MovieChat Forums > Howards End (1993) Discussion > Great Movie, Great Cast, Just One Flaw

Great Movie, Great Cast, Just One Flaw

posted 21 years ago by neckert7
35 replies | jump to latest

I am watching this movie for the first time in close to a decade. I am having pretty much the same reactions that I had when I first saw it:

1. Great Cast: You don't get any better when you have Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, and Helena Bonham Carter together. Emma Thompson does a wonderful job playing Margaret Schlegel. Even though she is an Edwardian lady, I feel like I do about her in contemporary roles (i.e. if I couldn't have her for a girlfriend, I'd want her as my sister). Helena Bonham Carter is a treat playing Margaret's younger sister Helen. She isn't quite the firecracker that she plays in more recent movies, but she too is very easy to fall in love with.

2. The movie's presentation is lush. I am no historian, let alone one of the Edwardian era. However, the staging, costuming, music all have a ring of authenticity to them.

3. My one problem is with the character of Simon Bast, the proud working class Londoner who marries --for pride!-- a prostitute and falls in love with Helen. The result of their tryst is a child who Simon does not live to see, because of his accidental death at the hands of one of Margaret Schlegel's in-laws.

I felt sorry for Bast. Yet I could not help but think that he really was not that high-minded or particularly honorable to cheat on his wife and impregnate Bonham's character in a time period where women who got pregnant out of wedlock tended to suffer greatly for the indiscretion.

It's still a great movie, but I can't think that Bast was a complete victim. You could argue that he pretty much ruined Helen's life and chance at having happiness in a legitimate relationship. Oh, well.

[–] 21 years ago

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[–] lagartija1919 20 years ago

Hm, I think that's where the element of TRAGEDY comes in. You wouldn't say that Oedipus-Rex is a great play but that its defect is that Oedipus is an unpleasant fellow who shouldn't have tried to disobey the gods. LEONARD Bast is portrayed as a victim of industrialisation, of market-forces, of his thirst for culture in the end: his high-principles which make him want to keep his promise to Jackie cause his social downfall. I disagree with your argument that he can't be so good if he cheats on his wife. He was already shown to be no angel sexually, since he is shown living with Jackie before they are married (at the beginning, when he hasn't turned 21 or grown a mustache). My idea of morality is not the same as yours, and I don't want to get in a debate about adultery, so I'll just say that we might forgive poor Leonard a moment of indiscretion, after all he has been through a lot, and Helen is just as responsible for what happens. Also, he couldn't foresee that she would get pregnant. So I don't think this act makes him a villain, or takes away from his status as a victim.
Also, and this is where I disagree with your word "flaw", the affair between Helen and Leonard is important structurally. If you've read the book, you know that the all important slogan is "Only connect". Connecting is precisely what Margaret and Helen endeavour to do throughout; Margaret establishes such a connection with the Wilcoxes, who, though wealthy, are inferior socially (they are "new money", and it is hinted that Ruth Wilcox is a mere farmer's daughter). This connection is based on a certain number of compromises, and though successful, is barren. Leonard and Helen also connect, and this connection results in Leonard's death. A child, however, is born, which means that their connection will live on after them.
To me, the only flaw in the film is the time-sequence at the beginning, when Aunt July rushes to Howards End on what is presumably the morning after Paul and Helen very briefly "connect", which makes one wonder when Helen had time to write and post her fateful letter, and when it might have had time to reach Wickam Place.

[–] saarch 20 years ago

Interesting reply. Thank you for correcting it as Leonard Bast. I'm now wondering how much time might have elapsed from the posting of Helen's letter, to its opening and reading, to the arrival of Aunt Juley Munt at Howards End...

If you consider that Howards End was no longer considered the country (near Hilton Junction, as both the book and Annie the maid point out) there might have been time for a letter to arrive at Wickham Place (the Schlegel house) between a late post and a late breakfast.

The telegram stating "all over" arrived after Mrs. Munt boarded the train and Margaret returned home.

[–] mark-1589 13 years ago

Thanks, lagartija1919 for your comment. I have seen this film more times than I can remember, and I just watched it again tonight before coming on IMDB to read comments. By odd coincidence, this is the first time I actually caught the error you mentioned. Helen would have had to write the letter well before the scene where she and Paul "lost their heads at night". One can presume that is when they made their connection and Paul already regretted it in the morning. So when was the proposal made and when did Helen have time to write home about it in time for Auntie to show up the next day? The book is slightly different, as the first chapter consists of three letters from Helen to Margaret, written on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday, in the last of which Helen declares, "we are in love", but says nothing of engagement. Apparently in writing the screenplay, the letters were translated into live action and, as often must be done to make a film short enough, the events in the book were compressed in time, accounting for this rather blatant error.

[–] k.m.bunting 11 years ago

The error about posting the letter was Forster's.
In many stories of that period, if a couple acknowledge that they are in love it's taken for granted that that means that they want to marry. Margaret understands "We are in love" to mean "we are engaged" as a matter of course, but for the film it has to be spelled out.
Helen and Paul spend a romantic evening in the garden. She writes and posts the letter after parting from him, but it was a mistake of Forster's to have Margaret receive it in London the next morning. Before Helen and Paul meet in the morning they have both realised that a marriage between them would not work, and discreetly agree to say nothing to the family.

[–] marteenuz 10 years ago

It seemed to me that Helen made this assumption when Paul kissed her, and she notified her family immediately. The next day, she attempted to come up to Paul in the hall for some similar contact, and he literally ran away from her. When Paul brought the subject up again, she was embarrassed and anxious to pretend it was meaningless to her, but then had to admit she'd already notified her sister.
At the turn of the century, you didn't kiss a woman unless you were engaged or married. I remember reading in a Sinclair Lewis novel (Babbitt, from the 1920s), how the protagonist kissed a girl whose feelings had been hurt, and she looked up at him and said, "Now that we're engaged, when will we be married?".
It's a source of irritation for many fans of Austen, Bronte, Dickens, etc, that when the books are brought to the screen, people are grabbing each other and kissing all over the place, when such actions would have a very different meaning in private during such times, and in public would go over like people initiating sexual intercourse in the middle of a party.
It has been getting better over time; the handiest examples that come to mind are the film of "The Age of Innocence", and the 2005 version of "Pride and Prejudice"(When Bingley finally proposes again at the end of the story, Elizabeth takes his hand and kisses it by way of saying 'yes').

[–] Virginiana 10 years ago

Marteenuz wrote:
the 2005 version of "Pride and Prejudice"(When Bingley finally proposes again at the end of the story, Elizabeth takes his hand and kisses it by way of saying 'yes').

There's a version of Pride and Prejudice that has Elizabeth marry Bingley at the end????

She steals him from her sister Jane? And what about Darcy -- does she throw him over? Wow, that's cold. Not to mention not the way Jane Austen wrote it.

[–] film_buff12 20 years ago

To me, this film is as close to perfect as is possible. I don't think anything could've been better about it. Just my opinion, though.

"Ah, ya's fancy pants, alla ya's"
"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

[–] love4colorguard 15 years ago

Agreed, I love a film where I feel a little contempt for every character involved. Nobody's perfect, just connect.

[–] satyricrash 20 years ago

I do not understand the labeling of a story aspect as a "flaw", but you are entitled to do so.

[–] Marina-Pratt 20 years ago

The "flaw" you detected happens to be the fault of E. M. Forster himself. Read the book - you will love it as much as the movie, which, as you said, was great. Leonard (not Simon) Bast is a flawed and therefore entirely believeable character who is all the more sympathetic because of his human imperfections. He was drawn to Jacky (the prostitute) because of his raging adolescent hormones, but, admirably, once he became her man, he felt honor-bound to support her and stay with her, which became more and more painful as he gradually realized that he had nothing in common with her and did not love her. To satisfy his hunger for "higher things", he enjoyed a relationship - entirely platonic, at first - with the Schlegel sisters, and it was mainly at THEIR instigation. Likewise, it was mainly at Helen's instigation that the affair happened. Both she and Leonard felt horribly guilty afterward, both suffered consequences far more catastrophic than the upright Henry Wilcox ever did for his sins, and both ultimately achieved some redemption by bearing in mind their responsibilities to other people. Helen, not wanting to complicate Leonard's life further, kept her pregnancy a secret from him. Furthermore, to make amends for the bad advice she had passed on from Mr. Wilcox, which had resulted in Leonard's being unemployed, she arranged for her brother to deliver a check for 5,000 pounds to the Basts. Leonard demonstrated his own nobility by returning the check. His behavior is all the more impressive given that Helen had dragged him and Jacky off to Shropshire to confront Henry Wilcox and, in her scatterbrained panic after the affair, run off without giving the Basts their return tickets to London or paying hotel bill, which "crippled the Basts permanently." Nonetheless, she takes responsibility for her child, and Leonard continues to take responsibility for Jacky. That is one of the great themes of the book: everybody makes mistakes, and there is a fundamental divide between people who are capable of admitting their fault and making amends and those who sweep their mistakes under the rug and blame others. In our culture, which worships the Prozac personality (Prozac turns people into an instant Wilcox), Leonard's humility and dignity in the face of hardship and his own mistakes is very appealing; it is the very point of the story and not a "flaw".

[–] snikpoh8 20 years ago

Well said. The film displayed the irony between the wealthy Henry Wilcox having no concern for the Basts even after his bad advice on the Porphyron resulted in Leonard Bast being unemployed. "A word of advice. The poor are poor and shall always be poor. There it is." Henry enjoyed carrying on with Jacky a decade previous when he was married to Ruth Wilcox and Jacky was left to fend for herself as a 16 year old prostitute in Madrid after her parents had died. It's interesting that
Jacky marries a man who is a clerk just like her dad.

[–] hugh1971 20 years ago

I have to disagree with snikpoh8 and say that Henry Wilcox is not without concern for Leonard Bast and the poor in general.

What he objects to is the Schlegel's 'sentimental attitude towards the poor' - ie treating them as problems for discussion at fashionable dinner parties. The Schlegels actually do a fair bit of damage by their well intentioned meddling in poor Bast's life, and by treating him as a problem to be solved rather than an individual. They have no understanding, for example, of the awkwardness Bast feels in the company of his social 'superiors'.

Wilcox, however is shown to be a believer in the 'trickle down' theory of wealth - he always tips generously and spreads his money around, and is even willing to give Bast a job until he finds out about Jackie.

The issue of Jackie is shown humanely also - Wilcox is contrite about his affair and does not try to excuse himself.

What Forster was trying to show was that there are no good or bad people in real life, just degrees of separation, and that this can be overcome if we 'only connect'.

[–] chconnol 20 years ago

Nice discussion and I'm sorry I didn't join in sooner. I'll agree with all points that Leonard was a character to be sympathized with BUT he is clearly shown to have faults that may doom his character. Remember near the beginning of the film, Leonard is shown at work goofing off trying to balance the pencil on his nose and such. And when he's given an assignement, rather than start on it right away, he's shown looking at a book on astronomy. Yes, in the end he tries to do right by everyone but is doomed by things outside his control.

[–] BlondeIsBetter 20 years ago

Well Leonard Bast reminds me of a lot of my ex-boyfriends, sort of charming and handsome and broke, and getting involved with them is always TROUBLE...

In a way, I can see both sides of it, especially when Mr. Wilcox says that line about helping them, and then they start to impose upon you, which it true.

I mean, they start to ASK for things and presume that you will help them, and become involved in their life, which is exactly what happens.

This film is not a happy film, but the characters are pretty realistic. Especially the horrible Wilcox brother that kills Leonard. I mean, Leonard did not deserve to die! My brothers are just like the Wilcox brothers!!

[–] jg67 18 years ago

"Well Leonard Bast reminds me of a lot of my ex-boyfriends, sort of charming and handsome and broke, and getting involved with them is always TROUBLE...
In a way, I can see both sides of it, especially when Mr. Wilcox says that line about helping them, and then they start to impose upon you, which is true."

A handsome,broke,charmer is going to do what a handsome,broke,charmer does. Repeatedly going after the same type says more about you than them don't you think?

It's a dirty job,but I pay clean money for it.

[–] onepotato2 14 years ago

"Leonard was a character to be sympathized with BUT he is clearly shown to have faults that may doom his character. Remember near the beginning of the film, Leonard is shown at work goofing off trying to balance the pencil on his nose and such. And when he's given an assignement, rather than start on it right away, he's shown looking at a book on astronomy." wrote chconnol
_______________________________________________

Oh for God's sake you loser. That is jubiliation. His quirks are there to make him a three-dimensional character.
I can't imagine what going to a movie with a toxic moralist like you must be like.

[–] coolbluegreen 16 years ago

hugh1971 wrote: <<The issue of Jackie is shown humanely also - Wilcox is contrite about his affair and does not try to excuse himself.>>

Actually, in the book, Wilcox is not contrite. He pretends to be, but he takes no responsibility and he feels no remorse. And when Helen finds herself in a similar situation, he has no compassion for her whatsoever. He doesn't even see the similarity between the two of them -- only Henry has done much worse -- he has betrayed a beloved wife and seduced and abandoned a helpless woman, whereas Helen feels terrible about what she has done and tries to make amends and offers Lenoard an enormous amount of money that he, like the true gentleman he is, refuses.

[–] mmitsos-1 16 years ago

hugh1971..I have to disagree with you about Henry Wilcox caring about the poor. A big tipper/believer in "trickle down" economics, as you Reaganly put it, NEVER cares about the poor. "Trickle down" economics doesn't work. It's how we've had the greatest disparity of wealth today, in this country, than we've ever seen. Ever since Reagan's lousy 80's trickle down economics, and DISASTROUS job growth, the rich only get richer, and the poor only get poorer..and the middle class fall down into poverty as well. Witness the predicament this country is in today, given all the laissez-faire deregulation that Reagan started, that Clinton never bothered correcting, and that W clearly let continue on...we're in a mess now. Rich people who believe in "spreading the wealth" in THAT fashion, through their own paltry "charities", NEVER genuinely care for the poor. Giving a few dollars here and there, giving to charities for no reason other than to have a tax write-off, is not caring a hill of beans for the poor. You need a "percolate up" economy to stimulate growth, not "trickle down".

[–] IEatWords 13 years ago

So the economy was great under Nixon and Carter? Reagan is certainly overrated as an economic powerhouse but look back to FDR to see where the economy of this country started to crumble. "Caring for the poor" doesn't make the poor wealthy, it just destroys the middle class, increases the dependencies and creates an Oligarchy.

[–] mark-1589 12 years ago

To IEatWords, I assume you are lost and have wandered onto this board in error. I can have no conception how your comment relates in any way to the film, Howard's End.

[–] IEatWords 12 years ago

Your response to me was even more random and off topic. I see no relation to your post and to the film, Howard's End, in any way.

[–] mark-1589 12 years ago

I guess you are one of those retards that thinks they are being clever when they repeat back anything anyone says to them. Party on, Garth!

[–] IEatWords 12 years ago

Your original post to me was more "off topic" as I was replying directly to someone over economics - pretty bizarre attaching yourself to my post like a fat slug.

Want a message regarding Howard's End? It's a straight up pedestrian piece of redundant film making.

[–] mark-1589 12 years ago

IEatWords, I sincerely hope that, by now, you have gotten the help you so obviously need.

[–] IEatWords 12 years ago

Another bizarre post by you that is also off topic.

[–] nubka 18 years ago

I though Jacky was stranded in Cyprus, not Madrid...

[–] coolbluegreen 16 years ago

snikpoh8 wrote: << Henry enjoyed carrying on with Jacky a decade previous when he was married to Ruth Wilcox and Jacky was left to fend for herself as a 16 year old prostitute in Madrid after her parents had died. It's interesting that
Jacky marries a man who is a clerk just like her dad. >>

Actually, Jacky is 33 when the book opens and I guess about 35 or 36 when it closes. That means she is 25-ish when she has the affair with Henry -- she was the age Helen is when she has the affair with Leonard.

The idea of an affair was totally shocking to the Edwardians -- to us, not so much. In order to make it more shocking and titillating to us, to give us an idea of what it must have been like to Edwardians, I presume Merchant/Ivory made Jacky 16, putting it in the kind of terms that would shock us. The book does not mention Jacky's father. Oh, and the affair took place in Cyprus.

One thing remains the same, no matter how old Jacky was -- Henry played about with her and coldly dumped her. He betrayed his wife, whom he loves, for a fling with some sexy bimbo he cared nothing for whom he then treats terribly. What a contrast to Leonard, who stands by Jacky no matter what, no matter that he doesn't love her, no matter that she can never understand him -- he does the right thing, even though it helps to ruin him. When Leonard cheats on Jacky, he feels a remorse that overtakes (and ultimately ends) his life. He is concerned about Helen, tender towards Jacky, what a TRUE man he is. His last words are to admit that he has done wrong -- contrast that with Henry, who has done far worse and can never admit it!

[–] coolbluegreen 16 years ago

Marina Pratt wrote: << That is one of the great themes of the book: everybody makes mistakes, and there is a fundamental divide between people who are capable of admitting their fault and making amends and those who sweep their mistakes under the rug and blame others. In our culture, which worships the Prozac personality (Prozac turns people into an instant Wilcox), Leonard's humility and dignity in the face of hardship and his own mistakes is very appealing; it is the very point of the story and not a "flaw". >>

Well said! Hurrah! God, one of the great things about this books is that it introduces one to other people like you -- brilliant people with great insight. I wish I could show what you have written to everyone I know!

[–] jaloysiusm-1 17 years ago

To me, the key point of both the movie and the book is that Henry and Helen together drive Leonard to his death. They're both dangerous extremes: Henry for his total capitalist insensitivity, and Helen for her seizing on the Basts to make a point. Can anyone possibly argue that the best way to help them was to drag them to the wedding? Sure, it embarrassed the Wilcoxes, but it humiliated the Basts, too. And she "helps" Mrs. Bast by sleeping with her husband? Helen really doesn't care about the consequences of her actions, as long as she scores points against the Wilcoxes (and it's far from clear that her motives are purely political--she's jealous, too. Remember she was rejected by a Wilcox).
This book and film make one of the most unique and, really, brave points in all literature/film: trod the sensible middle ground. That's what Margaret--the true hero of the film--does. She makes mistakes along the way (her letter saying to send the Basts home is a good example), but she always does her best to find the reasonable course through the moral crises she encounters. When Forster says "only connect," Margaret is the connection.

[–] alistla 13 years ago

Bravo! Somebody finally gets it.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] Benihanahasnofunflare 13 years ago

Bast was just looking for light.

[–] ShannonTriumphant 12 years ago

You could argue that (Simon West) Leonard was equally responsibly and a priori, he was, but in his defence, Helen never told him, or even her brother or sister, what was going on!

Men back then also had the idea that if a woman was going to "take care of" birth control, she would do it without them, since they knew almost nothing. Remember, Leonard was also quite young (just over 21?).

Leonard was a complete victim, but not the kind you mean, I think. He was a victim of the capitalist system, represented by Henry and Charles Wilcox and their idea that one need only "feel sorry" for the poor but not help them, not even by hiring them!

Just to clear up poor Jackie Bast's reputation, I don't recall Forster writing anywhere in the novel that she had been a prostitute, nor any reference to it in the film. It was said that she was left alone by her father. We are to assume that men like Henry Wilcox "kept" her, giving her a place to live, money, clothes, in exchange for sex. It's not the same thing since she was thrust into it by circumstance and did not choose it.

If someone can quote a passage from the book or film to the contrary, I'd be quite interested. Jackie was "lower-class" but that doesn't make her a prostitute!

She deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die.

[–] mark-1589 12 years ago

The implication that Jackie had resorted to prostitution is entirely clear. In that period of time, a teenage girl alone in a foreign land with no parents or relatives alive would have no means to support herself. Forster did not need to point out that she resorted to prostitution (and he probably would have considered it vulgar to express that point explicitly). It was entirely obvious. Apart from that, the story line of her having an affair with Mr. Wilcox made it entirely clear.