"The Age of Innocence" movie

Love love LOVE it!!!!!!

Breaks my heart every time.

Camptastic...in a good way. I love the book and find the film horribly miscast in every role, but it still works. Michelle and DDL have great chemistry...the costumes are fun to look at and Joanne Woodward's narration is soothing.

An exquisite, extremely faithful adaptation of the Wharton novel, though I think the callow, uncontinental Michelle Pfeiffer is thoroughly miscast as the Countess. And Miriam Margolyes should have gotten an Oscar, or at least a nod. What else would you like to know?

Why didn't he go up see her in the end??

Nobody does a simpering bitch quite as well as Winona Ryder does.

It's an exquisite film but have to agree that the Pfeiffer as Olenska was miscast.

Loved it. Love Edith Wharton.

House of Mirth is even better.

R4, the book ends the same way. I think it's because he wants to remember the Countess as she once was. He also doesn't want to dwell on the mistakes of the past (either being unfaithful to his dead wife or choosing duty over love).

Noni's finest moment, though she didn't know it.

I thought he didn't go up because he couldn't face what he'd sacrificed out of cowardice.

Newland is such a product, if not victim, of the traditions of the society in which he was reared that he only becomes conscious of it when he encounters the independent Countess. Decades after the unconsummated affair with Ellen, he feels that he has missed the 'flower of life'---seeing Ellen again would only remind him of the hollowness of his existence. He opts instead to live with his memories.

One of those early-90s movies that are largely forgotten by mainstream audiences (along with "Batman Returns") but that get a lot of love on DataLounge. A while ago, in a thread about film scores, a poster wrote some interesting comments on the music in "Age of Innocence", specifically the opening sequence with the flowers.

So many good lines: "Do you suppose Christopher Columbus would have taken all that trouble just to go to the Opera with Larry Lefferts?"

R3, Margolyes was very funny on the Graham Norton Show in the UK saying that she should have been nominated for an Oscar for her work but the studio chose to push Winona Ryder for Best Supporting Actress, instead.

The casting of the major roles if off, but the minor roles are perfectly cast:

Mrs. Manson Mingott: Miriam Margolyes

Louisa van der Luyden: Alexis Smith

Lawrence Lefferts: Richard E. Grant

Regina Beaufort: Mary Beth Hurt

Sillerton Jackson: Alec McCowan

Mrs. Archer: Sian Phillips

Janey Archer: Carolyn Farina (from Whit Stillman's "Metropolitan")

And there are great, great sequences: the opera sequence at the beginning... the Beauforts' ball... the theater performance of "The Shaugraun"... the archery contest at Newport... the final dinner party... and May's big revelation to Newland near the end ("You see, I thought I was... and it turns out I was right after all!")

"Draw it mild"

Scorsese made that one from the heart. I wish he would make more films that he really wants to ('Silence' may be one of those projects), instead of making films to pay his mortgage.

"And New York... declined..."

I've seen this movie so many times and each time I notice some detail that I missed before. Scorsese's best movie. If Michelle was miscast who would have been better? Just curious about people's ideas.

There was no one at the right age to play Ellen Olenska when it was made. It was too bad Scorsese didn't make it ten years earlier; Sigourney Weaver or Meryl Streep would have been perfect.

I recently saw the early 1930s version of the film, which has just been released on DVD--it's very stilted, and the other actors in it aren't good at all, but Irene Dunne is brilliant as the Countess Olenska. It's the best dramatic performance of hers I've ever seen.

[quote]or Meryl Streep would have been perfect.

Wasn't Countess Olenska supposed to be beautiful?

Beautiful film, Winona Ryder gives her best performance here.

Was Olenska's husband supposed to be sexual sadist and that's why she divorced?

Oh, yes.

Isn't the Countess supposed to be around 30? I suppose if they had made the movie 10 years ago, Cate Blanchett would have played her, or maybe Marion Cotillard.

it is hard to think of other people circa 1993 who cold have done it....Annette Bening?

Quite easily my favourite ever film. It has a grandness and smooth quality that makes it so very watchable. I've seen it so often I can comfortably quote and act alongside every scene. DDL is excellently cast, imo. He brings an intensity to his anguished character which is almost painful to watch I think.%0D I've not watched it for a few months so I may just go load up the portable dvd player and listen to it in the background as I make the lunch.

bump

Yes, Annette would have been perfect, if they wanted the Countess to be a neurotic, over the top,scenery chewing ham.

Really bad film. You keep wanting it to be better...and it just will not be better.

A friend who was a researcher has great stories. As she always pointed out, Pfeffer gets long takes because she can act and Ryder's performance was cut together from short takes because she couldn't.

A whole archery sequence, which was to be a major thematic set piece, was whittled down to notheing because Ryder could not play it.

She also pointed out that WASP-Wharton make the exotic Countess darked haired and the good, girl-next door wife blond. But being Italian, Scorcesse made the temptress blond and the girl next door, dark.

"A whole archery sequence, which was to be a major thematic set piece, was whittled down to notheing because Ryder could not play it." Ryder could not, cannot and will never be able to act. That bitchy should count her lucky stars for her "acting" career.

Really bad film? Honestly? I'd love to know why you think it's so bad, R29.

That would be most good, Newland. Most. Good.

I have not seen it since it came out, but at that time I felt the film was dull and superficial. (And I am a huge Wharton fan.)

There was amazing art direction and cinematography, but that does not make up for a film that cannot effectively translate the books concerns into effective visual imagery and dialog, and cannot probe deeply enough into the characters that we actually find their problems compelling.

I've never been a fan of Wynona Ryder. Her voice is thin and reedy and her presence is a void IMO.

Who did Noni shoplift her performance from for this film?

Gripping film, but I do not love it, because of my feelings about Newland Archer. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER He marries wrong, but it's not for love (he loves someone else), it's not for duty, it's not to benefit anyone else... it's out of sheer conventionality. %0D %0D I can't love the man, or hate him, or really care about the problems he creates for himself. I just want to slap him and leave.

love this book & the movie.

The fact that most ask the question at the end of the movie, why would he not go upstairs proves the film failed to capture just who Newland was and what were the intense pressures of that time and class. It would be like portraying the closet choice for gay men by selecting to limit the metaphor to an affair between a Cooper and a very glamorized Lambert surrounded by costume and New York chic.

The book was much more than the romantic love between two star crossed lovers. The book was about the prison that was the American Victorian age on the privileged American society and the American sense of art and beauty as mere collection and protocol with no passion or depth.

At the end, Newland chose to honor the memory of the one who appreciated his 'sacrifice' by committing to conformity and safety vs the one who loved him enough to sacrifice herself to a life of depravity so that he could be safe.

Newland was the times and the times had little honor only superficiality.

Who do you think would have been a better choice to play the Winona role?

I rated it as only second to Remains of the Day, at the time.

If it was being cast today:%0D %0D Daniel Day Lewis: Jude Law%0D Michelle Pfeiffer: Marion Cotillard or possibly Diane Kruger%0D Winona Ryder: Kiera Knightley%0D %0D The only thing that annoyed me about The Age Of Innocence was that half the reviews I read (in the UK) compared it to Merchant Ivory and felt the need to list the ways in which it was better than the MI films.

One of my favourite movies, if not my favourite. I don't care if Pfeiffer was miscast, she was wonderful in it and should've been nominated. And Winona was very good in that role.

What about Natassia Kinski for the countess role?%0D %0D She was about 33 at the time and at the height of her stunning, exotic beauty. Would have been perfect IMO.%0D %0D Here is a still of her from Terminal Velocity that was made in 1994.

Jude Law is a terrible actor. Casting him in the DDL role would be a crime.

I like Wharton, especially like the 1870s period, and generally like period films and Scorsese, but The Age of Innocence always seemed a dud: poorly cast, sumptuous in some respects but scrimping where it counts, and fundamentally off mark.

[quote]It would be like portraying the closet choice for gay men by selecting to limit the metaphor to an affair between a Cooper and a very glamorized Lambert surrounded by costume and New York chic.

Wow. That's deep.

"The fact that most ask the question at the end of the movie, why would he not go upstairs proves the film failed to capture just who Newland was and what were the intense pressures of that time and class.:%0D %0D Not really. The story resonates on so many levels, as good metaphors do, that it's perfectly understandable why people interpret it in different ways or, perhaps, even find it opaque or inconclusive. %0D %0D By the way, the York did a reading of a musical version last year that was really impressive. Even played on a piano you could hear how beautiful the score was. I'd love to see a production of it.%0D %0D %0D %0D %0D %0D

I would have cast Greta Schacchi as Olenska. She's a terrific, versatile and beautiful actress, with just the right amount of continental sophistication. Seeing her as Desiree in the Theatre Chatelet production of A Little Night Music only confirmed that for me.

bump

A mixed bag. Miriam Margoyles is a hoot. The final scene is beautifully quiet, and exquisitely pace. At last, something happens that is extremely moving and makes one want to forget all the deficits that preceded it.

I'm on the fence about Woodward's stately voiceover. The problem is its so much more interesting than anything else on screen. Ryder has a few very fine moments.

In the leads, Scoresese cast two of the greatest actors of his generation, and we watch them wilt under the heavyness of his conception.

Day Lewis over underplays, as if Archer's emotional restraint were an actory exercise, rather than a dimension of character. Pfeiffer, who should have been superb, and certainly should have looked ever inch Countess Olenska, is let down by the design team in ever way imaginable. Unbecomingly adorned and straddled opposite Day Lewis's unrelenting stiffness, she didn't have a chance. There's no chemistry between them. The irony is that Day Lewis seems not only simply happier with Ryder, but also so much more alive with her, that it is impossible to want anything for Archer and Ellen. Without that, the movie becomes nothing but an object lesson in Victorian stultification, not enough to engage at feature length plus.

A much better Wharton adaptation, for my money, is Richard Eyre's economical and heartrending House of Mirth, with Gillian Anderson (taking a great many risks and prevailing), Laura Linney (fantastic in one of her few nasty roles), Elizabeth McGovern, Anthony LaPaglia, Eric Stoltz, Jodhi May and Eleanor Bron. While Eyre's period New York and the characters' escapes therefrom are much less ostentatious, they are ironically much more elegant and evocative of the period and its opulent claustrophobia (so meticulously engineered in The Age of Innocense that one wants to run from the theater screaming) than their counterparts in the Scoresese film.

Awesome. I loved this movie when I was 8 back when it came out. I loved the ending, Glenn getting laughed at. Powerful.

Or, booed.

It's all right. It's no Jack and Jill though.

Armie Hammer as Newland Eva Green as Ellen Elizabeth Olsen as May

Some of you are casting way too old. Nastassia Kinski is 50! Not to mention that Ellen is American (and, yes, I know Green is English, but I think she could handle the accent).

whoops, I meant to say that Eva is French (of Swedish and Franco-Algerian parentage), has lived for years in England, and I'm sure she could handle the accent.

The person who suggested Kinski as the Countess meant it as an alternative to Pfeiffer IN 1993, not NOW.

I'd suggest Irene Jacob as the Countess IN 1993.

Miranda Richardson as the Countess (1993)?

Why did Archer not go up and see her? What is afraid of facing his own cowardice?

[quote]they are ironically much more elegant and evocative of the period and its opulent claustrophobia (so meticulously engineered in The Age of Innocense that one wants to run from the theater screaming)

[italic]Mary!!![/italic]

If I were to film it again today, I would cast:

Newland Archer: Ryan Gosling

The Countess Olenska: Naomi Watts

May Welland: Emma Stone

Mrs. Manson Mingott: Kathy Bates

Julius Beaufort: George Clooney

Mrs. Archer: Sigourney Weaver

Henry van der Luyden: Robert Wagner

Louisa van der Luyden: Joanne Woodward

r50, if you love "House Of Mirth" so much, you'd know that Richard Eyre had nothing to do with it, it was written and directed by Terence Davies.

MP is almost good but she seems to have "woe is me" stamped on her forehead and lets us see how miserable Ellen is from the start and doesn't hide it under exquisite charm and wit.

r61, you're right, I was wrong. Davies it is. I mistakenly remembered it being Eyre. However, that doesn't change the fact that I loved the movie.

"Mary!!!"

Love it when this is used as some kind of insult on DL.

Larry Lefferts was the ultimate aficionado on patent leather pumps.

r63, it's a cry of pure admiration here.

r60, it's obvious you know nothing about casting or The Age Of Innocence. Perhaps if you had made an educated guess and suggested Hugh Dancy or even Armie Hammer (two actors who communicate breeding, a period quality and aristocratic good looks) as Newland, or Marion Cotillard as Ellen, since she possesses beauty and a continental charm, you might have made an intelligent contribution. But opaque Ryan Gosling as Newland? Dishrag Naomi Watts as Ellen? ROBERT WAGNER as the "most powerful of New York society?"

Stick to temping.

Gee, r66: you really told HER off.

I bet you're quite the holy terror at the Expertise in Breeding, Period Quality and Aristocratic Good Looks Panel at the Mincing Prisspots Convention every year in Tallahassee.

I love the film too. I've read the book a long time after I saw it (I'm not an American, Wharton is not really known here), and once I disconnected myself from the images of the characters I knew from the film, I thought that the perfect casting at the time would have been Gina McKee as Ellen (31 when it was made) and Uma Thurman as May. But the actual casting, which did work, had its reasoning. Scrosese said he had Lean's Doctor Zhivago as an inspiration, so Pfeiffer's Ellen was homage to Julie Christie, Rider's May a reference to Geraldine Chaplin, whom he casted as May's mother.

No one loves Cotillard more than I do, but I don't see her as a New Yorker, even one who married and went to Europe. No one loves Gosling more than I do, but I don't see him as Newland. Armie Hammer would be perfect.

Didn't Armie Hammer too young yet to play Newland? My sense is that Newland and Ellen Olenska are the same age and quite a bit (at least ten years) older than May, which puts them at no younger than 30. Indeed, Ellen is so world-weary that she must be in her early or mid 30s, and Newland is the same age as she is.

I like the film, EXCEPT for the constant, smug droning of Miss Joanne Woodward.

Jon Hamm as "Archer".

No, r70. May is 22, Newland is 27 (he is 57 at novel's close and the shank of the story takes place thirty years earlier) and Ellen is two or three years older. Armie Hammer is 25, so he is technically perfect for Newland, though you'd probably want to cast someone with more leading man heft, like Hugh Dancy (Day-Lewis was approximately 35 when he played the part). But it's all a moot point. Scorsese's adaptation is, like Gone With The Wind, so well-done, sumptuous and faithful to the novel, there's no need for a remake (unless it were done as a BBC 6-part serial, for example).

Saw it for the first time recently, not having read this thread. Can't recall a film in which opulent interiors - at first so easy on the eye - become so stifling. Point made: 'trappings', indeed.

The open prison of Society which traps DDL is perhaps conveyed best by the smug horror that is Sillerton. McCowan excels.

Ryder's limitations didn't seem to matter - they suited the vapid if cunning character well. Pfeiffer though, regrettably, doesn't compel and convince as she has to. Chemistry lacking, you have to take DDL's infatuation on trust, which limits the film.

In one scene Pfeiffer has to enter a grand drawing room, where she will further her acquaintance with DDL. She walked in like a good-time gal entering a lively bar! I later read A Lane's take in 'The New Yorker', where he realised his distraction was caused by her hairstyle, which reminded him of Lucille Ball. Edith, one feels, wouldn't have loved Lucy.

Caveats aside, there's richness enough in the film to make another viewing a certainty.

[quote]In one scene Pfeiffer has to enter a grand drawing room, where she will further her acquaintance with DDL. She walked in like a good-time gal entering a lively bar!

I saw it the other day and I hate to say it because I love her, but Pfeiffer was either miscast or misdirected. That moment in particular felt totally out of place.

Rider was one note throughout the whole film. You understood her character more from the dialogue and the action, then Rider's acting.

I think there are definitely moments in Ryder's performance where you can see that underneath the goody two shoes exterior she actually understands what is going on between Newland and Olenska and acts to keep them separated.

Of course she does, R76. You can see how much she savored the moment when she tells him she's pregnant and he trapped for life.

R50's post is excellent.

Love Wharton but it is my least favorite book of hers. I find it too solemn and humorless.

I prefer Custom of the Country.

It think it could have even made a great MGM film in the 1940s with Lana Turner as Undine.

Has it ever been filmed?

Family Guy ripped Ryder a new one over her performance in this film.

[quote]One of those early-90s movies that are largely forgotten by mainstream audiences (along with "Batman Returns")

An unbelievably ignorant statement, especially on the "Batman Returns" front.

I prefer Custom of the Country. It think it could have even made a great MGM film in the 1940s with Lana Turner as Undine. Has it ever been filmed?

Michelle Pfeiffer bought the rights to it right after she did "The Age of Innocence." I don't know who she wanted to film it with (she was too old to play Undine even then). It would be a great film to do now--you'd need a great beauty who is very coarse to play Undine.

But I dare not suggest anyone lest r66, the High Priestess of the Tallahassee High Victorian Whatnot and Antimacassar Society, rip into me. Holy shit, was she ever one pissy prisspot back in 2011!

"Mary!" is not an insult. "Mary!" is "You're so gay and I love it!" or "I know what I said is super gay and I don't care!"

Love this movie. Heartbreaking and exquisite, and horribly, horribly underrated.

And how can no one have mentioned the credits sequence yet??

[quote]What about Natassia Kinski for the countess role? She was about 33 at the time and at the height of her stunning, exotic beauty. Would have been perfect IMO

I totally agree, R43. Absolutely perfect. MP, while a great actress and beautiful, was not sexy enough. She was too thin and frail, and looked like a bag of bones. Ryder was luminous, but virginal and dull. Ellen needed to ooze a mature and irresistible sex appeal to knock Newland off his feet. That role belonged to Kinski. Why didn't she get it?

By the time the film was made, Kinski was long out of Hollywood's radar.

And Ellen may be world-weary and sexy but she is an American who grew up in America.

Would Henry Cavill have made a decent Newland Archer?

" That role belonged to Kinski. Why didn't she get it?"

Uh, because she couldn't act and couldn't handle the dialogue?

Anyway, someone please clarify whether Ellen should have a foreign accent. I thought she had been raised in Europe, by ex-pat American parents.

There wasn't a lot of difficult dialog for Ellen as I recall.

Anna Paquin (The Piano) BEAT odd-on favorite Winona Ryder for the Oscar.

Was it justified? or was Winona robbed?

Agree 100% with R50 - there was nothing going on between DDL and Pfeiffer, which badly hurt the film.

While DDL's work here is miscalculated (or over-calculated), Pfeiffer is one of those actresses who rarely has any real chemistry with her leading men - there's a strong self-protective shell around her that she won't drop. Even in THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS, she's more genuinely sensual by herself singing than with Jeff Bridges.

Also love HOUSE OF MIRTH- a much better film (Linney is frighteningly nasty). Does anyone recall the PBS version from 1981 with Geraldine Chaplin as Lily?

I recently watched a really bad BBC production of THE BUCCANEERS from the mid-90's with Carla Gugino, Alison Elliott, Mira Sorvino, and Rya Kihlstedt as the four American girls looking for husbands in England. Of the leads, only Gugino gave a good performance (Sorvino was horrible), but the adapation was terrible.

Winona was not robbed. She wasn't that good.

"Would Henry Cavill have made a decent Newland Archer?"

I assume you mean now rather than in 1992.

From what I've seen, Cavill is too wooden an actor to pull off Archer.

For those who are interested, the 1934 AGE OF INNOCENCE will be on TCM on 12/20 at 8:30 am.

I remember always feeling like I was holding my breath during the beautifully detailed dinner scenes. I remember seeing Titanic and thinking they lifted a bit of inspiration from these scenes.

Well...

[quote]Also love HOUSE OF MIRTH- a much better film (Linney is frighteningly nasty).

Agree completely. AOI needed the sort of juice that Linney provides in House of Mirth; it just lacks any suspense or narrative drive. Wharton isn't the world's best writer when it comes to plots: in most of her books, it's pretty clear from page 10 what the end result is going to be.

I second (third?) that emotion. Linney was amazing, a demon with dimples, and Anderson was a very pleasant surprise.

"I prefer Custom of the Country. It think it could have even made a great MGM film in the 1940s with Lana Turner as Undine. Has it ever been filmed?"

If MGM filmed it, Undine would have been less unsympathetic than she is in the book. Turner was no actress anyway (despite her beauty) and couldn't have come anywhere near capturing the character.

CUSTOM would be well served by a mini-series. Frankly, I'm surprised the BBC hasn't had a go at it, though teh Brits did manage to make a mess out of THE BUCCANEERS, as someone else here rightly noted.

I saw the 1934 AOI on TCM not long ago - it's not good, but Dunne "gets" the Countess in a way that Pfeiffer didn't.

though I like the movie a lot I think there is a big problem with it. Filming this novel is a big challenge in that there has to be real passion between Newland and Ellen and yet it is almost always under the surface. I wouldn't go so far as to say that there is nothing going on between Day-Lewis and Pfeiffer, there are some moments of spark and a few which, however briefly, inflame. But there aren't nearly enough.

It's as if Scorsese erred on the side of the innocents.

House of Mirth is a very different kind of story, but it is certainly a much better movie. Still, there are some great things in Scorsese's film. The last scene is gorgeous and very moving, Ryder plays the scene where she tells Newland that she is pregnant - and has already told Ellen and when - beautifully, Scorsese knew exactly what he was doing in portraying the social whirl, and, best of all is Miriam Margoyles's Granny Manson Mingot.

x

[quote]I recently watched a really bad BBC production of THE BUCCANEERS from the mid-90's with Carla Gugino, Alison Elliott, Mira Sorvino, and Rya Kihlstedt as the four American girls looking for husbands in England. Of the leads, only Gugino gave a good performance (Sorvino was horrible), but the adapation was terrible.

I saw this too. Potentially good movie ruined by a Hallmark or Lifetime budget. BBC usually does great period pieces but maybe it was because the material was written by Brits for American actresses? I don't know what was so very wrong with it.

I petition a remake! Please give us AOI for 2020 and no more Disney remakes!

A very visually beautiful movie.. with a huge attention to details. The Age of Innocence is a feast for the eyes, if you're into that. I am...

^^Referring to the newer movie, in the 90s. I didn't know about the 1934 version. I'll have to check it out.

A very overrated movie. I didn't find any of the acting particularly compelling.Like someone above said, the passion between the two actors never seems all that great. And casting Wynona Ryder in ANY period piece is always a bad idea. ("take me away from all this....death"). I still think Bringing out the Dead is Scorsese's best movie, post-Goodfellas.

I love the scene of Newland walking through the succession of drawing rooms to the audacious Rite of Spring. Woodward's narration is perfection there as well.

Bump. It’s on TCM right now. One of my favorites.

Alexis Smith gives a great underrated small performance in this as Mrs. van der Luyden, the quiet society grande dame. She conveys so much behind her ever-placid surface.

I have a hard time imagining how Gilded Age people really sounded when they spoke. DDL of course has the trace of a British accent, which seems appropriate. But to my ear both Winona and Michelle have a bit of Valspeak going on. And yet these WERE Americans, so I'm not sure what to think. (I have a tendency to picture early-20th-century Americans running around in fast motion, speaking in Mid-Atlantic accents.)

The leads in this film are all so tiny, with such exquisite little features.

That archery scene, where May looks beautiful as she nails that bullseye. Tougher than she looks.

Surprising that Pfeiffer didn't get a best Actress nomination. Turbulently brilliant Debra Winger somehow got her place.

I'm reading through the old replies here about miscasting. I guess it's just me, I tend to accept whoever is cast in a role, and enjoy them on their own terms. What can I say, I buy Michelle and Winona, they're more than fine, I like them. ( Of course I also buy people riding in cars in old movies, with fake roads on a screen behind them.)

Did Newland and the Countess actually get to do the deed? Where and when does it happen, I can't remember....

R111, Nah they never had sex. It's not included in the film but in the book Ellen makes him promise that they won't consummate their relationship, up until the end when she comes to New York after her grandmother's stroke, That's when she asks him (shown in the film as the scene in the carriage) if she should "come to him later." They never get the chance however because May gets to her first.

I in fact like that the unconsummated nature of the relationship isn't spelled out but it adds an extra kind of desperation to DDL's performance. It's obvious that he literally aches for her (I know, MARY!!) in every scene. I think they had so much chemistry and even though DDL played it a little stiff, it really really worked for me. A similar kind of role to Archer's was Jeremy Irons in the French Lieutenant's Woman (vastly different stories and settings of course but the 'mood' of the male protagonist trapped by his times is similar in both film) and you can tell that DDL really makes you feel something, Irons was a mess. Such a heartbreaking film.

*** you can tell that DDL's performance is vastly superior because he really makes you feel something

"She never asked" - I'm not quite sure what that means.

Two meanings, R114. One, the sweeter, more idealistic interpretation is that she never HAD to ask, he knew and had enough of a familial sense of duty to stand by his unborn kid and family. That coupled with May's dying confession (sort of) to her kids that she understood how much Newland sacrificed for her makes him realise that love is complicated and in his own way, he loved May because she understood and appreciated what he did. This is Ebert's interpretation and a a few other critics concur. The second interpretation is that he is calling out what a manipulative cunt his wife was, she never had to ask, she just made it happen with her fake pregnancy confession to Ellen. She, along with the gatekeepers of social order(his friends in high society) MADE him give Ellen up. I tend to agree with the second interpretation because it still sounded like Newland carried an (unconsummated) torch for the Countess to the very end and had a keen sense of his loss.

R114, May tells one of her kids that Newland can be trusted because he made a great sacrifice (gave up Ellen). Newland's response is "She never asked"--he was basically manipulated into making the sacrifice, he wasn't given a choice.

I actually like Michelle Pfeiffer in the role--she's not what's in the book, but she has the mix of unobtainable beauty and real, feeling woman that Olenska needs. You need actors who can play a lot of subtext and MP and DDL are both very good at that. Winona is the weakest actor, but Scorcese used her well--a friend of mine described her in the pregnancy announcement scene as being like a snake--she kneels and her dress swirls around Newland, physically entrapping him.

I think the narration is a problem--Scorcese has a weakness for using it and it saps energy from the narrative.

Thanks R115 and R116, interesting. Must say I sympathize with the May character, a nice girl who did nothing wrong. Really just an unfortunate situation all around.

I agree about the narration being heavy handed even though Joanne Woodward did a great job. Imagine how wonderful the last dinner table scene at Ellen's farewell party could have been. All the elements are there- the stifling, gorgeous drawing room, all the guests playing this very civilised game of not letting on that they know about the Countess and Newland's feelings for each other, Newland and Ellen unable to even look at each other or say anything of real meaning except meaningless chitchat because they are being watched, everyone closing ranks out of sympathy for May- the setting is sublime. It's civilisation slowly crushing out an individual's desires but the narration makes it super dramatic and spelled out. This film could've been really special.

I liked the narration and music. It was a little different. To me it was as if Edith Wharton herself was explaining things. It helped make the movie distinctive.

I'm taking my interpretation of "She never asked" from the book--in the book, it's clear that Newland is upset, that there's a sense of betrayal, dismay--May never gave him a chance to choose to do or not do the right thing. My sense, when reading the book, is that at the end Newland just doesn't really have enough hope or life left in him to go upstairs even now that he's free to do so. It's incredibly depressing, like a lot of Edith Wharton.

Agreed, R118, Scorcese didn't seem to trust the story and actors quite enough to let them carry the narrative. It's beautiful, but over-controlled--and the party scene would have been better standing on its own and letting the audience experience with Newland, the closing of the ranks.

I think Pfeiffer is fine in the movie but I do like the idea of Kinski in the role. I think she and DDL would have had great chemistry. She was off the radar at this point, but she tried mounting a comeback a few years later (One Night Stand, The Claim, American Rhapsody) and she was very good in those films.

“And you see, I was right” - May WAS right. Imagine if he had taken off with the countess, only for it then to be discovered that May was pregnant. Quelle scandale! I mean, they were newlyweds, what did everyone expect?

R122 I think that was kind of the point. May is manipulative and a kind of an iron butterfly and the vanguards of upper crust New York society are oppressive and inflexible in their worldview but they are not the villains per se. It is just a no-win situation all around and nothing could have happened any differently. Newland's fate is sealed when he goes to May, begging her for an early wedding, because he just can't accept the 'impropriety' inherent in his feelings for the Countess. It's not so much her pregnancy or the 'scandal' of his entanglement with Ellen that is important but it's about the fate of people with some modicum of imagination, passion or individualism like Ellen or Newland and what happens when they don't have the courage to fight the forces (economic, political, social) at play. Newland's lack of courage to admit that he is different from his peers and wants different things, his inability to break it off with May when he still could have is his hubris. And he lives with this regret to the bitter end.

I heard an interview with Scorsese once (years ago) where he said that he was really attracted by and felt personally attached to “The Age of Innocence” because the main storyline between the DDL character and Winona Ryder’s May reminded him of the relationship between his mother and father (dad was like Newland and mom was like May).

He mentioned the issue of choosing social obligation over one’s emotions and said something like his parent’s internal story made him sad and he wanted to explore it more.

That surprised me because I always assumed he came from this very happy Italian-American family (also could not imagine what he had in common with the Wharton book as a filmmaker).

Anyone hear this interview or know enough biographical info about Scorsese to know why Scorsese’s parents were just like Newland and May?

Newland's whopping mistake came right at the beginning, when he refused to help Ellen get a divorce. That doomed him to unhappiness and her to economic ruin, and if he'd just advised her that divorce would have serious social consequences and referred her to someone who could get the whole thing done, they'd both have had a chance at everything they wanted. And that mistake was made purely out of thoughtless conventiality and close-mindedness.

And his second mistake was when he begged May to move up the wedding, when he knew he was in love with someone else. I lost all sympathy for him at that point, and smiled when May cracked down on him. She wasn't doing anything wrong, just held him to his promises and made him deal with the consequences of some very unwise actions. He could have broken the engagement, he SHOULD have broken the engagement, and but he didn't, and he'd gotten her pregnant. At that point, his feelings don't come first.

One of the oddest and most affecting things about the film, was being told that in the end, Newland and May had a fairly happy marriage and had a lot of respect for each other. Because while I'm sure that their mutual devotion to their kids had a lot to do with keeping them together, it's also a fact that sexual passion doesn't always lead you to the person who will make a good life partner. I don't know if Newland actually realized that, or was beaten down, or didn't want to risk heartbreak or disappointment or what, but he stuck with the life he'd made with May.

Actually in the book they don't so much have a happy marriage but a conventional, placid one with no major upheavals. The film leaves this slightly vague and open ended but the book is quite clear- what happens to Newland is tragic and sad in that his desires are slowly and bloodlessly crushed. Countess Olenska and Newland's relationship is not about sexual desire- though of course it played a part- but it is a meeting of two kindred spirits. By the end, she becomes a symbol to him of all that he really wanted to become, which is the reason he can't get himself to meet her at the end. Nowhere does Wharton imply that Newland and May were better suited. Scorsese of course is a little kinder to May- perhaps because of his own resonance with the story as R124 pointed out?

My favourite scene

I found this film so dull and superficial. Acting was off. I hate narration in movies, which I consider to be so unimaginative and the opposite of evocative. I detested this "coffee table movie" as Pauline Kael rightfully referred to shitty Barry Lyndon.

R126, in the book, does May beg Newland to end the engagement if he has any doubts about their relationship? Because like I said, when she begs him to end the engagement if he's not 100% sincere and he presses her to marry him, is the point I began to think he deserved all the misery he brought on himself.

Because at that point, he was acting like a goddamn closet case who thinks that if he marries some poor woman, she'll make him straight.

She gives him an out in the book, R129 and no he doesn't take it. And yes, it is meant to add a sense of hubris to his fate because of course it is his own doing in part but I think the movie fails to convey just how constraining and psychologically stultifying that world really was. In the book despite all his mistakes, your sympathies are always with Newland. The film also left a number of people mystified about the end and why he refused to just "seize the day!" once his wife had died, as a friend called it. So clearly some things were lost in translation. Other things were done very well. A shoutout to Richard E Grant for playing Larry Lefferts to such slimy effect! And the dinner scene with DDL is so well done

I have always read the ending of both the book and the film as showing Newland almost paralyzed by the cosmic irony of the situation. It is not just his conflicted emotions about both Ellen and May but also the fact that Theodore, the child of that pregnancy, has known since May's death of Newland's love for Ellen but not understood his mother's duplicity in keeping them apart. Theodore thinks he is doing a noble act to bring Newland and Ellen together, sanctioned by his mother on her deathbed, no less. For Newland, it is almost like the final blow, re-enforcing his sense of entrapment, which he had long before thought he had resolved by accepting the reality of his marriage and children.

Great point R131. What a crushing ending.

I think the Newland-Ellen affair would have burned out. May was the better partner for Newland,, but he never got to get Ellen out of his system.

Not what Wharton wrote but sure

[quote]Jude Law is a terrible actor. Casting him in the DDL role would be a crime.

Agreed. Casting Knightley as Olenska would have been almost as bad.

Pfeiffer has at least tried to go beyond being a star or glamor-puss, more so than say, Julia Roberts. There is something not quite there in the relationship between Newland and the Countess--the passion below the surface doesn't quite show itself. Ryder isn't ideal--she gets the apparent naiveity of her character, but not the underlying grasping and control. Geraldine Chaplin also underplays a bit too much--the ability of conevntionality to exert itself with steely resolve needs to be more than just the narration.

Kinski as a WASP? You've got to be kidding. She was something of a radiance that really couldn't act. Her debut in "Tess" was a good example of critics falling all over something that they wanted to like even though audience knew it was art house trash. She was Polanski's gf of the moment.

it's a beautiful movie, and i think Scorsese made it to homage one of his idols, Luchino Visconti. But Visconti also had a very gay sensibility, that's why his aristocratic melodramas are so heart breaking. Scorsese doesnt have that and the result is colder for it.

Just a general comment on human nature, R134

But R133 you're trying to make it a modern frau drama when intrinsically it's just not. It's not "who would Newland Archer prefer to do laundry and split the bills with" It's a different world and the central point of the book/film is trying to accomplish something wildly different from May vs Ellen

R139 No, it’s just something to think about, as fiction invites us to do. Draw it mild.

Daniel Day Lewis was mediocre. Everyone else was very good.

R139 No, it’s just something to think about, as fiction invites us to do. Draw it mild.

Sorry for double post.

It's hard to show that "May was the better partner for Newland" when Wharton tells us that the marriage was conventional and placid without actually being happy or fulfilling.

Alright R142, I still disagree but apologies for being cunty

Sometimes the idea of the thing is better than the thing. Newland may have thought of himself as a frustrated bohemian, but was he really? Again, not trying to make a Lifetime movie of it, just pondering the human dilemma the story presents.

May is manipulative, but she's not a cunt. She gave Newland an out and he still insisted they marry. She could handle the small humiliation of his breaking off their engagement, but after they were married it was a whole other ballgame. Remember, she's under the same social pressures as the rest of them, she just saw them as less of a burden because she was content with her choice of spouse. Once married, she was NOT going to let Newland humiliate her and she knows all too clear from Ellen what happens to women whose marriages are seen as failures.

The great irony of Newland's predicament is while he wants to blame everyone else, especially his wife, the sad hard truth is he didn't have the courage to get out when he could. He was as dishonest with himself as the people around him were with each other. Ellen was far braver than he was and in many respects he didn't deserve her. May looks at Ellen and thinks "I can never let this happen to me" while Newland looks at Ellen and thinks "I could never have the courage to do what she did."

I see your point R146. Perfectly valid question when you put it like that- Newland was utterly lacking in courage and somewhere in the book Wharton does refer to him as a dilettante. . To us of course it seems like a foregone conclusion that his passion for Ellen would have eventually cooled if he had her.But only because most individuals have the freedom to make such a mistake ( i.e. picking the 'wrong' person because you're infatuated with them) but in the late 19th century, the freedom to choose who you want to love was a luxury and for Newland, an upper crust man like Newland who was considered a pillar of high society, it was a revolutionary act even. So the 'love story' is not even so much about love per se, but yes, of course you are right about your larger point. R142- I totally agree, in many ways, Ellen is the 'hero' of the narrative and the only somewhat morally uncorrupted character of the three

Yes, just an impossible situation, where we see the human emotion in high relief. Great story.

And no apologies necessary, R145 - tbh I hesitated before typing my "Newland and Ellen wouldn't have worked out" post precisely because it sounded frau-y, but it is something to think about nonetheless. The added impossible constraints of that society at that time just makes it all the more interesting to me. Perhaps Newland (or any one of us) is more conventional than he knows. But he never will know, because as someone said, he could never test it.

I love Edith Wharton and Henry James.

I've already said that Newland becomes an unsympathetic movie protagonist because he essentially marries May under false pretenses. Could someone who has read the book also address why Newland never made any sort of rebellion against the stifling society he lived in, or even seemed to think about it? I mean if he hadn't stopped Ellen from getting a divorce they'd have had money and the freedom to marry, they could have moved some place divorced people could live a decent life. But no, he acted like Aunt Pittypay gasping "But divorced people AREN'T RECIEVED", as if that were the worst thing that could happen to anyone. Did he ever, in the book, consider living away from the stifling society that was making him miserable?

I have every sympathy for May, BTW. She bent over backwards to give Newland a way out of marrying her, which believe me most girls of her era would not have done, and if she defended her own interests once she was married and pregnant then good for her. Newland was a coward, she wasn't.

[quote]But no, he acted like Aunt Pittypay gasping "But divorced people AREN'T RECEIVED", as if that were the worst thing that could happen to anyone. Did he ever, in the book, consider living away from the stifling society that was making him miserable?

But could he? Isn't the whole point of the book that Newland was exactly the kind of person who was completely incapable of defying or escaping convention? That not being accepted really was the very worst thing imaginable?

I think it's rather hard for us in the modern world to understand how crushingly powerful that kind of expectation was in that period, and among that set of people.

[quote] I mean if he hadn't stopped Ellen from getting a divorce they'd have had money and the freedom to marry, they could have moved some place divorced people could live a decent life.

He didn't know then he was in love with her. By the time he knew, Ellen loved May too much to see her hurt, and so Ellen was unwilling to go away with him when May told her she was pregnant with his child.

May would have been absolutely ruined had she had Newland's child and he left her as a young mother. It would have been easier had he done it when their children were older--but by that time he felt he had made his choice and had to stick with it. And by that time Ellen had left the US forever.

Since Dany is obviously not worthy to be Queen, I guess it's down to Jon and Tyrion for the Iron Throne. Tyrion is Cersei's closest surviving relatives, so if the Targaryans don't retake the throne then it's him, with Sansa at his side.

I still think it's going to be Jon, for all he's an idiot.