Cranford
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DVD details
Actor: Deborah Findlay, Imelda Staunton, Judi Dench, Julia McKenzie, Lisa DillonBrand: Warner Brothers
Writer: Sue Birtwistle
Writer: Susie Conklin
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 291 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-05-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: BBC Worldwide
Product features:
- The BBC drama series adapted from Mary Gaskellsic novels of small town gossip, secrets and romance. 1842. Cranford, a market town in the North West of England, is a place governed by etiquette, custom and above all, an intricate network of ladies. It seems that life has always been conducted according to their social rules, but Cranford is on the cusp of change? For spinsters Deborah Jenkyns, the
DVD Reviews of Cranford
DVD Review: Another lovely series.
Summary: 5 Stars
I really enjoyed the BBC series Upstairs, Downstairs - Collector's Edition Megaset (The Complete Series plus Thomas and Sarah) and was looking for something similar to carry on my "life" among delightful families of characters. I found this series while browsing and decided to try it. While Upstairs Downstairs lives are conducted against a background of early 20th century transitions, including class discord, woman's rights, World War I and technological changes like the radio, telephone, automobile, and weapons of mass destruction, those of the Cranford characters are lived against one of equal change and social disruption.
Here again massive differences in the well being of the different social classes, the acceptable behavior of women, the introduction of new techniques in medicine, the introduction of mass transport in the form of the railroads, all challenge the status quo, making the everyday events of the lives of these characters--at least from our own perspective--a drama of considerable proportion. The fact that every generation, including our own, is faced with such changes allows us to understand the sense of threat felt by the elders in the series and the sense of expectation and hope felt by the younger people.
That the fear of the older generation is not necessarily justified as much as they think it is is also apparent, as again it is in Upstairs Downstairs, with each episode. Just as is the unwarranted expectation by the younger members of society that change will necessarily improve everything. The episodes show us, in fact, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Mostly it's just the technology that changes. This is an important bit of knowledge for us and should moderate our own expectations, as we rush into an even more technology driven age in the 21st century and to globalization.
For those to whom this type of fiction is unfamiliar, the period is roughly that of the American Civil War in the United States and midway through the long Reign of Queen Victoria in England. The elderly ladies would have been the Miss Dashwoods (Sense And SensibilitySense & Sensibility (Special Edition)) and Miss Bennets (Pride And Prejudice and Pride and Prejudice - The Special Edition (A&E, 1996)), those of Jane Austin's pen, in their own neighborhood in earlier days and whose fortunes had landed them in the various social and financial positions we find them at the beginning of the series. Society, just as in earlier times, rigidly enforces its expectations and no one is left untouched by it. The elder generation especially, having paid its dues, perpetuates and enforces the code with ferocity. Lady Ludlow angrily refuses a lower class girl looking to enter her service for being educated "above her station" and insists that these orders of society need no education because it gives them "dangerous ideas" and results in the violence of the French revolution. Just as assuredly that change is in the air is reflected by the activities and attitudes of her land agent Edmund Carter who encourages the boy Harry Greigson, who has become the defacto head of his houseold by virtue of an inconstant father.
The cinematography of the work is lovely, as it usually is in a BBC series. The village and the housing in it are very realistically presented and thematically evocative. The character of each home clearly reflects the social status and financial wherewithal of the people living in them. There is no doubt, for instance, that the widowed doctor's wife has enjoyed some degree of comfort and social standing in the past, but that she has fallen on hard times since her husband died. The walls are dark with peeling paint, the woodwork is also in need of repair, and little of the gracious life is left except a few pieces of good furniture looking marooned in the large rooms. The presence of affluence but the absence of a woman's influence, reflected in the fine house and furnishings with noticeable dust of farmer Thomas Holbrook, tells of an elderly bachelor whose disappointment in love left him with nothing but money to keep him company. The respectable, well kept household of the Jenkyns sisters reflects their status as spinsters left with the last of a family's fortune and their own respectable characters with which to live out their lives. While the meager lodgings of Captain Brown and his family reveals their status of dependency on the good will of Major Gordon.
The costumes are quite intriguing. Unlike the more loosely fitting and occasionally provocative empire-waist dresses of the earlier part of the century enjoyed by the Jane Austin characters--and Empress Josephine--the gowns of the period are more confining, figure disguising, and "proper." Their yards and yards of material mean that few but the more affluent can afford them--thus making a less financially well endowed individual more conspicuous and avoidable in the marriage market. More importantly they reflect a society less sure of itself and more inclined to harken back to the grandure of the 18th century than to the youthful enthusiasm of the earlier part of the 19th.
Though the series is definitely a drama, it has frequent comedic events that are quite funny. The social climbing Mrs. Jameison in her little sedan chair being run about by over worked footmen in pursuit of the most recent gossip is quite amusing as is the outrageous tale of "the fate of the vintage lace." Although she drops out early in the series, my favorite character is Deborah Jenkyns, played with great skill by Eileen Atkins. She is a wonderful blend of rigidly upright elder with a heart of gold and a will of iron. Her sister Matilda, played by Judi Dench, has less to say for herself until almost half way through the first series, when it becomes apparent that she, like the younger character of Miss Brown, had given up her chance of happiness in marriage out of a sense of duty to her family. The dénouement of the final act of her lovestory, while very predictable, was none the less poignant in its impact and very meaningful in the context of Miss Brown's more recent and ill-considered sacrifice. The viewer is left in no doubt as to the likely fate of Miss Brown.
A lovely series.
Description of Cranford
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 05/20/2008 Run time: 295 minutes Rating: NrBestsellers in DVD
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