I've just come from the Canadian premiere of Brideshead Revisited, a story that is a great mark along the journey of my life.
I was 21 when I saw the TV series on CBC in January/February, 1981. I was nine months away from beginning my own great adventure in the world, traveling through the British Isles and Europe for the first time. Young -- only two years older than Charles and Sebastian when we first meet them -- thirsting for experience, longing for love and romance -- the kinds of love and romance reserved for the hearts and minds of youth -- the story made an indelible impression on me. I identified with those two young men. My heart overflowed when theirs did and ached when theirs did.
And what an impression that series made in Britain and North America. It set fashions for the decade on both sides of the Atlantic. Both in clothing and hairstyles. Hair salons posted ads in newspapers and signs in their windows: "Get the Brideshead look". For men, 3-plaited trousers -- linen in summer and flannels in winter -- became de rigeur (sp?) for both men and women, it taught us to take the loosely-woven cotton sweaters that fashion suddenly offered us to tie them about our necks. It ushered in the want for society style and demonstrable excess that demarcated the 1980s. Very few stories, resurrected, make such an enormous mark on an era.
Tonight, I saw a well-crafted, truncated and changed -- but most acceptably changed -- film of the story, through 48-year-old eyes.Older and wiser, I still ached for Charles and Sebastian, but now from an understanding uncle's point-of-view, if you will. Like a hardened Charles, as he reflects back during the Second World War, I, too, am more world-weary and hardened. Older, I better understand the lessons of the story. But also, after seeing the film, I am left, like Charles in the War on discovering he's once again at Brideshead, reflecting wistfully on my youth. On what could have been and might have been had I made different choices and decisions. Not regretfully, but wistfully. It brought into my life a remembrance of and longing for those exquisite feelings of romance and love reserved for youth and without which my middle age has proceeded.
In 1981, I was the Charles of Oxford. Today, I am the Charles of the War. Even older.
Will this movie change the fashions, style and manner of today? No. The times are not right for it. Nevertheless, I highly recommend it. Then find the TV series on DVD and read the book, if you care to. Each is a 20th Century masterpiece.
I was 21 when I saw the TV series on CBC in January/February, 1981. I was nine months away from beginning my own great adventure in the world, traveling through the British Isles and Europe for the first time. Young -- only two years older than Charles and Sebastian when we first meet them -- thirsting for experience, longing for love and romance -- the kinds of love and romance reserved for the hearts and minds of youth -- the story made an indelible impression on me. I identified with those two young men. My heart overflowed when theirs did and ached when theirs did.
And what an impression that series made in Britain and North America. It set fashions for the decade on both sides of the Atlantic. Both in clothing and hairstyles. Hair salons posted ads in newspapers and signs in their windows: "Get the Brideshead look". For men, 3-plaited trousers -- linen in summer and flannels in winter -- became de rigeur (sp?) for both men and women, it taught us to take the loosely-woven cotton sweaters that fashion suddenly offered us to tie them about our necks. It ushered in the want for society style and demonstrable excess that demarcated the 1980s. Very few stories, resurrected, make such an enormous mark on an era.
Tonight, I saw a well-crafted, truncated and changed -- but most acceptably changed -- film of the story, through 48-year-old eyes.Older and wiser, I still ached for Charles and Sebastian, but now from an understanding uncle's point-of-view, if you will. Like a hardened Charles, as he reflects back during the Second World War, I, too, am more world-weary and hardened. Older, I better understand the lessons of the story. But also, after seeing the film, I am left, like Charles in the War on discovering he's once again at Brideshead, reflecting wistfully on my youth. On what could have been and might have been had I made different choices and decisions. Not regretfully, but wistfully. It brought into my life a remembrance of and longing for those exquisite feelings of romance and love reserved for youth and without which my middle age has proceeded.
In 1981, I was the Charles of Oxford. Today, I am the Charles of the War. Even older.
Will this movie change the fashions, style and manner of today? No. The times are not right for it. Nevertheless, I highly recommend it. Then find the TV series on DVD and read the book, if you care to. Each is a 20th Century masterpiece.