Reflections on Les Misérables

Musicals may not spring to mind as being period dramas, but in the case of the 2012 musical film Les Misérables, being set in the period of great social upheaval in France in the early years of the 19th century and involving high drama indeed, I feel justified in including this one in the category.

Of course, Les Misérables has not always been a musical – it began as an amazing book written by the French poet, novelist and dramatist Victor Hugo published in 1862; has developed through an estimated 47,000 stage performances, and at least 10 filmed versions from 1934 onwards; was set to music by composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyricist Alain Boublil and opened as a musical in Paris in 1880, then in 1985 as an English-language musical production by Cameron Mackintosh in London’s West End. It premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Barbican Theatre, where it was actually not so well received by the critics, but certainly was by the public and by Princess Diana who said it was the best show she had ever seen. It has now been translated into 21 languages, shown in 300 cities in 42 countries, and is the 2nd longest-running show in London’s West End, second only to The Mousetrap which opened in 1952 – that’s some head start!

Then we come to the new award winning musical drama film Les Misérables of 2012, directed by Tom Hooper (director of The King’s Speech), scripted by William Nicholson, incorporating Schönberg and Boublil’s songs but with additional music that they created specially for the film together with Herbert Kretzmer and starring an array of super talented actors, headed by Hugh Jackman, Russel Crowe, Oscar-winning Anne Hathaway (alias: Jane Austen from Becoming Jane) and Amanda Seyfried. The director made the brave decision to have his actors sing all their lines live on set (see the featurette on the right for more information), whereby the songs flow like dialogue and sound perfectly natural – a decision that well paid off – brilliant! We knew that Amanda Seyfried could sing from Mamma Mia, but some of the others were a very pleasant surprise! The film also incorporated a beautiful totally new purpose-written song, ‘Suddenly’ which Hugh Jackman sings in a taxi en route to Paris to take up a new reformed lifestyle as an adoptive father.

At this stage I think I should give a brief rundown on the storyline, although I’m sure you all know it – I’ll try to be brief! Jean Valjean stole a loaf of bread because his sister and her children were starving, for which he served 19 years in jail/hard labour/slavery, before being released on parole. At the start of our story in 1815, we see him using his great physical strength to lift a heavy oar pinning down one of his fellow prisoners, an act of kindness which is observed by Javert, the prison guard supervising the release, who vows that prisoner 24601 (Valjean) will never be free. Valjean steals silver from a bishop, who when confronted by the police says that he gave the silver to Valjean as a gift, and insists on giving him more. Deeply touched by the bishop’s love and kindness, Valjean decides to break parole and start a new life doing good for people. Eight years later we see him having achieved this and having built himself a new respectable life: he is now Mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer and a wealthy but kind factory owner. One day, he witnesses the desperation of a poor girl, Fantine, who has been dismissed from his factory by a foreman and has had to resort to prostitution and to selling her hair to raise money to pay an unscrupulous landlord and landlady of an inn to take care of her illegitimate daughter, Cosette. As Fantine lies dying, Valjean promises to take care of Cosette as a father, which he does (after managing to pay off the innkeepers) with great paternal love. He has witnessed the injustice of the society around him, and takes the side of the revolutionaries who are fighting for change. In 1832, on the death of Jean Maximilien Lamarque, the only government official to have sympathy for the poor, the rebels decide to take a stand against the government and build and defend a giant barricade. Along the way, one of the student revolutionaries, Marius, has met Cosette and they have fallen in love. To cut a long story short, Valjean manages dramatically to rescue Marius from the barricade, after poor Eponine (daughter of the innkeepers) has sacrificed her life out of unrequited love, to save him, and just before the whole group of rebels, having decided to fight to the death, are annihilated by canon fire of the National Guard. I haven’t mentioned that along the way, Valjean has various skirmishes with Javert, who has become a police inspector obsessed with catching up with him. Valjean escapes each time, but in the end, when given the chance to execute Javert, he fakes the execution and lets him go free; an act of kindness incomprehensible to Javert, but leading him in the end to take his own life by plunging into the Seine. The story has a ‘happy’ ending for Marius and Cosette who later marry, but there is so much unhappiness and tragedy, that we are left in tears anyway.

Les Misérables

(2012) DVDs

Amazon U.K.

Amazon U.S.

The 2012 film is so very well done, giving us, as the medium of film can, such a close-up, personal view of the emotional and tragic circumstances and events, that I think everyone in the cinema must have been in tears! The shocked silence that accompanied the long credits at the end was also a mark of respect. Just a few months before seeing the film, I had finally seen the musical stage show in London with Jeronimo Rauch as Jean Valjean and Tam Mutu as Javert, and had been very highly impressed - my husband had been raving about Les Misérables for so many years after seeing a production in New York that it was high time I saw it. I enjoyed both the stage show and the movie very much indeed, and found the movie just so sad but awesome, partly because of the intimacy of film!

Continuing my reflections on the story, I’d like to go back to the book. Victor Hugo (1802 – 1882) grew up in Paris during the period his story is set, so experienced the drama of events taking place at first-hand. These were turbulent times in France, when the general population was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the incompetence of the monarchy, religious authority and the privileges and decadence of the aristocracy, whilst the poor were suffering devastating poverty and degradation. The uprising of the angry and frustrated under-privileged started with the storming of the Bastille on July 14th 1789 and within just three years the absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed and King Louis XVI was executed by guillotine. The first French Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 with Napoleon Bonaparte declaring himself as Emperor –Louis-Charles, the young son of Louis XVI was supposedly King Louis XVII at the time but was in fact being held prisoner till his death on June the 8th 1795, whereupon his uncle Louis-Stanislas (Louis XVI’s brother and grandson of Louis XV) claimed to be King Louis XVIII, but the power stayed with Napoleon. Four years into the Revolution, the people were frustrated that they could see no improvement, and in September ‘93 a horrific period of slaughter known as The Reign of Terror began, during which up to 40,000 ‘upper class’ people were guillotined – the Jacobins and Maximilien Robespierre are the names most associated with these events, though Robespierre himself also lost his head to the guillotine in the end. The French Revolution itself is said to have lasted from 1789 to 1799, but the period of political and social upheaval whilst the poor suffered and the revolutionaries fought for their rights that started in 1789, in fact, also spanned the 1st half of the 19th century. This is a very complicated period of French history, so it’s probably most unwise for a non-historian like myself to delve into it, but still, I will try to put the story Les Misérables in context!

When Victor Hugo was just 2 years old, in 1804, Napoleon officially became Emperor of the French, sometimes considered the first constitutional ‘monarch’, the post he held (with just a brief period of exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba from April 1814 till he escaped in March 1815, during which time Louis-Stanislas actually did become King Louis XVIII) till defeated at the Battle of Waterloo on June 18th 1815 after just 100 days back in power. He was then permanently exiled to the far-away island of Saint Helena in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, where he died in 1821. During Napoleon I’s time as Emperor he fought various Napoleonic Wars spreading his power over much of Europe, and in fact made lots of social reforms improving the human rights and introducing voting for all men in France, till his attempt to invade Russia turned the tide against him.

Back in France in 1815 at the start of our story, after just a 2-week attempt of Napoleon I’s son as Napoleon II, the House of Bourbon monarchy is restored in the person of King Louis XVIII again till 1824, followed by his brother Charles X till July 1830 when his repressive regime and disregard for the poor resulted in his removal during the July Revolution. The following, and last king of France, Louis-Philippe, a 6th generation descendent of Louis XIII, managed to stay on the throne, despite more uprisings such as that of 1832 (the final backdrop to Les Misérables) till 1848. This was because he was a little more popular than his predecessors; he called himself the Citizen King of the French (rather than King of France): a constitutional king linked to the people and with a parliament. He claimed to have sympathy with the liberated citizens of his country and did away with a lot of royal privileges, but still the gap between rich and poor increased and the living standards of the workers deteriorated, till the people revolted against their king once again in 1848. Louis-Philippe abdicated in favour of his grandson, who might have become a Louis-Phillipe II, but partly because of his refusal to accept the tricolore (adopted and worn as a rosette by the revolutionaries) as the flag of France, preferring the white royalist one, he never came to the throne and we finally see the end of the royal monarchy and the setting up of the 2nd French Republic with Louis Napoleon III (nephew of Napoleon I) as the first president of the French republic – he was still called Emperor of the French, so in a way he was the last ‘monarch’. As to whether social justice improved vastly then; well that’s another story.

Victor Hugo took the writing of his novel very seriously and spent a long time over it as he felt very strongly about social justice and human degradation and rights. He considered that he was addressing the same issues in other European countries, such as Britain, Spain, Italy and Germany, and hoped that his book could have a good influence on them. The critics’ response to his book at the time was varied; a lot of it negative as some parties didn’t want to know about social problems and considered him over-sympathetic to the revolutionaries. However, commercially, the book was a great success and has remained so ever since it was published.

Returning to the subject of monarchy: the kings and queens of European countries are all intermingled, with battles and marriages swapping power from country to country – intricate and fascinating, but far too big a topic for me to tackle! However, I am interested to speculate on the reasons why the British monarchy survived whilst the French didn’t. I should think it may be partly due to the fact that a constitutional style of monarchy (with much reduced power compared with the absolute version) co-existing with a parliament representing the people was introduced much earlier in Britain.

Oliver Cromwell, a staunch puritan/protestant with strong anti-catholic views (highly controversial in Ireland!) was a key figure in promoting the power of parliament and diminishing that of royalty. He played an important role in the English Civil Wars between Parliamentarians and Royalists that started in 1642 and lead to the execution of King Charles I in 1649 – Cromwell was one of the first to sign the death warrant! A republic was declared known as the Commonwealth of England, which lasted till 1660, during which time Cromwell was Head of State as Lord Protector (he was offered the crown, but refused) from 1653 till he died of kidney problems in 1658, only to be exhumed and posthumously hung for treason three years later, after the restoration of the monarchy in the form of Charles II in 1660. During this interregnum period, Cromwell was instrumental in building up a government system with a proper elected parliament for England, Ireland and Scotland, but he took on more and more royal trappings for himself yet was a hard puritanical leader for the people, such that when Charles returned from exile in Holland, he was welcomed and was a popular king, nicknamed the ‘Merry Monarch’ as he allowed theatres which had been closed since the beginning of the Civil War to re-open and encouraged the arts and science.

Unfortunately, Charles was never able to produce a legitimate child as an heir (though plenty of illegitimate ones) so on his death in 1685, his brother James who was an ardent Roman Catholic convert succeeded to the throne as James II. James’s Catholicism became the cause of increasing unrest, especially so when his 2nd wife (a Catholic) produced a male heir, displacing his two daughters from his first Protestant wife, and in 1688, William, a sovereign Prince of Orange of the the House of Orange-Nassau of Holland was actually invited by British Protestants and Parliamentarians to invade Britain and overthrow James II. William invaded and James fled, after which William together with his wife Mary (actually James’s daughter) became joint protestant monarchs as William III and Mary II – ‘William and Mary’, a well-known duo. This established that the British Monarchy was to be protestant - though not really officially till the Act of Settlement of 1701, which still stands today, despite having been started by Henry VIII’s break with Rome in 1536. It was also the beginning of Constitutional Monarchy in England with Parliament established as an official institution and doing the real governing, as opposed to ‘parliaments’ dating back to 1066 after the Norman conquest by William II, which were really just a group of earls, barons, bishops and abbots who were called to talk (French – parler – hence parliament) but no doubt in those days the king always got his own way anyway!

A more recent boost to the British monarchy came right at the end of the 19th century when a certain Princess ‘May’ of Teck married Prince George instead of his elder brother Prince Albert Victor, known as ‘Eddy’ who died of pneumonia in 1892. ‘Eddy’ was heir to the throne and on his death, George inherited not only the throne, but also Eddy’s fiancée May, and in 1910 when his father King Edward VII died, they became King George V and Queen Mary. They were a couple who took their duties, and in fact the role of the monarchy extremely seriously, much more so than Eddy would have done. The beginning of the 20th century was a tense time in history with industrial relations problems, strikes and the struggle of the Suffragettes in Britain, but most especially, the looming conflict in Europe, which led to World War I. Mary was a very intelligent woman who gave her husband very wise advice; especially during the war years, they worked tirelessly at supporting their subjects, in particular the poorer ones and the soldiers; Mary organised women to knit and sew and send off parcels of warm textiles to the battle front, among other things. They cared for their subjects and the monarchy rather at the expense of their family: George felt he couldn’t offer shelter to his cousin, the last tsar of Russia Nicholas II, who was subsequently executed along with his whole family by the Bolsheviks; and his sons also didn’t receive much loving support, maybe with consequences; elder son Edward who would go on to abdicate the throne in favour of his true love Mrs Simpson, and younger son George who would become a very nervous but very good King George VI (as in ‘The King’s Speech’). George V, till his death in 1936, but more especially Mary, till her death in 1953, just 10 weeks before her granddaughter Princess Elizabeth (whom she had instilled with her own strong sense of royal duty) was crowned Queen Elizabeth II, together made a tremendous contribution to the survival of the British monarchy. The affection for Queen Elizabeth II displayed at her Diamond Jubilee, after 60 years on the throne, shows she has stood the test of time and her successors seem secure.

1978 version

Just one last point about the stealing of the loaf of bread: when I watched the non-musical 1978 film version of Les Misérables with Anthony Perkins as a grim Javert, I was so struck by how terrible it was that a man should receive such very harsh treatment for stealing a loaf of bread to save his family from starving to death. Tragically, there are still people starving like this, and it makes me reflect that while there are people starving, we can never have a happy peaceful world. Men whose families are starving can not be expected to just put up with it, but will rebel and cause revolutions such as the Russian Revolution where the normal people rose up against Tsar Nicholas II, protesting against the decadence of the aristocracy and the severe shortage of food; the women joining in shouting “Give us Bread!” after being constantly sent home from bread queues empty-handed. The soldiers were starving too, so many of them refused to obey the Tsar’s orders to fight and even shoot rebels, leading finally to the Bolsheviks under Lenin signing the peace Treaty of Brest-Litovst in March 1918 to end the war with Germany, and ultimately leading to the creation of the USSR.

At the moment we have financial crises in countries all over the world. Thankfully, the people in many of these countries are a good step above starvation, but if the family’s income is barely enough to feed itself with nothing left over to spend on other things, the other things will go out of business, workers will lose their jobs (if they were lucky enough to have one) dissatisfaction amongst the people will escalate and the economy of the country will suffer – a vicious circle, and it all comes down to the humble loaf of bread!

I called my article ‘Reflections on Les Misérables’ and I think I’ve reflected quite long enough, probably making some blunders in my history along the way; please feel free to correct me if you find any, and well done for plodding through to the end! I really enjoyed the 2012 ‘period drama’ musical movie, Les Misérables, great acting, scenery, script and music, and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.
http://www.perioddramas.com/articles/reflections-on-les-miserables.php

Girl with a Pearl Earring: Painting, Book, and Period-Drama Film

“Girl with a Pearl Earring”: essentially the beautiful painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), but also a captivating book by Tracey Chevalier and Peter Webber's haunting film released in 2003.

Living in the Netherlands close to Delft, where Vermeer lived probably all his life (although many details of his life, including his precise date and place of birth remain unknown), I have a natural interest in him and admiration for his work. When in 1996 an exhibition of 22 of Vermeer's 35 known paintings came to the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, the country was abuzz with the name “Vermeer”, and such was the demand that it was all but impossible to get an appointment to see it! When Tracey Chevalier's book was published and available in the bookshops, copies flew off the shelves like hotcakes. I loved the book and read it several times. Of course, it is a fictional interpretation of Vermeer's life in which the author is entitled to exercise any amount of poetic licence. However, judging from the small number of works accomplished in his lifetime and the fact that he had a wife, mother-in-law and eleven children, plus the servants, to feed, I can well imagine that the women in his life would have preferred him to have churned out more pictures and might have been a bit frustrated at his obsessive reverence to his art, which they didn't understand and which slowed him down. For this reason I have the feeling that we could be seeing quite a true likeness both in the character of the real and fictional man, and in the lifestyle of a Dutch artist of the time.

Top: Vermeer's wife Catharina (Essie Davis) and the local art collector Pieter van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson).Bottom: Griet (Scarlett Johansson) cleaning the windows of Vermeer's studio, just before their eyes meet.

When the film was released in The Netherlands in April 2004, I hurried to see it. Having enjoyed the book so much, I was ready to be disappointed by the film, and to be honest, I was just a little bit. However, having just watched it again on DVD, and again listening to the director's comments, I have revised my opinion and have concluded that I am not disappointed at all, so much so, that I feel inspired to write about it and to draw some comparisons between book and film.

My first disappointment in the film came right at the beginning, when I felt that Vermeer and his wife should, as in the book, have been seen to visit Griet's home when considering taking her into service, as it was on that occasion that they had witnessed her creation of the chopped-vegetable pie-chart. Vermeer had recognised her eye for artistic detail, which he had seen in nobody else, especially not in his wife, who had little appreciation of art and was rather clumsy, as typified by her knocking the vegetable-knife off the table and sending it spinning across the floor. He had known instantly that he could trust Griet with the cleaning of his precious studio! In the film, we get a glimpse of the vegetable arrangement and the spinning knife, but don't get to see the Master till much, much later when Griet has already been working in his house for several days. Their first real encounter is in the studio and is a very significant moment in the film, coming after a big build-up. The head maid, Tanneke, has already explained why his wife, Catharina, has not been allowed in the studio for so long; they had ushered her into the studio, themselves remaining on the threshold, furtively peering through the doorway – she had opened the shutters, at Catharina's command, so throwing light onto the darkened studio and we saw the way her eyes lit up when she first saw the half-finished painting on the easel. Before entering himself and seeing Griet reaching up to clean the windows, Vermeer lurks in the doorway silently watching her, and immediately we can sense the unspoken, forbidden chemistry between them – the perfect build up! The fact that the man in question is Colin Firth makes this moment worth waiting for!

Vermeer (Colin Firth) and Griet (Scarlett Johansson) preparing paints together.

The book gives us many more facts than the film; for example, about Griet's father's accident when the tile-firing kiln exploded leaving him blind and injured, such that he could no longer practise his trade and hence necessitating that Griet go into service to save the family from starving. The film also tells us nothing of her brother who suffered terribly during his arduous apprenticeship, nor of her sister who was devastated at Griet's departure and at her subsequent distancing from her family. In the film, one glimpse of her father's cruelly disfigured face and hand tells us enough – no explanation is needed! Again later, a great line in the book: “I never thought I would learn from a maid”, spoken by Vermeer after altering his painting at Griet's silent bidding, is rendered superfluous in the film by the look that passes between them and the closeness of their hands as they mix colours – it says it all!

I now realise that in film, emotions are immediately visible and often make facts unnecessary. As emotions and relationships develop, the story unfolds and races onwards. Additional facts about Griet's family background would have hindered the unfolding, and her mother's tortured expression as she has to part with her daughter communicates all we need to know about the family's circumstances.

The intricate descriptions in the book give us a vivid mental impression of the thoughts and feelings of the characters and of the life of the household, whilst leaving our imagination to create our own actual images. This is part of the charm of books. However, when we watch a film, especially a period drama as well done as this one, we are immersed in the situation and actually experience the things as they happen:

• the sounds, of footsteps above her when she is feeling isolated in the cellar, and of babies crying below her when she is isolated in the studio, of the laundry water bubbling, of the geese and chickens and of the pet parrot, and of the all-important chair as she drags it across the floor, so putting into action her suggested change in the painting scene, which in the book, incidentally, is a subtle and silent change in the folds of the blue table cloth – very different;
• the hustle and bustle and the smell of the meat market;
• the coldness, visible in the freezing breath and the frozen-stiff nightshirt;
• the facial expressions and eye contact – the tear as he inserts the earring and the shared emotion as he wipes away her tear with his thumb. Here, another difference between book and film: in the film he tenderly pierces her ear himself at her request – in the book she has had advance warning and has pierced her ear herself with the help of numbing clove oil (less painful but less romantic) and the tenderness is further impaired by his insistance on her painfully inserting the other earring, which couldn’t be seen – his obsession for his work making him selfish. In fact, the use of the earrings at all: quinttessential for the painting, fateful for Griet, bears witness to his selfishness. Of course, the film gives a hint of this aspect, but by being less expicit the romantic feeling is less impaired.
• the flashes of realisation seen in the eyes, of Tanneke, when she realises the implications of the change of sleeping places, of Vermeer when Griet describes the clouds and he realises that she sees beauty, light and colour as he does, while others see only commonplace things, and of Griet, when she realises and is shocked at her master's unwitting insult to his wife when he quietly points out to her the artistic value of the pearl in his wife's ear;
• the light versus shadow (of course, a key element in Vermeer's work), the camera obscura, a brand new invention of the time, and the reflection she observes in the silver bowl she is cleaning;
• the hesitation and wordlessness, especially as she leaves the house for the last time knowing that he is standing silently behind the door

– all of these things work together to give us such a ‘real’ picture, that we can do without lots of facts. Maybe we do need to be rather thoughtful, patient viewers to appreciate all of these things, but perhaps that also applies to appreciating Vermeer's paintings!

Top: Paul the butcher (Geoff Bell) and his son Pieter (Cillian Murphy) selling meat at a local market.Bottom: Vermeer (Colin Firth) putting the pearl earring on Griet (Scarlett Johansson), shortly after piercing her ear.

The scenery of the film is second to none! Despite many of the scenes having been filmed in Luxembourg, Belgium, and Venice in order to show life lived at the water's edge, using the canals for transportation, but also for so many other daily functions (Holland is too spick and span and would have required more set-building), it portrays perfectly how I imagine how the Dutch lifestyle would have been at the time. The glimpse of Vermeer's famous painting, “View of Delft”, displayed behind Griet when she is (reluctantly) in the house of Vermeer's lecherous, all-powerful patron, van Ruijven, together with the real-life views of Delft's market square, the old town hall with its unmistakable red shutters, and the Nieuwe Kerk, all serve to place the location firmly in the Netherlands.

Here again, the book explains more about the significance of the star in the centre of the market square, which incidentally disappeared just a few months after the shooting of the film, when the square was repaved in preparation for the funeral of Prins Bernard in December 2004 (such a shame after so many years, but at least the film made it in time!). The star was important for Griet as she and her brother and sister had played and explored by following each point of the star. It features again at the end, as she stands in the centre wondering which direction to go to find her future.

The book fast-forwards ten years to Vermeer's death, and we see Griet happily married to Pieter, the butcher's son, with two children, her mother finally able to eat meat, and her father having passed away. We learn that Catharina is forced by the lawyer handling the will to hand over the earrings to Griet, and how painful it is for her to comply. Griet also hears from one of the sons that his father had borrowed back the painting of her and had it by him as he died – all very emotional! The film is open-ended: soon after Griet's departure, Tanneke comes, presumably to her house, and gives her a cloth containing the earrings. Griet just scrunches it up in her hands and the film ends by focusing on the painting itself, which cannot but be appropriate. However it leaves us with unanswered questions. Having read the book first, I can't judge whether film-viewers who have not read it predict the ending, but I'm sure they know she will turn to Pieter – after all, she already made a commitment after realising that her master actually did still love his wife, and why not – Pieter is rather nice – much nicer than I had pictured him when reading!

This brings me to the two essential features of film – how can I have left them until last?!: the music and the actors. Alexandre Desplat's haunting music beautifully fills any otherwise silent moments, and the acting is superb. It goes without saying that Colin Firth is brilliant, his subtle smile captivating, but all of the actors are great! Especially the women: Essie Davis' haughty but sad Catharina; Judy Parfitt's austere but understanding mother-in-law, Maria Thins; Joanna Scanlan, the perfect, plump head maid, Tanneke; Alakina Mann as the smirky, callous daughter, Cornelia; and of course, Scarlett Johansson as the innocent yet sensuous Griet, who just happens to look so much like the girl in the painting! I think Vermeer would have approved of these women – most of his paintings are of house interiors including a woman.

In conclusion, the “Girl with a Pearl Earring” painting is a masterpiece, and both the subsequent book and the period-drama film are great! We don't have to choose between them; they complement each other and each excels in its own way. I'm sure that the author and film director have mutual respect for one another, and it would be nice to imagine that Johannes Vermeer himself would also have had respect for both of these art forms, which highlight his genius and have brought his work to the attention of so many!
http://www.perioddramas.com/articles/girl-with-a-pearl-earring.php

The Duchess - Plot Summary

At the age of 17, Georgiana Spencer is married to the Duke of Devonshire. She soon realizes that hers is to be a loveless marriage and her only purpose in the arrangement is to provide her husband with a male heir. She hasn't much good fortune on that front, producing two daughters and having several miscarriages as well and it is many years before she succeeds. What relationship she does have with her husband breaks down completely when he begins what proves to be a lifelong affair with her best friend, Bess Foster. She does make a life for herself, becoming quite active in politics and the fashion icon of her day.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0864761/plotsummary

The 2004 BBC mini-series ‘North and South’ provides us with yet another brilliantly turned-out, authentically and atmospherically-set period drama that throws us back in time and brings history alive for us, albeit through a fictional story. As with most period dramas, this story has, at its core, the gradual development, from most unlikely beginnings, of a romance between a beautiful woman and a handsome man coming from different classes. In this respect, it can be compared with Pride and Prejudice; also in the fact that in both cases the initial proposal of marriage is most disdainfully refused as preposterous by the lady in question. The romance between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy has a rocky enough beginning and a stony enough rejection, but even this impossible-case scenario is eclipsed by the apparent impossibility of a match between Margaret Hale and Mr Thornton.

In North and South, the lady is Margaret Hale and it is the changes in her outlook and character that are the main focus of the story; in fact Elizabeth Gaskell, the author of the book on which the film is based, originally intended to entitle it ‘Margaret’ or ‘Margaret Hale’. She was persuaded to change the title to ‘North and South’ by Charles Dickens who agreed to publish her story in 1854 in serialized form in his weekly journal ‘Household Words’; she proceeded to re-emphasize the ‘Margaret’ aspect for the publication in book form a little later. The title ‘North and South’ embodies the stark contrast between two geographically opposite points and between two diametrically opposed lifestyles. Dickens chose it to highlight the conflict between the north and south of England at a time when public unrest was escalating on account of the ‘outrageous’ new developments caused by the Industrial Revolution, which took place in the north from the late 1700s through to the mid 1800s. Until this time, wealth had mainly come from agriculture so the landowning aristocracy were in control, and could lead a life of comfort as there were plenty of poor labourers to work the land for them. In return for their labours from generation to generation, the workers could expect to be provided with simple houses, basic food and, when times were bad, the occasional charitable gift from their masters, or more often from the lady of the house. In other words, the privileged realized that their position carried with it some degree of responsibility for those who worked for them. The Industrial Revolution changed all this. The new bosses were the men who controlled the natural resources, such as coal and water to run the machinery, and the factory owners and tenant managers. The owners and managers of mines and cotton mills (the textile industry was one of the first to be mechanized) were not such benevolent masters; they paid meagre wages but expected their workers to fend for themselves; their employees' private lives were none of their business. Factory bosses themselves had often worked their way up from poverty so they well understood hardship, but had had to be hard to reach that position; Mr Thornton in our story is one such case. Dickens was very aware of the turbulent changes taking place in the society of his day, and the plight of the poor. This situation was the backdrop to most of his stories, especially ‘Hard Times’, which was also first published in 1854 in instalment-form for his journal, ‘Household Words’, most articles in which dealt with these issues. The serialized ‘North and South’ fitted the genre perfectly.

There was mutual disdain between northerners and southerners at the time, around 1850. The ‘upper-class’ people from the south considered their lifestyle to be refined and civilized, while that of the north was crude, dirty and based only on earning money. People of the north considered the southern lifestyle to be boring and the people to be spoilt and complacent, while they in the north got on with the hard work of life. Actually, these views haven't completely died out to this day, and the current discrepancy in job opportunities and wages reflect this! In our story, these prejudices ensconced in our two main characters are gradually broken down.Margaret Hale grew up in comfortable, aristocratic and professional circles, despite her father's ‘living’ as a clergyman not stretching to as many smart new gowns for his wife as she would have liked. Margaret spent ten years living with her Aunt Shaw and cousin Edith who lived as gentry in London, only staying at the parsonage with her less affluent parents in the beautiful southern village of Helstone for holidays. After Edith's no-expense-spared wedding to a Captain Lennox, and Margaret's own refusal of his lawyer brother's proposal of marriage to her, Margaret looks forward to returning to life at the parsonage only to hear from her father that the family is about to relocate to the industrial north. Mrs Hale is only informed of this at the very last moment; she is shocked to the core, and can never really accept that her husband's long-deliberated conviction that his doubts concerning his faith forced him to quit his job was sufficient reason to ‘condemn’ the family to such a fate.

Anyway, when the family arrive in the northern industrial town of Milton, Margaret and her mother's worst fears are confirmed. Margaret's introduction to Mr Thornton couldn't have been worse, as she witnessed his harsh and violent treatment of one of his employees who he had caught smoking. Later he has the chance to explain to her, but only much later does she begin to understand the fact that the punishment he had administered was done in the interest of the employees, for whom he was responsible; a recent fire at his mill had caused the death of 300 workers, including many children, and he had found the experience of burying them heartbreaking. Thornton's disciplinary action is defended as justified by a very freethinking and pro-active mill worker Nicholas Higgins, who is at the time busy trying to rally his fellow workers to take strike action to improve their lot. It is interesting that these two men at the opposite ends of the spectrum, one a company boss, the other the leader of the rebels, in fact have a lot in common. They both strongly believe in their principles and stand by them: Higgins at one point mentioning that he would sooner die at his post than yield; Thornton being prepared to bring in Irish labourers to break the strike at whatever risk to himself, while fellow bosses were willing to give in. He genuinely seems to believe (true or not, I don't know) that he can't afford to pay his workers more without going under, so that it is actually in the workers' interest for the strike to fail: “It's our livelihood at stake, but it's their lives!”

Actually, Margaret's brother Frederick's action in standing up for his principles and the rights of his fellow seamen falls into a similar category. Interestingly, The Combination Acts of 1799, which were passed to prevent mutinies during the Napoleonic Wars (poor Frederick was blacklisted as a mutineer, hence having to flee the country for fear of being court-martialled and surely facing the death penalty) were used for decades to suppress Trade Unions. Since then of course, various Government Acts have been passed dealing with the issue of compensation for strikers. Situations differ from country to country; in England, for example, the rights of strikers are still very different from those in France, where the right to strike is recognized and guaranteed by the Constitution – things are not so clear-cut in other countries. Of course, the governments of different countries have also since accepted responsibility for social welfare to varying degrees; ‘North and South’ shows us most clearly the dire consequences of there being no system of benefits in place, as was the case at that time.

Margaret Hale (Daniela Denby-Ashe) as she first sees the cotton snowflakes at Thornton's cotton factory. BBC 2004. Screencap credit: Desert Sky Screencaps.

The mill workers certainly had a case for striking: the conditions in the factory were appalling! We, and Margaret, are at first entranced by the seemingly beautiful sight of huge ‘snowflakes’ floating through the air inside the work-hall of Marlborough Mills, of which Mr Thornton is the boss. These ‘snowflakes’ turn out to be deadly fluffy cotton fibres that are slowly but surely blocking up the lungs of the workers. Again showing concern for his workers as well as for his business, Mr Thornton has taken action, in advance of his peers, to reduce this air pollution by installing a special, newly invented ventilation wheel. However, the improvement is nowhere near enough and the damage is already done; ringleader Nicholas Higgins' daughter Bessie, who has become best friends with Margaret, succumbs to the killer lung disease along with many others. Margaret is shocked to experience the human suffering she sees all around her, especially that of the families of striking workers who can't afford to feed their children, and her ‘southern’ compassion prompts her to take baskets of food to help out, for which she is criticized for helping to prolong the strike rather than helping. Finally, as the deadlock continues, poor John Boucher tragically takes his life, followed shortly by his wife, leaving six starving orphans.

Margaret's spontaneous expression of compassion also leads her to step in front of Mr Thornton to protect him from ‘missiles’ hurled at him by the strikers incensed by his bringing in Irish workers to break the strike. She does this without thinking, as the incident occurs long before she realizes that her feelings towards him are beginning to change. The fact that Margaret's actions are misinterpreted by John's mother (who later talks him into proposing to Margaret, as protocol demanded) serves to highlight the gulf between the old traditional view of womanhood and Margaret's ‘modern’ view of it. Persuading her son in this way must really have gone against the grain for the poor mother, as she is not at all fond of Margaret and considers her to be in no way worthy of her son. Anyway, at the time, Margaret refuses him in no uncertain terms!

Margaret Hale (Daniela Denby-Ashe) and John Thornton (Richard Armitage) at the railway station, finally realising each other's true feelings. BBC 2004. Screencap credit: Desert Sky Screencaps.

However, in due course, the most unlikely becomes reality! Mr Thornton and Mr Higgins finally realize that they do indeed have many principles in common and discover mutual respect for each other. Together they set up a works canteen where both the boss and the workers can eat cheaply, to everyone's advantage – it is Higgins' sense of duty and determination to feed the Boucher orphans (and Thornton's admiration of him for doing so) that precipitates this, and it is Higgins' remaining daughter Mary who is the cook. Thornton's hard-hearted mum finally ‘softens’ just a little bit; but most importantly, John Thornton and Margaret finally resolve their differences, acknowledge their feelings for each other and realize they can't live without each other. Their north versus south prejudices have proven unfounded - Margaret is shocked to discover that she has practically swapped her allegiance; perhaps she has also begun to see the attraction of the ‘northern’ harder form of masculinity, and John in turn has come to realize that strength needn't exclude compassion.

So, we finally witness the touching love scene that takes place on the platform of a railway station somewhere between Milton and London, where they meet when their trains cross, after both of them have set out to retrieve each other; he produces a yellow rose picked in her beloved Helstone; she timidly spells out a proposition. At first, she is too shy to disclose her feelings for him openly; she might disparagingly have been described as ‘strong-minded’ for a woman, but she isn't that emancipated! Instead she attempts to disguise her feelings by offering him a purely business deal. She has just inherited a large sum of money, and property, from a Mr Bell, an old friend and ex-Oxford-tutor of her father's, and a godfather to Frederick. He had actually been instrumental in Mr Hale's decision to relocate to Milton in the first place. He knew that Mr Hale wanted to escape from Helstone to a place where nobody knew of his leaving the church, and he found him a potential classics' student in the tenant manager of Marlborough Mills (of which he was the owner), namely John Thornton. Mr Bell had become very fond of Margaret and wished to take care of her after the death of her mother and father. He had rather hoped that she might even marry him to look after him in his old age (and final months, as it turns out), but when she dashes his hopes, he benevolently hands over to her the bulk of his assets, including Marlborough Mills. She is now a rich woman and she offers John money to enable him to continue running the mill, which had had to close down on account of his over-cautious decision concerning an investment. She tries to sell him the idea by explaining that the money is just lying in the bank; she, as a woman, would not be allowed to do much with it, whereas he could put it to very good use, giving work again to those who depended on him; in the process, she says, paying her higher interest than the bank. Luckily, John is well able to see her true feelings for him through this guise, and we have the happy ending to our love story.

We are lucky enough to have so many great period dramas, but ‘North and South’ always seems to rate as one of the best; it comes top of the rating in the Top Ten list, as voted by visitors to this website. Maybe this is partly due to the fact that it not only is a great love story, but also involves so many important issues that are still relevant today, such as employment rights and prejudices that shouldn't exist and should be broken down. However, the main reason for its high rating is probably the fact that it is a very good period drama! All the characters are well formed and convincing, and I imagine that Elizabeth Gaskell would be very happy with the actors' portrayal of them. Richard Armitage, as John Thornton, with sharp facial features suggesting resolute determination but with deep-set expressive eyes which later betray a softness inside; Daniela Denby-Ashe, as the spontaneous and compassionate Margaret, whose thoughtful face can light up in a second with a wide cheery smile; Tim Pigott-Smith as her gentle, academic father;Sinéad Cusack as her mum, sweet but peeved: Anna Maxwell Martin (well known to me from ‘Bleak House’ and ‘Becoming Jane’) as Bessie, cheerful and pragmatic, even on her deathbed; Brendan Coyle (from ‘Larkrise to Candleford’ and ‘Downton Abbey’) deep-thinking and determined, ‘standing on principle’ but with a strong moral sense of honesty and duty; and Pauline Quirke (from ‘David Copperfield’ and ‘Little Dorrit’) as Dixon the maid who considers herself to be the mistress's ‘protecting fairy’ – perfect for the part, as were all the actors for their parts!

I would conclude by saying that, for me, this period drama is well cast, well acted and generally very well done!
http://www.perioddramas.com/articles/north-and-south.php

Love for Period Drama!

A collection of Period Dramas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpMvkWIyRXc&noredirect=1

Why are Period Dramas so Popular?

By M. Gowlett, guest author

What is so special about period drama? What distinguishes this genre of film from the others is that whereas the majority of films are fictional, period dramas are based, however loosely and with however much poetic licence, on historical facts. Consequently, while all films offer escapism from our worries and stress, a period drama transports us back in time and engulfs us in a lifestyle of a bygone era, so giving us a glimpse of the world as experienced by our ancestors – that can't help but be captivating!

That period dramas are sometimes known as costume dramas is not surprising as their most immediate and conspicuous feature is the costumes. None of us would gladly swap our jeans for such uncomfortable attire, but we find the costumes fascinating and charming to see – Colin Firth's impact on female viewers in his role as Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC TV mini-series “Pride and Prejudice” was at least in part due to how stunning he looked in his costume! Despite his having played so many other roles in popular films, including “Mamma Mia”, his rendition of Mr. Darcy is the lasting impression we have of him, together possibly with his Johannes Vermeer in “Girl with a Pearl Earring”.

Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice(1995 TV Mini-series)

Alongside the costumes come the deftly transfigured town and country settings, which serve to complete the illusion that we are in a different age. Some may be purpose-built sets, but others must be real city scenes that have been miraculously altered and filmed with all traces of the present day eliminated. Interior décor of houses, castles, ships, old cars, trains and railway stations, depending on the period, all offer powerful imagery to enhance the illusion.

Period dramas come in all types, ranging from the peaceful, romantic sagas focusing on family life, such as the Jane Austen dramas, to the violent, action stories of Shakespeare's kings. Some have feel-good, happy endings, typically where everyone happily marries their chosen one; others profoundly sad endings, such as “Tess of the D'Urbervilles”, where we are left in tears. Many show us the enormous gulf that existed between rich and poor (even more than today), where the rich were all powerful and the poor were bereft of any semblance of justice, or, at best, subject to unforgivably hard justice, as typified by “Les Miserables”. Such films serve to remind us how thankful we should be for medical advances and our health and legal systems, even if we do complain about them!

There really is a genre of period drama to suit us all. I imagine there may be a distinct gender divide. As a female, I enjoy those peaceful dramas where the pace of life is gentle and the accent is on people's thoughts and feelings rather than on action. We see that some women were frustrated by the restrictions placed on them by society, as we certainly would be too, but we also observe that women in Jane Austen's day seemed to have quite a nice peaceful existence, which appears rather attractive when we are feeling too busy! In her world, even in families that considered themselves quite poor (not the really poor!), the work load of the lady of the house comprised controlling the housekeeping, not actually doing the housework herself! For her daughters, “work” was nothing more arduous than sewing: mending, altering (to comply with the latest fashion) and making nightwear/underwear during the privacy of the mornings; more delicate work, such as embroidery, in the afternoons when a visitor might call. And for the whole family, the evenings were devoted to sociable pursuits (actually, I happen to really enjoy sewing, but don't often seem to find the time!). This type of film doesn't appeal to my husband – not enough action! I guess the male of the species, being the hunter, is inherently more active. His macho hormones dictate that his preferred genre of film must contain elements of adventure, violence and intrigue. There are plenty of period dramas that provide all of these. Fighting has always been a way of settling disputes, both on and off the battlefield: having sex has, of course, always been a fundamental part of life, and in the past there were fewer other forms of entertainment; and monarchs of yesteryear had the power to dispose of unwanted rivals and seemed to have no scruples about using that power. Consequently, fierce fighting, passionate love-making and royal executions feature accordingly in the more violent types of period drama.

Whatever type of period drama is for each of us, all of them provide a great form of escapism. What they all have in common is that life was less complicated then than it is now, with all our many options but so many accompanying stresses! This for me is the key to period drama's appeal. To escape, we can also look to the future. This may be very exciting but I can only imagine that life in the future will have even more complications and stress. Personally, for entertainment, I prefer to look back towards simplicity. It’s more relaxing!

http://www.perioddramas.com/articles/why-are-period-dramas-so-popular.php