Howards End
The Criterion Collection
The pinnacle of the decades-long collaboration between producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory, Howards End is a luminous vision of E. M. Forster’s cutting 1910 novel about class divisions in Edwardian England. Emma Thompson won an Academy Award for her dynamic portrayal of Margaret Schlegel, a flighty yet compassionate middle-class intellectual whose friendship with the dying wife (Vanessa Redgrave) of rich capitalist Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) commences an intricately woven tale of money, love, and death that encompasses the country’s highest and lowest social echelons. With a brilliant, layered script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (who also won an Oscar) and a roster of gripping performances, Howards End is a work of both great beauty and vivid darkness, and one of cinema’s best literary adaptations.
Member Reviews
A glorious and subtle film - rdees
After the delights of A Room with a View and the weightier themes of Maurice - both wonderful films - here, one of Forster’s finest novels gets the Merchant Ivory treatment.
Howards End is a triumph of subtlety, style, excellent writing and nuanced performance. We follow three groups of characters (the Wilcoxes, the Schlegels, and the Basts), all colliding in different ways over the course of years, and each representing one side in the class struggle that was in flux in England at the turn of the 20th century. To review the plot here would be tedious, and is better summarized elsewhere. Instead, I'd like to give all praise to every aspect of this film, as it's only in appreciating its parts that we come to be moved by the whole. James Ivory's direction is restrained and elegant; his camera glides through scenes with grace, and Tony Pierce-Roberts's cinematography captures light and colour with brilliant control. The set designs are remarkable in their accuracy and beauty. The music of Richard Robbins again contributes an evocative score that is in turns contemplative and dramatic. Performances by Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Samuel West, and Anthony Hopkins, through subtlety and restraint, and through the marvellous script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, succeed in bringing the characters to life. Never theatrical, their presence on the screen is always grounded in honest, pure expression. A delight to behold.
A highlight in the film for me are the scenes in which the young clerk Leonard Bast (played by Samuel West) daydreams of walking among meadows and forests, accompanied by a reading from The Ordeal of Richard Feverel about the beauty of walking amidst such lush greenery. These are the visions of a dreamer, a man who wants more than what he has, more than what his station in life can afford him. More than any others in the film, these are the images that have stayed with me long after the film was over.lovely merchant/ivory - piph
Always worth it's weight in gold, Howard's End gives you a fabulous night of drama. Masterfully crafted by the Merchant/Ivory team, this wonderful tale is then taken to it's heights with the exquisite portrayal of characters with Emma and Anthony. Set beside and against and in a time period not our own, the story unfolds with much aplumb.
Member Reviews
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A glorious and subtle film - rdees
After the delights of A Room with a View and the weightier themes of Maurice - both wonderful films - here, one of Forster’s finest novels gets the Merchant Ivory treatment.
Howards End is a triumph of subtlety, style, excellent writing and nuanced ...lovely merchant/ivory - piph
Always worth it's weight in gold, Howard's End gives you a fabulous night of drama. Masterfully crafted by the Merchant/Ivory team, this wonderful tale is then taken to it's heights with the exquisite portrayal of characters with Emma and Anthony. Set beside ...