In The Age Of The Robber Barons-The
Gilded Age-The Film Adaptation Of Henry James’ “The Golden Bowl” (2002)-A Film
Review
DVD Review
By Leslie Dumont
The Golden Bowl, starring Kate
Berkendale, Uma Thirman, Nick Nolte, Jeremy Northam, based on the novel by Henry
James, produced by the famous team of Merchant and Ivory, 2000
Seth Garth who has had a pretty good
handle on literary figures like F. Scott Fitzgerald is always fond of using an
expression credited to Fitzgerald to the effect that the rich, by this he meant
the very rich and in his day rich with a pedigree, and if not a pedigree then
some fake papers to that effect and not some upstart noveau riche white trash
who made their dough in the garbage business. Now everybody knows another
expression if not the author’s name from Anatole France that the rich and poor
most democratically, most equally cannot sleep under that proverbial bridge and
must adhere to the law-although the latter proposition has taken a serious
beating since his day. Put together the Fitzgerald proposition and France’s
grind them through the full-blown pen of American expatriate Henry James before
that became seriously fashionable after the debacles of World War I when all
that pre-war civilization business went bust, put old Henry’s ennobled hierarchy
in the shade and you have something like a fairly decent tale of life among the
very rich in the film adaptation of his The
Golden Bowl.
Yes, of course the golden bowl that
will find various places of refuge before the film is done is something of a
metaphor for frail humanity, for the imperfections of even a high society,
maybe especially a high society life. That is not what I want to dwell on but
rather the cracks at the edges of high society that James details in his book
and which is only partially expressed through the less cumbersome medium of
film. The interior monologues, the psychological motivations of the characters
which made James, whose brother William after all was as leading psychologist
in his day, something of a break-through author heading toward what we now call
literary modernism. No question in the post-Freudian and post-Gothic novel
times this James novelistic approach is tough reading and although he has never
totally fallen out of disfavor his star has diminished with time. The combined
mighty Merchant-Ivory production team along with writer Ruth Prawer Jhavala has
made a valiant effort to bring this tough look at high Victorian marriage and
its temptations to the fore.
Here is the play, an expression for
a summary of the film that Josh Breslin first uttered to me back when we were
lovers and working here before I left for greener professional pastures at his
urging, who later told me that it was not really his expression but Sam
Lowell’s which tells a lot about Sam’s power over the writing staff at this
publication.
Until you remember that it was the
late Peter Paul Markin that gave the expression to Sam but enough of this
internal literary history and on to the plot line. Couple number one poor but
drop- dead beautiful Charlotte played by then rising actor Uma Thurman had a
serious affair with a poor but drop- dead beautiful Italian prince of uncertain
lineage, Amerigo, played by Jeremy Northam but that affair due to their limited
resources and big appetites for luxurious and idle living can go nowhere. Can
go nowhere mainly because he is engaged to the daughter, Maggie played by Kate
Beckinsale, of a very wealth American robber baron, Adam Verver played by
miscast Nick Nolte. Charlotte by the way a girlhood friend of Maggie’s although
that did not stand in the way of beating her friend’s time with her intended. And
had not qualm number one about the matter. These four characters drive the film
aided by a busybody couple who act as foils for various shifts in the drama.
Rich overlays poor and our Prince
marries Maggie and has a son with her after dumping Charlotte like a hot potato
when the wedding bells ring and his life take a big swing upward. Charlotte
meanwhile still is carrying the torch for the Prince and takes dead aim at him
when she goes to London to visit her old friend Maggie several years later. She
tries might and main to get her prince but gets nowhere while she is unmarried.
Maggie worried about her father who seems to have an art collection hunger
worthy of many a benighted robber baron brings Charlotte and dad into contact
and from there Adam falls for poor as a church mouse Charlotte and marries her.
Somehow having everybody in close contact shifts the playing field as Maggie
draws what today would seem incestuously close to her father leaving the field
wide open for Charlotte and Amerigo to have a fling, or what turns out to be a
fling once Maggie and Papa become wise to what is going on between this
adulterous pair.
Of course in high society nobody
wants to offend anybody by actually saying what they mean or what concerns them
so many minutes are used to convey what takes many pages to convey in the book
about the internal monologues each party goes through to NOT tell what he or
she is feeling. This kind of thing can only go on so long and finally as Maggie
gets more and proof culminating with the golden bowl caper of what was what
between the pair the tension is resolved when Amerigo dumps Charlotte for
Maggie and Adam forces Charlotte to go back to America so he can play generous
former robber baron with his treasured art collection readied for a museum.
Yes, Fitzgerald once again had it right the very rich are different from you
and me-and not necessarily for the better.
