smuggling, poverty, illness, politics, “tweedy styling, plentiful hats, bursts of viscerally gory violence” (Telegraph). Some have described ‘Chronicles’ as a reimagining of ‘Frankenstein’ — really not so, rather they use Frankenstein memes. There are two freaky lords intent on human animation. An intrepid journalist, Boz, deemed to be Dickens, collaborates with Marlott — serializing the mystery in the paper. Add Sir Thomas Peel, a real British Home Secretary and Prime Minister; poet William Blake; and Ada Byron (Lily Lesser), daughter of poet Byron, raised on science by her mother to counter Byron’s anti-social ways. Ada says: ‘There will be a time when everything you see and do will be influenced by machines …and we must embrace it or...be chewed up in its cogs.’ Mathematician Ada (below) was known for her work on the mechanical computer, presaging the computer age by a century and influencing Alan Turing’s computer code-breaking at Bletchley Park during WWII.

The main protagonists, in addition to Marlott, however, are Lord Daniel Hervey, a private hospital owner played by the excellent Ed Stoppard, his sister, Lady Jemima, played by Vanessa Kirby (Princess Margaret in The Crown), Thames River policeman, Joseph Nightingale, played by Richie Campbell, also a small turn by Kate Dickie (Lysa Arryn in GoT). Season 2 introduces the devious and secretive Lord Frederick Dipple (Laurence Fox of ‘Inspector Lewis’, charismatic and delicious to watch, below, r) and for pathos, widowed seamstress Esther Rose (Maeve Dermody, l).

Season 1 begins with policeman Marlott on his rounds finding a dead child on the river who has been sewn together from bodies of others (like Frankenstein’s creature). Marlott is charged to find out about it by Sir Robert Peel (Tom Ward), who is trying to pass laws that will professionalize medicine and medical analysis. Marlott finds a war raging among factions with assorted nefarious stakes, which I leave for you to discover. The plot drags in parts, despite the intense charisma of characters, themes, and irresistable Dickensian atmosphere. The story arc does not measure up to, say, ‘Ripper Street’. Still if you are a horror fan, you may think it well worth the effort. A third season seems likely but has not yet been announced.

The above post was written by 

our monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman

February's Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman: BODYGUARD -- Sizzle and Fizzle

This Netflix/BBC series created by Jed Mercurio, below (Line of Duty, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Frankenstein), was wildly popular across the pond, making its star, Richard Madden (Game of Thrones, Cinderella, Medici), a widely-speculated replacement for Daniel Craig upon his retirement from the Bond franchise. Madden is said to be in talks about Bond and also in line for another ‘Bodyguard’ series. The part surprised Madden and us with his recent Golden Globe win (‘Best Performance in a TV Series’) for his charismatic policeman in the thriller, having already distinguished himself in romantic roles. A sleeper was his lead in A Promise with Rebecca Hall and Alan Rickman by French director Patrice Leconte. Madden made this tepid historical drama and box-office failure worth viewing. He simply has that something extra that makes you watch and watch. 

The salient feature of Bodyguard is suspense, the kind of heart-in-mouth drama that doesn’t sneak up on cats’ paws but seizes your attention from the very first few minutes of the thriller, making it difficult for the reviewer to spoil the action without in theory spoiling the experience.

Readers of my monthly reviews know I am somewhat cavalier about plot-spoiling — and purposefully, rather than in disregard of the reader/viewer. Good material is not about plot ins-and-outs so much as the journey; great stories are savored not for ‘what happened’ but for the emotional arc the characters experience and the more meaningful truths revealed by the story.

Knowing the plot basics positions one better to think about the characters’ growth, failures, and larger message, rather than having to keep track of the plot mechanics as well as to continue assessing the characters’ ‘interiority’. Hence we revisit Death of a Salesman, Hamlet, The Godfather, etc., over and again to re-experience the characters handling of their travail — glad, in fact, to have the plot basics out of the way. Sometimes a perfect spoil helps the viewer through the twists and turns and into the thought-provoking stuff.

David Budd, our bodyguard, is a nervous-making protagonist to start — a character whose history makes him arresting, above and beyond the police- and-political machinations that drive the series. And Madden, here in his native Scottish accent, compels your attention. He’s reluctantly separated from his wife (Sophie Rundle, lovely actress from Peaky Blinders, The Bletchley Circle, Jamestown), largely it seems as the result of PTSD effects from his military service in Afghanistan — one gathers his erratic, obsessive behavior has made him a problematic partner. Budd, however, has a cool shell that he uses to insulate himself from emotion and direct his obsessive focus to the task-at-hand. Nevertheless his stress leaks constantly, and although we follow with confidence as he disposes of threat after threat, we are nevertheless fearful that one of these moments the tightly-wound Budd will blow. The ‘plot’ consists of crisis piled on crisis providing ongoing anxiety to the viewer who worries for the outwardly strong, inwardly brittle Budd.

Screen-writer Mercurio, himself a physician and a novelist, cleverly makes the mental health issues of his protagonist immediate, but is not as clever at plotting.

The series launches with a near bang as Budd, a police officer traveling off-duty by train with his two kids, confronts a woman passenger, a terrorist wearing a suicide vest, threatening to blow herself up. Budd immediately shifts seamlessly into work mode — and his deft handling of a desperate situation gets him promoted to protecting a prominent politician, Home Secretary Julia Montague, played by Keeley Hawes (below, left, of The Durrells in Corfu and Line of Duty).

Julia Montague is a power player who showboats with a combination of bravado and extreme politics, not as officious as Ted Cruz, but similarly temperamental and difficult, sucking the air out of any situation. She’s a rabid military hawk; one political axe she grinds is a push for more government surveillance of the public to detect and prevent terrorism. (We worked our way in and out of this kind of extreme government intrusiveness in the U.S. following 9/11; terrorism appears to continue as a more immediate threat in Britain.)

Her politics are not only anathema to officer Budd, but annoy the Prime Minister and make the Home Secretary a target for assassination from any number of possible sources. The relationship that develops uneasily between Montague and Budd nevertheless is full of fizz and smolder, causing a rapid rise in tension in the early episodes, only to fizzle out as the series proceeds.

Later other characters are implicated in malfeasance and Mercurio’s closing gambit is so full of implausibilities that it damages the fabric of the whole, despite the terror of the moment remaining relentless.

Budd has wound himself into our own psyches and become so memorable that one doesn’t walk away feeling entirely betrayed by failed plotting, but certainly let down. In the main, Mercurio has satisfied in creating a rather transfixing main character plunked in a scenario that sparks but doesn’t arc.

This is another example of a story that winds itself up brilliantly and fails to climb down off the cliff. It is beyond me why so many good writers fall into this trap — having a satisfying exit plan/resolution is so crucial to the whole. Mercurio’s writing here leans too much on dizzying disposal of characters and complications involving figures in whom we have little emotional investment. It’s gimmicky.

(The limited streaming series that marches beautifully to the richest, most worthy conclusion of any I have watched in recent years is Scott Frank’s brilliantly paced, emotionally satisfying Godless on Netflix, a Western with Jeff Daniels and Brits Jack O’Connell, and Michelle Dockery.)

One hopes Mercurio takes into account the near-unanimous criticism of Bodyguard that accompanied its praise and popularity and digs in more satisfyingly to a few main characters. In plotting a second series, it would complement the whole to include backstory and development of Budd’s relationship with his separated spouse, Vicky, above, left.

The above post was written by our 

monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman.

Lee Liberman's Monthly Sunday Corner: E. M. Forster’s HOWARDS END offers Edwardian class struggle and real estate porn

E.M. Forster (1879-1970) stopped publishing fiction at age 45 although he lived on until 91, as essayist, lecturer, librettist, and broadcaster with a post at Cambridge — esteemed in the intellectual life of Europe. Why he stopped delivering the novels that so distinguished his youth was puzzled over. An untraditional biographer, Wendy Moffat, professor of English at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, retold his story (E.M. Forster:A New Life, 2010) through the viewfinder of his homosexuality. Although other biographers had revealed his orientation years before, Moffat’s unusually provocative version (her critics object to her giving short shrift to his major novels) resulted from her having turned up a diary and other materials that had not figured in earlier discussion about Forster’s life and work. She found dozens of short stories unpublished until recently, although his one homosexual-themed novel, Maurice, debuted a year after his death in 1971.

Forster’s late-life fiction is thought not to measure up to his early novels. The early work sprang from deeply-held liberal social and political views. Forster’s great-grandfather, Henry Thornton, was an abolitionist leader who supported William Wilberforce’s activism in Parliament that ended the slave trade. Forster wrote an under-appreciated biography (1956) of his great-aunt: Marianne Thornton 1797-1887; A Domestic Biography that told the story of the anti-slavery Clapham Sect liberals, especially Marianne’s brother, Henry Thornton, as well as Forster’s own family history. (My review of Amazing Grace, the story of Wilberforce and Thornton, is here.)

Howards End, the novel (1910), expressed both Forster’s (the writer is shown at left) socio-political views and his belief in the need ‘to connect’, a head-vs-heart story reveling in industry and technology’s effect on everyday Edwardian life. The acclaimed Merchant-Ivory and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala film of 1992 on Netflix is now joined by the 2017 BBC mini-series adapted by Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea, Margaret) and directed by Hettie Macdonald on Starz for your comparison. Three families represent three social classes whose views represent the tensions in the story. The Wilcoxes are nouveau richer-than-rich, their fortune made in the (exploitative) rubber industry in the colonies; the young Schlegel siblings are comfortable enough to live off their inheritances (most like Forster’s own history). The Basts are poor, their windows rattle from trains thundering by. Leonard Bast, who seeks self-improvement, meets Helen Schlegel at a comically pretentious Ethical Society ‘Music and Meaning’ lecture-demonstration of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (1992). The Schlegel’s do-gooding brings about tragedy for him in the end—Forster’s lessons being that good intentions only go so far, liberalism itself has its own pretensions, and plutocrats can be mindlessly cruel.

Henry Wilcox is a master of efficiency and ignores the poor except as a source of exploitation. His wife Ruth (above, Vanessa Redgrave, the Wilcox matriarch,1992), lacking interest in women’s rights and the arts, is nevertheless deeply attached to nature through her inherited ancestral home, Howards End, (just one of several glorious dwellings in the real estate aspect of this story). The Wilcoxes and the Schlegels have met in Europe and taken a fancy to each other. The upper-class bohemian sisters Margaret and Helen and their brother Tibby (below, Margaret and Helen, 1992) are literate, intellectual, and consumed with the arts and the causes of the day such as suffrage and the plight of the poor. They remind us (blue staters) of our liberal guilt. They prize connection, truthfulness, kindness. The Wilcoxes on the other hand, practice self-repression and lack intuition or empathy — their wealth is their pleasure; they talk only of business and sports. Son Charles Wilcox, James Wilby (1992), says: …"those Schlegels...putting on airs with their ghastly artistic beastliness."   These two families intrigue each other at first—they are titilated and unnerved by their differences. Helen tells Meg of her visit to the Wilcoxes at Howards End (2017): "When I said I believed in the equality of the sexes, he [Mr. Wilcox] gave me such a sitting down as I have never had! And like all really strong people he did it without hurting me... he says the most horrid things about women’s suffrage -- nicely."

Forster has set up the social mismatch in the name of rising above differences ‘to connect’; a comic-tragic drawing-room imbroglio follows involving the disposition of Howards End (below, 1992). For after all, the one thing they do have in common is their preoccupation with real estate — they either dream of it, seek to acquire it, or have just moved in or out of it.

Ruth Wilcox and Margaret bond over the pastoral beauty and earthiness of Howards End. Their mutual fondness leads Ruth to handwrite a note on her deathbed requesting that Howards End be given to Margaret, knowing its rustic simplicity would be truly cherished. Widower Henry brushes off his wife’s dying wish, and despite none of the Wilcoxes’ having affection for the sprawling country house (son Charles calls it ‘a measly little place that never really suited us’), Ruth’s handwritten note is tossed in the fire. However, the newly bereaved Henry Wilcox courts Margaret.

Margaret says to querulous Helen about her engagement to Henry (2017): "I don’t intend him…to be all my life…more and more do I refuse to draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it….I don’t intend to correct him or to reform him, only connect. I’ve not undertaken to fashion a husband to suit myself using Henry’s soul as raw material." Margaret sees the good in Henry and admires him (although their differences almost break them).

Doleful complications ensue with the Basts in which Leonard (Joseph Quinn, above, 2017) becomes much more than a pet project to Helen Schlegel, alienating Margaret, who seeks to protect Henry from ‘unpleasantness’. For his part, the poor are the way of the world. The guilt-ridden ones, the Schlegels, turn out to lack the material position to help the couple and Henry Wilcox recoils indignantly when he discovers Bast’s wife to have been a youthful indiscretion of his own years ago. Hence the couple suffers, the victims of bourgeois do-gooding gone awry. Actually the story is a gently tragic comedy of errors supplying hypocrisy and denial in large portions. Both film and mini-series offers up a very sharp portrait of class pretension.

As for which of the productions does it better, the Merchant-Ivory film versus the 4-part mini-series, need one choose? The former is too special for words, Emma Thompson winning an Academy Award for her fresh, original Margaret, is truly one of the most engaging heroines in cinema. Helena Bonham Carter is entirely magnetic as Helen— her face all storm-clouds over her impossible brother-in-law Henry (Anthony Hopkins).

Ailing Ruth Wilcox is classic Redgrave — oh how you believe and feel for the grande-dame and wonder that son Charles, the terrific Mr. Wilby (doing a prescient Trump Jr. imitation) and daughter Evie, Jemma Redgrave (niece of Vanessa), have so little of their mother’s generous spirit about them. Although just over two hours, the film packs in Forster’s spritely essence, warm heart, and pointed social satire. (Click here for TrustMovies review of the new boxed set released in 2016 which captures the magic of the Merchant-Ivory.)

But the mini-series is also fine; conversations are deeper, more revealing of E.M. Forster’s social commentary, although the episodes lack the glowy effervescence and pungent satire of the film and sometimes plod. The casting of Alex Lawther [for a look at this young actor's versatility, see him in Goodbye Christopher Robin, Ghost Stories and the ace Netflix series, The End of the F***ing World) as Tibby, the youngest Schlegel and a slightly snobbish Oxford student and droll bookworm, and Tracey Ullman as Aunt Julie are perfect additions to the main cast: Haley Atwell and Matthew Macfayden as Margaret and Henry, (above), Philippa Coulthard, Mr. Quinn, and Julia Ormond. (Lonergan reduced Ormond’s role as Ruth Wilcox so jarringly that the matriarch’s importance to the story is hurt.)

It would seem no one could measure up to a character as unforgettable and charismatic as Bonham-Carter’s Helen, and even though she takes the prize, you will still be charmed and attracted to the winsome Coultard (shown above, with the outcome of the ‘unpleasantness’ she caused Margaret and Henry because of her friendship with Leonard Bast).  Also Ms Atwell, whose intelligent, expressive Margaret holds her own against Emma Thompson’s magnificence, still is not Thompson’s Academy Award winner.

On balance the mini-series is lovely if leisurely Edwardian pieces set in a milieu of social change (the pragmatic and imperialist vs the cosmopolitan and intellectual) are your cup of tea and the original if you simply want to know the story of Forster’s beloved work and are up for a completely faithful, joyous, and beautiful film. The Merchant-Ivory is a work of art, but I would not have missed the mini-series (and Tibby and Aunt Julie, below). A Forster fan should know both.

We are left with the question of the effect of Forster’s sexuality on plot and theme. For one, the drama in both film and series is sexless — its romanticism lacking in romance or sexual tension. The tension is class-related. Wendy Moffat’s revelations help here, as well as common sense. Forster did not have his first sexual experience until his late 30’s, years after writing the novel. Underneath his project to demonstrate ‘human connection’ must have lurked his own unrealized desire for the perfection of love-and-sex melded; stories of heterosexual love were incongruous with his own being. But over-analyzing the topic sells short Forster’s profound humanity. There is value in human connection between opposites as among all, sex having nothing to do with it. (During the seasons of this very political era, however, one is predisposed not to seek connections with opposites.)

At any rate, Moffat writes that after Forster became sexually active and had a series of romances, the marriage plot fiction became a masquerade. His growing personal contentment led him to avoid publishing fiction in favor of social and literary criticism. He kept his homosexual-themed writings private. (He is shown below, in later life, with friends).

The above post was written by our 

monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman