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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Such a beautiful film...
I really enjoyed this movie. I watched it after I read the novel and it really made it come to life before my eyes. They story's wonderful, of course, but I really loved the intricate costumes and lavish sets.
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Wonderful piece of period Cinema
For artist, designers, or just the hopeless romantic, this video is a must, to add to your collection. The attention to period detail is inspiring. The storyline riviting. Worth the investment -- a version of Edith Wharton at her best.
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Can this be Scorsese?...meticulous, richly detailed adaptation...
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE seems more like a product of the Merchant-Ivory team rather than Martin Scorsese who recently gave us THE GANGS OF NEW YORK. It's a meticulous, richly detailed, leisurely adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel about a thwarted love affair between a man who is engaged to a beautiful young girl (Winona Ryder) and his yearning for her more worldly cousin (Michelle Pfeiffer). It's a yen that can't be dismissed lightly--in fact, it's a love that haunts him all of his life as he pretends to be a loyal husband with nothing more on his mind than fitting in with upper-class New York society.
He reaches the end of the story, imprisoned by society and never able to spend time with the woman he really loves. Slow pacing hurts the narrative (as does the use of a narration by Joanne Woodward which is offsetting more than anything else). A more genteel narrator would have suited the voiceover for this one.
As the troubled hero, Daniel Day-Lewis is the focal point of the entire story and gives an admirable performance, particularly touching in the final scene with his son. Ryder does fairly well with a less complex role but never seems much more than a naive and rather shallow young woman until a revelation about her that comes toward the finale. Michelle Pfeiffer is striking but never seems to fit comfortably into the period scene--she seems too modern even though she's playing an independent soul here.
Surprising to see Alexis Smith in such a small supporting role, looking a bit frail in what must have been one of her last appearances. As for director Scorsese, this is a far cry from his gangster element but he does a superb job of recreating an age of elegance and manners among the idle rich in the New York society of the 1870s.
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A gilded social prison and a frustrated romance analyzed.
This is about a romance that is never consummated. In fact, it is about a romance that smolders but never burns. It is about a potential love affair that is totally undone by New York's upper society before it can really begin. It is the story of two female cousins, young innocent May Welland (played by wide-eyed fresh-faced Winona Ryder) and sophisticated beautiful Countess Ellen Olenska (played with the sadness required by Michelle Pfeiffer). Between these two women is the young attorney, Newland Archer, a man who thinks of himself as bright and sophisticated but finds himself out-maneuvered by the social forces in which he lives. Daniel Day-Lewis plays this role well, arrogant and yet compassionate, intelligent and yet vulnerable to forces beyond his control.
The film could be described as ravishing with the incredible beauty of the interiors of New York's wealthiest citizens, the amazing dresses and jewels worn by the women in the 1870s, the vast gardens and flowers, and the rare feasts of culinary delights. However, the romance is anything but ravishing. It is a painful protracted long suffering ordeal that has such amazing acts of intimacy as Archer kissing the slipper of Countess Olenska in one scene and taking off her glove in a carriage so that he might kiss her wrist in another scene. Oh my! Such scandal! By our current morals and standards of sexual behavior, this unconsummated romance is frustrating to the extreme.
Martin Scorsese, the director, paints a world of vast luxery and beauty in the society yet under the veneer, it is a highly controlled and monitored group. Interestingly enough it is both the men and the women in this society who work to maintain strict social norms and create tight borders around who is and is not in their society. Almost all the characters, including May's mother (played by Geraldine Chaplin) and Newland's mother (played by Sian Phillips - that wonderful actress who plays Empress Livia in the I, Claudius series), help maintain this tight controlled social world of manners and morals, that can become a prison for those who may wish to break the rules.
The crux of the film is that a young man, engaged to marry the right girl for him, a beautiful rich socialite, becomes more and more interested in her worldly sophisticated experienced cousin. He acts with extreme kindness which wins the heart of Countess Olenska, but to hurt those around him to follow a romance with the Countess would lower him in her eyes and she resists the romance, in major part because of the consequences to her younger cousin and to Newland. He is also a character pulled apart by the restrictions of society and his desires for Ellen. As they inch closer to beginning an affair, society comes to the rescue and divides them forever. It is the strategic moves of his wife, May, that really close the deal for she manipulates both Newland and Ellen to back away from each other with her carefully played role of the potential innocent victim. As narrator Joanne Woodward relates, all New York Society rallys and supports May and works to retain the marriage while separating Ellen and Newland. After she leaves for Paris he never sees her again.
What do modern audiences make of such a situation as created by Edith Wharton in the 1920's? It all boils down to whether your choices in life are dictated primarily by your own moral compass or by the moral compass of society. There are costs to each. Gay men have selected to marry women due to the pressure of our culture and society for years. We know the price of society's norms. And yet, we know that those who follow only their own moral compass can create great pain and chaos in the lives of those around them as well as for themselves. Newland Archer chooses to live in a gilded cage, to seek happiness from family life, but to always feel somewhat cheated that his one true sexual passionate love never became a reality.
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A Flim That Will Touch Your Heart
An absolutely beautiful movie............a Scorsese masterpiece in every detail. Ranks with Wuthering Heights in its depiction of unrequited love, but much more visually stunning. Daniel Day-Lewis is a truly outstanding actor. After my first viewing, this is one of my favorite all-time movies.
