Rating: 
Summary: Great TV drama
Review: This is a beautiful television production. Nothing I have seen captures so well the manners, dress, language and attitudes of upper and upper-middle class Britain in the twenties and thirties.The acting is superb, the script even better. Based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh, John Mortimer's dialogue wastes not a word and uses pauses and silences to extraordinary effect. As a portrayal of a family and its entourage this 11-part series bears comparison with the very best, even perhaps the Godfathers I and II, and with top notch photography to portray the stunning sets - on an art deco-drenched QEII, at Oxford, Castle Howard and at a Venice Palazzo - this could be the ultimate TV production of all time. But perfect as it is technically, Brideshead has, for me at least, a couple of problems. The first is, the sheer improbability of the main plot. Essentially, the central figure and narrator, initially rather boring Charles, makes friends with dashing Lord Sebastien Flyte at Oxford (after the latter vomits through Charles' window), and finds himself immediately taken into the bosum of Flyte's highly aristocratic family; ultimately Sebastien's ravishing sister Julia falls in love with him and he comes very near to inheriting the family estate. The Flyte/Marchmain family is portrayed as charming, but also deeply and somewhat offensively dismissive of anyone they consider beneath them: Julia becomes quite vicious about her husband Rex, once she has tired of him. Lord Marchmain, a rather feckless former alcoholic and wife-hater, at one point muses on Neville Chamberlain who at that moment was doing his best to avoid world war "knew him. Mediocre fellow". I just can't believe that this family would have given tuppence for Charles, a mere middle-class architectural painter, far less virtually adopted him. The second problem is that Charles is not even very likeable. He drifts through the film looking bored or worried and acting self-righteously. He cheats on his wife and generally bad mouths her, prefers to consort with his lover than go see his two year-old child who he's never actually seen due to a long trip abroad, and does little to actually help his dear friend Sebastien (who has descended into alcoholism) except frequently tell us morosely and self-indulgently how much he loved him and what a sacred love it was. The cause of these problems surely goes back to Waugh himself and the original novel, which was part autobiography, part wish-fulfilment. Waugh was partly Charles, and like Charles, Waugh wasn't always lovable. The upper classes were Waugh's favorite subject, his bread and butter, and his vice. He was irresistibly drawn to them and wanted them to love him and confide in him too. Sometimes they did, because he was a brilliant society novelist, not just a good architectural painter. But not quite as much as everybody, from servants to Lord and Lady Marchmain, appears to love Charles. However, I think this only makes the whole production more interesting. And such is the charm of the brilliant cast, which includes Jeremy Irons in the lead along with Olivier and Gielgud in majestic supporting roles, I suspect many people will consider my low opinion of the characters quite misplaced.
Rating: 
Summary: British drama at its best
Review: This must be one of the alltime classics of British drama. Saw it on TV when it was aired, bought the VHS and when released on DVD, bought it on DVD. Well, that must be saying something. It is one of my favourites. I think this must be one of those productions where you can say in hindsight that you would have done it in exactly the same way. I do not have higher praise to give. Shame the DVD release does not give extras and is really badly done. One would have thought that a high profile production like this deserved a better fate.
Rating:
Summary: Great, great story and production--lacking transfer
Review: There are regrettably no interviews with the cast or production team, no director's commentary, and no deleted/extended scenes, though since we've all been forced to endure the butchered Home Video version this as full as full can be version is in a sense full of them. There are no theatrical trailers or television spots. Image quality is good and one thing that's mentioned in the production report is just how painstaking the video/audio restoration really was and how VERY lucky they -- and we -- were to be able to find the original film master in England and then clean it up. Once again, and this is becoming a great joke in the film community, a US company picks up the distribution/restoration rights to a foreign country's film treasures and then releases the best version ever made outside the market it originated in. We did it to the Japanese with Macross and we did it to England with Brideshead Revisited. The performances here are truly fine beyond description. Jeremy Irons has seldom surpassed his work here, and neither Anthony Andrews nor Dianna Quick (as Julia, Sebastian's sister) have ever bested their performances in this film. In addition to the three leads, the miniseries offers an incredible array of superior performances by John Gielgud, Claire Bloom, and Laurence Olivier; the cinematography and art design is flawless; and the score by Geoffrey Burgon is exquiste. Mortimer's script is remarkable in that it not only manages to recreate the novel, it also manages to capture the intangible, spiritual elements upon which the book plays but seldom directly references. A must-own work for any one who appreciates the best of the best; strongly, strongly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Defies Criticism
Review: This BBC film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's intriguing novel of the same name captures the author's intent of describing Edwardian England before the Great War. This was a time of transition for England, (and Europe as a whole) particularly for the aristocratic classes, narrated at length with awe, a distinct air of sacredness, and ultimately a little sentimental regret. The novel's subtitle actually reads, "The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder". The book and film is an expression of grief, a lament; an extended eulogy, really, about a time of privilege, friendship and love, intensely experienced and irretrievably lost.
Critics at the time of its television premier, could not sing its praises enough, naming it one of the great television dramas of all time. Some said it was beyond criticism and a perfect rendering of a fine novel. Having read the novel and viewed the film many times, this comment is no exaggeration. It became almost a Sunday ritual in the early nineties in Australia, when Brideshead premiered on public television. Millions of people would tune in exactly at 5:00 in the afternoon to view only one of its eight instalments - only to look forward with great expectation for the next episode.
Jeremy Irons puts in a convincing performance as the character of Charles Ryder. This British actor is known for his velvet voice and "Queen's English" accent, and his narration throughout the film, sometimes verbatim from the novel, is truly mesmerizing. Anthony Andrews, however, as the alcoholic Sebastian, the central character, is the true star of the film, whose performance is believable and moving. Laurance Olivier as Lord Marchmain put in another remarkable performance and a rather quirky one at that...the character demanded an `aristocratic eccentricity' which we have come to expect from the British. Unfortunately this was one of Lord Olivier's last performances before he passed on.
John Mortimer (Rumpole of the Bailey) wrote the screenplay that, in some cases, is almost a direct transcription from Waugh's novel. In fact, one can open the book while viewing the film and follow along as if reading the screenplay. The dialogue in some scenes is virtually verbatim. The soundtrack is also magical, an ideal backdrop to the stunning scenes and sophisticated dialogue. When you view the film, pay particular attention to the Venice scenes, the music, the Venice landscape and Irons' narration that all combine beautifully.
Brideshead Revisited is not a fast paced drama, but a intricate story that builds slowly, has many nuances, has complex characters and is constructed to be absorbed at an even momentum, securing the feelings, attitudes and wishes of the time.
I believe Brideshead Revisited defies criticism.
Rating: 
Summary: bad
Review: My friend bought this dvd for me because I had just finished reading the book. While the book has it's flaws but is overall a good read, I can't find much to say about the television series that is actually flattering. Sure, it's nice to look at but it's hard to hear the dialogue and people speed threw their lines so fast that it's hard to make sense of it. Had I had not read the book already, I doubt I would have had a clue as to what was going on. Another thing that got on my nerves was the constant way most of the cast kept making faces as they did their lines like Anthony Andrews, Diana Quick and the fellow who played Anthony Blanche. It appears that three of them were stoned during production. Also, Anthony Andrews does a awful job pretending to be drunken Sebastian. Instead of being eccentric, he reminds me of a kid from special education class especially when he's pretending to be drunk and tormented. In the book, I actually liked Sebastian and felt sorry for him but in the movie, it makes it look like Sebastian is just drinking to make his family miserable. Also, the movie doesn't just hint that Sebastian and Charles were homosexuals, I mean, I don't think they could have made it more blantant. The only thing that was missing was a kissing and sex scene although Sebastian does receive kisses from Anthony Blanche in the beginning. I thought the reason in the book that Sebastian was so tormented was over his sexuality and being catholic but this makes it look like he had no problems being homosexual or with drinking or even with his family until Charles comes along. And about Charles, Jeremy Irons plays him as a complete bore and would have been for his expressive eyes and nervous smile, I think his performance could easily be forgotten. Anthony Andrews is pretty nice to look at in this movie and that's the only reason why I finished watching the dvd up until the point where his character wasn't around much anymore. This film is too pretentious and stuffy and gets more credit than it ever deserved.
Rating:
Summary: Quite possibly the finest production in the history of TV
Review: One could easily make a case for BRIDESHEAD REVISITED being the finest single production in the history of television. Few if any series can boast the quality of acting, the locations, the script, musical score, and overall production of this remarkable miniseries. Its great length provides an opportunity for an in-depth exploration of its source material, so much so that virtually no aspect of the Evelyn Waugh's novel is left untouched. The novel is Waugh's most heartfelt though least typical. A contemporary described Dostoevsky as the meanest Christian he had ever met, and one could equally state that Waugh was one of the meanest Catholics. He was a devout Catholic, but in a way that was somewhat self-absorbed and prickly. While his other novels are largely nonsectarian and darkly comic, this one-which exists in an earlier version and also in the completely reconceptualized version-is rooted in his own deepest beliefs. Much to its credit, the series does not mute in the least the Catholic themes of the novel.
The series features several superlative performances, three of which at the time seemed to be star-making roles. In 1981 Jeremy Irons instantly became one of the most respected and celebrated actors of his generation through his appearance in THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN and as the central character of Charles Ryder in BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. Except for one episode that largely focuses in flashback on the history of Julia Flyte, the entire series features Charles Ryder in virtually every scene, and even in scenes where Charles does not appear, his narration structures the narrative, so that the production as a whole succeeds or fails to the degree that Jeremy Irons's succeeds or fails. Luckily, he is spectacular, and one could legitimately insist that this could be the finest single performance in the history of television. Anthony Andrews steals many scenes as the doomed Sebastian Flyte, and when this series first appeared his future seemed to be possible as bright as Irons's. Inexplicably, he was never able to find movie roles that would allow him to build upon his many successes in television (not just in this series, but in UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS and DANGER UXB). Similarly, Diana Quick, who stands out as Julia, despite a successful career on stage, has not had film or television success following this series. Regardless of their subsequent careers, they jointly manage to elevate this production to the level of high art. The series is driven not merely by the central performers, however, but by a host of spectacular supporting actors. Laurence Olivier's name is prominently listed among all the performers, but I actually find him to be one of the less impressive performers in the production. John Gielgud steals absolutely every second he is onscreen, as Charles's spectacularly cold and sardonic father. My only complaint with the series (except for the Waugh's ending, of which more below) is that there wasn't more John Gielgud, but since they stuck very closely to the novel, this wouldn't have been possible without adding scenes that didn't exist in the novel. Claire Bloom is superb as Julia and Sebastian's mother Lady Marchmain. Phoebe Nichols and Simon Jones are delightful as the other members of the family, though the former is not quite the plain looking woman the narrative suggests. Jones is exquisite of the almost otherworldly future head of the clan. But if there is a star performance among the supporters in addition to Gielgud's, it is the relatively unknown Nickolas Grace as Anthony Blanche, who is transparently based in Waugh's novel on twenties aesthete and later notorious Soviet spy and noted art historian Anthony Blunt. Everyone one of Grace's scenes are a delight, and one experiences a twinge of regret as they end.
What flaws exist in the series exist in the novel. John Mortimer, who adapted the novel for the series and who is perhaps best known otherwise for his Rumpole of the Bailey, stays absolutely true to the novel at every point. He becomes an almost transparent medium for the translation of the novel into visual form. My principle complaint with the film and with the novel is the strange theological sentiments driving the plot. Waugh's own religious beliefs are rooted in that odd English Roman Catholicism that seems to delight in being intellectually counterintuitive and self-mortifying. The climax of the novel and the series comes with the death of Lord Marchmain, born Anglican but a convert to Catholicism at the time of his marriage to his wife, defiantly lapsed during his later years, but taking willingly the sacrament at the moment of his death. Julia and Charles, who have been engaged in a passionate and enormously healthy relationship, despite both having been married to others see Marchmain's reconciliation with the Church as a sign that they must sever their relationship. Most viewers and readers-even most Catholic viewers and readers-find this central plot contrivance to be both morally offensive and theologically reprehensible. The charge seems to be that God delights in the wrecking of a caring, loving relationship over some theological technicalities. I personally felt offended by Waugh's superimposing on God as set of demands that stem on any intelligible plane from the Church and not from God. I'm as unmoved by Waugh's assertions about God's will as I am by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell's. Why blame God for a set of very bad decisions? Most viewers will feel that Charles and Julia do not end up together because of abject stupidity. The series ends up feeling like a tragedy with God as the perpetuator. My own view is that in a real world situation, God would want them together and happy, instead of apart and terribly unhappy. Still, there is no denying that this theological complexity gives both the novel and the series a unique seriousness. And even if one does not agree with the decision that Julia and Charles make, there is no denying the power at the end when Charles's unexpectedly kneels in the Brideshead Chapel and prays.
Everything touching this production is magnificent. The location settings around the globe, the sets, the remarkable use of Castle Howard employed for all the Brideshead shots, the costume and art directions, are all as superb as one could hope. And special mention must be made of the music, with apparently a hundred variations on the main theme according to the scene at hand. The only negative I would add about the DVDs is that they are rather devoid of special features. My hope is that at some point they re-release this extraordinary series in a new edition with greatly expanded special features. Even if they do not, this remains one of the truly essential works ever produced for television and preserved on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Lush Production True to Waugh's Every Word
Review: The eleven hour television version of Evelyn Waugh's major novel `Brideshead Revisited' has become one of the great landmark dramatizations of English novels televised on PBS' `Masterpiece Theatre', along with the comparatively pedestrian `Upstairs, Downstairs' and the marvelous `I, Claudius'. I will be the last to dispute this position and reputation, as I simply fell in love with the production when it first aired in 1982. This love affair is easy to understand, as I read and enjoyed the book as a teenager and the screen adaptation, performed primarily by John Mortimer, is said to have recreated virtually every line of dialogue in the rather short novel. A sense of how dense this production is can be seen in the fact that the novel `Brideshead Revisited' is shorter that any one of the three `Lord of the Rings' volumes, yet Peter Jackson took only 10 hours to capture that epic, while the directors and producers of `Brideshead' took twelve hours. I do not begrudge them a minute of that time.
The first clue to the sterling quality of the production is the cast. The three lead actors, Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews, and Diana Quick were not well known at the time of this production, but the roster of special guest stars was one of the finest lineups of great English actors seen on virtually any screen, lead by Lawrence Olivier, John Gielgud, and Claire Bloom. Bloom has by for the longest time on the screen of these three, and the most important part of the three in the story, but the action on the screen literally crackles with tension when Gielgud and Irons, playing father and son, are on the screen together.
There are six other important supporting characters whose performances range from solid to bizarre to unconvincing. John Grillo and Simon Jones are solid as relatively unsympathetic characters, Mr. Samgrass and Lord Brideshead respectively. Charles Keating successfully carries a difficult role of someone who is described as `an incomplete person', so odd, considering he is a member of Parliament. Jeremy Sinden does well as a normally spoiled scion of a noble family, an interesting contrast to the very broken noble son Sebastian Flyte plaid by Andrews. The hardest performances to gauge are those by Nicolas Grace, playing the homosexual aesthete Anthony Blanche and Phoebe Nicholls, playing the younger sister Cordelia Flyte. Blanche is played so over the top, it is hard to tell if Grace is giving it all he has, or simply hamming it up. I confess I enjoyed it as another contrast to the character of Sebastian. Nicholls has a small but difficult role of playing a young, unattractive girl who grows from about 16 years old to about 26 in the course of the story. I thing Ms. Nicholls may not have been up to the task.
The three leads carry the lion's share of the story, with Jeremy Irons giving the most appealing performance, and with Anthony Andrews carrying his weight quite well, making the tragedy of his character's fall even more believable and regrettable during our suspension of disbelief which turns this fiction into a story of real people. After several viewings, I find Diana Quick to have been the least successful at holding up her end of the story.
The settings and the period dressing of the sets comes very close to stealing ones attention from even this heavyweight cast. I confess it was probably not hard to frame attractive shots when you had Castle Howard (appearing in the role of Brideshead castle) and all of its art and furniture to use as a set and as props. The rooms and streets of Oxford come in a close second in visual appeal, with the London `Marchmain House' and Malta, standing in for Fez, Morocco carrying their own weight with no problem. And, who can possibly compete with simply gorgeous shots of Venice.
The music of Geoffrey Burgon is just as enchanting on the CD as I remember it from Masterpiece Theatre; however, watching the ten episodes over the course of six nights, often seeing two episodes back to back shows one how limited the amount of original music was produced and repeated for each episode.
The ultimate star of the production is Evelyn Waugh's dialogue and narrative, and the finest service done by this production is in their preserving so much of this language. The opening monologue by Charles Ryder describing his feelings about being in the Army, climaxing with his discovery that his regiment has bivouacked on the grounds of Castle Brideshead, (hence the title, `Brideshead Revisited') and the flood of memories which establishes the story at the point at which Ryder meets Sebastian Flyte in Oxford. The telescript is so close to Waugh's original that it is easy to identify any blemishes as a problem with Waugh's work and not that of Mortimer or the directors. It is easy to forget that this is a relatively short novel spanning 25 years. It is not a great hulk of a book like Thomas Mann's `The Magic Mountain' with page upon page of introspection. Waugh suggests that somehow the Flyte's Catholicism is responsible for their scandals and dispairs, yet it does not dwell on a lot of whys and wherefores. It is much easier to understand Sebastian's fear of exposing his chum Charles (Jeremy Irons) to his oh so charming family, in the fear that they will steal him away, which, in fact, they do.
Be warned that this is not a story for everyone. If you like romance novels or soap operas, this is the apotheosis of soap opera material. It your taste runs more to James Bond or Robert Ludlum, you may find yourself very bored here. But, I recommend this to anyone at all who loves good writing and lush TV productions.
Rating:
Summary: Great TV drama
Review: This is a beautiful television production. Nothing I have seen captures so well the manners, dress, language and attitudes of upper and upper-middle class Britain in the twenties and thirties. The acting is superb, the script even better. Based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh, John Mortimer's dialogue wastes not a word and uses pauses and silences to extraordinary effect. As a portrayal of a family and its entourage this 11-part series bears comparison with the very best, even perhaps the Godfathers I and II, and with top notch photography to portray the stunning sets - on an art deco-drenched QEII, at Oxford, Castle Howard and at a Venice Palazzo - this could be the ultimate TV production of all time. But perfect as it is technically, Brideshead has, for me at least, a couple of problems. The first is, the sheer improbability of the main plot. Essentially, the central figure and narrator, initially rather boring Charles, makes friends with dashing Lord Sebastien Flyte at Oxford (after the latter vomits through Charles' window), and finds himself immediately taken into the bosum of Flyte's highly aristocratic family; ultimately Sebastien's ravishing sister Julia falls in love with him and he comes very near to inheriting the family estate. The Flyte/Marchmain family is portrayed as charming, but also deeply and somewhat offensively dismissive of anyone they consider beneath them: Julia becomes quite vicious about her husband Rex, once she has tired of him. Lord Marchmain, a rather feckless former alcoholic and wife-hater, at one point muses on Neville Chamberlain who at that moment was doing his best to avoid world war "knew him. Mediocre fellow". I just can't believe that this family would have given tuppence for Charles, a mere middle-class architectural painter, far less virtually adopted him. The second problem is that Charles is not even very likeable. He drifts through the film looking bored or worried and acting self-righteously. He cheats on his wife and generally bad mouths her, prefers to consort with his lover than go see his two year-old child who he's never actually seen due to a long trip abroad, and does little to actually help his dear friend Sebastien (who has descended into alcoholism) except frequently tell us morosely and self-indulgently how much he loved him and what a sacred love it was. The cause of these problems surely goes back to Waugh himself and the original novel, which was part autobiography, part wish-fulfilment. Waugh was partly Charles, and like Charles, Waugh wasn't always lovable. The upper classes were Waugh's favorite subject, his bread and butter, and his vice. He was irresistibly drawn to them and wanted them to love him and confide in him too. Sometimes they did, because he was a brilliant society novelist, not just a good architectural painter. But not quite as much as everybody, from servants to Lord and Lady Marchmain, appears to love Charles. However, I think this only makes the whole production more interesting. And such is the charm of the brilliant cast, which includes Jeremy Irons in the lead along with Olivier and Gielgud in majestic supporting roles, I suspect many people will consider my low opinion of the characters quite misplaced.
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