Have you seen this version of Middlemarch?Or maybe you’ve read the book. If either of these apply to you, then please HELP ME!
If you have a Netflix account, you can find this 1994 miniseries from BBC among the “watch instantly” options. You can find a plot summary here.
Did I like the film? Yes. I liked it very much. It had all the classic elements of our favorite English-novel-turned-period-drama. Beautiful language. Beautiful people. Virtuous people. Selfish people. And about every theme on the planet: Wealth, Class Distinctions, Reform, Education, Religious Hypocrisy, and Marriage. Only this time we don’t get the Happily Ever After we are accustomed to with Jane Austen. This time, George Eliot, aka Mary Anne Evans, left me with something more to think about. Dang it!!!
Okay, I was moderately satisfied with the outcome for these guys:
Mr. and Mrs. Casaubon
She marries him, despite the fact that he is decades her senior. She thought to be able to help him with his life’s work, A Key To All Mythologies. Not. He turns out to be a jerk. Fortunately he is dead by the end of episode 3. Sadly, he stipulates in his will that if she decides to marry this guy:
Will Ladislaw
Will Ladislaw
….she will automatically be disinherited of Mr. Casaubon’s fortune. Cruel. Well, she doesn’t care and by the end she marries Mr. Ladislaw anyway. An ending I can be satisfied with.
Life also seems to turn out okay for these guys:
Fred and Mary Vincy
They grew up as childhood sweethearts, but Mary refuses to give Fred any encouragement to pursue her until he can manage to prove himself capable of providing a decent living. He suffers the pains of being an idle, debt-ridden lug, disappointed of his expected inheritance from his rich uncle. However, by the end he seems to find his way and they marry happily.
Okay. I can accept that.
Fred and Mary VincyThey grew up as childhood sweethearts, but Mary refuses to give Fred any encouragement to pursue her until he can manage to prove himself capable of providing a decent living. He suffers the pains of being an idle, debt-ridden lug, disappointed of his expected inheritance from his rich uncle. However, by the end he seems to find his way and they marry happily.
Okay. I can accept that.
Here’s the one that is still bothering me:
Dr. Tertius and Mrs. Rosamond Lydgate
Dr. Tertius and Mrs. Rosamond LydgateI had every hope that these two were going to turn out to be the idyllic couple. He is an extremely ambitious, optimistic, talented, and well-educated doctor with high hopes of making great medical discoveries and turning Middlemarch into the town that forges the way in the medical world. I like him a lot. He’s self-confident and competent, and not afraid to be his own man.
She is beautiful. I guess that’s really all I can say about her now.
On first viewing I thought they really did have the adoring relationship we all aspire to. However, I’m slowly coming to grips with the fact that while he adores her, she really only admires him superficially, counting on his “high connections” (which he, sadly for her, despises) to elevate them in the classes.
Things go well for them at first, except that she speedily drives him into debt which he allows in an effort to please her. But then when he steps back and tries to make efforts to economize, she thwarts those efforts and turns their marriage south. Turns out that while maybe she loves her husband kind of, she apparently loves material wealth and her image in society even more.
I keep hoping that once the debt gets resolved, which it does, they will be able to repair the damage to their marriage and reinstate the adoration. However, that never happens and it still bugs me. In fact, this is what Wikipedia says about his demise:
She is beautiful. I guess that’s really all I can say about her now.
On first viewing I thought they really did have the adoring relationship we all aspire to. However, I’m slowly coming to grips with the fact that while he adores her, she really only admires him superficially, counting on his “high connections” (which he, sadly for her, despises) to elevate them in the classes.
Things go well for them at first, except that she speedily drives him into debt which he allows in an effort to please her. But then when he steps back and tries to make efforts to economize, she thwarts those efforts and turns their marriage south. Turns out that while maybe she loves her husband kind of, she apparently loves material wealth and her image in society even more.
I keep hoping that once the debt gets resolved, which it does, they will be able to repair the damage to their marriage and reinstate the adoration. However, that never happens and it still bugs me. In fact, this is what Wikipedia says about his demise:
He quickly falls out of love with his wife and ends up sacrificing all of his high ideals in order to make a living that will please Rosamond.
Aargh!! No!! Please, someone, just tell me it isn’t true.
Aargh!! No!! Please, someone, just tell me it isn’t true.
Actually, that IS what Weston keeps trying to tell me. It’s fiction, Em.
I’m trying to recreate a different ending in my head. The one where they really do have a happy marriage, despite the arguments over money. That’s what forgiveness is for after all, right? And the one where she realizes that being a doctor is what makes him. What he loves. And that he is able to go on in that profession and accomplish his dreams.
It has lead me to a quandary of what really makes a happy marriage. Is good marriage vs. bad marriage really so cut-and-dried? Is it so easy to slap a label on two people and conclude that their relationship is happy or miserable? What of the fact that no two people are perfect, hence, no marriage is really perfect. What about the fact that people can grow and change, and that especially in a marriage, the process of learning how to communicate and love and give and forgive takes time?
In a pragmatist sense, maybe it’s just because we don’t see what happens to the other couples after they marry. It just so happens that they marry at the end of the movie. Just because we don’t see the challenges that they face, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t have them. This is true of any and every happily-ever-after story we’ve all known and loved these many years. At first I thought relieved to see a film in which the story doesn't end with the wedding...but if it's not happily ever after, maybe I just can't take it.
Discuss.
I’m trying to recreate a different ending in my head. The one where they really do have a happy marriage, despite the arguments over money. That’s what forgiveness is for after all, right? And the one where she realizes that being a doctor is what makes him. What he loves. And that he is able to go on in that profession and accomplish his dreams.
It has lead me to a quandary of what really makes a happy marriage. Is good marriage vs. bad marriage really so cut-and-dried? Is it so easy to slap a label on two people and conclude that their relationship is happy or miserable? What of the fact that no two people are perfect, hence, no marriage is really perfect. What about the fact that people can grow and change, and that especially in a marriage, the process of learning how to communicate and love and give and forgive takes time?
In a pragmatist sense, maybe it’s just because we don’t see what happens to the other couples after they marry. It just so happens that they marry at the end of the movie. Just because we don’t see the challenges that they face, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t have them. This is true of any and every happily-ever-after story we’ve all known and loved these many years. At first I thought relieved to see a film in which the story doesn't end with the wedding...but if it's not happily ever after, maybe I just can't take it.
Discuss.
6 comments:
I saw Middlemarch and liked it. It is not the most exciting movie I have ever seen and had a horrible special effects/stunt budget. Aside from that it was well done and there are many interesting characters. I think Mr. Casaubon and Rosamond Lydgate are two of the biggest idiots I have ever seen in any movie. I wouldn't classify them as villains but they will drive you crazy.
Well done review Em.
Hey Emily--
You've summarized this movie much better than I ever could, and I loved your comparison of the couples. I know what you mean about the frustration of labeling someone's marriage, and everything you said about real-life marriages is true, that they take a lot of work and time and forgiveness. Thankfully for us, this story IS just fiction. I think rather than labeling each of the three marriages, George Eliot was trying to illustrate through these characters how different elements in a marriage will effect the marriage. In the case of the Lydgates, the thing that makes their marriage crumple is that the wife has her heart in her own interests and materialism more than her marriage and her husband. Those of us in real marriages, though we do sometimes argue about money and other things, just need to remember that arguing is not what makes our marriage a failure (although it would be nice not to do it...) if our marriage is still what is most important in the end. What makes a marriage a failure is when we selfishly hold other things to be more important than our relationship and our spouse. The thing that makes the Lydgates' situation all the more tragic in my opinion is that one of them, the husband, WOULD have given everything for the sake of the marriage and his efforts were fruitless. In fact he felt like a failure for his whole life. That just goes to show how marriage HAS to be a two-way effort. It can't thrive unless BOTH partners are doing their best, with each others' interests at heart. I don't know... what do you think?
Hey, I'm so glad you started this blog. I think it's an awesome idea. I have one suggestion that I tried to fix, but I don't think I can as a contributor. If you go into your settings on the dashboard, I think you can make the comment page come up in a separate window. It just might be helpful to be able to reference what you (or whoever posted) wrote when writing a comment.
I haven't seen this yet, but I really want to so I stopped reading your post and I'll comment again after I've seen it. I've watched some fairly crappy movies lately (the latest was Made of Honor--don't see it, the only positive thing was that it made me want to go to Scotland.)
Love the idea of a musings blog.
Hi emily--this is my first comment on your blog and I have to say I love it! you have made a work of art here. I watched Middlemarch and was quite disgusted with the marriage to the old fogey (can't remember his name right now) and glad she finally followed her heart in the end...was happy that Fred turned out all right, but I was never convinced that the lydgates would be an idyllic couple. She was so immature from day one and a fake and he fell for her because of her looks. He was determined not to marry for a long time (didn't he tell the poor vicar-guy that?) but then what does he do? Marries the idiotic immature "teenager" who doesn't have an ounce of sense in her brain and continues to flirt with every man she can even after their marriage. The poor doctor sealed his own unhappy fate by marrying her and then as angie said, because a good marriage does take two, his marriage was unhappy because she was unwilling to change. So, the number one thing that makes a marriage happy? Choose the right person in the first place. that's my advice, from an old married woman. :-)
I've always wondered how to spell "Casaubon". That really has bothered me for a long time now. I guess I should have just looked it up. Thankfully, now I don't have to.
I think that what dooms the said marriages in this movie is that one partner holds SOMETHING ELSE in importance above the person they're married to. Casaubon has his life's work. Shallow girl...well, pretty much everything.
I'm old enough,now, to have had SEVERAL couples I know split over some pretty dumb stuff. Some of it is less dumb, though still inexcusable in my opinion. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions or situations when splitting wouldn't be appropriate, but the question is one of commitment. You either work through it or you don't. That being said, it is true that both parties have to be interested in working through it. Otherwise there's not much point. I believe that's what we saw in "Middlemarch".
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