Daniel Day-Lewis is Newland Archer, the protagonist of Edith Wharton's novel about love, manners, ethics, money, gossip, and inner turmoil in upper-class 19th-century New York in the 1870s. Day-Lewis recently announced his retirement from acting and it's a damned shame. His Newland Archer is slow-spoken and delicate in his movements. Very polite, you know, kissing hands, attending the opera, and the like. But his Bill "Butcher" Cutting was a convincing brutal, coarse murderer in "Street Gangs of NewYork," a rabid and ultimately psychotic capitalist in "There Will Be Blood," and an action hero in "Last of the Mohawks." I can't tell if he's particularly handsome or not but his features are plastic enough to fit these varied roles with credibility, as do his performances.
The set dressing, the art department, and the production design have outdone themselves in providing period appointments. The screen is filled with evening clothes, hansom cabs, ferns, and piles of flowers -- -- the "Gilded Age" for those fortunate enough to have been gilded. It was quite an age. No income tax, entrepreneurs and racketeers rich beyond belief. Diamond Jim Brady lighting his cigars with dollar bills while eleven-year-old kids worked diligently in the coal mines to provide those dollar bills.
Director Scorcese amalgamates all these elements into a visual narrative that -- while pretty dull -- is identifiably Scorsese's own. Overhead shots of swarming crowds or significant objects, cross cutting between a decorous love scene in a horse-drawn carriage and high shots of the carriage wheel turning and leaving dirt tracks in the powdery white snow. Day-Lewis in his parlor received some devastating news from his wife, Winona Ryder, and though he shows no excitement, there is a brief cut to a burning log in the fireplace breaking and crumbling with a subdued plop.
I said it was "pretty dull" and meant it. I could barely keep up with the many characters and the relationship between them, both the obvious ones and those sub rosa. I confess to a few periods of microsleep. Watching all the scenes of opulence made me feel small and broke. Especially one scene at a very long dinner table with overhead shots of the exquisite food the elaborately groomed guests are dining on. I'm sure I would have used the wrong fork. And in an attempt to overcome my nervousness I might have called for more wine and wound up half drunk, with the others all watching me out of the corners of their eyes, far too politic to ever remark about my behavior.
I have none of the aplomb of Herb Mankiewicz who was invited to dine with William Randolph Hearst at his elegant mansion. Hearst allowed no alcohol but his girl friend sneaked some to the guests. Herb managed to throw up after the first course but recovered nicely, dabbing at his lips with a white napkin and assuring Hearst, "Don't worry, Bill, the white wine came up with the fish." Good luck with the movie. You have never seen so much emotional restraint.
The set dressing, the art department, and the production design have outdone themselves in providing period appointments. The screen is filled with evening clothes, hansom cabs, ferns, and piles of flowers -- -- the "Gilded Age" for those fortunate enough to have been gilded. It was quite an age. No income tax, entrepreneurs and racketeers rich beyond belief. Diamond Jim Brady lighting his cigars with dollar bills while eleven-year-old kids worked diligently in the coal mines to provide those dollar bills.
Director Scorcese amalgamates all these elements into a visual narrative that -- while pretty dull -- is identifiably Scorsese's own. Overhead shots of swarming crowds or significant objects, cross cutting between a decorous love scene in a horse-drawn carriage and high shots of the carriage wheel turning and leaving dirt tracks in the powdery white snow. Day-Lewis in his parlor received some devastating news from his wife, Winona Ryder, and though he shows no excitement, there is a brief cut to a burning log in the fireplace breaking and crumbling with a subdued plop.
I said it was "pretty dull" and meant it. I could barely keep up with the many characters and the relationship between them, both the obvious ones and those sub rosa. I confess to a few periods of microsleep. Watching all the scenes of opulence made me feel small and broke. Especially one scene at a very long dinner table with overhead shots of the exquisite food the elaborately groomed guests are dining on. I'm sure I would have used the wrong fork. And in an attempt to overcome my nervousness I might have called for more wine and wound up half drunk, with the others all watching me out of the corners of their eyes, far too politic to ever remark about my behavior.
I have none of the aplomb of Herb Mankiewicz who was invited to dine with William Randolph Hearst at his elegant mansion. Hearst allowed no alcohol but his girl friend sneaked some to the guests. Herb managed to throw up after the first course but recovered nicely, dabbing at his lips with a white napkin and assuring Hearst, "Don't worry, Bill, the white wine came up with the fish." Good luck with the movie. You have never seen so much emotional restraint.