Cortechba Overrated

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

gin jen Brideshead seizes your being and won't let go. Your heart leaps along with Charles's as he is momentarily admitted into an achingly, intoxicatingly beautiful secret paradise with Sebastian.Then you cannot tear your eyes away from the horror as their Eden starts to get slowly, methodically ripped to bits. As you see Sebastian indeed get "shot full of arrows like a pincushion", you feel every pierce. And you suffer with Charles as his life turns to grey even as he becomes adept at filling canvases with colour.There are no heroes here, and not many villains. Only flawed people trying to manoeuvre as best they can in a world not of their making.But in the end, along with the pain, the beauty remains deep within you.

rgcustomer How do I bore thee... let me count the ways.1. The narrator and lead character is a weak-willed, careless, self-absorbed bore. The flowery words delivered in monotone narration are pleasant to open the series, but soon turn to grating annoyance. Trust me, you'll never want to hear Jeremy Irons ever again in your life, after this assault.2. While I realize that the UK is a dreary and drab setting due to the climate, does that really need to extend even to trips across the oceans? There is sunlight and colour in the world. I promise. But even on the rare occasion that the sun shines in this series, they manage to make it look like a single LED in the fog.3. The first two or three episodes are misleading, presenting an interesting and bubbly young gay romance between university friends. But you and I know that a miniseries in 1981 would never get made if that was genuinely what it was about. And it's not. As usual (for the 20th century) the main gay characters become straight, celibate, bisexual, or entirely irrelevant, depending on your interpretation. But they do not live happy lives together. No, they must suffer and split. And once Sebastian is out of the picture halfway through, things get rapidly even more boring than they were. Shame.4. Perhaps most damning, ironically, and not so boring, is the bigotry against atheists. Not only do we have a ridiculous deathbed conversion, after a disgusting performance by a religious daughter, this is mirrored by the conversion of the main character, for no apparent reason. We can suppose that Lord Marchmain pretended to convert to comfort his family. There is no such excuse for Charles, who has seen the damage that Catholicism did to the whole family. There is simply no way that this man would have converted.So I give this a 6/10 entirely for things like the hunt, the ship, and various travels abroad. I cannot recommend it for the story or the acting.

4everard Brideshead Revisited, by Arthur Evelyn Waugh, is one of the greatest and possibly luckiest books on the planet today. A truly heart-wrenching story of a decaying, idyllic society, it is fortunate enough to have this truly excellent TV Series to accompany it. I won't spoil it as it is truly a lovely, subtle narrative, but the actors (you won't get a much better cast anywhere else) portray the characters brilliantly. From Jeremy Irons' slightly unsure Charles Ryder (his slow, even narration is superb) to the hugely likable, but sadly doomed, Anthony Andrews as Sebastian Flyte. Castle Howard, as you will come to realise, is the perfect Brideshead for the series is a character in itself in the series as it seems to change with the general moods of the characters. All in all, this is a truly wonderful series that stays very true to the book. The sad thing is that there won't be many, if any, series like this in the future.

Martin Bradley Possibily there have been two other television adaptations from literature that have equaled "Brideshead Revisited". One, somewhat earlier and in black and white, was "The Forsythe Saga"; the other was "The Jewel in the Crown" and that was in 1983. I honestly can't think of anything of a similar magnitude in the intervening years. Not that television isn't producing great drama: the BBC's rightly acclaimed costume dramas have mostly hit the mark and writers like Alan Bleasdale and Stephen Poliakoff have given us some great contemporary stuff. It's just that television no longer seems prepared to take risks, (and its time), and give us epic serializations like "Brideshead Revisited" and "The Jewel in the Crown".With a running time of almost 12 hours, "Brideshead ..." was, to say the least, properly detailed. We were party to the silences between the words and the inactivity between the action. We were, if you like, party to the character's every breathing moment and never for an instant was it dull. On the contrary, with one of the best casts ever assembled for a television production and with a splendid script by John Mortimer, it was thrilling.Its hero is Charles Ryder, a somewhat vacuous young man whose sole purpose in life seems to be a 'hanger-on', primarily to the Marchmain family and, despite a few sojourns into the wilderness, if he isn't within their radar he seems not to exist at all. He is played by Jeremy Irons, an actor who can perfectly capture the pallid in-consequentiality of someone who exists only in the eyes of others. It is Charles who tells us the tale and it is the tale of the Marchmains, firstly of Sebastian and latterly of Julia.It is through Sebastian that he first encounters the family; Sebastian, the beautiful, slightly effete and, as it turns out, dipsomaniac young lord who befriends him at Oxford. Though never explicit, we must assume they become lovers and in a sexual way. Charles never makes any bones about loving Sebastian and later, even when embroiled in an affair with Julia, it is Sebastian who fills his thoughts. Charles, it would appear, is truly bisexual, though finally it is with women that he consummates his relationships. Sebastian, on the other hand, is gay and a drunk; self-loathing, not because of his sexuality which he seems to happily accept, but because of who he is, a Marchmain. The love of Sebastian's life turns out not to be Charles but Kurt, a young German deserter even more in need of love and affection than he. Even when Charles severs all ties with the Marchmains after he and Sebastian 'break up', he keeps being drawn back into their circle, finally embarking on a passionate love affair with Sebastian's sister, Julia.The Marchmains are Catholics and that is something of an anachronism in the English gentry. Their Catholicism overwhelms them. Where none of them seems to have a 'profession' their Catholicism becomes their profession; their private chapel is their bank and their faith is their currency. it alienates both Sebastian and Julia whose sex-drives are at logger-heads with the teachings of their Church. (Julia, even more so than Sebastian, is overwhelmed by guilt but then, she doesn't have the demon drink to fall back on). Brideshead, the older son and Cordelia, the younger daughter, on the other hand, seem positively priest-like and nun-like in their asexuality. Lady Marchmain is a cold gorgon of respectability whose self-righteousness has driven, first her husband from her and then her son. Lord Marchmain lives with his married French mistress in Venice.All these characters are beautifully delineated and played. Olivier is a magisterial Lord Marchmain while Claire Bloom has seldom been better than as Lady Marchmain and, given time to fully develop their characters, Diana Quick, (Julia), Simon Jones, (Brideshead), and Phoebe Nichols, (Cordelia), are superbly cast as other members of the family. And then there is Sebastian: Anthony Andrews performance is one of the great pieces of acting. Sebastian is, by nature, theatrical but Andrews breaks down his theatricality and gets to the very core of the character. His drunk scenes are phenomenal and, as he breaks down, he is extraordinarily moving. He departs from the series about half way through but his presence is felt to the very end.Four other performances stand out. John Gielgud is a wonderfully comic foil as Iron's supercilious father; John Grillo is properly oily as the toadying Mr Samgrass, (he is like the snake in the Garden of Eden); Stephane Audran is an oasis of calm sensuality as Cara, Lord Marchmain's mistress and Nickolas Grace is magnificent as Anthony Blanche, Sebastian's flamboyant, outré gay friend at Oxford. So indelibly does Grace inhabit the role that I found it impossible to separate the actor from the part. His performance seems to transcend acting altogether, though I am sure Mr Grace isn't like Anthony at all in real life. These are the kind of performances and this is the kind of television that makes you glad that someone had the wherewithal to invent the medium in the first place. It's a masterpiece.