Carrington

Rating:
Summary: "How do you spell 'intangible'?"
Review: "How do you spell 'intangible'?" Dora Carrington asks of Lytton Strachey midway through this film as she sits writing at her desk. How do you spell intangible, indeed. Carrington tells the story of people who tried, in their own way, and at a time when society did not encourage such experiments, to acknowledge openly what most of us are aware of but still reluctant to discuss: that a great many differences exist between love and desire.

Carrington is one of the great epic romances, but a romance where sexual congress between the two who are passionately in love with each other has nothing whatever to do with the deep wells of feeling they share with each other. Like The Unbearable Lightness Of Being and Out of Africa, Carrington is a film that dares to examine the difference between desire and love, and looks at an adult subject in an adult way. As opposed to Hollywood's usual matter-of-fact insistence that love is a game with a win/lose dialectic simplistically painted in broad stokes, Carrington traces, rather, the fact that love is indeed a mystery which must be acknowledged and honored for the way that it can bring out the best in both people rather than a way of keeping emotional score.

Emma Thompson is able to bring out the awkward, self-effacing aspects of Dora Carrington all the way down to the pigeon-toed stance the way the real life Carrington apparently stood. With all the impatience of a little girl who wishes that one day she'll wake up and finally find herself to be a sophisticated woman, she worships Lytton for his "cold and wise" attitude, his ability to see straight through the conventions of the time, and adopts him as her emotional mentor.

She's an artist whom everyone in the Bloomsbury set knew, even though she never really considered herself a part of the circle, unlike Lytton, whom everyone swarmed around for his scorched earth policy of anti-Victorian insights and rapier wit. Carrington, it would appear, spent her whole life trying to figure herself out, like any true artist, and Thompson very ably transmits that lost quality throughout the film: even as she gains her confidence socially, sexually and artistically, the motivations of her heart she would never let be pressured, no matter how much physical affection and attention she needed. Which I think is an important distinction to make. There's a subtle, yet significant difference between "having sex" and "having a warm body next to yours," a bed buddy. So many women believe that the only way men want to appreciate their intimate worth is through their sexuality rather than their tenderness, which Carrington becomes all too consciously aware of, and one of the reasons why she is so drawn to the homosexual Lytton is not simply because he isn't a testosterone threat, but because his passive strength and appreciation of emotional fragility is so antithetical to traditional masculinity that she finds it very easy to forge a bond with someone who feels like a woman yet still thinks like a man.

A virgin many years past the point of reason, it is as if Carrington bought in to the sexual revolution of the flapper era between the world wars and the way it tried to repeal the oppressiveness of Victorian morals, learning how to cultivate and appreciate the sensual needs of the body, but deep down realized that a healthy, vigorous sex life with a plethora of partners does not necessarily mean more love, but simply more sex. As Carrington points out in the film, with Lytton she was able to be herself in all her confusion and joy, and without the obligatory pressures of regular sexual performance was able to find in Lytton the only person she ever really felt emotionally comfortable with. Echoing that great line of TS Eliot's in Four Quartets, of a "love beyond desire."

Jonathan Pryce, as Lytton Strachey, has the honor of portraying one of the best screen roles of all-time. Like Rex Harrison's Henry Higgins, or Liza Minnelli's Sally Bowles, his performance as Lytton is so fully realized that his character becomes unprecedented. Incorporating the attitude of, say, a bearded Oscar Wilde, Pryce's Lytton takes no prisoners and is disgusted by what he sees around him: the behaviour of the upper classes he finds himself eventually skirting is embarrassingly inexcusable to his ethically conscientious grounding. English boys are dying, he scowls, for their right to shamelessly frolic on the lawns of garden parties.

When Lytton moves in with Carrington they both want commitment (with a small c), but also personal freedom. This ambiguity toward each other is parallel to their ambiguity toward the concept of fame, which they both courted in a very teasing way, but soon grew to realize that there is a lot more to be said for secure domesticity (no matter how loosely defined) than their behaviorally adventurous artistic peers. Because Carrington is intelligently written, directed, and acted, however, we do not see the behavior of each of them as simply willful and spoiled, but as part of the contradictions they need to stay individuals in a culture, and at a time, where the conventional notions of love and sex were strictly regimented. Jonathan Pryce plays Lytton with a sort of detachment that is supposed to come from the character's distaste for commitment.

What's most surprising about this epic romance is that given the amount of territory it traverses (seventeen years) at an almost leisurely pace, it clocks in at only a hair over two hours, but when those two hours are over, you certainly feel as if you've been somewhere, seen something, been privy to so many more truths and realizations than you'll see in any other standard film about a romance. What we have here is a paradox: an old-fashioned story about an avant-garde arrangement. An intelligent, thoughtful love story, told with enough care and attention that we really get involved in the passions between the characters, not the algebra surrounding them.

Rating:
Summary: Christopher Hampton's Carrington
Review: A young female artist falls in love with a known homosexual and the two spend their remaining years in each other's lives. No, this is not a romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts, but "Carrington" is an emotional drama that is a triumph for Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce, and less than perfect for writer/director Christopher Hampton.

The film is good. It takes place in the years 1914-1932 in England. Thompson is Dora Carrington, a troubled artist who falls for homosexual writer Lytton Strachey, played by Pryce. Strachey is a bit of a dramatic, suffering from "old age" and other infirmities, although he would be considered a young man. Strachey is first attracted to Carrington, thinking she is a young boy thanks to her pageboy haircut and lack of makeup.

The two fall in love the only way they can: unphysically. They share a bed, but have no real sexual relationship and pursue the kind of physical love they cannot find with each other. Virigin Carrington falls for an angry artist who cannot understand their four year relationship with no sex. She is simply not attracted to his body, but gives in anyway, finding she does not enjoy sex anyway. She breaks it off with him, using her impending cohabitation with Strachey as a reason. She then brings home uptight army soldier Ralph, played by Steven Waddington. He is a man's man who does not understand all these artists and conscientious objectors (to WWI), but beds Carrington and, the film implies, Strachey. Ralph and Carrington marry and Ralph brings home friend Gerald for Strachey to "get to know." Gerald then suddenly falls in love with Carrington. The two have an affair. Strachey finds and loves a younger man named Roger, and Carrington dumps Gerald, later finding a guy with a boat who really likes his sex on the high seas. Ironically, he is not sexually attracted to Carrington, the very reason she broke up with the angry young artist. Strachey and Carrington end up back together in their strange living arrangement, and both meet their fates.

Thompson and Pryce are so good here it hurts. The main problem I had was with Hampton's choice of subject matter. He based the film on a book about Strachey, titled the film after Carrington, and I kept noticing a real lack of focus as to the film's main character. Hampton also writes Strachey like he is a poor man's Oscar Wilde, coming up with pithy sayings in between heartbreaks. Carrington comes across as flighty and confused, but we do not see how disturbed she is until after Strachey's death, and Hampton could have elaborated on that a little more. More scenes about Carrington and Strachey's work might have helped as well. The two hour movie feels like compressed images from a long running soap opera. Why should the viewer care so much about these characters?

Hampton the director is wonderful. In one scene, Carrington sits on a stump and, through a giant bank of windows, watches her husband and his live in mistress, Carrington's own new lover, and Strachey and Roger, all getting ready for bed. Hampton keeps the scene sad without becoming voyeuristic, as Carrington seems to be silently questioning all these men who have brought her to this place in time. Carrington's death is also handled tactfully.

I would recommend "Carrington," but with the reservations about the script. I definitely would recommend it on the performances alone, if nothing else.

This is rated (R) for mild physical violence, mild gun violence, profanity, some female nudity, brief male nudity, strong sexual content, strong sexual references, and adult situations.

Rating:
Summary: Some things are better left dead!
Review: As a huge fan of all involved I must at least give one star for presentation. The fact that I actually had some type of interest in Carrington is beyond my comprehension. This movie should not be entitled Carrington. It should be entitled "Can a Woman be More Screwed Up in the Head?" If you are looking to find the answers to why Ms. Carrington's personality did not follow the norm, you will not find the answer in this movie. If you looking for a sexually, morbidly confused bunch of self absorbed, self-destructive artists, you have a winner with Carrington. (i.e. when Mr. Strachey is first introduced in the movie he spots Carrington by saying "Who is that lovely young boy?" Where I come from people can get arrested for comments like that!)

This movie will not uplift or encourage you. It will not make you a more socially or artistically aware individual. You may, however, feel sick after wasting two hours of your life as I did.

Rating:
Summary: Loyalty, devotion, and respect personified...
Review: Carrington, a female painter, falls in love with the gay author Lytton Strachey, and together they create a relationship without boundaries. This boundless love leads Carrington into several love affairs with other men, but it does not wreck Carrington and Lytton's strong affection for one another. Unconditionally Carrington displays her devotion and respect for Lytton who is reciprocal in his loyalty to their relationship. However, the other men in Carrington's life are not as understanding as Lytton as they demand something in return for their love for Carrington. It is these demands that prevent Carrington from developing her other relationships as she has done with Lytton. Carrington is a fabulous narrative of Dora Carrington's life as it displays her life along with her strengths, which offers a good cinematic experience.

Rating:
Summary: Loyalty, devotion, and respect personified...
Review: Carrington, a female painter, falls in love with the gay author Lytton Strachey, and together they create a relationship without boundaries. This boundless love leads Carrington into several love affairs with other men, but it does not wreck Carrington and Lytton's strong affection for one another. Unconditionally Carrington displays her devotion and respect for Lytton who is reciprocal in his loyalty to their relationship. However, the other men in Carrington's life are not as understanding as Lytton as they demand something in return for their love for Carrington. It is these demands that prevent Carrington from developing her other relationships as she has done with Lytton. Carrington is a fabulous narrative of Dora Carrington's life as it displays her life along with her strengths, which offers a good cinematic experience.

Rating:
Summary: Didn't feel it
Review: Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce are likeable in their roles; and the best part of the movie were some delightful phrases -- to paraphrase : "People in love should never live together, invariably one of two things happens -- they either fall out of love or they drive each other crazy." What I thought was supposed to be the strength of the movie -- a focus on their spiritual connection, a powerful platonic love, was never felt. Pryce as Lytton said clever things, Thompson as Carrington looked furtively at him from time to time. I would have been more convinced if I witnessed some joy they had in each other's company. In life Lytton and Carrington must have been fascinating. In this movie they were flat; emotions didn't seem restrained but non-existent. I hoped for more.

Rating:
Summary: Pity about the Nyman soundtrack
Review: Here is a competent film which focuses on the unusual Bloomsbury relationship between Carrington and Strachey between the Great war and 1932.
The two principals are exceptionally fine, especially Pryce as Strachey whose movement, mannerisms and acerbic gentleness establish wonderfully this memorable eccentric. Several supporting roles are capably done.
Unfortunately I found the film seriously undermined by Michael Nyman's music, which is obtrusive, jagged and insistently repetitive. On three occasions it makes way for the supremely beautiful slow movement of the Schubert string quintet, but the aural abuse returns each time, including during the credits.

music

Rating:
Summary: Pity about the Nyman soundtrack
Review: Here is a competent film which focuses on the unusual Bloomsbury relationship between Carrington and Strachey between the Great war and 1932.
The two principals are exceptionally fine, especially Pryce as Strachey whose movement, mannerisms and acerbic gentleness establish wonderfully this memorable eccentric. Several supporting roles are capably done.
Unfortunately I found the film seriously undermined by Michael Nyman's music, which is obtrusive, jagged and insistently repetitive. On three occasions it makes way for the supremely beautiful slow movement of the Schubert string quintet, but the aural abuse returns each time, including during the credits.

music

Rating:
Summary: Lovely!
Review: I can't believe someone actually made a film about Carrington and Lytton Strachey! Delicious! It is slow (as another reviewer said), but that's what makes videos so nice. Watch it over several days. Pryce IS Lytton Strachey and now I want someone to make a movie of his life and Pryce has to play him again! The movie also gives a tantalizing glimpse of Ottoline Morrell, so I hope someone will make a movie of her life, too (of course, Pryce will have to come back to play L. Strachey again...). The soundtrack to this film is beautiful. I am grateful this film was made and to the actors for bringing these people to life. I hope the film will become available again.

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful movie about awful lost people
Review: I saw this movie at a time when I was getting sick of Merchant Ivory movies (an unbearable nausea that has yet to pass I might add) and I was expecting another movie about a bunch of personality-challenged tightlip Brits stuck in the Victorian era.

I was pleasantly surprised to be captured by these people. Maybe because this is the art crowd who were living in the 1920s when conventions were breaking down. Maybe I just got used to "real estate romances" as Movieline termed these movies. But I think most of it had to do with Jonathan Pryce and Emma Thompson. She's one of those women who needs to fall in love with gay men and he loves her attention. Together they become even more intertwined than they are with their lovers (who seem more like window dressing than characters - even when Emma is doing it doggie style on a boat.) and this ultimately proves fatal for the Emma Thompson character.

This seems to be the recovery from Merchant Ivory characters. These people, instead of being repressed, are trying to be emotional in a repressive atmosphere and going too far but not far enough. They are toddlers learning how to walk and then running into walls.

Of course, British movies have suffered too long under the MI spell, and this movie does remind me enough of those awful things to only get four stars. It is odd that a fully realized British novel (High Fidelity) about emotional people doing irrational things, but without the repression gets made into a movie and is immediately transplanted to Chicago. Or that the British obsession with American gangster movies has yet to produce a passable British gangster movie with mass appeal.