An absolutely terrific essay by Roger Ebert on “two conversations” in the film Howards End. I loved that movie … which was quite extraordinary, considering my passionate feelings about that book. Not only did they “get” all the characters, and breathe life into Forster’s creations – I recognized the characters in the movie as the same ones I had met in the book (very rare, right??) … but they also “got” the deeper themes of that book. To me, that book is as deep as the ocean. You can’t say what it’s “about” – or if you come up with an answer too easily, it is my opinion that you have a too-facile or willfully-shallow read on what Forster was getting at. I am not saying that book is opaque – far from it. It’s just that it describes an entire world. There are surges beneath the surface narrative, deep society-wide swells of movement … I can never get to the bottom of it, I can never say: “Okay. Now I understand that book.” It constantly challenges me, and makes me think …
The phrase “Only connect” reverberates for me – in different ways, at different times. I know that passage from the book by heart. “Live in fragments no longer.”
Ebert’s essay is phenomenal – I enjoyed reading it tremendously, and it makes me want to see the movie again, to look for those “two conversations” in particular.
Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins were brilliant in the film, but it’s Vanessa Redgrave’s heartbreakingly touching performance I remember the most (along with the house itself). Something about the way she moved her hands, and the way she recognized Margaret as a soulmate, really . . .
Thank you for steering me to Roger Ebert’s article. When I first saw the film, and I was puzzled by Margaret and Henry’s conversations. There was compassion and understanding, but not communication, and not passion. So different from what we think of as a modern couple’s connection. Henry would say something, and it would be opposite what Margaret wanted him to say, yet she would have compassion for him, because he said it out of his rigidity and background and position and place. It was like she was saying, “I have compassion that you can’t be a better person than you are because you have been so thoroughly conditioned.” I still don’t really get it. But I love it. Somehow you share Margaret’s compassion, a little, for the bombastic, sad Henry.
Help me out here, Sheila – please post more about this.