Brideshead Revisited

Plot synopsis:
In 1923, protagonist and narrator Charles Ryder, an undergraduate studying history at a college very like Hertford College, Oxford, is befriended by Lord Sebastian Flyte, the younger son of the aristocratic Lord Marchmain and an undergraduate at Christ Church. Sebastian introduces Charles to his eccentric and aesthetic friends, including the haughty and homosexual Anthony Blanche. Sebastian also takes Charles to his family's palatial mansion, Brideshead Castle, in Wiltshire where Charles later meets the rest of Sebastian's family, including his sister Julia.
During the long summer holiday Charles returns home to London, where he lives with his widowed father, Edward Ryder. The conversations there between Charles and Edward provide some of the best-known comic scenes in the novel. Charles is called back to Brideshead after Sebastian incurs a minor injury, and Sebastian and Charles spend the remainder of the holiday together.
Sebastian's family are Roman Catholic, which influences the Flytes' lives as well as the content of their conversations, all of which surprises Charles, who had always assumed Christianity was "without substance or merit". Lord Marchmain had converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism to marry his wife, but he later abandoned both his marriage and his new religion, and moved to Venice, Italy. Left alone, Lady Marchmain focuses even more on her faith, which is also enthusiastically espoused by her eldest son, Lord Brideshead ("Bridey"), and by her youngest daughter, Cordelia.
Sebastian, a troubled young man, descends into alcoholism, drifting away from the family over a two-year period. He flees to Morocco, where his drinking ruins his health. He eventually finds some solace as an under-porter and object of charity at a Catholic monastery in Tunisia.
Sebastian's drifting leads to Charles's own estrangement from the Flytes. Charles marries and fathers two children, but he becomes cold towards his wife, and she is unfaithful to him. He eventually forms a relationship with Sebastian's younger sister Julia. Julia has married but separated from the rich but unsophisticated Canadian businessman Rex Mottram. This marriage caused great sorrow to her mother, because Rex, though initially planning to convert to Roman Catholicism, turns out to have divorced a previous wife in Canada, so he and Julia ended up marrying without fanfare in an Anglican church that accepts divorced people.
Charles and Julia plan to divorce their respective spouses so that they can marry each other. On the eve of the Second World War, the ageing Lord Marchmain, terminally ill, returns to Brideshead to die in his ancestral home. Appalled by the marriage of his eldest son Brideshead to a middle-class widow past childbearing age, he names Julia heir to the estate, which prospectively offers Charles marital ownership of the house. However, Lord Marchmain's return to the faith on his deathbed changes the situation: Julia decides she cannot enter a sinful marriage with Charles, who has also been moved by Lord Marchmain's reception of the sacraments.
The plot concludes in the early spring of 1943 (or possibly 1944 – the date is disputed). Charles is "homeless, childless, middle-aged and loveless". He has become an army officer, after establishing a career as an architectural artist, and finds himself unexpectedly billeted at Brideshead, which has been taken into military use. He finds the house damaged by the army, but the private chapel, closed after Lady Marchmain's death in 1926, has been reopened for the soldiers' worship. It occurs to him that the efforts of the builders – and, by extension, God's efforts – were not in vain, although their purposes may have appeared, for a time, to have been frustrated.

Tags: philosophical, flashback

Review:
Evelyn Waugh's 'Brideshead Revisited' is, I think, the quintessential and the finest novel of the twentieth century - English literature at its highest form.
And Nickolas Grace plays to the hilt the sybaritic, viper-tongued Anthony Blanche.Jeremy Irons does sterling service as the narrator, Charles Ryder, who is, after all, Waugh's observant eye and eloquent tongue; Irons depicts poignantly Ryder's "conversion to the Baroque" crashing to bits against the cold gracelessness of "The Age of Hooper".
As the rapidly dissolving Lord Sebastian Flyte Anthony Andrews is memorable - should Waugh's book ever again be adapted for the screen the lot of the actor cast as Sebastian will not be enviable.Claire Bloom's Lady Marchmain is a study in quiet dignity upheld vainly in the face of the twentieth century's ravaging of her character's world and sensibilities.
Sir Laurence Olivier's Lord Marchmain is letter-perfect; and in the deathbed sequences Olivier's performance is tenderly, expertly nuanced.Diana Quick was a bit too old to play convincingly the debutante Lady Julia of the early episodes, but in the later ones Quick hits perfectly every disillusioned, jaded, repentant note.
John Gielgud steals every scene as Charles's father Edward, brilliantly interpreting of one of Waugh's most delicious, yet indigestible characters.There are rich offerings, too, from character actors: Stephane Audran glows warmly as Clara, Lord Marchmain's insightful, intuitive, down-to-earth mistress; John LeMesurier leaves us suitably agape as the Jesuit Father Mowbray baffled and dismayed by Rex's utilitarian approach to his conversion to Catholicism; Jeremy Sinden sails naively along as the indefatigable yet ever-dimwitted and clueless Boy Mulcaster; Ronald Fraser stirs just the right sloshing of queasiness as the peculiar, opportunistic shipboard cocktail party guest; Jonathan Coy, as the parlous, seedy Kurt, is perfectly repellent; Jane Asher tiptoes delicately through Celia Ryder's conventional, porcelain sensibilities; and Mona Washbourne knits a thoughtful, lovely portrait of Nanny Hawkins.Throughout 'Brideshead Revisited' the photography is lush, meticulous, yet tasteful.
I bought the DVD version of this series and, though occasional bits  of the image transfer are a trifle fuzzy and the sound re-recording is sometimes uneven, the nicely boxed set of discs pleased - and goes on pleasing - me greatly.In the early third millennium, a time of evermore immature programming and production executives - a dismal age of TV's Hoopers, I have to suspect sadly that television will never again attain the  heights to which 'Brideshead Revisited' vaulted.
Brilliantly adapted by John Mortimer from Evelyn Waugh's celebrated novel of England between the first and second World Wars, BRIDESHEAD REVISITED may be the best miniseries ever made.
Smoothly and subtly directed by Charles Sturridge and Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the twelve hour program is beautiful to look at, the cast is remarkable, and the story has amazing impact.The miniseries follows the novel closely, beginning near the end of World War II as Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons) grows disdainful of military life, which he finds a study in futility--and then flashes back twenty years as Ryder recalls his relationship with the aristocratic Marchmain family, a relationship that begins when he becomes friendly with Marchmain son Sebastian Flyte (Anthony Andrews) while the two are students at Oxford.The miniseries captures perfectly a golden moment of youth--and then the gradual disillusionment brought by the passage of time.
Like all great works, BRIDESHEAD REVISITED--both book and film--touches on a great many themes, most specifically an innocent type of homoeroticism, loss of innocence, alcoholism, adultery, and changing society; ultimately, however, the story is about spiritual values and how they survive in even the most unlikely of circumstances--and how God works through individuals in the most unexpected ways.The performances here are truly fine beyond description.
Jeremy Irons has seldom surpassed his work here, and neither Anthony Andrews nor Dianna Quick (as Julia, Sebastian's sister) have ever bested their performances in this film.
I first read the book and viewed the series as a teenager and it affected me much more then "Catcher in the Rye".It is probably one of the finest adaptations of a novel put to film.
You watch as the reckless innocent fun of youth is slowly taken away and replaced by sad old cynicism.It captures the feeling of the stolen season of peace between the world wars and the cool observant eye of Waugh who before hand always wrote detached speedy amoral stories.
Everyone is of course entitled to an opinion about matters such as this, but how anyone can rate this series as anything less than a great milestone in television is, to my mind at least, quite difficult to understand.I recently re-read Evelyn Waugh's wonderful novel and was, consequently, inspired to watch the series for the fourth time, on DVD on this occasion.
In that respect, the DVD set can be seen to be somewhat lacking.However, the acting, direction, costume design, sets and John Mortimer's brilliant adaptation of the novel for television make this one of the greatest achievements in television and a demonstration of what can be accomplished in that medium with a great deal of care for detail.What I find particularly heart-rending is the transition from the light and airy early scenes to the darker ending of the series.
I am really not sure whether this comment contravenes the "spoiler" guidelines but I suspect that I'm on reasonable safe ground in that regard.I would go so far as to suggest that "Brideshead Revisited" lives up to the comments which were made about it at the time of its release in the early '80s that it is one of the greatest television series ever produced and it is hardly surprising to me at least that a series of such enduring quality emanated from the UK.10 out of 10 from me.
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.
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.
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.
I doubt that anyone will be able to imagine anyone other than Anthony Andrews as Sebastian or Nikolas Grace as Anthony Blanche; Jeremy Irons gives a well-rounded performance, Diana Quick is suitably gorgeous and a host of great English actors (Gielgud, Olivier et al) lend support to a fantastic script and excellent direction.
There is no concession here to change the story in order to make it easier to understand, no letting out some of the characters, no letting out some of the issues (e.g. Catholicism), no letting out Evelyn Waugh's wonderful narrative passages There is supposed to be a law when making a literary adaptation: do not use voice-overs, unless you want to bore the audience to tears.
The story of Charles and Sebastian and their families (and Sebastian's teddy bear) opens out Evelyn Waugh's slow-paced novel and instead of rushing through it in a couple of hours takes time to work with it and present the story at a leisurely pace, taking stock of some of the UK's greatest scenery.Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews play the leads, who meet at University and become lifelong friends.
The highbrow language, the love affair of two men in an aristocratic old charm catholic environment, the wonderful story, excellent casting, gorgeous locations & sheer beauty of it all makes this the best TV-serie I have ever seen in my entire life.
If scale would be 1 to 100 in stead of 1 to 10 I would still give it a full 100, since this is simply the best series you can or will come across, if you like British acting (who wouldn't), the Golden Years of pre-WW2, and a moving story.
Knock-out performances by the incomparable Laurence Olivier, Jeremy Irons and last but not least in my opinion the best character ever put down on film: Sebastian by Anthony Andrews.
And that might be true in a general sense: once seen it is hard to come to terms with it, first that this series is finite, and second the tragic fate of indeed the most charming person on screen yet, Sebastian, that sort of friend that we are all looking for, but who is so hard to find!.
The series not only preserved the story to the point of almost maintaining all the book's original dialogues but the aesthetic beauty of the images is beyond reproach.I strongly recommend this work for all who enjoy art in general and Evelyn Waugh in particular..
Jeremy Irons' performance, like a finely tuned instrument, has subtlety and passion in the same degree and Anthony Andrews' Sebastian is a study in charm and self-destruction that enthralls and saddens by its intensity.
Majestic it certainly is from the fabulous locations - Venice - Castle Howard, the superb acting - Lawerence Olivier, Nikolas Grace, Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews, Diana Quick, Mona Washbourne and Cordelia (apologies I can't remember her name) all wonderful and, finally, to the captivating music of Geofrey Burgeon - it is TV at its very best.PS Apologies if any name misspelled..
Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews are exquisite as the reflective Charles Ryder and the self-destructive Sebastian Flyte, and the all star cast flame with colour and exuberance.
A remarkable adaption of one of the best novels of all time; Brideshead Revisited is a complex and subtle story about growing into adulthood set amid the cross-currents of Catholicism, modernity, aristocracy, homosexuality and war.
Brideshead Revisited - I have seen the full series several times, I have read the book and I also saw the TV-series on Danish Television, when it was first shown in the early 80's.
I am not sure, whether book-critics regard Brideshead Revisited as the author's main work, or it just happened to be well suited for filming; but the final TV production is of a quality, which makes all this irrelevant.
It is a beautiful and faithful adaption of a great book, the acting of the stellar cast is superb, the production values could not be higher and the direction and photography is immaculate.John Mortimer's adaption is wonderfully well written but it really scores by not only staying close to Evelyn Waugh's plot but also his language with much of the dialogue coming straight from the novel.
We also have sublime acting from the, then, lesser known actors such as Jeremy Irons, Diana Quick, Phoebe Nicholls, Simon Jones and Anthony Andrews deeply moving portrayal of Sebatian Flyte's descent into alcoholism.Every scene and location looks absolutely 'right' and having watched this series several times since it came out it still looks like it is set in the 1920s and 30s.
Excellent cast with wonderful performances by Jeremy Irons, Nickolas Grace, Phoebe Cates,  Claire Bloom, Lord Olivier,  Jeremy Sinden and Anthony Andrews.
"Brideshead Revisited" is an 11x50 minute (approx) TV miniseries which takes the viewer into the lives of the residents of a magnificent English country house and sprawling estate called Brideshead, the ultra-rich Flyte family of Lord and Lady Marchmain, and a much welcomed interloper, Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons), of a somewhat lesser class.
A peerless, critically lauded, and award winning series featuring a superb cast including such notables as John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, "Brideshead Revisited" should play very well with anyone into the many popular Victorian films and similar fare featuring the pomp, pith, vigor, and vanity of the English aristocracy.
Did Evelyn Waugh know a family like the Marchmains...was it all based on a true story?
I also think anyone who hasn't yet seen the 2008 film with Ben Whishaw, Greta Scacchi and Matthew Goode and are a fan of the book as well should think of avoiding it, as it doesn't do any justice to this wonderful story and has several disappointments on its own terms.The mini-series of Brideshead Revisited does however do justice to the book, as it is remarkably faithful in spirit and in the details.
Jeremy Irons gives my personal favourite performance of this splendid cast, his narration, delivery and portrayal of Charles Ryder is simply masterly.All in all, a real jewel of a series and a must watch for fans of the book, period dramas or any of these fine actors that play their parts so amazingly here.
I realized that they followed the book very closely, which I found pleasant.Due to holiday I missed the part of the series after Julia narrates to Ryder her marriage to Rex Mortram, coming back just to see the last two episodes.
The cast is strikingly good, Irons apart, John Gielgud (in his few comical minutes as Charles Ryder's father) standing out as the best of many fine actors, in a series of beautifully written character roles..
My jaw dropped at its expense and ambition, being an almost-complete filming of the famed wartime novel by Waugh, in the light of other TV productions from the late 1970's and early 1980's, with their cardboard sets and stagy (not to mention stodgy) direction.Charles Ryder is a single child from a small conservative, Anglican middle class family, consisting only of himself and his oddball father, the elder Ryder.
In amidst wonderful performances by the stellar cast (as well as younger actors such as Diana Quick, Phoebe Nicholls, Nickolas Grace, Simon Jones and Anthony Andrews) Jeremy Irons, in the central role, evinces a wonderful subtlety, perfectly suited to the restrained but passionate Ryder, and also narrates superbly, in character, the restrained but passionate story.Brideshead Revisited has a fey, conservative reputation that it does not wholly deserve.
It is true that this TV adaptation does not correct the novel's middle class obsequiousness in its view of the decline of the English aristocracy, and at times it is too reserved in its view of the sexual relationship between Charles and Sebastian, which seems coy and a little elusive.
No, but the subtlety is what writers of Waugh's standing sought - it was after all based on an affair in his own life.Jeremy Irons is superb, conveying with great subtlety and often few words the poetry, the sadness, the regret, the loss of innocence, while Anthony Andrews is equally superb, haughty, childlike, trusting yet betrayed, aristocratic.
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.
The series doesn't exactly rush on as it is, and with Irons slowing everything to a crawl this became one of those viewing-experiences where i looked at the watch many times every episode.
My wife was reading the book, Brideshead Revisited, for her book club and wanted to simultaneously watch the Jeremy Irons television mini- series.
11 hours long TV miniseries "Brideshead Revisited", based on Evelyn Waugh's eponymous classic novel, has been one of the most pleasurable watching experiences I can think of.
Both, Sir John Gielgud and Sir Laurence Olivier, contributed to these scenes as well as Nickolas Grace as Anthony Blanche, decadent and flamboyant but sharp and observant acquaintance of both main characters, Charles Rydes and Sebastian Flyte.
The most important aspect of Brideshead Revisited, is, without doubt, Evelyn Waugh's language, and Jeremy Irons, as Charles Rydes, the film protagonist, was born to narrate the pages of the beautiful prose that sounds like an exciting melody of the times passed but not faded.
For the sake of continuity, this necessitated a monotone in his voice-over commentary which tended to grate.I remember reading, at the time the series was first broadcast, that at a very late stage Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews agreed to swap their roles.
After all, if Irons had played the part of Sebastian Flyte at least he would have looked like the other members of the family; and Anthony Andrews as Charles Ryder would have embodied the outsider.
One of the points that Waugh underlines in the novel is that Charles Ryder falls in love with Julia because of her resemblance to her brother, Sebastian, and the change in roles makes a nonsense of this.Still with me?
"Brideshead Revisited" is a superb mini-series production for British television of Evelyn Waugh's famous novel.
The full title of the book is, "Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder." Waugh's 1945 book is considered a superb novel and example of English literature.
Granada Television did justice to the story in its nearly 11 hours of film for the TV series.The story is a complex one about relationships, friendships, family, faith, infidelity, unhappiness, depression, alcoholism, and more.
in fact- a magic meeting between great actors and one of seductive performances for Jeremy Irons, a splendid Sebastian by Anthony Andrews and the impression to be part of story for viewer.
This piece of fiction is little more than an neo-Renaissance anti-Catholic vitriolic morality play diatribe thinly disguised as literature.Although told from the viewpoint of innocent Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder, the plot revolves around Claire Bloom as Lady Marchmain and how her disingenuous religion destroys her family and friends.
John Mortimer has done a wonderful job of adapting Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece, "Brideshead Revisited." None of the plot from the novel is left out, and all the characters retain their original qualities.
The character in the book is supposed to be extremely beautiful and look just like Sebastian.
He steals his scenes.Thus, "Brideshead Revisited" is an excellent drama, and perhaps the finest mini-series ever made..