Tales of woe
Jan. 15th, 2004 04:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI'll spare you the minor nightmare that went on in regards to my software the last 24 hours or so. Suffice to say that at one point I thought I'd have to replace the regular computer as well as the laptop and cursed into the music-playing telephone sending me from one t-online expert to the next.
In between, I also did manage to watch the first episode of The Scarlet Pimpernel which![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bimo had sent me. Thoughts, possibly fueled by struggle with exploitative providers:
.
- hm, so they start with the backstory?
- DATES! Even a school child knows when the French Revolution started - but not much longer, you idiots
- the costumes are nice but dead wrong; too much Ancien Régime, and this is supposed to be France, not England
- Ian McKellan rules; what else is new?
- okay, this version makes it more confusing than ever why Marguerite picks smarmy Percy over Chauvelin (in the other versions, we can assume he was different before the marriage, but as we actually see the courtship here..)
- otoh, Marguerite is presented as such a superficial ditzy lightweight that they're welcome to each other (the Marguerite in the Richard E. Grant/Martin Shaw version at least came across as intelligent, but that reinforced the earlier named
problem)
- which leaves us with the problem of what Chauvelin sees in Marguerite (admittedly Jane Seymour looks gorgeous in these costumes, but still)
- that's supposed to be Robespierre? Couldn't they have tried at least for a little bit of resemblance?
- more than ever do I love Alan Moore for the appendix to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen II in which we learn that the 18th century League, which included Percy and Marguerite, had a most dissillusioning encounter with all those aristos which Percy saved, as they turned out to be all characters from novels by the Marquis de Sade.
Unresolved question from any Pimpernel version:
I f Percy is one of the richest men in England, can we safely assume he got his money the usual way, i.e. inheritance of centuries of exploitation of peasant population, child labour and new industrial labour which was just starting at the time, and which the not-stupid of the aristocracy were aware of, bearing in mind Byron's maiden speech in the House of Lords only a few years later which was about the plight of the weavers? Before and after saving aristocrats in France, does he ever bother to do something about the misery in his own country? While I'm anti death penalty even in historical swashbucklers, this story regularily leaves me shouting "A bas les aristocrats!"
In between, I also did manage to watch the first episode of The Scarlet Pimpernel which
bimo had sent me. Thoughts, possibly fueled by struggle with exploitative providers:.
- hm, so they start with the backstory?
- DATES! Even a school child knows when the French Revolution started - but not much longer, you idiots
- the costumes are nice but dead wrong; too much Ancien Régime, and this is supposed to be France, not England
- Ian McKellan rules; what else is new?
- okay, this version makes it more confusing than ever why Marguerite picks smarmy Percy over Chauvelin (in the other versions, we can assume he was different before the marriage, but as we actually see the courtship here..)
- otoh, Marguerite is presented as such a superficial ditzy lightweight that they're welcome to each other (the Marguerite in the Richard E. Grant/Martin Shaw version at least came across as intelligent, but that reinforced the earlier named
problem)
- which leaves us with the problem of what Chauvelin sees in Marguerite (admittedly Jane Seymour looks gorgeous in these costumes, but still)
- that's supposed to be Robespierre? Couldn't they have tried at least for a little bit of resemblance?
- more than ever do I love Alan Moore for the appendix to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen II in which we learn that the 18th century League, which included Percy and Marguerite, had a most dissillusioning encounter with all those aristos which Percy saved, as they turned out to be all characters from novels by the Marquis de Sade.
Unresolved question from any Pimpernel version:
I f Percy is one of the richest men in England, can we safely assume he got his money the usual way, i.e. inheritance of centuries of exploitation of peasant population, child labour and new industrial labour which was just starting at the time, and which the not-stupid of the aristocracy were aware of, bearing in mind Byron's maiden speech in the House of Lords only a few years later which was about the plight of the weavers? Before and after saving aristocrats in France, does he ever bother to do something about the misery in his own country? While I'm anti death penalty even in historical swashbucklers, this story regularily leaves me shouting "A bas les aristocrats!"
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 09:34 am (UTC)Quite right.
Date: 2004-01-15 09:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 10:07 am (UTC)And, as someone should perhaps point out to Marguerite, it is customary to break one engagement before contracting another, and in any century it's bad form to break it off with your boyfriend of some years by letting him hear through third parties about your engagement! I think a little villany is called for under the circumstances!
Absolutely.
Date: 2004-01-15 10:22 am (UTC)(To be fair, now that I've watched the second part I can see they also let Chauvelin be more villainous in retaliation, i.e. be prepared to send her to the guillotine. In the version with Martin Shaw, there is actually a scene where Chauvelin treatens Marguerite and Percy calls his bluff because he (P) knows Chauvelin would never harm her.)
Someone should write a story about the French hero Fleur, saving English workers and farmers from exploitation by their lords and setting fire on the occasional slave ship...
Re: Absolutely.
Date: 2004-01-15 01:27 pm (UTC)A bas les aristos
Date: 2004-01-15 12:20 pm (UTC)Re: A bas les aristos
Date: 2004-01-15 01:31 pm (UTC)I think it was George Orwell who made some terse comments about the English-speaking world getting their image of the French Revolution from Dickens and The Scarlet Pimpernel, when less people died in the months of the terreur (which did by no means emcompass the entire years of the Revolution) than in one Napoleonic battle, and as for the people who died of starvation and illness in the Ancien Regime...
Re: A bas les aristos
Date: 2004-01-15 04:39 pm (UTC)Revolutions: bad. Hereditary aristocracy: good. Jews: v. v. bad. (In the climax of the novel, Percy disguises himself as a "disgusting Jew".)
Now hush and admire the pretty swordfights. I always do.
Re: A bas les aristos
Date: 2004-01-15 04:56 pm (UTC)Re: A bas les aristos
Date: 2004-01-16 12:20 am (UTC)You know, I try. (Admiring the pretty, that is.) But I still want a film version of A Place of Greater Safety for balance...
no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 02:52 pm (UTC)The French Revolution, especially the Jacobins, have a lot to answer for - they're the ones who invented thoughtcrime through the Loi des Suspects. As in many revolutions, the beginning was well-founded but the development was horrendous.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-16 12:26 am (UTC)My problem with seeing Percy as a Reformist Whig would be that there isn't any indication he has any sense of things being less than ideal at home. I don't see him as having read Godwin or Wollstonecraft, either.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 06:04 pm (UTC)