MovieChat Forums > The House of Mirth (2000) Discussion > Parallels with today's society

Parallels with today's society

posted 15 years ago by Tanithpanic
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This film made me think of today's society - fair enough, a woman's situation is totally different in this day and age, but it did make me think of people who've got themselves into a mess with credit cards and not known which way to turn. And, sad but true, women do go "on the game" to earn the money they need, and many people resort to drugs as a release.

I wonder if this could be remade in the present day? It would obviously have a much more sordid side to it but.. what does anyone else think?

[–] Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday 15 years ago

I actually thought it was fascinating that the titles "New York, 19__" only arrive at the very end, unlike most other period pieces (such as Scorsese's The Age of Innocence), which really makes the whole film in its own self-contained time and space. It only reminds us that this really did and truly happen after the dream has ended and the crashing reality of Lily Bart's tragic downfall has reached its end.

"GOD--WAS--WRONG!"--James Mason, Bigger Than Life

[–] artihcus022 15 years ago

The Age of Innocence takes place a good thirty years before this film's timeline. This film is set in the Belle Epoque, the period from 1900 to the outbreak of WW1. The other reason why Scorsese announces from the start "New York in the 1870s" was that his story was on the surface less universal than The House of Mirth because it's about how a strong individual gradually succumbs to a society operating on arbitrary social codes and customs while the Davies is about someone who is an outcast from that world. So in order to make that palpable he has to show how that world functions and how people on a day-to-day basis took soon to be outdated norms as sacrosanct. Davies' film is about the price you pay for breaking the rules of the game.

Terence Davies himself said that this film was about modern society, pointing out the book was about a world where money and social image was all that mattered. He even noted in characteristic British wit, "it could be remade and set in Hollywood."

But then all period films are to a great extent about the 20th Century. Scorsese said that the world of The Age of Innocence was no different from growing up in a mob controlled ghetto like the Little Italy of his youth. While Max Ophuls made it clear that Lola Montes was about 50s tabloid gossip rags and not in the least bit about the actual Lola Montez.

"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes

[–] Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday 15 years ago

He even noted in characteristic British wit, "it could be remade and set in Hollywood."

I thought exactly the same thing while watching Davies' film.

"GOD--WAS--WRONG!"--James Mason, Bigger Than Life

[–] artihcus022 15 years ago

I wonder if this could be remade in the present day?

If you mean a modernization like the Alfonso Cauron Great Expectations(which I like for what it's worth), why? In any case when Edith Wharton wrote The House of Mirth(considered her first major work), it was a contemporary present day book unlike The Age of Innocence published in 1920(for which it deservedly won the Pulitzer). So the story is obviously immediate enough. In any case setting it in contemporary times would mean that we wouldn't get to see the actors in those fancy clothes.

It would obviously have a much more sordid side to it...

Well The House of Mirth has sexual blackmail, smearing, drug addiction and sucidal masochism already.

But yes, The House of Mirth is a very profound film about women being oppressed by a society's arbitrary customs. The book itself was influenced by many late 19th Century novels dealing with women as outcast as protagonist. Hardy's Tess, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and above all Flaubert's Madame Bovary. There's a terrific film adaptation of Tess by Roman Polanski, it's one of his best and most personal films(it's dedicated to Sharon Tate).

To retell a more contemporary version of The House of Mirth maybe you can tell the Marilyn Monroe or Judy Garland story. Especially the former, horribly sad.

"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes

[–] deeveed 15 years ago

.."women being oppressed about society's customs"...

You know the guys in there too were part of that old New York money and tribal culture. I think they were "restricted" just as well as to how they had to behave and what part they played in that kind of claustrophobic society. In the film, Bertha's spouse does mention that "husbands are expected to be like money.....influential but silent".

[–] artihcus022 15 years ago

You know the guys in there too were part of that old New York money and tribal culture.

Yes but this is a film about what happens to women. The Age of Innocence by Martin Scorsese is about how a man can be trapped and finished in that society and is a profound detailed film about that.

In the film, Bertha's spouse does mention that "husbands are expected to be like money.....influential but silent".

Well that's because he's married to a woman who is far more intelligent and attractive than he is.

In any case, a man had no fear to be treated the way Lily is in this film. The open and complete ostracism.

"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes

[–] deeveed 15 years ago

Yes, I agree on the portrayal you note between men and women at the time and Wharton's point of view. The interesting thing I find is that really it looked as if her choices determined whether she had the chance to actually live or die while trying to live in that society. Whoa. Those aristos were something else.
They'd kill you first before you could get an inch on them.

[–] artihcus022 15 years ago

They'd kill you first before you could get an inch on them.

The great French film director Jean Renoir once said about his film The Rules of the Game(a satire about France's aristocractic class on the eve of the Second World War, a war in which they would collaborate and profit heavily), that it was about a society, "that would kill, kill, kill and keep killing to survive." They don't do it directly, they don't do it clearly but the way they manipulate and use people is plainly barbaric and yet the cover it up with gentility and poise.

"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes

[–] catscratchpost 15 years ago

I never think of this as a movie about the oppression of women. I think of it as a movie about the redemptive power of love: Lily was very close to becoming one of these people. Her love for Selden rendered her incapable of marrying for money, or using his letters to blackmail another woman. She saved her soul, though at the price of her life.

[–] deeveed 15 years ago

..and to give it all up because of that materialistic and inhuman bunch. She, in a sense, evntually made her "own" way but paid the ultimate price.