Product: Brideshead Revisited [VHS] (1982)
Rating: 5.0
One of the best TV dramas ever!
I remember when in 1998 Brideshead Revisted was reshown on BBC on prime time every saturday. I hurried home from my weekend classes and my landlady and I stacked up the whisky and snacks and just got engrossed in this most captivating of dramas. It is not spectacular like I, Claudius, or witty and clever like Pride and Prejudice, or nightmarish like Edge of Darkness. What it has is storytelling at its peak. It takes place roughly between the two world wars. A student (supremely acted by Jeremy Irons) befriends the scion of a noble family. Even from early on in their friendship can he observe that his friend is unable to cope with the weight of responsibilty his heritage has dropped upon him. Slowly but inexorably, the family is destroyed from within and by the events in the world surrounding them. Via the eyes of Jeremy Irons we watch the once noble family succumb.The tragedy is that they are aware of their falling, but they quietly and with infinite dignity accept their fate. In the end we are left with a feeling that something noble and old and irreplaceable has been lost forever. It has only left a bittersweet memory in the mind of the now middle aged Jeremy Irons. No one else cares.