Howards End - The Merchant Ivory Collection

Howards End - The Merchant Ivory Collection
by Humphrey Dixon, James Ivory

Howards End - The Merchant Ivory Collection

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DVD details

Actor: Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Joseph Bennett, Vanessa Redgrave
Director: Humphrey Dixon, James Ivory
Brand: Image Entertainment
Producer: Ann Wingate
Producer: Donald Rosenfeld
Producer: Ismail Merchant
Writer: E.M. Forster
Writer: John Pym
Writer: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; German (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 142 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-02-15
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Model: CV0024
Studio: Merchant Ivory

DVD Reviews of Howards End - The Merchant Ivory Collection

DVD Review: Excelent!!
Summary: 5 Stars

I had the VHS version until i got this. The dvd/ todays quality is truly shown in this version, im glad i got it. Its a great film, where narrative, filming, actors dont dissapoint at all. Recommended to all EPOC lovers.

DVD Review: An interesting film.
Summary: 3 Stars

This review is for the Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition of the film.

Howard's End starring Anthony Hopkins is the story of two families of different classes in rural early 20th century England. It shows England at a time when people of different classes were divided and the lower classes not treated as well. It is based on the novel of the same name by E.M. Forster.

I found the film hard to watch due to Anthony Hopkins cast in the lead role. I don't have anything against him personally, but to me he has been typecast as Hannibal Lecter, and I find it hard to watch him in other films without being reminded of this.

The film is well made and has three releases through the Criterion Collection. The first release was a 2 disc DVD through their Merchant-Ivory line, and the one disc Blu-ray release their second. The third, intended for February 2010 is a 2 disc DVD in the standard Criterion Collection line. The Blu-ray version contains exclusive material.

This edition includes documentaries on the film's production, a film about the history of Merchan-Ivory Productions, a interview with James Ivory, the colleague and partner of the deceased Ismail Merchant, and a theatrical trailer.

The Blu-ray version of the film is the best version to get as it includes materiel not released elsewhere

DVD Review: The movie is fantastic; the Blu-ray transfer is atrocious.
Summary: 1 Stars

Despite what Criterion may say, there is a fault with this disc. They have said you need to calibrate your set, or that you shouldn't watch the disc on vivid and sharp mode. But lowering these settings is not enough to get rid of all the digital noise on this disc, and it's the only blu-ray I've ever come across that looks this bad. I encourage you to rent the disc before you buy it, so you can see for yourself.

I hate giving one star to a movie this good. But the Blu-ray is not even worthy of that one star.

DVD Review: Terrible blu-ray transfer of a fantastic film
Summary: 1 Stars

For those of you who already own this movie in SD, save your money on this Criterion release. It is horrible, nearly unwatchable in places ~ like watching a movie through a curtain. Criterion should be ashamed of themselves for resting on their laurels.

Amazon should STOP importing comments from other releases and media when giving stars to a specific item. The well deserved 5 star ratings from the SD disc are making it look as if this blu-ray release is being well received, which is not the case. Of the 65 5 star reviews posted to date, I counted only THREE which were written for this horrific blu-ray release by Criterion. The other 62 are from the prior SD, VHS and Merchant-Ivory Collection releases.

Buyer Beware with this Blu-ray release. Apparently we can no longer assume that Criterion = Good Quality.

DVD 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 Merchant Ivory Collection

Margaret and Helen Schlegel (Oscar? winner Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter) are sisters from a well-educated European family: intelligent, free-spirited, cultured, and highly emancipated by the standards of the time. A series of events brings them into a relationship with the Wilcox family: healthy, conservative, conventional, and very English, headed by the prosperous Henry (Anthony Hopkins) and his priggish son, Charles (James Wilby). Both families also come into contact with Leonard Bast (Samuel West) and his wife, a couple near the lowest tier of the rigid class system. Leonard's desire for cultural and intellectual status attracts the attention of Helen, who must come to terms with her unexpected feelings toward him. At the same time, Margaret must reconcile her independent spirit with her desire for companionship and a comfortable place in Edwardian society; her moral strength is eventually able to resolve the tangle of opposites. First published in 1910, E.M. Forster's Howards End remains one of the most important English novels of the twentieth century, and Merchant Ivory Productions' tour-de-force adaptation was one of the most critically acclaimed films of the 1990s.

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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