I got an early start on my passionate, romantic love for all things Edwardian. I was already an ardent fan of the carrot-topped Anne Of Green Gables (and therefore all things puffed-sleeved and early 1900s) when my mum asked my brother and a 9 year old me if we would like to go for a walk by the River or to go and see a film. If anything, this question says much of our love for walking; but on this occasion, we chose the film. Off we trotted to the city to the bright shiny lights of the George Street cinema complex.
The film we watched that Sunday afternoon was Howards End; the Merchant Ivory film adaptation of the E.M. Forster novel..
The film we watched that Sunday afternoon was Howards End; the Merchant Ivory film adaptation of the E.M. Forster novel..
The sisters Schlegel
That afternoon would go down as a seminal moment in my childhood. This was no Anne-with-an-'e', this was something completely different - this was the murky world of adults; of lies, corruption, beauty, longing and ultimately death. I vividly remember with crushing terror the climactic scene where the bookcase slowly falls on Leonard Bast - the final moments of an already broken man; the gorgeous scene where Leonard walks through the night to see the countryside and finds dawn in a field of bluebells; the fiery shrewish pride of Helen Schlegal (a young Helena Bonham Carter) with her messy, curly pouffe of Gibson Girl hair; the thwarted kindness of her sister Margaret (a radiant Emma Thompson)
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