Really interesting article about the so-far-unsuccessful attempts to bring Evelyn Waugh’s various books to the screen (big and small). I remember the Brideshead miniseries – anyone who was alive at that time HAD to be aware of it – it was kind of like the Roots miniseries. Unless you were freakin’ Amish, you were at least aware that it was going on.
I’ve been on a Waugh kick lately. Hadn’t ever read anything by him, and now I am making my way through all of his stuff. Read Scoop
Now here is what I remember from the mini-series of Brideshead Revisited
So THAT has been my impression of Evelyn Waugh. No wonder I never read him. I’m not saying the mini-series wasn’t good – i watched every second of it and was mildly obsessed with the languid sulky-eyed Anthony Andrews … but it seemed a bit, well, ponderous. Precious, in that very English way (Eddie Izzard makes fun of those kinds of movies. “What is it, Sebastian? I’m arranging matches.” Etc.)
Imagine my surprise when I picked up Scoop (excerpt here), and found myself laughing so hard in public that I frightened other people on the bus. Imagine my surprise when I read Decline and Fall (excerpt here) and found myself MOPPING the tears of laughter off of my face at a couple points. And imagine my surprise when I read The Loved One and found myself in a satire of Hollywood as biting and ridiculous as anything that Fitzgerald ever wrote about show business.
I have not read Brideshead Revisited yet, and it is that image from the miniseries of dissipated white linen and tubercular love affairs that has kept me away, but now that I know the true character of Evelyn Waugh’s prose, I will definitely read it.
I loved this observation from the article above:
The essence of Waugh is his economy of style. He is Hemingway bearing a bumbershoot. The writing may be far more Latinate, but it’s every bit as efficient. “It is the cinema which has taught a new habit of narrative,” Waugh wrote in 1948. Like Hemingway, he learned from the movies the value of the camera-eye view: the description that takes in without belaboring.
What makes the books either so relentlessly funny, acidly sharp, or both is a simple equation: the more outlandish the situation or personage, the more precise and lucid the writing. Waugh’s true cinematic equivalent is Howard Hawks, not Merchant-Ivory. Each is a master of pace and control: moving things right along and never getting in the way of his material.
Yes!! Howard Hawks, not Merchant-Ivory. Howard Hawks could have filmed Scoop (and in a way, he did – with His Girl Friday and its frenetic insane observations about the newspaper business) – and could have not only reflected the PACE of the book (that’s what really surprised me about Waugh – how fast his books move … I guess because that mini-series from my childhood seemed to go on forever!) but the humor and the absolute absurdity of the situations the characters find themselves in. (Like Cary Grant bemoans in Bringing Up Baby: “How could so many things happen to one person??” That’s very Evelyn Waugh-ish!)
Another very good observation about the film adaptations of Waugh’s stuff which I think is quite perceptive:
Waugh’s Hollywood sojourn exemplifies the basic problem with movie adaptations of his work. Without exception, Waugh’s heroes are outsiders – as he was in California. Each novel’s capacity for comedy or tragedy comes from its hero’s being at variance – whether as a Catholic, innocent, or bounder – with the society around him.
The Waugh adaptations all plant themselves firmly on the inside, reveling in the dense social knowingness that comes of membership in an Oxford college, Pall Mall men’s club, or aristocratic family. Ultimately, Waugh’s books are about a search for redemption. Waugh adaptations are about decor.
It’s that outsider thing that I’ve written about before, with Waugh (he, as a gay man, was the ultimate outsider) putting a total outsider smack-dab into the middle of a world whose rules he does not understand. It is not a full-immersion experience, his books … because we always have one eye at how ABSURD these people are behaving. It’s a subtle difference in tone and outlook, but it seems to me to be an extremely important element in how his books are filmed.
That’s why the Howard Hawks suggestion is so superb, I think. (And, I don’t know … I’ve seen the previews, and the new Brideshead looks very drippy and British and all “Sebastian, I’m arranging matches …” but I’ll hold off until I see it.)
thanks for the post – i didn’t go to the whole article yet but your excerpts from it are very insightful. i think the only adaptation i’ve seen is bright young things, because i’m a huge stephen fry fan, and i read the book before i went to see it. it was okay but didn’t really work. and i had a similar experience to yours w/ brideshead; being a kid, i just thought it was the boringest thing i’d ever seen. i mix it up in my head with upstairs/downstairs and other pbs attempts to bring us brit culture. my mom watched them; they put me to sleep.
just curious: have you ever read Wodehouse? i’ve read about 2 books from each of them, and both are funny in pretty much the same way. i get the sense that waugh is a bit more concerned with saying something about society (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but i recall laughing more at the wodehouse stuff. just throwin’ it out there.
I actually didn’t find the Brideshead series boring. It seemed serious and melancholy and dreamy, and I didn’t understand much of it (I was a kid). Similar to Roots – it seemed to be on forever. Like it took over the airwaves and you could not escape from it. That was my main impression of it – well, that and the hotness of Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews – I had crushes on them both.
It’s just that when I finally read Waugh’s books I didn’t recognize him at ALL from the tone of that miniseries ( which was, until recently, my only exposure to him).
And yes, he’s actually quite a serious writer. Lampooning very serious things. But I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that made me laugh as hard as Scoop did. It was actually painful at times.
I saw an adaptation of Scoop…I think it was a BBC production (or should have been, if it wasn’t). While I absolutely ADORED that book and thought it was hillarious, the movie made me fall asleep. I didn’t feel that it captured whatever it is about the book that made it so funny.
Kristin – Yes, they mentioned that adaptation of Scoop in the article. I’ve never seen it though. I think it would be really hard to get the manic hilarious feeling of that book captured on screen!
I loved the mini series. Must have watched it 3 or 4 times. The best time was the last time on TV when I had a few martinis and there was a domestic distubance in the duplex next door. I lived in a mill village and soon there was a knock on my door. A midget dressed in a sheriff’s costume was standing at my door. He quickly informed me he was the sheriff of the mill village and did I know what was going on next door?
To this day I equate Waugh with total surrealism-
I am aware that this makes me a nerd of the highest order, but Brideshead Revisited is my guilty-pleasure reading. It’s totally a head/heart thing: I know that it’s not the best thing Waugh ever wrote, I know that it’s a poor example of all the stuff he does best, and I really, really know that the interwar years were never that perfect sunset-colored melancholy, even in Oxford. But I love it anyway–I want that life to be real…so Charles and I have something in common;)
Haha I definitely get where you’re going with the Eddie Izzard comment. I was just watching “Dress to Kill” the other day… “Room with a View… of HELL! Staircase of Satan! Pond of Death!”