A Film by Martin Scorsese

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• A Film by Martin Scorsese
• Based on the novel by
• Edith Wharton

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Vincent Canby New YorkTimes

• Mr. Scorsese has made a big, intelligent movie
  that functions as if it were a window on a world
  he had just discovered, and about which he can't
  wait to spread the news.

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Rita Kempley Washington Post

• Perhaps it shouldn't come as such a grand
  surprise that he is as deft at exploring the
  nuances of Edwardian manners as he is the laws of
  modern-day machismo.

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ChristopherNullfilmcritic.com

• Very pretty, very long, very cold, and very tidy.

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Scott Renshawrec.arts.movies.reviews

• It's a fascinating examination of lifeless and
  soulless time, and my attention never waned.

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Fred Hong Joo JungKorea Times

• Operatic tale of love that captures the
  humanity of Martin Scorsese's direction much more
  than his gritty mob fables.

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Dennis CunninghamWCBS-TV New York

• One of the most elegant films every made.
  Breathtaking, heartbreaking, amazingly rich.

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Marc SavlovAustin Chronicle

• As a period piece, it's a joy to behold, but
  with such an indecisive little newt of a
  protagonist, it's just hard to give a damn what
  happens.

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Role of Flowers in Film

• Movie opens to opening flowers--yellow and red
• At first, flowers open slowly, then faster.
• What do the colors and budding signify?
• Flowering/Deflowering of who/what?
• Newlands standing order of Mays lilies
• Newlands gift of yellow roses to Ellen
• Ellen receives carnations from Henry van der
  Luyden and orchids from Beaufort.
• Who would send me a bouquet? Im neither engaged
  nor going to a ball

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Flower Meanings

• LILY OF THE VALLEY Return of happiness, purity
  of heart, sweetness, tears of the Virgin Mary,
  you've made my life complete, humility,
  happiness.
• The legend of the lily of the valley is that it
  sprang from Eve's tears when she was kicked out
  of the Garden of Eden. It is also believed that
  this flower protects gardens from evil spirits.
• Also known as the flower of May.

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Flower Meanings, Cont.

• ROSE, YELLOW Joy, friendship, true love,
  decrease of love, jealousy, try to care, freedom,
  slighted love, shows "I care", joy, gladness.

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Role of Music in the Film

• Nominated for 5 Academy Awards, but won only one
  Best Score (by Elmer Bernstein)
• Why is opening scene set at the opera? How does
  opera become a parallel for characters?
• What is signified by Larry Leffertss use of
  opera glasses to watch not the performers, but
  the audience?
• When Henry van der Luyden announces that he will
  invite Ellen to a dinner with the Duke of St
  Austrey, this is punctuated musically by a march
  (trumpets), and the next scene depicts Ellen
  triumphantly ascending the van der Luyden
  staircase. Why a march?

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Role of Art in the Film

• Life-sized oil portrait of Regina Beaufort in a
  drawing room of her home
• Rather than squeezing through a narrow passage
  to get to the ballroom, one marched solemnly
  through a Vista of Drawing Rooms
• Beaufort having audacity to hang in plain sight
  Return of Spring in the Crimson Drawing Room
• Camera focuses on faces in paintings as narrator
  comments, this was a world balanced so
  precariously that its harmony could be shattered
  by a whisper.

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Role of Art in Film, cont.

• At Granny Mingotts, while the narrator comments
  that in Newland and May, two of New Yorks best
  families would finally and momentously be
  joined, the camera zooms in on a painting of a
  white woman about to be scalped by two Native
  Americans.
• How do the characters in the film resemble
  characters in paintings?
• They all lived in a Hieroglyphic world the real
  thing never said, done or thought, but only
  represented by a set of arbitrary signs.

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Art in Film, cont.

• Camera cuts from van der Luyden drawing room to a
  faceless woman with a parasol in an Impressionist
  painting on Ellens wall.
• In Boston, the camera zooms in on an artists
  hand painting a woman holding a parasol. Scene
  shifts to Ellen sitting on a bench, holding a
  parasol, like the lady in the painting.
• Louvre scene Whenever hed thought of Ellen
  Olenska, it had been abstractly, serenely, like
  an imaginary loved one in a book or a picture.
  She had become the complete vision of all that
  hed missed.

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Role of Food in the Film

• What do the dinner table scenes represent?
• How does Scorsese use these to move the action
  along?
• Several courses to choose from, but in a set
  pattern and within carefully set parameters.
• Perfect, fragile china with perfect
  patterns--easily breakable
• Careful arrangement of food and flowers

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Role of Cigars in film

• Clipping of cigars highlighted in film, with loud
  snip and with camera zooming in.
• Newland speaks with Mr. Letterblair re Ellens
  divorce over cigars and with Sillerton Jackson
  about Ellens place in New York.
• Nipping ideas in the bud? Cutting reality?
  Emasculation?
• Is a cigar ever just a cigar?

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Fire vs. Ice

• Icy streets of New York
• Snow flurries at Pennsylvania terminus/warmth of
  carriage.
• Fire in Mme Olenskas drawing room, both in the
  fireplace and cigarette lighter
• Fire in Patroon house/ice/snow outside
• In his own home, Newland comments to May that the
  fire in the lamp has died.
• May stokes and then puts out the fire as she
  announces that Ellen is leaving New York.

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Role of Narrator

• What does the narrator make possible
  cinematically that otherwise would be impossible?
• Scorsese criticized for Joanne Woodwards
  voiceovers
• How would the film be different, more limited, if
  told from Newlands point of view?

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Joanne Woodward
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Novel to Film

• Character Omissions Why?
• Notable Omissions?
• Changes in names Dallas to Theodore? Fanny Ring
  to Annie?
• Regina Dallas to Regina Townsend?
• What not Dallas?

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Novel to Film, Cont.

• Why in the film does Newland initiate the visit
  to the van der Luydens to plead their case,
  when in the novel Mrs. Archer does this and
  Newland is dragged along reluctantly?
• The Patroons house is shown upside down in a
  reflecting pool, when it is announced that May
  and Newland will spend their wedding night there.
  Significance?
• Fading to black technique

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Representations of Passage of Time

• Cars parked on Ellens street at end of film
• The final scene introduced by a ringing phone
• Dallas and Newland speaking by phone
• The new Metropolitan museum

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Final Scene

• Reality vs. Newlands reality
• Light reflected off the window Archer is
  watching. Seeing the Light? Blinded by it?
• Flashback to scene at Granny Mingotts in
  Newport--light reflected off the water
• This time, in Newlands mind, Ellen turns around.
  What does this represent?
• Why all the flying birds as Newland walks away?
  Why does the camera allow him to get completely
  out of sight before the scene closes?