A Masterpiece Mangled
The New Brideshead Revisited

            Miramax’s newly-released Brideshead Revisited keeps some of the outer skin of Evelyn Waugh’s masterwork but mutilates its soul. Waugh would barely recognize his characters or his plot.
            The original Brideshead Revisited is hailed as one of the greatest works of fiction in the 20^th Century. Its rich narrative, breathtaking prose and spiritual depth mark it as unique in all of literature.
            When Waugh was writing Brideshead, someone asked him what his new book was about, Waugh replied, “It’s about God”.
            The book is essentially Catholic. Waugh’s purpose, he said, was to show the operation of grace in the modern world, in the lives of an upper-class English Catholic family who are half-pagan themselves.
            Though many in the book begin by leading lives of sin, Waugh constructs a credible story in which each of the major characters is redeemed, and he does this without the least drop of schmaltz or sentiment.
            The protagonist is Charles Ryder, a young man of no religion who in the 1920s meets the charming Lord Sebastian Flyte at Oxford. The two form what is called a romantic friendship. In the book, Waugh treats this delicate topic with style and reserve, referring to it, and only once, as a “naughtiness high on the list of forbidden sins”.
            We are introduced to Sebastian’s Catholic family, including his mother, Lady Marchmain, a devout Catholic who is “saintly, but not a saint”; his beloved Nannie Hawkins and his sister Julia.  We also meet his father, Lord Marchmain, a fallen Catholic who left his wife years earlier to live in Venice with a dancer.
            In the original novel, the alcoholic Sebastian, after tumultuous episodes at home, leaves England and ends up in Morocco.  Julia marries outside the Church, and Lady Marchmain dies praying for the salvation of the two of her four children who have wandered from the Faith.
            Years pass, and Charles meets with Julia by chance on board a boat sailing from New York to London. Charles and Julia, both in unhappy marriages, fall in love and end up “living in sin”.
            Meanwhile Lord Marchmain, a scoffer of religion, returns to England to die. His deathbed scene and the question of whether he accepts or rejects grace is the climax of the story. It is key to Julia’s immediate decision to break her relationship with Charles, and to Charles’ own conversion.
            The newly-released film perverts the story: Charles is entwined with Sebastian and Julia at the same time; a remarkably fey Sebastian shrieks in jealousy, “all you wanted was … my sister!”; Lady Marchmain is too tyrannical and manipulative; Charles is an obdurate atheist rather than a confused agnostic;  Cordelia is reduced to a bit part; the faithful Father Machay is a drunkard.
            The screenwriters mangle the plot with cheap imitations of their own invention. The Charles of Waugh’s Brideshead, after his conversion, pays tribute to Catholicism as a “cohesive philosophical system with intransigent historical claims”. The new Charles will have none of this.  And though Lord Marchmain’s deathbed scene is still enacted, the film ends with Charles as empty and faithless as he began.
            Granted, it is difficult to capture all of Brideshead in a two-hour film. Granada Television’s magnificent 1981 version of Brideshead, which has been called one of the most gorgeous and evocative film adaptations in history, spanned eleven hours.  
            Despite the challenges posed by a two-hour limit, there is no reason to dismember this revered story in the process. What excuse can there be for ignoring the clear intent of the author?
            In rejecting Waugh’s true purpose, the new Brideshead loses all meaning. It is profane, secularized, sordid. It becomes just another Hollywood tale of steamy scenes, homosexual kisses and raucous jealousies. I pity those who view the film and believe they have seen an honest portrayal of Waugh’s original creation.

            - originally published in the Philadelphia Bulletin. Reprinted with permission.

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