I've heard that in the book, Bette's scheme ultimetly unravels, her family turns out okay, and she dies without anyone knowing how wicked she really was. Is this what happens?? If you've seen the movie, you could tell me even if you've never read the book. Please let me know!! I want to get this film, but before I do, it's very important to me that I know if Bette gets what she deserves (unlike she did in that horrid 1998 version). Thanks!
shareYep, sadly, it goes just the way you say in this version. Even so it's worth seeing just to watch the youthful Helen Mirren's pushed up breasts when she's laced in a corset. There's alot of talent there.
shareWait, when you say it goes just the way I said, do you mean the way I said it happens in the book (Bette dying and her scheme unraveling) or the way it did in the later version I mentioned??
shareYes, the way you said it happens in the book (I haven't read it), not the way you said it happens in the 1988 film (I haven't seen it). In this version Bette's schemes fall apart and she dies knowing it, though she manages one little last bit of mischief from her deathbed. I would've liked to see things work out for her.
shareOk, THANK you! The other version was awful, she got away with everything and someone even got murdered because of her. WHY would you want things to work out for her? She's a horrid, manipulative person who deserved failure for her malicious schemes. The whole reason I was asking this was because I wanted to make sure she got what she deserved before I bought the movie! "Her schemes fall apart and she dies knowing it." You have noo idea how delicious those words are to me :)Thanks SO much for confirming that; it's a great relief.
shareAs played by Margaret Tyczak I found her very likeable, and easy to identify with her bitterness about her position in life and the resentment and disdain she held for her gullible relatives.
shareMaybe so, but she still tried to ruin a family merely out of malice and resentment. She got what she deserved. Was the "mischief" that she practiced from her deathbed the fact that most of her family didn't know she was behind everything and thought she was a dear person when she died?
shareWell yes, there's that, but the last thing she does, despite being paralyzed and rendered speechless, is to encourage, with only the use of her eyes, the by then decrepit head of the family to pursue her not unwilling young nursemaid.
shareWow, wasn't she something. One more question, if you please (sorry, I'd just like to get everything straight before I buy it): it's my understanding that Bette always resented her family and their position in life. However, I read that it wasn't until her beautiful rich cousin married a guy she was in love with that she decided to ruin the family through schemes. I also understand that her cousin wasn't aware that Bette was in love with the guy that she married. Was that the way of it?
shareIt must be something like thirty-five years since I've seen the series. I don't recall now whether she was in love with him or had hopes to advance her fortunes and position in society in some way through assoctiation with him.
In any case, I believe her family had were too selfish and self-important and had too little regard for her for it even to have crossed their minds that she might have any feelings or hopes in the matter that should possibly be taken into consideration. It was just the last straw for Bette.
Ok then, thanks for all the info!
shareThat is pretty much how I remember it too, cobo-5. I believe your answers to be accurate. I must agree that I, too, had some sympathy for Bette, due to her cold family and the harsh lot spinsters drew back then. Even though I was only a clean living 16 yr. old when I saw this I saw the shades of grey more than whitespirit apparently does, as he/she wants hard punishment for evil Bette. That is a legit way of looking at the story, whitespirit, but so less interesting to me. But that's just me- no offense meant. A lot of people would likely disagree with me. If anyone finds a place to purchase this old Mast. Theatre classic could you kindly share it with me. Would be most greatful. Thanks.
shareI think it's fairly widely available now. Deepdiscount and Netflix have it. You might want to check your local public library first. My sister recently borrowed it from hers in Troy, MI.
I watched it recently and this time around felt a little more sympathy for Adeline and even though Bette's reactions seemed more extreme to me this time around I was still rooting for her and felt disappointed that her schemes were thwarted all along the way and saddened for the end that comes to Valerie and her ambitions.
Here's my sister's take on it:
Having just watched it, they gave a "shorthand" version of why Bette resented her family and especially Adeline. In one scene after she has lost her artist, Bette tells of how horridly they had treated her since she was young. In a scene afterward, Adeline says something like: Bette has always resented other people's happiness. Adeline seems clueless and cruel to me, in spite of her genteel veneer, for not even noticing that Bette had been sacrificed for Adeline's happiness
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That is pretty much how I remember it too, cobo-5. I believe your answers to be accurate. I must agree that I, too, had some sympathy for Bette, due to her cold family and the harsh lot spinsters drew back then. Even though I was only a clean living 16 yr. old when I saw this I saw the shades of grey more than whitespirit apparently does, as he/she wants hard punishment for evil Bette. That is a legit way of looking at the story, whitespirit, but so less interesting to me. But that's just me- no offense meant. A lot of people would likely disagree with me. If anyone finds a place to purchase this old Mast. Theatre classic could you kindly share it with me. Would be most greatful. Thanks.
shareHaving just read the book before watching the DVDs, I can say the dramatization is for the most part faithful to the novel.
In the novel, it is clear that Hortense was aware that Bette had strong feelings for Wenceslas before she stole him from her. It is equally clear that Bette herself recognized she had complicated feelings for Wenceslas. Her love for him was somewhere between motherly and connubial. It was also clear that she had very affectionate feelings for Hortense.
When Bette learned the news of the engagement she felt that she had been betrayed by her relatives. It was then she plotted her revenge.
In the novel, as in the dramatization, one could not only understand why Bette did what she did, one comes close to agreeing with her.
The ending took the most liberty with the novel. In her death bed, Bette does not conspire one last tryst for the Baron. Her last victory is to see, everyone weeping for her around her bed.
Adeline catches the Baron having yet another fling, this time under the same room and she proceeds to die in anguish a few days later.
Other than Wenceslas's outrageous hair do (enough to send anybody out of this world, with or without a TARDIS), a first rate production.
Edwardo
"Life is too short to repeat hackneyed clichés"
Thanks for the info, doc :) From everything I've heard, I don't agree with Bette or sympathize much at all. She conspired to ruin a whole family, even to the point of encouraging men to cheat on their wives and break their hearts, because of what Hortense did. It was my impression that the author of the novel meant for her deviousness to be punished and for the reader to appreciate the fact that her schemes unraveled.
shareActually, I didn't get this from my reading of this very cynical novel.
Namely,
Arguably the most selfless and pious character, Adeline, was constantly abused by everybody, especially by the Baron, his last transgression literally sending her to her deathbed. This was her reward for a lifetime of piety.
The Baron, after being the the real cause of the deaths of his brother and uncle, gets to live a long life and marries another wife. That is his reward for a lifetime of debauchery.
As for Bette, the person she despised the most (and this is much clearer in the novel than in the dramatization) was Adeline. This was a lifelong animosity. If all her other plans did not come to fruition, the fact that she was instrumental in destroying Adeline's happiness and ultimately shortening her life, she could take solace (albeit in hell) that she at least achieved that.
Edwardo
"Life is too short to repeat hackneyed clichés"
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Why did Bette despise her so? Maybe it is a cynical novel, but the fact that Bette would despise a woman as sweet and selfless as Adeline makes me dislike her all the more and strengthen my convictions that she deserves little or no pity. Even if the author wasn't too partial of the saintly types in life, the message of Bette's schemes unraveling seemed to be that that's what will ultimately happen in such machinations and that the truth will always undo deception and those who weave it (I read that one of Bette's young male relatives began to figure things out and undo her plot). Isn't true that Bette resented her family long before Hortense's betrayal because of their higher position in society and that Hortense's actions were just the last straw?
shareWell, as I said, it's been a long time since I've seen it, I may be remembering it wrong. DrEdwardo has just read the book and viewed the series and he would know better than I do, but it seems to me that Bette would have felt that they could have done more for her than just throwing her a few crumbs of paid needlework now and then. As I recall she did raise her standard of living by her schemes. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like there needs to be more driving her than just the resentment over the one dissapointment in their actions in regard to her.
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"Why did Bette despise ... a woman as sweet and selfless as Adeline? ...Isn't true that Bette resented her family long before Hortense's betrayal because of their higher position in society and that Hortense's actions were just the last straw?"
From the novel:
Lisbeth Fischer ... was five years younger than Madame Hulot; she was far from being as handsome as her cousin, and had been desperately jealous of Adeline. Jealousy was the fundamental passion of this character, marked by eccentricities—a word invented by the English to describe the craziness [emphasis mine] not of the asylum, but of respectable households. [She was] lean, brown, with shining black hair and thick eyebrows joining in a tuft, with long, strong arms, thick feet, and some moles on her narrow simian face
...
The family [emphasis mine], living all under one roof, had sacrificed the common-looking girl to the beauty [Adeline], the bitter fruit to the splendid flower. Lisbeth worked in the fields, while her cousin was indulged; and one day, when they were alone together, she had tried to destroy Adeline's nose, a truly Greek nose, which the old mothers admired. Though she was beaten for this misdeed, she persisted nevertheless in tearing the favorite's gowns and crumpling her collars.
She [Bette] kept the secret of her hatred even through a painful death from pulmonary consumption. And, indeed, she had the supreme satisfaction of seeing Adeline, Hortense, Hulot, Victorin, Steinbock, Celestine, and their children standing in tears round her bed and mourning for her as the angel [emphasis mine] of the family.
Wow, I never thought of Bette as insane, but cold and cruel. I knew no one knew it was her, but I thought I read somewhere that her schemes were mainly built by a web of deception and a male relative, though unaware that Bette was behind everything, began to connect the lines and thereafter unravel them. If this isn't what happened, how did her schemes unravel?
shareNo offense taken, prenzie. I just don't believe in punishing the innocent no matter what and Bette's scheming ruined lives and hurt innocent people. For that, she did indeed deserve to at LEAST have her schemes thwarted. I can see why you guys would feel bad that she doesn't find any happiness, but really, why would you feel bad that her schemes failed?? Her intention was to ruin her entire family! You're sorry this failed??
shareBette's schemes unravel because 1) she schemes a little too well and the rich respected old patriarch she's due to marry (Hector's uncle, I think) dies shortly before their marriage because of all the stress and beggaring that she has helped cause, and 2) her alliance with Valerie Marneffe falls apart for various reasons, and Valerie then overreaches herself without Bette to guide her.
Bette is certainly cruel, but in the novel Balzac carefully builds up the information to make it clear *why* she's come to be a sort of female Iago. Hortense's stealing of Steinbock was only the last in a loooong series of insults. Adeline is saintly in some respects, but horribly naive, blind, and oblivious in others. She doesn't see how many ways Bette's happiness has been sacrificed to hers throughout their lives. Hortense has less excuse: she knew Steinbock was sort of Bette's sweetheart before she even met him, and conveniently ignored that when she decided he would be her own. Hector was a chronic philanderer for decades before the incidents of the book: he would have cheated no matter what, so Bette's contribution was chiefly to push him towards financial ruination by manipulating his affair with a seemingly respectable middle-class wife.
The brilliance of Bette's machinations is that she uses the long-observed weaknesses and blindnesses of her respective family members against them. It's not easy to maintain such deceptions for years. Unholy alliances are bound to unravel sooner or later. But Balzac was a great realist and would not have stooped to polish this cynical novel off with a conventionally happy ending. Bette does not "get hers" as you would like. She dies loved and respected and is never found out.
PS--The truly horrible thing about the 1998 version is not Bette's dying respected, but the miscasting of the beautiful Jessica Lange as homely Bette.
"She dies loved and respected and is never found out."
Maybe so, but she does die. She dies of a painful disease, knowing her schemes failed and never living to have the satisfaction of seeing Adeline's misery. That's enough for me; if her family was naive of her true nature, at least it didn't hurt them anymore. Sounds to me like most everyone got what they deserved.
"The truly horrible thing about the 1998 version is not Bette's dying respected, but the miscasting of the beautiful Jessica Lange as homely Bette."
No, the truly horrible thing is that she didn't die, period!
No, Bette doesn't die of a painful disease. I believe it's a stroke and she dies only a few days later, having managed on her deathbed to plant in Hector's head the idea of sleeping with the vulgar kitchen maid. When Adeline finds out about it, she dies broken-hearted, uttering her first reproach to Hector as her last words. So the evil influence persists beyong the grave. And while Bette doesn't live to see that, she had plenty of opportunity to observe Adeline's misery in her lifetime.
We will have to disagree on your last point. The atrocity of watching a Holywood-gorgeous actress as homely Bette throughout the picture was far worse. I honestly don't even remember whether Lange snuffs it at the end, as I was so disgusted long before then that many of the script changes didn't even register. I do remember, however, their killing off Adeline at the beginning (!) which vastly undercuts Bette's revenge and makes Hector's philandering somewhat less morally heinous at the same time. Idiots!
"she dies only a few days later, having managed on her deathbed to plant in Hector's head the idea of sleeping with the vulgar kitchen maid."
That was just an addition to the movie, I understand; I don't think it was in the book. In my mind, Bette was pure evil. Sure, she had damn good reason to be pissed, but so do most corrupt people; it doesn't make them any better. At least she died, and knowing that her schemes failed. Like I said, it seems like everyone got what they deserved, more or less.
"I honestly don't even remember whether Lange snuffs it at the end"
No, she doesn't; the nasty bitch puts Hortense in prison, is responsible for her husband's death (Hortense's husband, I mean), and ends up with their baby, gloating down at him when the movie ends. SOMEBODY put a bullet through her smirking face!!
Balzac's story is something like most Stanley Kubrick films, in that there are virtually no wholly sympathetic characters ... and the "good" characters all have serious flaws.
I think most of us are horrified by Bette's machinations, but at the same time there's a kind of vicarious thrill in seeing how easily these people are manipulated. Balzac called his cycle of novels "The Human Comedy", and the purpose of this story is satirical as well as dramatic, depicting a time and place (post-Napoleonic France) and the cultural attitudes that blind people to the world around them.
The most likeable character is probably Josepha, who is not from the upper class but has a clear picture of the real world. Perhaps part of Balzac's purpose was to show how the snobbishness of the nobility to some degree insulates them from reality and thereby leaves them open to grave errors.
We can sympathize with Bette up to a point, but most of us probably don't regret that her plans eventually backfire (after she's managed to bring about the deaths of the two people in the family who were the least objectionable!). It's reminiscent of Shakespeare's Macbeth --- there could be no more unsympathetic character, and yet Shakespeare manages us to make us identify with him, at least as far as wanting him not to murder Duncan, not to kill Banquo ... no matter how many times I see the play, I keep wishing he'd change his mind and not kill the king. And I can't help wishing Bette had not convinced Valerie to marry Crevel.
We report, you decide; but we decide what to report.
Those are brilliant points, pninson.
shareHmm, am I the only one who thinks of this as a satire? As with all satires, characters are less rounded and more like types to be made fun of and derided. It holds up a mirror to such people and says "these are the types of things that people like this tend to do".
share"No, Bette doesn't die of a painful disease. I believe it's a stroke"
um, yes she does. Pulmonary consumption, remember? She was rendered unable to speak; that's painful, even for three days! The old crippled bitch never got to see her death, so as far as she knew she died more miserably than Adeline.
Even though you may not have meant to the sphynx, you describe exactly why I liked Cousin Bette and I was rooting for her to "get" all her enemies. As a single woman in 1800s France, everything in the culture was against Bette having a happy, fulfilling life. Who else did she have to take out the frustrations of the unfairness of her life but her relatives? The main source of her frustrations and disappointments.
No two persons ever watch the same movie.share
Actually I am borderline sympathetic to Bette, even if I think she goes too far. She's a fascinating character and I can definitely see where she's coming from.
shareMAJOR COP-OUT for Bette's character, Devans. Never mind her trying to be a decent human being instead. Bette's a bitter single, so that should justify her taking out her misery on other people? The world doesn't revolve around you just because your life is unfair.
shareAfter having watched all 5 parts today and having read this complete thread, I really wonder why you (whitespirit26) are behaving like this. You demand to stick with just one layer of view, or as someone else had put it: you don't see shades of grey but only black and white instead. I will go further and say that you even see black and white backwards.
And in your last post you are even starting to insult people who "dare" to have another opinion than you have.
The fact that you stick to this thread for more than a year is also interesting. Are you a bit obsessed? And why do you like these spineless characters more than those who finally get the chance to make things right?
I was rooting for Bette and Valerie, I loved them both and could relate perfectly to their lives and behaviours. Yes, I am cynical too, betrayed and abused by a family too, and I understand what it is like to hate certain relatives. Although I took different consequences than Bette, I still can fully understand her motives and I did fully support her moves. I guess the difference to me is that I am living 170 years after her, my position as a woman is another nowadays.
I enjoyed the first 4 parts deeply, but the last part, when things start to crumble, I did not like. I admit that I have not read Balzac's original work, so I was wondering what he really intended and what was BBC's version. I even thought Balzac might have had another original ending which he then changed later.
Because this ending (with young Valerie being killed by a mysterious poison in a clasp?) and then giving her fortune back to the family - that seems odd to me. Why would she on her deathbed do such a stupid thing? The right way to give her money would have been to Bette only, since young Valerie was owing all she knew and all he had to her. So why not being consequent and give Bette what she had? Why give to that sexdriven idiot???
I don't know enough about Balzac's life. But was their a politicial (or financial) need to make the ending like this? I found it very disturbing and it seemed to me that it was wrapped up a bit hastely.
And like someone mentioned before: the 2 murders done by this mysterious assassin, why is that acceptable? No no, this seemed artificial to me. Like he had re-written the last chapter in order to please people like whitespirit.
I had no idea that this work had been remade by Hollywood, until I saw it being listed when I searched for this title here. I am generally ignoring Hollywood movies (I am not American and therefor can't stand the flatness and shallowness they usually offer), so I will have never found out about this.
When I saw the picture of the (to me unknown) actress on the cover, I wondered what character she would play, because she clearly could not be plain Bette.
So, typical Hollywood, I am reading here they took a beautiful actress to play a homely character. Haha, ja, that fits my image of them, and again I feel confirmed my attitude towards their work. I will continue to ignore them.
I enjoyed this play (or as I said: its first 4 parts) not least because of the youthfull Helen Mirren. I saw Mirren first as "The Queen" 2 years ago (as a German I was not aware of her before), and since then I am trying to see more of what she had done. Nice and interesting to see this young woman here in her best (?) years.
I was overly harsh in my last couple of replies. But I don't insult people who think differently; I just get impatient with people who sympathize with villains. Black and white, my foot. I know there are many shades of gray, but there's also right and wrong, something so many liberals choose to forget.
"I still can fully understand her motives and I did fully support her moves"
Then you're barking up the wrong tree. Bringing justice to bad relatives is one thing; hurting innocents is another. And you call the innocents in this film spineless and mock them because they're not selfish like Bette?
"You demand to stick with just one layer of view"
Wrong. I love seeing stories from different views, but the one thing I DO stick with is that wrong is wrong. People are increasingly starting to admire cowardly schemers who manipulate and ruin others. I'm glad Valerie gave her money to someone else. One more strike against Bette. Talk about justice!
I'm not obsessed with this film at all, but I did make this thread and I wished to see all the answers.
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