Heritage Films - Essay Example

?Heritage Films. There is a long tradition of historical drama films in the UK, often known as “costume drama” because of the attention that is paid to authenticity of clothing, furnishing and setting details that usually is a feature of this genre. Many of these films depend upon well-known literary works, usually novels, for their plotline, and the screenplays reduce the content to a shorter presentation of the main themes and ideas. In a few cases these films present both mainstream views of the period in question and other, ‘alternative’ heritage material that is set in contrast to the dominant norms of gender, race, class or sexuality. This paper considers two examples of films which present ‘alternative’ heritage material in terms of sexuality: Orlando (Potter, 1993) and Brideshead Revisited (Jarrold, 2008). The film Orlando is based on the novel by Virginia Woolf of the same name written in 1928 and Brideshead Revisited is based on a novel by Evelyn Waugh written in 1945. Both were influential books in their time by respected authors. Of the two, Woolf is the more radical in terms of structure, exploring techniques like stream of consciousness. Writing in an aristocratic circle of writers and artists in the Bloomsbury area of London, Woolf and her circle of friends represented a rather radical upper class social group which experimented with socialism and liberal views on marriage and sexuality. Although writing well before the liberalisation of laws against homosexuality and the permissive society, Woolf anticipated the freedoms that would come later in the century with her depiction of Orlando, who starts out a man and ends the book four hundred years later as a woman, breaking all usual limitations of a normal person’s lifespan and sexual identity. Turning such a quirky book into film is no easy task. The book is written in seven sections but Potter breaks the story up into the book into short episodes which are given one-word titles like “sex” or “birth” which crystallize life events and stress the unity of the persona, despite the changing historical periods and the shift from male to female. At various points in the film Orlando turns to the camera and addresses the viewer directly, which at first is somewhat disconcerting, but as the film develops, it becomes a pattern which invites the viewer to look again at the screen and re-evaluate the surface images to reflect particularly about how the gender and identity of the people in the film is being portrayed. The camera dwells on Tilda Swinton’s oval face, recording many impassive scenes where she/he lets the chatter of other characters wash over her, until she suddenly turns to the camera with an arch look. Ferris explains this technique: the film highlights instability of identity in its use of direct address, non-linear narrative, and parodic framing, reconstructing Woolf's novel as a postmodern text. (Ferris, p. 110) Other techniques are used to jolt the audience out of a surface reading of the film. In the scene where Orlando meets Queen Elizabeth the first, for example, there is interference from modern society because the elderly monarch is played by famously flamboyant male homosexual Quentin Crisp. Orlando approaches the throne and kneels and the wide angle of the camera captures the pale costumes but above all the striking red hair of both Orlando and the Queen. As Ferris notes “The scene highlights both the construction of the narrative and of sexuality, for the male Orlando is played by a female actress, Tilda Swinton, who addresses the female queen, played by a male homosexual.” (Ferris, p. 113) This playful treatment celebrates a diversity of genders, and sexual orientations, drawing parallels and contrasts which cross over the normal male/female and gay/straight divides. Modern feminist readings of the film appreciate the blurring of these binary divides and the exploration of how gender is culturally constructed. The persona and languid narrative voice of Orlando remain intact, whether in a male or a female body. The actress Tilda Swinton, with her tall, elegant and androgynous body seems to morph into different eras and different genders with ease. The lavish costumes accentuate the falseness of the successive gender roles – corsets and huge skirts for the women, elaborate waistcoats for the men, and gender-specific wigs also. Potter updates the Woolf text, partly by giving it a skilful cinematic treatment with lavish imagery to bring the romp through genders and historical ages to life, and partly by adding a modern episode to the end of the story, bringing it into the present day world of writing and publishing. The persona that Swinton projects is detached from the elaborate constructions of gender that are going on all around her/him but curiously intimate with the audience, due to the camera work: ““Orlando’s awkward bumbling through historical social and aesthetic vignettes” (Pidduck, p. 164) shows a person uncomfortable with the falseness of society, and yet at ease with the self who goes to bed male, wakes up female, and then looks at her naked body in the mirror and says “The same person. Just a different sex.” The film Brideshead Revisited also deals with the issue of gender, but in this case the subject is buried deep within the conventions of traditional costume drama. Waugh’s novel presents the fascinating characters Sebastian Flyte, who favours teddy bears and flamboyant clothes, and the less wealthy and more conventional Charles Ryder. The two young men meet at university and there is a long and understated attraction between them that is partly suppressed sexual longing, and partly an attraction of opposites. Opposites of sexuality, class, and religion are themes in the novel, and Jarrold picks them up in the film in a somewhat heavy-handed way. One of the problems that faced the director in this case was that he had not only to render the content of the novel in film, but he also had to distance his production from a hugely successful television series starring Jeremy Irons that had already imprinted stunning images of English aristocratic life in the years before the second world war on the minds of the British public. Jarrold chooses to open the novel with a depiction of the older Charles returning to Brideshead in the Second World War, when it has lost its glamour and has been taken over by the military. While Waugh’s novel hints at this backward looking perspective by opening the novel with Charles’ older self, the focus in the book turns immediately to Oxford and student days. The effect of the film’s opening is to cast a sadder and more nostalgic light on what is coming next. The first half of the film revolves around Sebastian and Charles with sumptuous scenes of the young men relaxing in the grounds of the family mansion or in Oxford. Chasing around fountains and frolicking in meadows and by languid rivers in misty panning shots the two young men appear to be like brothers. They have similar clothes and appearance, both being slim and dark, and the differences in class, religion and sexual orientation are glossed over. Critics were disappointed in the film, noting its lush sets and lavish costumes, but lamenting the lack of subtlety in the portrayal of the suppressed homoerotic relationships between the two young men “Sebastian’s sexual attraction to Charles has been made more explicit; his jealousy when he discovers (in a scene that is not in the novel) that Ryder and Julia are in love is the trauma that sends him spiralling into his alcoholic decline.” (Ansen, no page number). Where the book was a tender and ambiguous exploration of late adolescence, recalling a time before the second world war robbed many thousands of young men of their future, the film becomes a stilted moral dilemma in which Charles takes the mainstream option of love for a woman instead of the alternative, more dangerous love for Sebastian. The actor who plays Sebastian, Ben Whishaw, appears to be much younger than Charles, and his petulance detracts from the fascination that rightly belongs to this character. There is an explicit kiss between the two men, and a scene of physical passion between Charles and Julia, but throughout the film there is more attention to physical setting and props than to the emotional connection between the characters. Wide angle filming outdoors with misty filters and a predominance of green creates a distance and coldness while and sombre lighting indoors fosters a mood of brittle emptiness. The props are lavish but the film fails to convey emotional depth. Julia as a young woman appears detached and cold, with predatory red lipstick and a harsh haircut. Ryder lacks any spark of sexuality whatever, and even the intriguing persona of Sebastian manages to look cliched and unconvincing, constantly fiddling with his cigars or drinks, and avoiding eye contact with Charles or with the camera. In conclusion, then, these two films show almost opposite approaches to the depiction of alternative sexual identities. Jarrold’s Brideshead Revisited dabbles with homosexuality before firmly exalting the heterosexual norm in Charles’ relationship with Julia. It could be argued that Potter’s cinematography has finally managed to bring Woolf’s text to an audience which is culturally equipped to appreciate it while Jarrold’s conventional adherence to the historical period drama genre fails to address alternative heritage views as anything more than a stereotype and temporary aberration from the dominant norm. References Ansen, D. July 18, 2008. “You can go home again.” Newsweek. Available at: http://www.newsweek.com/2008/07/17/you-can-go-home-again.html Accessed on 12. 01.11. Ferris, S. 1999. “Unclothing Gender: The Postmodern Sensibility in Sally Potter’s Orlando.” Literature/Film Quarterly 27 (2), pp. 110–115. Pidduck, J. 2007. “Travels with Sally Potter’s Orlando: Gender, Narrative, Movement” in J.F. Codell (ed.) Genre, Gender, Race and World Cinema: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 163-179. J. Jarrold (director) 2008. Brideshead Revisited. Starring Emma Thompson, Matthew Goode and Ben Whishaw. Miramax. Film. Potter, S. (director) 1993. Orlando. Starring Tilda Swinton and Billy Zane. Sony Pictures Classic. Film. Read More