Middlemarch

[mcr5137]

Woodlanders made me cry........Middlemarch, which I really liked, but I didn't get as emotional. Of course Ruf's character doesn't...........well, the story is completely different.

[rufluvr]

How did the closing scene in the book go?? I was glad they were together at the end of Middlemarch, but even without reading the book to compare it to, I thought the ending was rather poorly done. Sort of a disjointed ending or something.

I just started reading "In the Company of the Courtesan" right now, and I can tell you, there are many parts already that seem like a rip-off of the "Dangerous Beauty" story.

[rufluvr]

Doesn't that story just stick with you for the longest time?

[opheliadarcy]

Do DO get a copy of Middlemarch just to read the ending. There's a beautiful scene between Ladislaw where it finally dawns upon Dorothea that she can give up her wealth to be with this man, where she finally give up her internal struggle not to love him. Ladislaw's feelings come across very powerfully as well; his respect for her, his frustration, his desires to be with her. A very highly charged scene that deserves to be put into an adaptation.

[rufluvr]

That would have been the best scene and a proper finish to the movie--What were they thinking??

[etherealtb]

I must be the only one who didn't like (the novel) Middlemarch. I was an English major in college, and it was literally the only novel I was assigned to read that I just couldn't get through. That's why I was so happy when the mini with Ruf came along a few years later, it gave me the chance to see how it ended without actually having to slough through the rest of the book. Funnily, I liked the mini so much, I actually tried to pick up the novel again where I left off and still found couldn't make it.

[opheliadarcy]

Confession time: I've started the book, am about a third of the way through, but couldn't help myself skipping straight to the end to see what really happened! I haven't picked the book up to finish it.. am having too much fun reading Daniel Deronda at the moment. I will get there though; I'm determined to finish Middlemarch some time or other! Maybe after my re-read of Lord of the Rings...

[tipou]

[glow=red,2,300]************* spoiler, and very long, boring post alert *************[/glow]

i was exactly halfway through the "middlemarch" bbc series when a colleague sends me this thought by confucius (lose translation`):

"their health is lost on their quest for riches, and then they lose their money trying to get it back. by anxiously worrying about the future, they forget the now, so they never live either today or tomorrow. in the end, they have lived as if they would never die, and they die as if they had never lived."

this seems to me like the perfect introduction for "middlemarch". these characters all want what they don’t have, and have what they don't want. all but one.

once rosie gets her doctor to marry her, she wants her big house, when she gets her big house, she wants to move to london, and wishes her darling was not a doctor after all... said dr. lydgate could have been a happy man in proud but sad middlemarch, but he set aside his ideals for those of a girl without any sense of reality - which was never taught to her in any way. also, only by using common sense and intelligent reasoning, he has put half the town against him, because, of course, they envy him. rosie’s brother fred totally forgot to live, while waiting for the big inheritance that did not come, so he basically cannot envision any future at all.

dorothea married for an intellectual bliss that is never given to her, because her husband discovers - through her! - that his life time research is pointless and that he has no idea of his own. her every effort to do good is always thwarted, and her forbidden love for another man becomes her second prison.

nick bulstrode, the successful banker, may look like a happy man, but that is because he has hidden the skeletons hanging in his closet – and not very well either. mr. brooke, the comic relief of the story – adorable robert hardy who makes us like this buffoon! - cannot get to the higher political offices he had envisioned, all for the wrong reasons, for himself.

so they all suffer, basically. and if that was not enough, they have to live through all that under the constant, cruel and unforgiving judgment of public opinion, personified by small groups of people, always whispering between themselves while they snoop on other's private lives, they are all over the place, inside the houses, in the street, spreading rumors and bad news as readily as flu, turning middlemarch into a monster that can devour its inhabitants. another looming threat is the poor people, tired of living from their waste, the only ones in middlemarch knowing what they want and why they want it, except for…

…the only free spirit of the story, will ladislaw, who is to middlemarch what gas is to an open fire, the outsider who dares to settle in and take a place that he does not deserve in the eyes of the local gentry. his freedom, passion and generous nature totally explain why this fascinating character was rufus sewell's big break.

(well... other small details explaining that would be his evident talent, and the fact that he is totally convincing, having absolutely grasped the essence and meaning of his character and interpreting him with a disarming, natural ease. not mentioning that he is very alluring as a public orator. and he does not sing bad at all. and the fact that he totally steals attention from every scene he’s in without doing anything in particular, by sheer raw charisma… i swear, when he says to dorothea “you will forget all about me” and his voice falters, i just about… but back to the series.)

ladislaw’s freedom would explain why he makes so many people uncomfortable. during his conversation with his printer at the newspaper, young will comes to the conclusion that freedom frightens people, because, basically, they think that there is not enough for everyone. plus, the dashing young man seems to always say what he means, and to mean what he says, which middlemarchians are not used to. plainly, he does not play games like they all do

his cousin casaubon, for example, (wonderful patrick malahide - what a great actor!) comes to hate him totally – the good reverend has the brains, the money and the girl, but his health is failing him, and his wife is drawn to young will, he can see that, he is no fool. he will go as far as to put a hold on his wife’s life after his death, lest she would dare to be happy while he never was..

another potential happy soul would be mary garth, who wishes her beloved fred had more sense in his head, but she is only a woman, and poor too, so why would anybody bother as to why she has no right to happiness in the first place? but will young fred finally see the light? “my whole education has been a mistake”, he says to good mr. garth. the truest line of the series comes from its meeker character.

because, as they are in real life, the good people, almost invisible and yet everywhere, are the world’s only hope for clearer skies and lighter hearts. they make the balance tilt, and save the world as we know it, for yet another day. george eliot called them those “who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs”.

what wonderful actors in this series, what beautiful, rich, sad stories they have to tell us. i wish so much that literature would always be taught in this manner in schools, by making us understand that “old” stories are so often timeless and meaningful to us.

because, ultimately, especially in 2009, the stories of middlemarch remind us that humans have not changed that much. in fact, it would be incredibly tempting and easy to adapt this story to our era. you have to be a prettttttttty good judge of humankind to write a story that still remains pertinent 200 years later. kudos to george eliot, wherever she is. she was a woman after my own heart.

anyone caught the allusion to “wilberforce and his n…s”, from the totally brainless mr. brooke? i found that interesting.

sorry for the long post, but it’s an 8 hours series, for heaven’s sake.

[tipou]

oh, and as if i had not written long enough, i have topoint out that, contrary to some opinions expressed in this thread, i thought that the aubrey girl, the actress that played dorothea, was perfectly convincing to me.

[rueful]

I have only seen this in its 40 part (!) version on youtube, so I will admit I did a lot of fast forwarding to get just to the Rufus scenes. (That was early in my obsession, so it was like a fever I had to bring down by immersion. Like in that episode of EH.) I can see from everybody's posts, and especially tipou's excellent analysis, that I missed out on a pretty good story. I really like Tipou's point about how everyone's dissatisfaction with their own lives affects their attitudes toward Will. I will try it again sometime in a normal version, so I'm not squinting for 8 hours.

[lizap]

tipou, I don't think you could write a boring post if you tried. Thank you for sharing your observations!

rueful, I believe this is one that at least the first time, you have to watch all of, in order to appreciate the intensity of Rufus' performance, the excellence of which I think cannot be overstated.

I don't think any movie will ever surpass this for sheer perfection in the matching of a role to an actor who then so fully and iconically captures the essence of what it meant to love in a time of such paralyzing social constraints. When you consider the relatively small amount of screen time he had, and the limitations on the characters' interactions and dialogue, it's just unbelievable, the passion, intensity, frustration, pain and longing he managed to convey within these scenes. I remember when I first saw this serially on TV, thinking, 'My God, the man is going to combust; he is literally going to be consumed before my eyes with this passion that he cannot express openly'. I think this is without a doubt the most memorable performance of my lifetime; I mean, I can't think of another performance that has made such an indelible impression on me, conceptually speaking. It remained as fresh and potent in my mind over the years as the day I first saw it, and is the one that all others of the type are measured against.

I enjoyed every bit of this; I think most of the performances are marvelous, down to the maid who comes in and announces the killing of the leveret. I also enjoyed Juliet Aubry. I thought her cool voice and restrained manner were a perfect complement to Will's passion and quickness.

I love their scenes together! He is so sweet and earnest, so happy for a few words, a little stolen time together. And the pathos when he blurts out -- 'but I'll hardly ever see you; or hear what you're doing.' The cruelty of it! Yet what can he do but bear it? And the two partings! That first one was so tortured and confused. Weren't they talking past each other? She speaks of wanting to say things she cannot -- I understood her to be speaking of the reparation she would like to make to him, which is prevented by the will, while he is attempting to glean what her feelings are toward him (which she has not yet fully realized). And then they are interrupted and concern for her reputation forces him to leave with so much unsaid and unanswered! The suffering that poor man endured! Yet he even manages to rebound and return to town -- such is his natural resilience and joy of life. And the second parting -- 'As if I were not in danger of forgetting everything else.' !! And she still seems to be clueless, not just about her feelings, but about his as well.

As for Casaubon. I was never quite sure about the exact dynamic there. I've started the book, and I hope to gain more insights from it. It was stated amongst the family members, that Casaubon had made the codicil to protect Dorothea from attempts by Will to marry her for her money. But my instincts told me that he'd done it because he knew that she loved him. But then why would it matter to him, if he were dead, that they be together? Was it a matter of pride? Was it a matter of not wanting his memory sullied by having the outcast usurp his place? Or as you say, tipou, was it simply spite? Yet he was very tender towards her at times -- as when he said, 'You are young. You should not spend your time waiting.' Perhaps his paternalistic attitude was do deeply ingrained, that he really felt it was his province to reach out from the grave and keep her from doing wrong.' Yikes! Talk about stifling.

Yes, George Eliot was absolutely brilliant. The number and the complexity of the observations she makes about human nature in her writing are just astounding.

[tipou]

ok lizap, you did it.
i have to watch it all over again.

[lizap]

Yay! ;D

Feb 11, 2009 0:47:17 GMT tipou said:

(well... other small details explaining that would be his evident talent, and the fact that he is totally convincing, having absolutely grasped the essence and meaning of his character and interpreting him with a disarming, natural ease. not mentioning that he is very alluring as a public orator. and he does not sing bad at all. and the fact that he totally steals attention from every scene he’s in without doing anything in particular, by sheer raw charisma… i swear, when he says to dorothea “you will forget all about me” and his voice falters, i just about… but back to the series.)

Yes, wasn't he wonderful introducing Mr. Brooke! I'm surprised they didn't draft him instead. I thought Will's expressions during the speech and following Mr. Brooke's comment after being pelted with eggs were priceless!

That scene is so excruciating to watch, no matter how many times I see it. No residual egg in Will's hair, thank goodness!

[tipou]

it's like the director had said: rufus, the crowd must believe you, and robert, they must distrust you entirely, and both did their jobs so well. i did not pity brooke at all, he was so phony throughout, and these poor people knew that among them were people that he had left out to dry. but ladislaw sounded so sincere, so convincing, like you said, i half expected them to claim him ro represent them.
another thing, the clothes of that era become rufus exquisitely. he was throughly adorable in those long coats and tight breeches.
also i liked the actors who played the lydgates. they both were so right in their respective roles. even rosie you could not bring yourself to dislike totally, she was such a child.

[lizap]

Feb 11, 2009 15:46:44 GMT tipou said:

another thing, the clothes of that era become rufus exquisitely. he was throughly adorable in those long coats and tight breeches.

Oh, yes! Especially that red coat. Who else could have worn that and not been completely upstaged by it?

Feb 11, 2009 15:46:44 GMT tipou said:

also i liked the actors who played the lydgates. they both were so right in their respective roles. even rosie you could not bring yourself to dislike totally, she was such a child.

I had a hard time with Rosie. She did tend to simper (I can't abide a simpering female). I heard or read somewhere that Eliot left less room for her readers to feel sympathy for Rosie.

The Lydgate character is really tragic. So much he gave up for her. I think our attitudes are quite different today, and we wouldn't regard it as a character failing if a man disregarded a spouse's wishes in order to pursue what he perceived as a higher calling. But with Dorothea, too -- in that late scene where she talks to Mrs. Lydgate about marriage -- they seem to place the commitment to marriage at an incredibly lofty height, regardless of how fullfilling or 'successful' (loving) the marriage is. I thought that was one of the great lines of the piece, in that scene, when Mrs. Lydgate says to Dorothea, 'I did not think that you would be so kind.' Such a simple sentence, but with such a weight of significance, given that Dorothea believes that Mrs. Lydgate and Will are in love. And those thoughts Dorothea expressed there, about how her even unrecognized feelings towards Will must have affected her husband. So much to consider.