Looking Back in Admiration . . . or Anger

Yesterday the airwaves were full of the news that Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s reigning monarch for a remarkable seventy years, had passed away at 96. Though the British monarchy certainly has its detractors, the loss of a woman marked by dignity and a strong sense of obligation to the commonweal was regarded by most of the world as a poignant moment. Looking back on her ascension to the throne as a 25-year-old in 1952, I realize that her reign coincided almost exactly with something brand-new on the British stage: the Angry Young Man.

 It all started with a 1956 play by John Osborne, one that ushered in plays, films, and fiction marked by a furious disdain for the status quo. Alan Sillitoe, who was to write such lacerating works as The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, said of Osborne that he "didn't contribute to British theatre, he set off a landmine and blew most of it up." Osborne’s semi-autobiographical Look Back in Anger, disdained by most critics but hailed by a prescient few as the shape of things to come, focuses in on the crumbling marriage of a young working-class man, Jimmy Porter, and his more pedigreed wife, Alison. Jimmy has managed to get an education, but resents everything about the world of his betters. Much of the play (set in a squalid Midland flat) features his sometimes comic, sometimes cruel diatribes against his wife, his sweet-natured buddy, the social status quo, and everything else that crosses his path. The film version, released in 1959, featured rising star Richard Burton, along with Claire Bloom and an expanded cast of characters. It garnered an X rating from the British censors, and—though nominated for a few British awards—made absolutely no dent on Hollywood.

 I hadn’t realized that the play was filmed again, for television, in 1989. It was helmed by Judi Dench, in her only directorial outing, and its stars included a then-married couple who were starting to make their own impact on theatre and film. In that same year, Branagh had both shot and starred in his stirring rendition of Shakespeare’s Henry V, scooping up his first two Oscar nominations (he won in 2022 for his Belfast screenplay). Thompson, newer to the big screen, would go on to win Oscars for acting (Howards End) and screenwriting (Sense and Sensibility). The Branagh/Thompson marriage, which led to several creative collaborations on stage and screen, ended in 1995, apparently because Branagh had moved on to Helena Bonham-Carter, in a dynamic that had some parallels to Look Back in Anger. But what struck me was that both Branagh (born in 1960) and Thompson (1959) started their lives at a time when Look Back in Anger was galvanizing the art world.

 As Jimmy Porter, Branagh has the real goods. He’s funny; he’s angry; he’s constantly in motion. This production, which began on the British stage, is completely faithful to Osborne’s tiny cast and one-set location. There’s no room for fancy camera work, and everything depends on Branagh firmly holding our attention as he goes off onto his endless rants. And so he does. I’d like to say that his working-class roots, as seen in the autobiographical Belfast, make his a Jimmy Porter we believe through and through.

 Thompson, as the woebegone Alison, has the harder job, tamping down her vibrant personality to persuade us that she’s willing to remain Jimmy’s doormat. But the toughest role belongs to Helena Charles (Siobhan Redmond), the posh friend of Alison’s who shows up at midpoint and makes some bewildering choices. Still, this remains a mesmerizing production.

 

Suffering Little Children

Little Children (2006) is the only film I can think of in which a pedophile is probably the most sympathetic adult character. Tom Perotta, who adapted his popular novel for the screen along with director Todd Field, is less concerned with the danger presented to children by the psychologically warped Ronnie McGorvey (an Oscar-nominated performance by Jackie Earle Haley) than by the self-absorbed parents who follow their own bliss in this whitebread suburban town. The film’s ending, from what I gather, is a major departure from Perotta’s novel, in which Ronnie’s obsession with kids leads to a  very different, though equally disturbing, climax.

 I’ve also heard that this is the rare film that is superior to its source material. I can’t speak to that, but I can see how Perotta’s novel about seven lost souls has been shaped and sharpened in order to zero in on a few really key relationships. The most vivid is that of Sarah (a rather bedraggled Kate Winslet) and Brad (a squeaky-clean Patrick Wilson). Sarah’s a desperate housewife and former self-proclaimed radical feminist who takes pride in keeping her distance from the other young moms in the local playground set. It doesn’t help that her husband, an older man who’s been married before, turns out to have an obsession with Internet porn. (A very tongue-in-cheek narrator shows us the outrageous moment when Sarah catches her spouse in flagrante with the on-screen Slutty Kay.) 

 Brad (nicknamed “the Prom King” by the playground moms) is restless in his role as househusband and aspiring lawyer, married to an ambitious maker of documentary films.  He’s happy enough pushing his little son on the swing-set, but only pretends to be studying for the upcoming bar exam. What he really seems to covet is physical thrills, of the sort he once felt as a college quarterback. Brad’s and Sarah’s spouses are far more deeply explored in Perotta’s novel, but on film the spotlight shines bright on the couple’s passionate extramarital affair, sparked by time spent together at the community swimming pool, and then consummated as their four-year-olds nap in another room.

 Played off against this wild and crazy coupling is the story of Ronnie McGorvey, newly released from prison following an episode in which he exposed himself to a local child. Now living in the neighborhood with his supportive, though slightly addled, mother, he wants only to be left in peace. But a self-righteous ex-cop leads the charge to hound Ronnie from town, even coming to his door late at night to harass him via loudspeaker, making sure Ronnie knows that he’s the neighborhood pariah and always will be.

 Of course no good can come of all this. It’s an unusual hallmark of this film that we understand the pain and frustration of the local residents at the same time that the narrator’s comic detachment moves the story along. I can only assume that the witty tone of the narrative comes direct from Perotta’s novel. It’s startling, at first, to hear so much detached narration setting the stage for the story we’re about to watch. It reminded me of a far different film with far different goals, Tony Richardson’s filmic adaptation of Fielding’s 18^th century comic gem, Tom Jones. Later on, as this wry voice faded away, I began to miss it. But of course detached wit, going on at length, would overly divert us from the fundamentally serious tale we see unfolding on screen. Though modern life has its darkly comic side (Starbucks barristas! Online shopping sprees! Internet smut!), there’s nothing funny about the destruction of marriages and families.   

 

The Story of “The Nun’s Story”

Little girls of my generation were fascinated by nuns. This had nothing to do with being Roman Catholic: in my recollection the kids with the least respect for nuns were those unfortunates who attended Catholic schools, and were subjected to what they saw as a rigid and humorless group. But those of us with zero Catholic connection were entranced by the long heavy robes, the cropped heads covered by veils, the very idea that someone would wholly give up her private life for the sake of an ancient ritual. That’s probably why we gravitated toward everything from Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison to The Sound of Music. And, of course, we read Katherine Hulme’s 1956 best-seller, The Nun’s Story, based on the life of an actual Belgian nun who nursed the sick in the Congo during World War II. Somehow, though, I never saw the major Hollywood film based on that novel—until now.

 It's well known (everywhere but at the new Academy Museum) that the American film industry was largely started by Jewish immigrants. Still, despite the ethnic backgrounds of men like Jack Warner, Carl Laemmle, and Samuel Goldwyn, they were eager to please the American public by hewing as closely as possible to what they viewed as traditional American values. From the moment that censorship threatened to enter the picture, studio bosses actively looked to the Catholic Church for public approval of their projects. Particularly in the 1930s, the point-person within the industry who was charged with keeping the silver screen moral was Joseph Ignatius Breen, a devout Roman Catholic. Breen, who enforced the so-called Hays Code with missionary zeal, made sure that Hollywood films did not stray from subjects and behaviors of which the Church approved. Even after Breen’s retirement, the infamous Production Code continued to be largely enforced, until the arrival of television made the industry eager to capture and hold new audiences—at which point (we’re talking about the Sixties, of course) all hell broke loose.  

 What I hadn’t realized until now was that a big-budget film based on Hulme’s popular novel was hardly a slam dunk. Apparently, Warner Bros. sought to bring this material to the screen before the book was even published, but naysayers worried that its story—which depicts a gifted young woman’s inability to make peace with the unrelenting demands of her order—might alienate Catholics by casting a dim light on Church values. After all,  Sister Luke must agree to suppress her vibrant personality in order to conform to Church requirements for obedience. At one point she’s even told by a superior to fail an all-important exam as a necessary exercise in humility. Eventually director Fred Zinnemann and screenwriter Robert Anderson (neither of them Catholic) were persuaded that it was essential not to criticize the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary, while  also acknowledging that Sister Luke, for all her talents, was unsuited to the strict discipline the order required.

 Without Audrey Hepburn in the starring role, there would apparently have been no film. She’s perfectly cast as a young woman in love with God and with the chance to save souls by repairing damaged bodies. In the film’s early scenes, we are steeped in Church ritual—the flickering candles, the solemn processions, the rapt faces—and understand her commitment. But we also see how she blossoms, far from the Mother Church, in the Belgian Congo, where she can put her intelligence to work, unafraid of violating arcane rules of modesty and silence.  In the year of Ben-Hur, this film garnered 8 Oscar nominations, but (alas) not a single win.

 Happy birthday to Hilary, who (thankfully) is not a nun.