Retorno a Howards End

Howard's End is not an easy movie to sit through if you do not typically watch period films. The language and euphemisms are very old fashioned (1910). But if you really sit back and watch the story unfold you will become engrossed. The crafting of the story by Merchant Ivory is impeccable. They tell the story so visually that you may not notice how physically alike Margaret Schlegel is to Ruth Wilcox in carriage and deportment, but the light-bulb goes off when the housekeeper of Howard's End mistakes Margaret for Ruth. The story itself is so quiet and brilliant that you don't realize something so very profound has happened until the credits roll. Every performance is amazing, but Emma Thompson (she won the Best Actress Oscar) and Vanessa Redgrave stand out. Their scenes together are so full of nuances that it's hard to take it all in during a first viewing.

This is one of my all-time favorite movies. From the opening credits, superimposed over Vanessa Redgrave's skirt sweeping through the wet grass and flowers around Mrs. Wilcox's beloved Howards End, through to the final image of rural bliss, the cinematography is perfection. The costuming is amazing, the screenplay is adept, and the acting is stellar, to say the least. To have Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Vanessa Redgrave, and Anthony Hopkins in one movie together is to see a true synthesis of talent, not to mention James Wilby and Samuel West. The scene where Leonard Bast goes walking into the field of blue flowers is breathtaking.

I recommend this film to anyone who loves Forster and who loves painterly cinematography. Also it is full of the finest performances by all of the actors involved.

Here is another example of what the British are best at in film-making. Based on E.M. Forster's novel `Return to Howards End' this film is more or less a set piece in the strictest period-piece tradition, and thus in style is somewhat akin to that great TV series `Return to Brideshead' and even Robert Altman came up trumps with his splendid `Gosford Park' which most definitely takes its well-earned place alongside such classical pieces of this genre.

Likewise, `Howards End' relies heavily on British actors who have worked their way up through live theatre: it is here that you get the best interpretations, the best performances, admirably shown in so many films made on both sides of the Atlantic. If Vanessa Redgrave has long since been a legend among British actresses, Emma Thompson is no lesser performer, and as to the pedigree of Helena Bonham-Carter there can be no arguing. Anthony Hopkins is at least up to the mark in his always sober readings in these kinds of films.

The Bonham-Carter family were well known in the fashionable circles of 1930's London high-society life, for their extravagant soirées and philanthropic sponsoring of young artists, especially musicians, similarly to the Sitwell family from their Chelsea home. Thus it is hardly surprising that Helena Bonham-Carter finds these kinds of rôles admirably suited to her - A Room with a View, anything Shakespearean, among other select `comedies'. Prunella Scales is a grand old lady of theatre, cinema and television, and I can remember her offerings back in the late fifties-early sixties especially on radio programmes.

Beautifully filmed in mostly Oxfordshire and in several places in London, the film also has a few scenes on the coast, possibly Dorsetshire or more probably the south coast of Devon, surprisingly not included in IMDb's very detailed listing of locations. Richard Robbins' music seemed to be heavily influenced by Philip Glass at times, which seemed a misfit, though it was nice to hear a few snatches by Percy Grainger, as well as a version for four hands on the piano of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, possibly one of those tremendous transcriptions which Franz Liszt carried out.

The dialogues are mostly exquisitely delivered, with that peculiarly British panache and timing, though slightly spoiled in this recent re-viewing as there were some untimely cuts on the copy in question. However, the story holds its line and is faithful to E.M. Forster's original concept. He has long been one of the greatest of British novelists, with such works as `A Passage to India', `Where Angels Fear to Tread' and `A Room with a View' to his credit, for serious readers of real literature.

This film version maintains that seriousness for people interested in real play-acting.

I'm sure that even in 1910 when Kaiser Wilhelm still had a few fans who remembered he was the grandson of Queen Victoria and not ruler of the soon to be hated foe of World War I, E.M. Forster must have come in for a few critic's slings in having some of his protagonists of Howards End have a German surname. Even that early time there were many who saw Germany as a potential foe.

These two Schlegel sisters played by Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter befriend the Wilcoxes, a family of newly rich plutocrats headed by Anthony Hopkins who seem to be a version of Lillian Hellman's the Hubbards lite. Their mother is the class of the family and she's played by Vanessa Redgrave who is in poor health.

While Bonham-Carter is rejected by Hopkins's son James Wilby as a suitable wife for marriage, Vanessa befriends Thompson finding her to be a kindred intellectual spirit in a house full of moneygrubbers. In fact before she dies she writes an unsigned note asking that a cottage that's in her family's name called Howards End be given to the Schlegel sisters. When Hopkins and the rest of the family find the note after she's dead it gets torn up and burned. Unsigned it has no probative value in any event.

But as fate would have it Thompson and Hopkins get into a relationship and they soon marry and she tries to polish some of the rough edges off him. Especially in regard to snobbery. Hopkins is the kind of man who wants no reminders of where he came from. Particularly with another of the Schlegel sisters friends, a young clerk named Leonard Bast played by Samuel West trying to make his way in the world as the Wilcoxes have.

Emma Thompson won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Howards End that year and the film also won Oscars for Art&Set Direction and for adapted screenplay. Though Thompson won the Oscar, my absolute favorite in this film is Susie Lindeman as Mrs. Dolly Bast. She's so incredibly common and obviously holding him back, you can't blame West for eventually getting involved with Bonham-Carter which leads to tragedy.

The team of Ismail Merchant producer and James Ivory director succeed again at bringing the look and manners of Edwardian England as seen by E.M. Forster to life. Who says they don't make literate films any more, whoever says that have them see Howards End.

Being a man who appreciates beauty and great visual movies, I have checked out all the Merchant-Ivory films. I found this to be their prettiest, just stunning in its beauty.

Story-wise, I preferred "The Remains Of The Day," but this was okay. It just didn't have the appealing characters "Remains" had and it was a little too soap opera for my tastes but the visuals made up for that, ...and the story, to be fair, was solid and involving.

It also had Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, and those two make a great pair. I would never get tired of watching either of these great actors, especially when they are together.

If you like period pieces - this is 1910 Edwardian England - along with fabulous sets and scenery, a solid cast, and an involving story, you'll like this. If you are a fan of melodramas then you'll really, really like this!