The Wings of the Dove: Henry James in the 1990s (Bfi Modern Classics)

Rating:
Summary: Wood points the way to a new kind of literary adaptation.
Review: When Iain Softley's 'The Wings Of The Dove' was released in 1997, critics predictably complained that it was impossible to recreate on film the interiority, ambiguity, complexity or elusiveness of Henry James' late novels. An exasperated and mischievous Robin Wood suggests these citics bluffed a cultural knowledge they didn't possess, failing, for instance, to notice that the film was in no way a literal adaptation, but a radical reworking of a difficlt novel: 'the film's brilliance lies in its ability to stand as an autonomous work, and an intensely CREATIVE one, while remaining faithful to what might be called the novel's core'. With the exception of three scenes, every sequence in the film is the inspired invention of screenwriter Hossein Amimi, and even these three are very different in context, content and meaning to their originals.

Wood prefaces his typically enlightening monograph with a cri de coeur against dullards who moan about the lack of 'fidelity' of films taken from classic books. Their idea of faithfulness is a synoptic replication of the plot. Softley's film offers a more interesting alternative. Wood starts with a helpful introduction to the characteristics of James' late style, and the difficulties it presents for any adaptor; followed by a brief look at other 90s James films (Jane Campion's 'Portrait of a Lady'; Agniezcka Holland's 'Washington Square'). The bulk of the study is a minute scene-by-scene analysis of the film, showing how Softley and Amini tried to find cinematic equivalents for these characteristics, for instance by displacing psychology onto mise-en-scene, or by the invention of pregnant set-pieces that don't make immediate narrative sense, but which catch the Jamesian intuition of shadowy, unconscious forces manoeuvring seemingly (self-) conscious behaviour.

Wood is an enthusiastic and attentive guide, his analysis that of a patient teacher, pointing out important details or the meaning of particular stylistic choices. Wood, one of the first great auteur critics, famously rejected the move of film criticism in the 60s and 70s into the jargon-filled realm of theory, so his is a humanistic interpretation, firmly centred on character and narrative. He gives a greater centrality to the film's actors in the creation of meaning than more rigidly theoretical writers would allow. Because Softley is such an unquantified persona as an auteur, Wood is free to concentrate on text text text, a freedom he clearly relishes.

Because his empirical method is so focused on what is on the screen, it is easier to argue with his interpretationd and to point out the surprising errors of detail. With endearing modesty, he admits that he finds it increasingly difficult to pin down for the reader precisely the merits of the film, and acknowledges his uncertainty whether his own interpretations are correct. His main aim is to convey his own enthusiasm and love for this under-rated film - which he calls a 'flawed masterpiece', the imprecise role of Merton Densher being the film's least satisfactory element - and to look for ourselves. A film lover can ask for no greater gift.