British tv watched of late
Nov. 24th, 2008 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe Devil's Whore: fails at history, and so far plays it pretty safe in terms of stereotypes, which is surprising coming from the writer of Our Friends in the North, but John Simm is reliably good.
Einstein and Eddington: This I loved. Early on, I was afraid they'd do the biopic thing of dissing first wives in order to make the genius husbands look better for their treatment of same (see also, most recently: Walk the Line), but no. Though the film doesn't go into depth about the end of Einstein's first marriage, which conflicts with the lovable genius image a lot - it's a pretty chilling story, worse than your avarage case of enstragement and divorce because Mileva Maric, the first wife in question, had been one of the first women to study physics and mathemathis, a brilliant student according to her teachers, and the debate about how much or little she was involved in Einstein's 1905 annus mirabilis rages to this day (in his letters to her while the marriage was good, there is a lot of talk of "our" theory of relativity). Of course, Mileva never had a career. After her divorce from Einstein, the rest of her life was spent taking care of their schizophrenic younger son. In 1914, shortly before the marriage broke down for good, the very year the film starts, Einstein drew up a list of demands she was supposed to agree on, which is kept among his papers and reads as follows:
A You are to take care of:
1) My clothes and laundry
2) My three meals a day, to be served properly
3) my bed room and office being cleaned up; only I have the right to work on the desk
B You will not expect any social relationship with me, especially not
1) Me sitting around at home with you
2) Me travelling or going out with you
C You will agree to the following terms of our interaction
1) You will not expect any tenderness from me, nor will you make any accusations
2) You will break off any sentence directed at me if I want you to
3) You will leave the room at once if I ask you to
D You will promise not to make me look bad in front of the children, neither through words nor actions.
Given all of this, you'll understand why I would have objected to the film, no matter how bad or good it was, if it had presented Mileva as the guilty party in the breakdown of the marriage, and when we got introduced to Einstein through a scene where he lovingly played with his sons while Mileva sat at home with a stiff back, I was afraid we'd go the "she has no sense of humour and just doesn't understand him" road, but no, as soon as they actually spoke to each other, it was clear we wouldn't. Mind you, the film doesn't give Einstein any lines resembling that horrible list (it would have been impossible to do so and keep him as a sympathetic protagonist, I guess, especially given that he simultanously had an affair with his cousin Elsa who later became the second Mrs. Einstein), but it makes it clear he's rejecting Mileva's attempts to save their marriage and quite at fault for its breakdown. It is, of course, a side issue, since the main subject of the film consists of two scientists working together (of sorts) while their countries are at war with each other, scientific curiosity and decency winning over war-induced hatred and scapegoating. It's deeply humane story, and though the protagonists never meet until the very last scene, it works. Andy Serkis is good at Einstein; David Tennant is fabulous as Eddington, and incidentally, the Eddington part of the story is, like the movie Capote two years ago, an example of a film having a homosexual protagonist without this being the theme of the film or being disguised in any way. Or, for that matter, the historical circumstances being ignored. The scene where Eddington tries to tell his friend William he loves him but finds himself unable to is absolutely heartbreaking, as are the later scenes when after William died at Ypres Eddington can't show anyone but his sister what this means to him. Eddington is also the character who has the emotional journey of the story, with his belief in Newton's certainties challenged by Einstein's theories and his response leading him to make that gesture across borders and later to prove Einstein's theory.
The film is being set during WWI for the most part, but due to the locations - Cambridge and the Berlin institutes - there are no battle scenes, or even scenes with wounded soldliers. But the horror of war is powerfully conveyed through scenes with both German and English characters grieving for the loss of their sons at different points, and the chilling scene where the use of chlorine, soon to be used on the battlefield by both sides, is first tested. (By Fritz Haber, played by Anton Lesser in this film, whose wife, also a chemist and opposed to his work on poison gas, committed suicide with his service revolver after Ypres.)
Lastly: I wasn't quite clear whether or not Serkis was going for a German accent because it seemed to me he switched at times. I always find it a bit silly if in English-speaking movies actors do this while portraying Germans/Swiss/Austrians speaking to other Germans/Swiss/Austrians, since presumably we're meant to assume they're talking in German. (Same, btw, goes for French characters talking English with French accents when talking to other French characters, Spanish characters, etc.)
Einstein and Eddington: This I loved. Early on, I was afraid they'd do the biopic thing of dissing first wives in order to make the genius husbands look better for their treatment of same (see also, most recently: Walk the Line), but no. Though the film doesn't go into depth about the end of Einstein's first marriage, which conflicts with the lovable genius image a lot - it's a pretty chilling story, worse than your avarage case of enstragement and divorce because Mileva Maric, the first wife in question, had been one of the first women to study physics and mathemathis, a brilliant student according to her teachers, and the debate about how much or little she was involved in Einstein's 1905 annus mirabilis rages to this day (in his letters to her while the marriage was good, there is a lot of talk of "our" theory of relativity). Of course, Mileva never had a career. After her divorce from Einstein, the rest of her life was spent taking care of their schizophrenic younger son. In 1914, shortly before the marriage broke down for good, the very year the film starts, Einstein drew up a list of demands she was supposed to agree on, which is kept among his papers and reads as follows:
A You are to take care of:
1) My clothes and laundry
2) My three meals a day, to be served properly
3) my bed room and office being cleaned up; only I have the right to work on the desk
B You will not expect any social relationship with me, especially not
1) Me sitting around at home with you
2) Me travelling or going out with you
C You will agree to the following terms of our interaction
1) You will not expect any tenderness from me, nor will you make any accusations
2) You will break off any sentence directed at me if I want you to
3) You will leave the room at once if I ask you to
D You will promise not to make me look bad in front of the children, neither through words nor actions.
Given all of this, you'll understand why I would have objected to the film, no matter how bad or good it was, if it had presented Mileva as the guilty party in the breakdown of the marriage, and when we got introduced to Einstein through a scene where he lovingly played with his sons while Mileva sat at home with a stiff back, I was afraid we'd go the "she has no sense of humour and just doesn't understand him" road, but no, as soon as they actually spoke to each other, it was clear we wouldn't. Mind you, the film doesn't give Einstein any lines resembling that horrible list (it would have been impossible to do so and keep him as a sympathetic protagonist, I guess, especially given that he simultanously had an affair with his cousin Elsa who later became the second Mrs. Einstein), but it makes it clear he's rejecting Mileva's attempts to save their marriage and quite at fault for its breakdown. It is, of course, a side issue, since the main subject of the film consists of two scientists working together (of sorts) while their countries are at war with each other, scientific curiosity and decency winning over war-induced hatred and scapegoating. It's deeply humane story, and though the protagonists never meet until the very last scene, it works. Andy Serkis is good at Einstein; David Tennant is fabulous as Eddington, and incidentally, the Eddington part of the story is, like the movie Capote two years ago, an example of a film having a homosexual protagonist without this being the theme of the film or being disguised in any way. Or, for that matter, the historical circumstances being ignored. The scene where Eddington tries to tell his friend William he loves him but finds himself unable to is absolutely heartbreaking, as are the later scenes when after William died at Ypres Eddington can't show anyone but his sister what this means to him. Eddington is also the character who has the emotional journey of the story, with his belief in Newton's certainties challenged by Einstein's theories and his response leading him to make that gesture across borders and later to prove Einstein's theory.
The film is being set during WWI for the most part, but due to the locations - Cambridge and the Berlin institutes - there are no battle scenes, or even scenes with wounded soldliers. But the horror of war is powerfully conveyed through scenes with both German and English characters grieving for the loss of their sons at different points, and the chilling scene where the use of chlorine, soon to be used on the battlefield by both sides, is first tested. (By Fritz Haber, played by Anton Lesser in this film, whose wife, also a chemist and opposed to his work on poison gas, committed suicide with his service revolver after Ypres.)
Lastly: I wasn't quite clear whether or not Serkis was going for a German accent because it seemed to me he switched at times. I always find it a bit silly if in English-speaking movies actors do this while portraying Germans/Swiss/Austrians speaking to other Germans/Swiss/Austrians, since presumably we're meant to assume they're talking in German. (Same, btw, goes for French characters talking English with French accents when talking to other French characters, Spanish characters, etc.)
