Howards End (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
by James Ivory
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Actor: Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Samuel West, Vanessa RedgraveDirector: James Ivory
Brand: Image Entertainment
Producer: Ismail Merchant
Writer: E.M. Forster
Writer: Ruth Prawer Jhavbala
Blu-ray: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Surround; English (Original Language), Dolby Surround
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Special Edition, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 140 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: 2009-11-03
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: The Criterion Collection
Blu-ray Reviews of Howards End (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
Blu-ray Review: Boring; Epitomizes Class Bigotry
Summary: 1 Stars
"Howard's End" was one of the strangest movie-watching experiences of my life. I experienced the entire film as one long introduction. "Okay, this is the scene where they show us what pretty clothes people wore in Edwardian England. This is the scene that displays the cunning antique cars and charming trains they rode in. This scene demonstrates the arch and artificial conversational norms of the period. This is the scene that establishes the lushness and loveliness of the English countryside in high summer." Right up until the closing credits, I was waiting for the scene that would involve me in a plot, and make me care about characters.
The acting is so unrelentingly cold, arch, and artificial I have to believe that director James Ivory wanted viewers to see only Vanessa Redgrave, Emma Thompson, and Anthony Hopkins, never the characters they allegedly play. These actors may as well be holding scripts in front of their faces. Never for one moment is political activist and Amazon Redgrave believable as a humble little wifey who does not want the right to vote. Anthony Hopkins is Anthony Hopkins, Hannibal Lector in a high collar. Emma Thompson pops out her eyes and strenuously squeezes out some tears, and you think, "Gosh, she's working so darn hard for that Oscar."
"Howard's End" isn't two and a half hours of nothingness, though. It is a crystalline demonstration of the contempt that self-congratulatory privileged people feel for the working poor. Mind: I'm not saying that the film critiques snobbery. I'm saying that "Howard's End" is a perfect example of snobbery among the holier-than-thou elite, from Edwardian England's self-righteous upper crust to Barack Obama's limousine liberal supporters.
The Schlegels and Wilcoxes are two British families who have lots and lots of cash. The Basts are poor. The rich families are handsome, well groomed, self-disciplined, ever so compassionate and circumspect. The poor are beyond any standard of decency or human appeal. Leonard Bast, the poor man, played by Samuel West, is a creeping creature, half maggot, half weasel, and all idiot. He lives his life stupidly and ends disastrously. His wife, Jacky Bast, is a slovenly, slatternly, obese slut. She is shown, most frequently, in a tight, filthy corset that thrusts her assets into the viewer's face, and dirty robe. She does not brush her hair. She eats like an animal, gets drunk, and embarrasses nice people in public. She is never shown working; most frequently she is lounging on a filthy bed.
Leonard Bast could have been shown, as all the rich characters are shown, as having even a rudimentary brain, or dignity, or self-determination. Instead he appears to be constructed of mucus; he is merely a spineless, soulless toy in the hands of the rich characters, whom he discomfits just by existing.
The filmmakers could have shown rich and privileged people for what they really are. There could have been scenes of Henry Wilcox, a forty-year-old rich man, inheritor of massive wealth, taking advantage of Jacky when she was a sixteen-year-old orphan attempting to make ends meet by selling her body to this exploiter. We never see that. What we do see is Jacky in control, Jacky crashing Henry's daughter's wedding, Jacky embarrassing Henry, a man the film invites us to admire, feel compassion for, respect and love. There could have been scenes of the Schlegels and Wilcoxes eating sumptuous meals while Leonard and Jacky went days without tasting food. There could have been scenes of how humble clerks like Leonard, desperate for any employment, supplied the labor that the Schlegels and Wilcoxes rode to their own wealth. We don't get those scenes. What we get are scenes of the rich being sensitive and compassionate and beautiful and artistic and refined and admirable, and the poor being disgusting and idiotic and repellent and unpleasant.
If "Howard's End" had peddled hatred and contempt for a race of people - blacks, say - rather than a class of people - the working poor - its contempt and bigotry would be condemned and the film would be a museum piece. Instead "Howard's End" peddles the privileged's contemptuous view of the poor, and it is embraced as a classic. Because, no less than in the Edwardian Era, in the "Bitter" Obama Era, hatred of the working poor is entirely A-OK.
I recently watched two Nazi propaganda films, "Jud Suss" and "La Habanera." In both, Ferdinand Marian plays a sexy, racially inferior character who has relationships with racially superior, Aryan women. The ultimate message of these Nazi propaganda films: contact with racially inferior people carries a taint. It is dangerous. Disaster follows. Steer clear of the racially inferior. In this, "Howard's End" is no different from "Jud Suss" and "La Habanera." In "Howard's End," upper class women have contact with a man who is working poor. At least Ferdinand Marian got to be a sexy untermenschen. Leonard Bast is merely creepy, with no sex appeal. Contact with the working poor man brings disaster to privileged people's lives. Elites can leave "Howard's End" congratulating themselves for having contempt for the working poor, and avoiding contact with them at all costs.
Description of Howards End (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
The pinnacle of the decades-long collaboration between director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, Howards End is a thought-provoking, luminous vision of E. M. Forster?s cutting 1910 novel about class divisions in Edwardian England. Emma Thompson won an Academy Award for her dynamic portrayal of Margaret Schlegel, a flighty yet compassionate middle-class intellectual whose friendship with the dying wife (Vanessa Redgrave) of rich capitalist Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) commences an intricately woven tale of money, love, and death that encompasses the country?s highest and lowest social echelons. With a brilliant, layered script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (who also won an Oscar) and a roster of gripping performances, Howards End is a work of both great beauty and vivid darkness, and one of cinema?s greatest literary adaptations.BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
? High-definition digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Tony Pierce-Roberts, with uncompressed Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
? New appreciation of the late Ismail Merchant by director James Ivory
? Building: Howards End, a documentary featuring interviews with Ivory, Merchant, Helena Bonham Carter, costume designer Jenny Beavan, and Academy Award?winning production designer Luciana Arrighi
? The Design of: Howards End, a detailed look at the costume and production designs for the film, including original sketches
? The Wandering Company (1984), a 50-minute documentary about the history of Merchant Ivory Productions
? Original 1992 behind-the-scenes featurette
? Original theatrical trailer
? PLUS: An essay by critic Kenneth Turan"
Stills from Howards End (Click for larger image)
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Howards End is E.M. Forster's beautifully subtle story of the crisscrossing paths of the privileged and those they disdain--and of a remarkable pair of women who can see beyond class distinctions. Dramatic and tragic, but also surprisingly funny, this James Ivory film focuses on a pair of unmarried sisters (Emma Thompson, who won an Oscar, and Helena Bonham Carter) who befriend a poor young clerk (Sam West) and, without meaning to, ruin his life. Meanwhile, Thompson also makes the acquaintance of a dying neighbor (Vanessa Redgrave), who leaves her a family home in her will--which her husband (Anthony Hopkins) destroys. But, ironically, he meets and falls in love with Thompson, even as their paths once more intersect with the increasingly miserable young clerk. Nuanced acting, gorgeous but muted cinematography, and a beautifully economical script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, which also won an Oscar. --Marshall Fine
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