E. M. Forster began his novel "Howards End" with the epigram "Only connect
", words which have been interpreted as a plea for a greater degree of imaginative sympathy between people of different social classes and (just as importantly) between people with different attitudes to life.
The book tells the story of three Edwardian families, the Wilcoxes, the Schlegels and the Basts. Although Leonard Bast and his wife Jacky are from a working-class background, there is not much difference in socio- economic terms between the other two families, both part of the well-to- do bourgeoisie. There is, however, a big difference in their outlooks. The cultured, artistic and intellectual Schlegels, of German extraction, represent "old money". (Forster borrowed their surname from the Schlegel brothers, German writers and philosophers). The Wilcoxes, by contrast, represent "new money". The father of the family, Henry, is a self-made businessman, and he and his three children are far more interested in business and making money than they are in culture or the arts.
The Howards End of the title is the Wilcoxes' family home, a large farmhouse belonging to Henry's wife Ruth, who is more in sympathy with the artistic outlook of the Schegels than the rest of her family. She becomes a close friend of Margaret, the oldest of the three Schlegel siblings. In the meantime Margaret's younger sister, Helen, has befriended Leonard Bast, a clerk in an insurance company, who shares her reverence for high culture. (They meet at a lecture on Beethoven). The story then follows the complications arising from these two friendships.
This film was the last entry in the cinema's great Forster cycle of the eighties and early nineties, a period which saw filmed versions of five of his six novels. It was the third adaptation of a Forster novel by Merchant Ivory Productions, following "A Room with a View" and "Maurice". In my view it is, together with "A Room with a View", the best film of the Forster cycle, for a number of reasons.
The first is that the Merchant-Ivory style of film-making, with its meticulous concern for period detail and its gentle, unhurried method of story-telling, seems admirably suited to the works of Forster. David Lean's grand epic manner was never an ideal match for "A Passage to India", a novel which, although it deals with political questions, concentrates on intimate personal relationships rather than the great historical events which formed the subject-matter of Lean's other late works. Charles Sturridge tried to imitate the Merchant-Ivory method in "Where Angels Fear to Tread", but could never quite bring it off.
The second is the remarkable number of great performances which James Ivory was able to elicit from his cast. The film only won one acting Oscar, Emma Thompson for "Best Actress", but there were a number of other acting contributions of equal quality. Anthony Hopkins was perhaps not going to win a second Oscar so soon after "The Silence of the Lambs" the previous year, but to my mind he deserved "Best Actor" far more than Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman". (Whether he deserved it more than Clint Eastwood in "Unforgiven" is perhaps another matter). Hopkins succeeds well in his difficult task of bringing out the two sides of Henry's personality. On the one hand he is arrogant, snobbish and autocratic, but on the other Hopkins needs to imply a hidden, more likable side to him if the audience is to accept him as Margaret's husband. (The two marry after Ruth's death).
Helena Bonham Carter was well-known around this period for her acting in period dramas; she had appeared in two earlier Forster adaptations, "A Room with a View", and "Where Angels Fear to Tread". There is a nice contrast between her Helen- passionate, impetuous and rash- and Thompson's calmer, more measured Margaret. Helen has a strong social conscience which Margaret seems to lack, and at first comes across as the more sympathetic of the two sisters, yet Helen's well-intentioned interventions in other people's lives can have disastrous unintended consequences. As for Thompson, she gives an object lesson in the art of portraying a quiet, reserved character without making her dull or uninteresting. Thompson and Hopkins were to act together in another Merchant-Ivory drama the following year, "The Remains of the Day".
Other excellent performances come from Vanessa Redgrave as Ruth Wilcox, James Wilby as Henry and Ruth's pompous, overbearing older son Charles and Samuel West as Leonard Bast. Bast is a tragic figure- he is clearly highly knowledgeable and intelligent, but because of his humble social origins is unable to put his intelligence to good use and is patronised and mistreated by those who consider themselves his social betters. He is also held back by his wife who shares neither his intelligence nor his aspirations.
The third reason why the film works so well is the way in which it brings out the themes of the excellent novel on which it is based and makes them relevant to the 1990s (without ever labouring the point). The story might be set in the 1910s, yet its themes of the contrasting values of business and culture, of unemployment, of wealth and poverty, are still relevant even today. Henry Wilcox might be a figure from the Edwardian era, yet in 1992 his values would have seemed very familiar to those who had just lived through the boom years of the "greed is good" eighties. Leonard Bast recalls those who lost their jobs when that boom turned to bust. Even Helen, the woolly but well-meaning member of the liberal Guardian- reading classes, is a familiar figure to modern viewers. British heritage cinema, and the work of Merchant-Ivory in particular, is sometimes criticised as a mere exercise in sentimental nostalgia, with no relevance to modern times. "Howard's End" serves as the best possible refutation of that sort of criticism. 9/10
The book tells the story of three Edwardian families, the Wilcoxes, the Schlegels and the Basts. Although Leonard Bast and his wife Jacky are from a working-class background, there is not much difference in socio- economic terms between the other two families, both part of the well-to- do bourgeoisie. There is, however, a big difference in their outlooks. The cultured, artistic and intellectual Schlegels, of German extraction, represent "old money". (Forster borrowed their surname from the Schlegel brothers, German writers and philosophers). The Wilcoxes, by contrast, represent "new money". The father of the family, Henry, is a self-made businessman, and he and his three children are far more interested in business and making money than they are in culture or the arts.
The Howards End of the title is the Wilcoxes' family home, a large farmhouse belonging to Henry's wife Ruth, who is more in sympathy with the artistic outlook of the Schegels than the rest of her family. She becomes a close friend of Margaret, the oldest of the three Schlegel siblings. In the meantime Margaret's younger sister, Helen, has befriended Leonard Bast, a clerk in an insurance company, who shares her reverence for high culture. (They meet at a lecture on Beethoven). The story then follows the complications arising from these two friendships.
This film was the last entry in the cinema's great Forster cycle of the eighties and early nineties, a period which saw filmed versions of five of his six novels. It was the third adaptation of a Forster novel by Merchant Ivory Productions, following "A Room with a View" and "Maurice". In my view it is, together with "A Room with a View", the best film of the Forster cycle, for a number of reasons.
The first is that the Merchant-Ivory style of film-making, with its meticulous concern for period detail and its gentle, unhurried method of story-telling, seems admirably suited to the works of Forster. David Lean's grand epic manner was never an ideal match for "A Passage to India", a novel which, although it deals with political questions, concentrates on intimate personal relationships rather than the great historical events which formed the subject-matter of Lean's other late works. Charles Sturridge tried to imitate the Merchant-Ivory method in "Where Angels Fear to Tread", but could never quite bring it off.
The second is the remarkable number of great performances which James Ivory was able to elicit from his cast. The film only won one acting Oscar, Emma Thompson for "Best Actress", but there were a number of other acting contributions of equal quality. Anthony Hopkins was perhaps not going to win a second Oscar so soon after "The Silence of the Lambs" the previous year, but to my mind he deserved "Best Actor" far more than Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman". (Whether he deserved it more than Clint Eastwood in "Unforgiven" is perhaps another matter). Hopkins succeeds well in his difficult task of bringing out the two sides of Henry's personality. On the one hand he is arrogant, snobbish and autocratic, but on the other Hopkins needs to imply a hidden, more likable side to him if the audience is to accept him as Margaret's husband. (The two marry after Ruth's death).
Helena Bonham Carter was well-known around this period for her acting in period dramas; she had appeared in two earlier Forster adaptations, "A Room with a View", and "Where Angels Fear to Tread". There is a nice contrast between her Helen- passionate, impetuous and rash- and Thompson's calmer, more measured Margaret. Helen has a strong social conscience which Margaret seems to lack, and at first comes across as the more sympathetic of the two sisters, yet Helen's well-intentioned interventions in other people's lives can have disastrous unintended consequences. As for Thompson, she gives an object lesson in the art of portraying a quiet, reserved character without making her dull or uninteresting. Thompson and Hopkins were to act together in another Merchant-Ivory drama the following year, "The Remains of the Day".
Other excellent performances come from Vanessa Redgrave as Ruth Wilcox, James Wilby as Henry and Ruth's pompous, overbearing older son Charles and Samuel West as Leonard Bast. Bast is a tragic figure- he is clearly highly knowledgeable and intelligent, but because of his humble social origins is unable to put his intelligence to good use and is patronised and mistreated by those who consider themselves his social betters. He is also held back by his wife who shares neither his intelligence nor his aspirations.
The third reason why the film works so well is the way in which it brings out the themes of the excellent novel on which it is based and makes them relevant to the 1990s (without ever labouring the point). The story might be set in the 1910s, yet its themes of the contrasting values of business and culture, of unemployment, of wealth and poverty, are still relevant even today. Henry Wilcox might be a figure from the Edwardian era, yet in 1992 his values would have seemed very familiar to those who had just lived through the boom years of the "greed is good" eighties. Leonard Bast recalls those who lost their jobs when that boom turned to bust. Even Helen, the woolly but well-meaning member of the liberal Guardian- reading classes, is a familiar figure to modern viewers. British heritage cinema, and the work of Merchant-Ivory in particular, is sometimes criticised as a mere exercise in sentimental nostalgia, with no relevance to modern times. "Howard's End" serves as the best possible refutation of that sort of criticism. 9/10