Period Shows I Bailed On

As you can see, I have been making my way pretty quickly through the historical movies and tv options on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. I'm always craving that new show that I will fall in love with, which means I have taken a chance on some things that ended up not being my jam. Here is a recap:

The English Game

The previews and promo images for this show include women in bustles which made me think I would like it. Also: Old-timey sports fashion! Class conflict! What looks like the same mill where North & South was shot! It is about football (I think the "soccer" kind of football but not 100% sure) but I stupidly was like "maybe there won't be so much of that."

I made it to the first game (match?) and remembered something about sports-focused movies/tv. They aren't just going to talk about the sport and do some sports things briefly. The whole show will hinge on long game scenes in which each play is important and you have to focus because some detail of what happened will shape the characters and their motivations I was just like...

My recommended fix: 

Less sportsball. More bustles. Or maybe change the sport to something women can play while wearing bustles? I guess what I really want is an extended version of the archery scene in Daniel Deronda.

YEP, THIS IS IT

Turn: Washington's Spies

I keep seeing this on the list of historical shows on Netflix (yes, the Netflix algorithm gives me a "historical TV shows" category) and finally I gave it a shot.

Why I thought I might like it:

• As has already been documented, I enjoy the fancy jacket and knee pants look of 18th century menswear. This promised to have lots of that.
• J.J. Field is in it and he is delightful
• History stuff
• The first episode had a content warning for sex but not violence so that seemed promising

But here are some things I don't like, which I probably should have guessed would have been part of a story about spies during the American Revolution.

• Stories about wars and battles 
• Shows where most of the cast are men and all the main storylines are about men
• Stories where characters are constantly in tense and dangerous situations

So SHOCKINGLY I didn't enjoy it and gave up. But the biggest insult was that J. J. Field's character had a wig with these awful little white rat-tail braids.

Recommended fix:

Is there a way to make a show with a bunch of military uniforms that isn't like, about a war? Or about the British army but somehow not be super problematic and colonialist? Maybe a show where J. J. Field's character clips off the braids and goes around the country saying nice things to ladies in that Alan Rickman deep voice he has?

Maybe he can talk about muslin

Dickensian

Ok, my bad on the other shows, but this one really should have been up my alley. Dickensian takes a bunch of characters from Charles Dickens books and puts them together for a new story. I mean, I seem like the exact target demographic for that.

I gave this a two-episode try, but finally had to admit that I wasn't enjoying it all and didn't look forward to anything about how it would unfold. The main problem was that it was a prequel to the action of the books where all these characters appear. In the first episode there was this young woman named Amelia whose father had died, and she seemed like she was going to be one of the lead characters. Only near the end of the first episode do we learn her last name: Havisham.

Uh oh

I know that origin stories are hot these days, but it does take some of the suspense out of it. This gal is going to fall in love and it isn't going to go great.

But it will be Goth AF

The same goes for the other leading lady. Her name was less familiar, but some internet searching and I realized she was the future Lady Deadlock from Bleak House. Ah ok. So I now know exactly how her story will play out.

She ends up very happy and fulfilled

The inevitability just seemed to take all the fun out of it. Plus, there wasn't much fun to be had in the first place. The show interpreted "Dickensian" to mean "dark and gritty" without much joy and humor also found in his stories. Watching the rest of the episodes seemed like a slog.

Recommended fix:

Why do a prequel? Why not connect all these characters after the main action of their stories and have them all go in surprising and unexpected directions? You could start where Our Mutual Friend leaves off (the final completed novel) with the enigmatic Mortimer Lightwood walking off into the night. Mortimer spends most of Our Mutual Friend being detached and sardonic, but he is also shown to be compassionate and kindhearted. He is observant, critical of the follies of London society, unmarried, and you can reasonably interpret him as gay or bi. Wouldn't he be an interesting character to follow into a new story?

For the record this is a legitimately good idea.

Martin Chuzzlewit Still Got It

I've written before about how much the 1995 Pride and Prejudice basically changed my life, but the reason I even saw it in the first place was because my parents and I were already in the habit of watching Masterpiece Theater-type miniseries together. Martin Chuzzlewit came out the year before P&P and while it didn't become an obsession, I remember enjoying it.

Having seen it over 25 years ago, it was amazing how much I remembered. It has many unforgettable characters and scenes. A decade later Andrew Davies is credited with livening up Dickens by making Bleak House (2005) with a lot of quick cuts and cliffhangers. This was widely applauded and he brought a similar style to Little Dorrit (2008). But for me, the combination of Dickens' ridiculous characters with everything being over-dramatized and fast paced just felt like...a lot. Too much. Martin Chuzzlewit has a slower, smoother pace, which allows the actors to really go for it without becoming grating or exhausting. The exceptional acting carries the story.

Martin Chuzzlewit is the name of both an old man and his young grandson, although neither feels like the main character of the story. The real main character is Seth Pecksniff, a completely amoral man who wraps up all his plotting in a veneer of goodness and gentility. He is played to perfection by Tom Wilkinson.

Pecksniff is dastardly at times (there is a particularly upsetting scene when he physically grabs a woman who he wants to marry and won't let her go) but most of the time he is comedic. Everything he does is done with 10 layers of obsequious posturing.

Pecksniff has two daughters: Charity and Mercy, or "Cherry" and "Merry" because Pecksniff is that kind of cheeseball. Emma Chambers plays older sister Charity, who at first she seems to be the perfect picture of sweet, feminine docility. It falls apart though when a man she thought was about to propose to her, proposes instead to Mercy. She bursts into a screaming rage and it is funny and cathartic all at once.

Let it out girl

For the rest of the story she asserts herself more and tries to take charge of her life. Some of the choices are more "Oh honey no" than "Yaas Queen" but she is consistently interesting and entertaining.

Montague Tigg

Pete Postlethwaite is AMAZING as a character who is basically two characters. Montague Tigg starts the story as a poor, rough-looking opportunist. Eventually he finds the right opportunity and transforms himself into the stylish Tigg Montague. As one character remarks, even his own mother might have trouble recognizing him.

Tigg Montague

Other standouts include Paul Scofield as both older Martin Chuzzlewit and his twin brother Anthony, and the exceptional Elizabeth Spriggs as Mrs. Gamp.

Couldn't understand half of what she said but still into it

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellows also has a small role.

ME?

This being Dickens, there has to be some darkness and gloom. In addition to Pecksniff assaulting Mary Graham, there is a major storyline about an abusive marriage which is really painful to watch.

It involves Julia Sawalha's character Mercy

On a less serious note, the other upsetting thing about this miniseries is that this character is supposed to be the same age as me:

Unacceptable.

One interesting thing about Martin Chuzzlewit is that it was written in 1843 just after Dickens visited the United States for the first time. He wrote a travelogue which critiqued quite a bit about American society, including slavery and our dangerous love of capitalism and how we idolize successful businessmen. In Martin Chuzzlewit, young Martin goes to the US to try to make his fortune, and is swindled into buying land in a remote swamp were everyone is dying of a fever. Slavery isn't mentioned, but it still paints a pretty unfavorable picture of our country. You know what else paints an unfavorable picture of our country? Our still very current problems of racism, capitalism, and rampant illness!

I won't go so far as to call Martin Chuzzlewit prescient. It is a very white, old-timey story about 1840s England. But if you are wanting a break from current events, but still want your entertainment with a whiff of anti-American sentiment, Martin Chuzzlewit isn't a bad bet.

I Didn't Love The Great But I Respected It

Last night I gritted my teeth and made it through the final episode of The Great on Hulu.

The shameful reality is that I am a pearl-clutching prude and have a very low threshold for stories that are stressful and violent. The Great was too vulgar, too gory, and too intense for me. But I also recognize that it was witty, well written, and beautifully filmed. There was a lot of it that was good and I hope those parts have a positive impact on future period movies and TV.

With the tagline "an occasionally true story," The Great makes clear that this will be a very loose interpretation of the Catherine the Great story. This, I felt, was one of its biggest strengths. Every historical movie or TV show involves some degree of interpretation. Being honest about that provided a lot of freedom to play around and be creative.

Which brings me to a little thesis I've been working on. Whenever there is a "fresh take" period drama, it usually falls into one of two categories:

Category 1: The filmmakers believe history (or the historical novel they are adapting) is inherently boring and so thankfully they are here to spice it up. They don't trust the material and they don't trust the audience. They think their revisions are necessary to make the story palatable.

Category 2: The filmmakers believe that history (or the historical novel) is inherently interesting and speaks to our time, and so they want to infuse some modern elements and have fun with it. They genuinely love the material and want to share it in a new way.

Even though I have a fondness for it, The Tudors is an example of Category 1. The King Henry VIII story is already a wild ride. It doesn't need to be sexed up and have added plotlines about Henry's horny friends or Thomas Tallis being haunted by his dead girlfriend. It makes for a very uneven show that doesn't really know what it wants to be. I also think the 2005 Pride & Prejudice falls under this category too. To me, it feels like the filmmakers looked through the book and were like "yikes we need to fix all these boring parts."

The musical Hamilton is a perfect example of Category 2. Lin-Manuel Miranda didn't add rap to the show because he thought it was dull without it, he wrote a musical in his own style about a historical narrative that genuinely thrilled him.

I would argue that every good period movie, TV show, or play falls under Category 2--as there is always some degree of a modern perspective infused into the storytelling. Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensiblity may seem like a standard period film, but Thompson used very little of Jane Austen's original dialog, cut some important scenes, and invented others. It was also directed by Ang Lee, which had some xenophobes worried about how this Chinese director would handle an English classic. The movie is phenomenal because both Thompson and Lee cared about the source material but were also willing to try new things with it.

Which is all to say that The Great is Category 2, which is why I respect it, even though it wasn't to my personal taste.

One of the best aspects of The Great's modern take is that the cast has some racial diversity. There are a fair number non-white courtiers even though we know that wasn't the case historically. It is interesting that while many period movies are happy to play fast and loose with other aspects of history, diverse casting still feels like a taboo. Maybe it is because the general public doesn't know that an 18th century gown shouldn't have metal grommets, but they do have a sense that there weren't a lot of Black aristocrats in 18th century Europe. But a dumb anachronism like a metal grommet or a corset worn without a chemise doesn't actually add much to a story. Actors though add a lot, as they can have an exciting take on a character that someone else wouldn't have. If you are relaxing your historical accuracy, diverse casting is more likely to make a show good than throwing in some cheesy, sexy costumes.

BAD

Atrocious dress in War & Peace (2016)

GOOD

Black court ladies in fabulous dresses in The Great

So this is how I hope The Great will influence period pieces that come after it. If you are working with exciting material set in a historical period, it is OK to be playful and take a risk. You can have anachronisms just make them intentional and smart. 

But if you think history is boring, maybe just step away. 

Cranford Is Fantastic And Infuriating

On my rampage through period movies I rewatched Cranford (just the 2007 series) this week. I've had a long-simmering beef with this adaptation and so now is the time to get it off my chest. 

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell is a remarkable book. It is a series of stories about a small town, where all of the lead characters are older, unmarried women. It is not a story driven by romance, shocking secrets, or political intrigue. The woman of Cranford live very quiet, unremarkable lives by most metrics. But for them, their town is their whole world, and so the book is a treasure trove of funny, sweet, and heartbreaking stories about everyday lives.

For the screen adaptation, the filmmakers enlisted some of the best older British actresses in the game, the standouts being Imelda Staunton, Eileen Atkins, and Judi Dench.

Staunton plays town busybody Miss Pole. She is Cranford's own 24-hour news cycle, dramatically running here and there to breathlessly relay the latest gossip. She seems to always be in a state of agitation and can turn even the smallest bit of news into the scandal of the century.

Atkins and Dench play sisters Deborah and Matilda "Matty" Jenkyns. Deborah is the arbiter of decorum and propriety in the town and has extremely high standards.  In the first episode there is this very funny scene about consuming oranges (which were a rare treat in Victorian England). Deborah is worried about eating something with so much messy juice and finds the word "suck" to be vulgar. So she decides that each of them will retire to their own rooms to eat their fruit alone so that any indecent behavior can be done in private.

Judi Dench is glorious as younger sister Miss Matty. She is the heart of the story and the kind of character that makes Cranford so remarkable. Her life and experiences have been very limited, and she isn't particularly clever or quick-witted. She hasn't "done" anything with her life (no husband, no children, no great accomplishments) but has made an impact on Cranford by being exceptionally kind and compassionate to those around her.

It has been more than 150 years since Elizabeth Gaskell's day and we still have very little media that puts older women at the center of a story. Whenever this adaptation follows the book and lets its exceptional cast of actresses do their thing, it is absolutely sublime. Very funny at times and deeply moving at others. I laughed out loud and cried multiple times.

BUT

The filmmakers didn't trust that modern audiences could handle a story focused on a bunch of old biddies. So they added what they thought the story desperately needed: more men and more young romance. To be fair, these added stories are based on other Gaskell writings. But that is the last fair thing I will say about this. Now I will rant. Strap in.

I'm bringing a lot of Miss Pole energy to this post

The FIRST added story is about Lady Ludlow, a rich woman who thinks poor people shouldn't be educated. Her backwards views are emphasized by her costuming and hair. It is a common (and very annoying) trope in period films to dress older ladies in decades-old fashions. A few years outdated is possible for women who are older and more set in their ways and certainly more likely for women of limited means. But a super-wealthy woman dressed like it is the 1790s when it is actually the 1840s is absolutely ridiculous.

particularly THE HAIR

She clashes with her land manager (a man) who tries to get her to embrace more modern ideas. Whereas the other older Cranford ladies feel like fully realized characters, Lady Ludlow is one dimensional. She is set her her ways. That is her entire deal. She is really just background dressing to a bigger story about her land manager educating a young impoverished boy. Sure. Fine. Whatever.

Lady Ludlow also speaks and moves very slowly. Maybe it is because her feeble lady brain can't process information quickly? Or is it because the character is supposed to be 90 even though the actress is only in her 60s? I mean, once a lady is past 50 it is all the same, right? 

MUCH WORSE is the story of Dr. Harrison. A young man who comes to town to fall in love with the blandest woman he can find. He is dopey and earnest and the object of his affection is Sophie Hutton, a cherubic looking blonde whose mother has died and who thinks she will never marry because she is too busy selflessly raising her siblings and running her father's house. She is sweet and perfect and says very little. I realize I just praised Judi Dench's character for being sweet and kind but Miss Matty seems like an actual human woman. Sophie Hutton feels like a male fantasy.

She probably has a hairless body and never farts

Through various hijinks, two other women in town believe that Dr. Harrison is romantically interested in them. It is misinterpretations and in one case a cruel prank that causes them to think so. They are both older than him (one substantially) and we are supposed to chuckle and how delusional they are.

The unfortunate ladies who think dull Dr. Harrison is worth their time

Everything comes to a head at a May Day festival when all three women say they are being courted by Dr. Harrison. Everyone is shocked, Dr. Harrison is shunned by the town, and the women are all devastated. Well, we are told that the older women are devastated but they work it out behind closed doors. Clearly, they are side characters and their feelings matter less. The focus, of course, is on Sophie Hutton who nearly dies of a broken heart (and also a fever) and Dr. Harrison has to swoop in to save her. The series ends with everyone in town attending their wedding.

Congrats to Dr. and Mrs. Blandy McBlanderson!

In summary:

Actual Cranford story: Here is a fascinating, hilarious, and powerful story about older women.

Added Cranford stories: LOL JK women over 30 are dried up, old fashioned, and it is hilarious when they think men are attracted to them. Anyway here are some male characters and younger women who are clearly more important.