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Fill a bowl with alpine strawberries, break out the Chteau Lafite (1899, of course), and bask in this benchmark 1981 British miniseries based on Evelyn Waugh's classic novel. Adapted for the screen by John Mortimer (
Rumpole of the Bailey), this impeccable, nearly 11-hour production mesmerized American viewers during the course of its PBS run in 1982. In his breakthrough role, Jeremy Irons stars as Charles Ryder, a disillusioned Army captain who is moved to reflect on his "languid days" in the "enchanted castle" that was Brideshead, home of the aristocratic Marchmain family, whose acquaintance Charles made in the company of an Oxford classmate, the charming wild child Sebastian. Anthony Andrews costars as the doomed Sebastian, whose beauty is "arresting" and "whose eccentricities and behavior seemed to know no bounds." The "entitled and enchanted" Sebastian takes Charles under his wing ("Charles, what a lot you have to learn"), but vows early on that he is "not going to let [Charles] get mixed up with [his] family." But mixed up Charles gets. He becomes a friend and confidante, not to mention a lover, to Sebastian's sister Julia (Diana Quick). Meanwhile, the self-destructive Sebastian's life spirals out of control.
Brideshead Revisited boasts a distinguished ensemble, including Laurence Olivier in his Emmy Award-winning role as the exiled Lord Marchmain, Claire Bloom as Lady Marchmain, and the magnificent John Gielgud as Charles's estranged father. Grand locations and a haunting musical score make this a memorable revisit of an irretrievable bygone era. For those who scheduled their weeks around the original Monday-night broadcasts or those visiting
Brideshead for the first time, this boxed set release will be, as Charles rhapsodizes at one point while strolling the castle grounds, "very near to heaven." --
Donald Liebenson Stills from Brideshead Revisited (click for larger image)
Beyond Brideshead Revisited
On the DVD
The 48-minute documentary "Revisiting Brideshead" (2006) recalls the history of the series through interviews with Jeremy Irons, Diana Quick, Anthony Andrews (still looking dashing), other cast members, directors Charles Sturridge and Michael Lindsay-Hogg, and a wide variety of journalists and critics. They discuss the creation of the show, Evelyn Waugh (who appears in vintage television interviews), casting (Irons and Andrews were originally picked for each other's roles), and other aspects of production. (Oddly, the retrospective is on disc 1, and even more oddly, it's not listed on that Thinpak case.) Irons, Quick, and Nickolas Grace (who played Anthony Blanche) team up for a commentary on the double-length episode 1. Irons mentions that he didn't want to play Sebastian because he had played a similar role in
Love for Lydia then spends much of the time punctuating the others' conversation with thoughtful grunts. Andrews, however, is thoroughly engaged in his commentary with producer Derek Grainger on episode 4. Some common discussion points include how the series was so faithful to the book (Quick says, "There might have been two pages out there that we didnt film.") and the labor problems that threatened to derail the series. The 9.5 minutes of outtakes have no deleted scenes; it's basically a blooper reel of curse words and on-set clowning. There's some information on the restoration for this edition, but the picture is still grainy by 2006 standards. So even if the 25th anniversary edition isn't all it could be, it's still
Brideshead Revisited, and Andrews sums it up well when he says, "You suddenly hear this very evocative music and you get those butterflies in your stomach yet again."
--David Horiuchi