 One
of Edith Wharton's
most famous mottoes has to be when she wrote
that “Life is
the saddest thing there is, next to death.”
Not exactly the life of the party, now are
we? Wharton knew from sadness, and when
she wrote novels like Ethan
Frome and The
Age of Innocence she infused them
with a tragedy unknown in any other author
of the time. The latter work in particular
is a tear-inducing criticism of a society
that quashes the life out of passionate
individuals who dare to feel for themselves
without asking permission from the rest
of the world.
 Martin
Scorsese, the man most famous for
giving gangsters a loud, cinematic voice,
has done the unthinkable: he has made what
is probably the most elegant film ever created.
Out-costuming the Merchant-Ivory
team, he's taken the starch out of
costume dramas and created an epic of beauty.
He also goes one step further than his cinematic
colleagues and perfectly translates Wharton's
writing on two important levels: having
key passages from the book directly narrated
(in the most languid voice work) by Joanne
Woodward, and visually translating
Wharton's sentiments with his camera movements
and Thelma Schoonmaker's
skillful editing.
 The
story centres on the life of Newland Archer
(Day-Lewis),
a young member of the New York gentry in
the 1870s who has the affluent life anyone
in his position should have. He is a successful
lawyer, he owns a beautiful home, and is
just recently engaged to the beautiful and,
ahem, proper May Welland (Ryder).
Upon announcing his engagement, he meets
for the first time since childhood May's
cousin, one Countess Olenska (Pfeiffer).
She has just returned from Europe after
leaving her abusive husband, a Polish Count.
It is soon obvious that Archer and Countess
Olenska are attracted to each other in the
most gripping of ways: they understand each
other. This leads them to a passion that
is practically deadly in the watchdog society
they live in.
From the beginning of the story, Scorsese
makes sure we get to know who these people
are. Scanning over an opera audience's heads,
he gives us close-ups of the ornaments in
the women's hair, the chains on the men's
ornate pocket watches. When we are shown
a dinner scene at a particular hosts' grand
estate, Scorsese lingers over the perfectly
arranged plates of food, or the meticulously
designed floral bouquets. All this may seem
unnecessary, but it's actually the setup
for a love story that needs this careful
attention to detail to be told correctly.
These elements are given to us in such
detail because the world we're watching
knows nothing of more importance than your
house's interior decoration: if your host
doesn't have a proper drawing room decorated
in the generally accepted fashion, he might
be considered unfit for your patronage (at
one point, the not-so-repectable Julius
Beauford hangs a nude Venus, audaciously,
in plain sight). In her novel, Wharton painted
a picture of two-dimensional people, people
who wasted entire lives (and loves) on making
sure they could avoid the careful whispers
being spoken behind closed doors, even though
it never stopped them from joining in on
the whispering when someone else was involved.
These details are comfortably housed in
Dante Ferretti's
brilliant production design. The sets come
from a beautiful dream, looming large over
the actors' heads, surrounding them with
the obsession of “conspicuous consumption”
that heavily marked the Victorian period.
In the same way, Gabriella
Pescucci's detailed costume designs
display the plush fabrics and embroideries
that reveal to the audience much of the
characters' emotions and situations. Even
the stark black and white of the men's suits
seem to suggest how these gentlemen view
the issues they face in their lives, such
as a nearly-married man involved romantically
with his fiancee's cousin. Archer's suits,
as the film progresses, begin to be worn
in the colour gray.
 Filling
these costumes is no easy task. For the
three main characters in this battle of
wills, Scorsese has hired none but the very
best. As Archer, Day-Lewis
gives his most comprehensive performance
so far. Abandoning his usually ingratiating
showy techniques, his performance lies in
the suffering that we witness behind his
eyes. I so much prefer this role over his
overstated innocent-prisoner turn in In
The Name of the Father, which also
came out the same year (and for which he
received all the critical attention and
award nominations); here he treads more
along the same lines as his tenderhearted
punk rocker in Stephen
Frears' My
Beautiful Laundrette.
 Michelle
Pfeiffer is as sharp as a tack as
Ellen Olenska, a woman who has seen it all
and is still forced to suffer. Looking at
it from her point of view, the film is about
a woman who is punished by society for being
comfortable with herself. From the outset
we see she is different: she doesn't speak
shyly to men or wait for them to initate
conversation. “Why
would they start a new world only to make
it exactly like the old one?”
she asks Archer. She smokes in front of
Archer, is seen publicly being escorted
places (quite innocently) with a married
man (Wilson) who she doesn't want to go
out with but feels obligated by family ties,
and dares to attempt a divorce from her
monster of a husband. A woman who knows
what she wants and goes for it? Demonic!
She must be destroyed. All New York shamelessly
rallies together to eradicate this villain.
 Who
better to lead the haughty fray than Olenska's
own nemesis: May Welland. As May, Ryder
is simply remarkable. In her first scene
she seems to us a complete nitwit: a pretty
and well-dressed girl, but one who pays
no attention to the betterment of her mental
faculties. Ryder tears down that façade
with burning relish. She understands the
character from the inside out, making May
the most emotionally inspiring character
in the whole movie (and the one that inspires
the most conversation after viewing the
film). As the plot progresses, we start
to understand how May really works; though
she is intellectually unrefined, she's not
in the least bit stupid. She is Wharton's
representation of the society Archer and
Olenska are trapped in: she plays by the
rules like she invented them, and uses any
device to make sure everything turns out
her way, and it does. She never comes out
with what she wants to say, opting instead
to turn passive-aggressive on her husband.
When she slips up on a story he's made up
to get away from home to visit the Countess,
May questions him like she has no idea what
he's talking about. “Oh
never mind me, it's too complicated for
me to understand,” she intimates
with her large doe eyes and wan smile. It
comes as no surprise to me that Ryder wrote
an essay on this character in high school
and got an A for it.
Wharton's
message of doom is clear: the one who plays
along with the lie we've all helped to create
is the one who succeeds. May has her marriage,
her children and a completely comfortable
life. Archer is caught into a plastic marriage
and separated from the one person who ever
makes him feel alive. Olenska, feeling too
threatened by those around her, is forced
to make her home in Europe again, but far
away from her husband.
 Who
would have thought Scorsese
could do it? Well, myself for starters.
Just because he's most famous for his gangster
films doesn't mean that those are the only
films he's capable of doing well. With projects
like After Hours,
The Last Temptation
of Christ and Alice
Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Scorsese
has shown his capability with a wide range
of cinematic genres; why stop him at the
period-drama threshold? He drives the pace
along with a slow but sure hand, never for
a moment letting the film get carried away
with itself.
Not to mention the atmosphere. There are
moments during this movie I just couldn't
breathe. No matter where in New York they
go, Archer and the Countess are just never
alone. They might seem to be, but even the
hand-swen curtains seem to have eyes (those
eyes are all photographed by Michael
Ballhaus, the man also responsible
for the gorgeous Bram
Stoker's Dracula a year before, also
starring Ryder). The rooms with their overstuffed
decorations and walls covered with numerous
paintings loom over our protagonists with
a close gaze; they're never trusted from
the second they meet.
 Real
love is the answer, but no one can ever
dare ask the question. Who knows what sadness
Wharton knew
to paint such a tormenting picture of true
passion—between watching this and
The Remains of the
Day a week later, it's amazing I
was able to leave my room for a year. No
one escapes this doom, Wharton says: we
either break the rules and are punished
to death for it, or play by them and watch
ourselves slowly perish on the inside. We
become less human and more drawings of humans;
we become as hollow, or shall we say “innocent”,
as the age around us.
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