Tagline: Privilege, ambition, desire. At Brideshead everything comes at a price.
Befriended by aristocrat Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw), Oxford student Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) finds that the power and privilege experienced by the family is seductive. On a visit to Brideshead, the ancestral home, he falls in love with his friend’s sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell). However, as Charles’ ties to Sebastian and family deepen, he finds himself at odds with their strong Roman Catholicism.
The memoirs of Captain Charles Ryder who is stationed at Brideshead Castle during WWII and remembers his involvement with the owners of the Brideshead estate: the aristocratic yet Catholic Flyte family and in particular brother and sister Sebastian and Julia.
A provocative and suspenseful drama, “Brideshead Revisited” tells an evocative story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in the pre-WWII era. In the film, Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode, Match Point, The Lookout) becomes entranced with the noble Marchmain family, first through the charming and provocative Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer), and then his sophisticated sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell, Cassandra’s Dream and the upcoming The Duchess). The rise and fall of Charles’ infatuations reflect the decline of a decadent era in England between the wars. Academy Award-winner Emma Thompson co-stars as Lady Marchmain.
The film, based on Evelyn Waugh’s acclaimed novel is adapted for the screen by multiple BAFTA Award-winner Andrew Davies (Bridget Jones Diary, Bleak House) and Jeremy Brock (The Last King of Scotland) and directed by Julian Jarrold (Becoming Jane).
Long Synopsis
Brideshead Revisited is an evocative and poignant story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in pre-World War II England as the privileged aristocracy fell into decline. It tells the story of young, middle-class Charles Ryder’s involvement with the aristocratic Marchmain family over a period of 20 years, and in particular, with the Marchmain brother and sister, Sebastian and Julia.
Charles meets Sebastian, the charismatic but flawed younger son of the family, at Oxford University. He is soon seduced both by Sebastian and his world of wealth, glamour and outrageous behavior. His seduction is complete when Charles visits ‘Brideshead,’ the Marchmain’s magnificent ancestral home, where he is introduced to a new family and a world entirely unlike his own middle-class upbringing in London. Sebastian, meanwhile, has fallen in love with Charles and is determined to keep his new friend to himself.
Over a glorious summer they share all the pleasures Brideshead affords, from wine-tastings and lakeside picnics to bathing in Brideshead’s grand, sculpted fountain. During the course of this idyll, Charles becomes infatuated with Sebastian’s beautiful younger sister, Julia. As Charles’s emotional attachment to the entire Marchmain clan deepens, however, he finds himself and his atheism increasingly at odds with friend Sebastian and his family’s ardent Catholic beliefs, enforced by the matriarch, Lady Marchmain.
Charles is invited to accompany Sebastian and Julia on a trip to Venice where he meets Lord Marchmain, their spirited, hedonist father. Marchmain has left his wife and the formality of Brideshead for the vitality of Venice and the passion of an Italian mistress, Cara (Greta Scacchi). In the heady atmosphere of the Venetian summer, the brooding attraction between Charles and Julia ignites. Caught up in the decadent excitement of the Carnivale, they kiss for the first time. Confused and troubled by this turn of events, Julia flees. Charles discovers that Sebastian has witnessed this intimate moment and knows that his friendship with the youngest son of the Marchmains will never be the same.
Back in England, any thoughts of a relationship between Charles and Julia are quickly quashed by Lady Marchmain, who is well aware of the spiritual and social divide between them. Nevertheless, Lady Marchmain invites Charles to Julia’s 21st birthday ball at Brideshead, not so much as a guest than as a companion and chaperone to Sebastian whose drinking is getting out of hand.
Charles’ initial excitement at seeing Julia again is dashed when Lady Marchmain announces the engagement of her daughter to the Canadian businessman, Rex Mottram, a match the matriarch has engineered. Charles’ miserable evening ends abruptly when a drunk and grief-stricken Sebastian lurches into the party, bellowing his hatred for his family and for Charles for having deserted him. Lady Marchmain casts Charles into exile from the Eden that is Brideshead.
Four years pass before Charles receives a surprise visit from Lady Marchmain. With some humility and in desperation for her son’s welfare, she implores Charles to find Sebastian and help him back onto the straight and narrow.
Locating him in Morocco, Charles begs Sebastian to come home to visit his ailing mother. Although ill and weakened by alcohol, Sebastian has found his own peace and refuses to return. Charles bids a final farewell to his friend and in time, loses touch with the Marchmain family as he establishes himself as a successful artist with an international reputation and marries a young socialite, Celia (Anna Madley).
In 1935, traveling back to England from an expedition to the jungles of Central America, Charles has a chance meeting with Julia. Neither of them is in a happy marriage and both recognize that they remain one another’s true love. At last, it seems that Julia, and perhaps even Brideshead, are within Charles’s reach.
Charles and Julia return to Brideshead to negotiate the annulment of Julia’s marriage to Rex. Julia is exasperated when the men barter for her with Charles’s paintings. Rex points out that Julia’s second marriage would never be recognized by the Catholic Church but despite this, she and Charles are poised to leave for Europe, happy together at last. Their escape is thwarted when Lord Marchmain returns to Brideshead to die. Knowing the old man had abandoned Catholicism long ago, Charles is furious with the family’s insistence on a deathbed reconciliation between God and Lord Marchmain.
Julia is deeply moved by her father’s death and his last minute acceptance of the Catholic last rites. Charles realizes that she will never be free of her religious upbringing. Her feelings of sinfulness and her desire to be close to God mean that Julia will never truly be his. Charles walks out to a lonelier future.
During World War II, Charles is stationed back at Brideshead which has been requisitioned as an army base. As he wanders the grounds, he recalls his turbulent, passionate history with the Marchmain family and his two lost loves. Bustling with soldiers and bursting with supplies, Brideshead begins its own transformation, swept away by a more modern, less privileged world.
Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited” was written during the Second World War, while he was serving in the British army. It is imbued with a nostalgia for the pre-war years, a nostalgia informed by Waugh’s belief that the aristocratic way of life lived by the novel’s Marchmain family would surely not survive the upheavals happening in the world. Yet many of novel’s fascinating conflicts and themes are as contemporary now as they have ever been. Through the story of Charles Ryder’s encounter with the Catholic Marchmain family, Waugh explored the erosion of the aristocracy, the turbulent shifts in the class system, the power of religious belief, family duty and sexual tolerance.
The filmmakers drew on the themes that they felt chimed for our age — particularly the search for individual fulfillment in a world where religious fundamentalism and loyalty to one’s tribe seem likely to prevent the possibilities of such happiness. These themes are as relevant and universal today as they were when the novel was written. The fact that the novel had never before been brought to the big screen even further compelled the filmmakers to pursue this feature adaptation.
A Brief Comparison Between the Film and Novel
The film follows the novel in being structured as the wartime memories of Charles Ryder, a middle-class outsider from the wrong side of the tracks who fell in love with the high-society world of the Marchmain family and their ancestral home, Brideshead. The members of the Marchmain and Ryder families as depicted in the film are largely unchanged from the novel.
Charles’ friendship with Sebastian is not explicitly homosexual in the novel, though it becomes clear by the end that Sebastian has found happiness in a homosexual relationship, when he ends up living with Kurt, the German soldier he meets in Morocco. The film makes Sebastian’s sexual attraction for Charles more explicit, while maintaining some ambiguity as to how Charles deals with being the object of such desire. What’s important is that viewers feel the depth of Sebastian’s despair when he realizes that Charles is in love with his sister, Julia, and can never properly reciprocate his feelings.
The difficult and passionate affair between Charles and Julia only features in the second half of the book, though in the novel, they do first meet when Julia picks Charles up from the train station en route to Brideshead, just as they do in the film. The film has placed their affair as part of its framing devices, thereby allowing the audience to see the past through the prism of Charles’ love for Julia.
By placing Julia in Venice with Charles and Sebastian — a major change from the novel but one which was approved by the Waugh estate — the filmmakers were able to bring her center-stage in the film’s narrative, as well as to dramatize more powerfully and economically the evolution of Charles affections from Sebastian to Julia. The Waugh estate were, in fact, happy to see this relationship developed in the film.
The filmmakers found the novel’s thematic heart to be the web of faith, sex, guilt and ambition. Sebastian is consumed by guilt over his homosexuality; Julia by guilt over her infidelity.
Waugh’s “invisible thread” of Catholic inculcation pulls at both siblings. Charles, swept away by his hunger for the glamour of their world does not initially see this; it takes until the conclusion of the film for him to realize why he has not been able to possess Julia, or Brideshead, completely.
When he becomes more aware of the forces at work, Charles is forced to choose — does he let her go, or succumb to a religious vision of the world he has hitherto resisted. Can love change belief?
The strategy of adaptation made some changes and losses from the novel inevitable: the Oxford don Samgrass features less; Rex’s conversion to Catholicism is reported rather than seen; Charles’ wife, Celia, is but briefly featured, and the children he never knows have been cut; and secondary characters such as Anthony Blanche have been allowed their thematic place but have lost moments which will doubtless by missed by some loyal readers.
The conclusion to Waugh’s novel continues to surprise — and one thing the filmmakers were keen to retain was a tonal fidelity to Waugh’s eloquent appraisal of the mysteries of love and faith.
The Film vs. The Miniseries
For many, Brideshead Revisited is not a book at all. It’s the lavish television series that marked the high watermark of the golden age of British television, 27 years ago. It ran on PBS for more than 12 hours and was both literal — the book is a modest 330 pages or so — and “literary” — possibly because it was overlaid with a voice-over from Jeremy Irons that seemed to distil Evelyn Waugh’s prose into manageable bite-sized chunks.
The filmmakers had as a basic starting point the confidence that Brideshead Revisited is rich enough to contain the possibility of new interpretation. Each new generation must engage with the classics and remake them for its’ own time. That is what classics are for — in music, in theater, in literature.
Film requires a different approach to television. In adapting the novel into just over two hours of screen time, the filmmakers did not have the luxury of Proustian detail. The strategy was always to draw on the themes that most resonated for a contemporary audience. Tough choices had to made about what to exclude.
One thing, however, that the filmmakers did want to emulate — to take three young British actors and make them the center of the adaptation. In Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw and Hayley Atwell, their hope is to introduce actors whose impact and futures will be every bit as rich as Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews and Diana Quick.
The Production Story
The Book
Evelyn Waugh wrote Brideshead Revisited in just four months while on leave from the army during the latter stages of the World War II in 1944. Completed as the Allied forces were landing in Normandy, the book was published to widespread acclaim and no small amount of controversy in 1945.
Waugh was writing what he has called his ‘magnum opus,’ about the decline of the English Catholic aristocracy. It was during the war -a period of uncertainty and almost certain change which Waugh believed would pave the way for the rise of the common man and the end of the upper social class and with it, a rich and glorious era. Brideshead Revisited was epic in scope, set across several continents and three decades from the 1920s to the 1940s. Its theme, as described by the author, is ‘the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters.’
The novel includes some autobiographical detail -Waugh converted to Catholicism in 1930 and he also encouraged a friend to convert on his deathbed. He enjoyed life as an undergraduate at Oxford, drinking too much and mixing with people from grander colleges than his own (Hertford) as well as experiencing at least one homosexual relationship. His Oxford contemporaries included Graham Greene, Anthony Powell and John Betjeman and when Waugh later wrote Brideshead Revisited, it was during a celebrated period in English literature which included the publication of Betjeman’s New Bats in the Old Belfries, George Orwell’s Animal Farm and Dylan Thomas’s Deaths and Entrances. Brideshead Revisited is possibly the best known and most celebrated of Waugh’s 13 novels and is considered to be a classic of 20th century literature. It is included in the list of Time Magazine’s Top 100 Novels.
The Film Version of Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited movie storyline. When Ecosse Films’ producers looked at the novel with a view to adapting it into a screenplay, they were surprised and excited to discover that the novel had never been made into a feature film. “We were going through a list of classic novels which had never been made into films and Brideshead came up,” says Robert Bernstein, Producer at Ecosse Films. “I was astonished to discover that it was available and we jumped at it.”
Waugh himself had granted MGM an option to develop a screenplay in the 1950s, but he hadn’t liked the script. Producer Kevin Loader comments, “I think they were keen to take out the religious elements and the subject of Julia having an affair was a very difficult one for the Hollywood of that time.” Since then, the Waugh Estate had received various enquiries regarding the film rights but had held onto them. “The Estate is quite protective,” notes Loader. “They saw an early draft of the script and were keen that some of the religious scenes in the novel didn’t get completely watered down, but they have been very supportive.”
Ecosse Films’s Robert Bernstein and Douglas Rae brought in the award-winning television screenwriter Andrew Davies (Pride and Prejudice) to develop the script, before turning to another acclaimed screenwriter, Jeremy Brock (Last King of Scotland; Mrs Brown) to pick up the baton. “Different writers bring different values to a project and I felt at a certain point that Jeremy, whom I’d worked with on two other films (Charlotte Gray; Mrs Brown) was the right person to take it to the next stage,” says Bernstein.
Jeremy Brock was initially unsure of what he could bring to the script, and wanted to get back to the source material. After re-reading the book, he felt exhilarated. “I thought it was one of the best books in the English language,” he says. “It’s a tremendous piece of writing and one of the big challenges for the screenwriter is not only to find a way of compressing the story to fit within a film’s timeframe, but to find the film equivalent for prose poetry which this book contains in abundance. It is some of the most beautiful prose you will ever read and that gives the book a personality which the film has to find the equivalent of.”
The complexity and scope of the story itself also appealed to Brock but in order to condense such an immense story into a film, he needed to find a clear line through the text. “It’s a love story but a complex, subtle, grown-up love story about the pursuit of beauty and about faith, passion and guilt. The essence of it, for me, is the very singular love story between Charles, the outsider, and two incredibly vivid young people -beautiful, tortured, wonderful people, Julia and Sebastian that he falls in love with. That gives this epic its originality.” Jeremy adds, “It’s how you then spin the rest of the narrative around that love story that becomes the challenge.”
Jeremy felt the love story has much resonance today. ‘The triangular love story between Charles, Sebastian and Julia seemed to tell a story about caste, which I found very contemporary and fresh,” he says. “And I thought there was a way to tell this story about an outsider coming into this family -a caste very different to his own -and dealing with that in a way that is very true to the book but also tells a modern audience something about fundamentalism and about how difficult it is to grow beyond our roots, to live beyond what has formed us in our childhood.”
Although there hadn’t been a previous film version of Brideshead Revisited, there had been a very successful television adaptation in the 1980s. Produced by Granada Television for ITV in the UK in 1981, the 11-episode series was extremely popular in the UK and much of Europe, creating a new benchmark in quality television drama. It is now over 25 years since the series aired but the memory looms large. Writer Jeremy Brook comments, “When I was thinking about writing the screenplay I was thinking about the book. I did look at the TV series again and then I forgot about it. Although the book is set in the rarefied world of the aristocracy between the wars, it still speaks directly to many of the issues that count as ‘current’: religious fundamentalism, class, sexual tolerance, the pursuit of individualism. For those reasons, I didn’t feel I needed to worry about the TV series, and as I wrote, I felt that more and more.”
The modern parallels and universality of the story intrigued producer Kevin Loader. Brought onto the project by Ecosse in 2006, Kevin comments, “Jeremy had just completed a draft and it had transformed the story. It’s a wonderfully grown-up classic novel and a book of its time to an extent, but I think, consciously or subconsciously, we have tried to do something which would resonate now. The focus of this adaptation is the two love stories — Sebastian’s for Charles and Charles’s for Julia. The way those two stories interact, interlock and circle one another is timeless.” He continues: “I think what the story also contains is a very interesting portrait of parental influence on children, religious upbringing on children and a historical snapshot of a moment in English Catholic aristocracy between the wars. But most importantly, it is about one man’s inter-relationship with two members of one family, both of whom he falls in love with.”
During the development process of Brideshead, Ecosse films were producing Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy and directed by Julian Jarrold and they were keen to bring Julian in to direct Brideshead, too. Julian recalls, “Robert Bernstein called me during the editing of Becoming Jane and my initial reaction, was ‘Hasn’t that already been done?’ It took me a while to come around.”
Julian recalled the TV series and comments, “I deliberately haven’t watched the TV series, as I thought I’d either end up copying it or reacting against it, and I’d prefer to react to the script and read the book and identify the things which were crucial to me about those two things for the film.” Like Jeremy Brock, Julian returned to the source material and was captivated by the intricacies of the novel. He comments, “I think Waugh’s aim of the book was to write a very Catholic novel about how a group of characters come to God, and while that is true, he doesn’t follow as simple a path as that. The best parts of the book are when the characters have an inner life and react in very contrary and contradictory ways. They are often shown in a very unflattering light, particularly Sebastian and Lady Marchmain.”
As a novel Brideshead Revisited has a very rigid three-part structure, each section addressing different parts of Charles Ryder’s life. To create a fluid, dramatic screenplay, some reconstruction was necessary. Julian explains, “In the book, Waugh deals with Sebastian, then stops and deals with Julia -there is barely any overlap. For the film, it is much more interesting dramatically to have the two coinciding.”
Writer Jeremy Brock also brought one major additional deviation from the book to the screenplay. Kevin Loader explains: “We’ve taken a few liberties with the plotting to serve our story, and what Jeremy did was to put Julia in the Venice sequence of the novel, so when Charles and Sebastian go to visit Lord Marchmain and his mistress Cara in Venice, Julia goes with them on the trip, which is different to the book. It became the pivot of the story for us.” Julian adds, “By taking Julia away from Brideshead, she can feel a bit freer, let her hair down. At the Carnivale, she sees people cavorting and it opens her up, sexually and emotionally, as it does Charles. That allows them to become entwined romantically which then disrupts Charles’s relationship with Sebastian, almost breaking Sebastian.”
When dealing with the Waugh Estate, the filmmakers had been open about their intention to put more of a focus on the relationship between Charles and Julia than the TV adaptation had done, to which the Estate had no objection. Kevin Loader comments, “They were happy about that and did see an early draft. They were most keen that we didn’t completely water down some of the religious scenes and I don’t think we have. Julia’s choice at the end of the film is still one between earthly values and spiritual values.”
Casting
One of Brideshead Revisited’s main appeals to the producers and the director was not just that the film is adapted from a literary masterpiece, but also that it is a British classic. They were excited that a British production team would finally bring Brideshead to the big screen. The producers and director Julian Jarrold were committed to casting home-grown talent to ensure that Brideshead remained a truly British production. Kevin Loader comments, “We were very keen to keep the cast British as we felt that there was enough young acting talent here to cast the central trio without looking to the US and we’ve ended up with three wonderful actors.”
Julian Jarrold echoes this: “I’m so pleased and proud we got a British cast.” One particular benefit of this was an inherent knowledge of the British class system. Julian says, “I felt it was going to be so much easier — almost effortless for a British actor to drop into the role and understand the clash of manners, propriety of the period and intricacies of the English social system -than for actors who might not have grown up in it. ”
The three central characters, Charles, Sebastian and Julia, are all in their late teens and early twenties when we first meet them, with Charles and Sebastian being students at Oxford University. As well as ensuring the chemistry was right between the crucial trio, the filmmakers were keen to cast actors of similar ages to mirror the youth and vitality of the characters. Brock comments, “I think one of the reasons an audience will find this film fresh is the casting. I think the three central characters have been brilliantly and intuitively cast. They’re young and that sweetness and raw passion of youth leaps out so you just feel drawn to them and pulled along by them.”
Charles Ryder
On casting Matthew Goode in the lead role of Charles Ryder, Julian Jarrold comments, “The part of Charles is very difficult because he is the observational centre of the film and for a lot of the time, he is reacting to what other people do. Because he is surrounded by extraordinary people, such as Sebastian, Lady Marchmain and Julia, we needed someone who could take the audience on that journey, and Matthew Goode was able to do that. In the second half of the film you start to see, sympathetically, the ambitious side to Charles. I think, similarly to any of us being dropped into that world, we wouldn’t want to leave it and it is the same for Charles.”
“I think for the part of Charles, you need to be a good back-footed and front-footed player and Matthew does that extremely well,” says producer Kevin Loader. “He’s passionate when he needs to be passionate, playful when he has to be playful and slightly mysterious when he has to be more opaque and that’s hard to do. We also have very little voice over in the film, so there is pressure on Matthew to act those observational moments rather than rely on voiceover. He had a really difficult job and I can’t imagine anyone doing it better.”
As the action revolves around Charles Ryder, the part required Matthew Goode to be in nearly every scene of the film, a challenge for any actor. Matthew admits, however, that his greatest challenge early on was overcoming the feeling that he did not much like Charles Ryder. “When I first read the script, I found it quite hard to love Charles,” says Matthew. “I think he can be quite selfish and weak at times but then you look at his upbringing. When you see he had no love from his father, and no motherly influence, it gives you an understanding of this guy. He’s very messed up. He doesn’t know what love is and you know that eventually he’s doomed to spend the rest of his life on his own, so you do feel a certain amount of sympathy towards him.”
Sebastian Flyte
Julian Jarrold was familiar with Ben Whishaw’s work and was delighted to bring him on board in the role of Sebastian. “I’d seen him in Perfume and I knew he was a brilliant actor,” comments Julian. “Sebastian is a very difficult part because you can easily overplay the feminine elements of his character, and make him too ‘camp’ but Ben is a superb actor and has a very gentle, beguiling quality which shone out early on.” When Julian auditioned Matthew Goode together with Ben he knew immediately it was the right combination. “You really felt there was a fantastic chemistry there, so that made my decision very easy,” comments Julian.
Producer Kevin Loader was excited by the performances each of the young actors gave but was particularly intrigued by Ben Wishaw’s portrayal of Sebastian. “Ben is marvelously intense and his performance is extremely different to the Sebastian I think people will be expecting. It is beautifully modulated and what’s particularly impressive is that it has seams of tragedy and humility in it in an extremely beguiling way. That’s a tribute to the intensity Ben brings to everything he does.”
Ben was delighted to get the part. He says, “I was really thrilled to be involved in it. I think it’s a beautiful story and will really benefit from being distilled into a two-hour film. I was also very excited to get the chance to work with some wonderful people, particularly Emma Thompson and Michael Gambon.”
Julia Flyte
The final part of the key ensemble to cast was Julia Flyte, Sebastian’s beautiful and enigmatic older sister. Again, the filmmakers were excited by the British talent available to them and to cast rising star Hayley Atwell. “She’s astonishing,” enthuses producer Kevin Loader. “She has to play both ends of the scale of Julia. As the young Julia she is a bit wayward and disconcerting but very intriguing, and then as the slightly older Julia, you can see the toll taken by her struggle with her religious roots -her sense of guilt -and it’s very hard to get right.”
Julian felt that in Hayley he had found a unique Julia Flyte. “I’d seen her in the television drama, The Line of Beauty and thought she was a really exciting talent, but she wasn’t an obvious choice for Julia,” he comments. “The book gives her a fragile upper class look and I think Hayley presents as a much stronger character but she was still able to reveal the inner conflict — at first you think Julia is freer than she is but later, she really shows the conflicted nature of her soul.”
One of Hayley’s biggest fans was Ben Whishaw. “I’ve just completely fallen in love with Hayley,” he says. “She has such amazing style and grace and she’s also got an enormous soul and sensitivity, which I think is a rare and wonderful thing. She’s also very sexy, as a person and in her performance as Julia. I think Hayley and Matthew’s part of the story will be really moving.”
Atwell was familiar with the novel Brideshead Revisited and loved Brock’s script. “I think there is something in it for everyone,” she says. “It works on many different levels and can be very thought-provoking and very sexy at times. The themes are universal, they are themes you find in many stories and eras — war, loss and religion -which give it a great, timeless quality.”
When Hayley spoke to family friends about the role she’d just won, she was surprised to discover the legacy of the TV series. She says, “When I mentioned it, they all knew about it and talked of the phenomenal success of the Granada TV series and how wonderful it was. I felt that this in fact presented us with a fantastic new challenge -to make an adaptation for today, 20 years on. It’s the same as doing a play by Shakespeare which is done over and over again but with a different take on it each time, to find a new voice for a new generation.”
Lord and Lady Marchman
With the three young leads in place, Julian Jarrold and the producers then complemented them with well-known stars including Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmain, Michael Gambon as Lord Marchmain and Greta Scacchi as Cara, Lord Marchmain’s Italian mistress.
Producer Kevin Loader was delighted that Michael Gambon agreed to take on the role famously played by Lawrence Olivier in the TV adaptation. “Michael Gambon brings with him this incredible mischievousness as well as a certain gravitas and it’s the combination of the playfulness of Lord Marchmain and his gravitational pull as the father of that family which is so interesting. Michael manages to steer that course in a very engaging and entertaining way.”
Another fan of Gambon’s work was Matthew Goode. “Michael is actually one of the reasons I went into acting. I saw him perform Uncle Vanya when I was 17 and I thought he was great and that I’d love to be able to do that.” Matthew was not disappointed on meeting his hero on set: “He is such a nice guy -he’s got the dirtiest jokes and the biggest laugh, and he’s so much fun!”
A vital part of Brideshead is that of Lady Marchmain. A staunch Roman Catholic, she is the religious center of the novel and the film, binding all the characters together and, in the case of the Marchmain children, largely informing who they are, directing their decisions both subconsciously when they were growing up and consciously as they become adults. Commenting on Lady Marchmain’s role, writer Jeremy Brock says, “She carries the burden of the religious themes. She is the most articulate advocate for the Catholic point of view in the film and stands out because of that. It also inevitably means she is going to be one of Charles’ main adversaries.”
Brock uses Lady Marchmain to subtly explore the complexities of religion and the deep hold which the family’s faith has upon the Marchmain children and the difficulties Charles faces as an atheist trying to comprehend the power of that faith. “As religion is one of the central themes and narratives spinning around the central love story, the film explores how religion plays into people’s lives, how it informs who they are and how they attempt to escape it or rewrite it in order to become themselves,” says Brock.
Casting Emma Thompson as the steely matriarch could be seen as possibly going against type, but the filmmakers were delighted with her performance as Lady Marchmain. “Emma is a huge asset to the film,” comments Kevin Loader. “I think people will be surprised by the casting, as they are not used to seeing her play stern matriarchs. Her trademarks are warmth and charm, but that’s what is interesting about Emma’s Lady Marchmain — the glimpses of warmth and charm she gives and the subtle way she uses them to show Lardy Marchmain as a woman with considerable powers of persuasion. Emma brought a very natural quality which fed into her role.”
Julian Jarrold was pleased and genuinely surprised that Emma Thompson was interested in the part. “She’s so young, modern, liberal and fun, I wondered how she would take herself into the part, but she is so intelligent and was very perceptive about the script and incredibly committed to the part. I think she performs a fantastic transformation into Lady Marchmain.”
Thompson was familiar with the book but had not seen the British TV adaptation. “I was away in Australia at the time doing Footlights and missed it and I’ve made a point of not watching it so that I didn’t get put off.” She was, however, very drawn to the script. “The first thing that I start with is the script and it’s a superb and wonderful script by Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock. I thought Lady Marchmain was so interesting, so different and quite peculiar -dark and controlling as well as controlled. I also felt I knew that world, having been brought up in Great Britain. That kind of upbringing is just part and parcel of our heritage, even if you don’t know that world personally.”
As Thompson researched the role of Lady Marchmain she became fascinated with the intricacies of her character and how Lady Marchmain’s own upbringing as well as the conventions and thinking of the period shaped this powerful but flawed person. Thompson comments, “She is an incredibly complicated character. I think she was brought up by people who withheld all affection in lieu of the love of God, damaging her emotionally, which she then carried into her own parenting and her children are damaged, too. She had also lost all her brothers in the First World War -these wonderful, strong, solid men in her life and when we first meet Lady Marchmain it is at a time before women had the vote in this country, so all her power is invested in her children and the form behind which she lives, which includes her house, her clothing and her manners.”
As part of her research, Thompson even looked to the Vatican, where she discovered a more relaxed attitude to heathen lifestyles than existed at the time Waugh wrote his novel: “I did quite a lot of thinking about what kind of relationship Lady Marchmain would have had with her God, how formal it actually was and how comforting it was to her. But the church has changed so much since the 1920s — you can email the Vatican now!”
Jarrold was impressed by the depth of Emma’s preparation for the role, as well as her guidance of the younger actors. He says, “She was a very good, powerful presence on set. She only had about five scenes, but they are all very powerful scenes and she wanted to get every detail right, from hair color, to dress, to the religious aspects. I think it is very different to anything she has done before.”
Thompson worked closely the director as well as Costume Designer Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh and Hair and Makeup Designer Rosann Samuels to establish a Lady Marchmain who radiated a sense of power, mystery and seductiveness, but who was also not too grand or too proud. Thompson comments, “If she was just posh, cruel and cold, you would be able to dismiss her but as someone with a certain dynamism who is also very seductive, you simply couldn’t afford to dismiss her and we’ve worked very hard to achieve that.”
Lady Marchmain’s wardrobe reinforces this, with magnificent and fashionable clothing which also manages to be elegant and wearable. Her attire emphasizes her wealth and status but it is also designed to intimidate. “There are some jobs where the accoutrements and the context in which you’re working make a hell of a lot of difference,” says Thompson. “For me, putting on the clothes and particularly Lady Marchmain’s wig and nails really made a difference. The nails very much say, ‘This is a woman who has never lifted a finger!'”
The Marchmans, Family and Religion
Once all the Marchmain family had been cast, Thompson took her role as the matriarch a step further, inviting her ‘children’-Sebastian, Julia, Bridey and Cordelia -to her house for dinner and taking the group on outings, giving the lead actors a chance to bond. Jarrold comments, “She really took the younger actors under her wing — she took them to dinner and to church and advised them in a very caring and helpful way.”
Hayley Atwell describes the benefits of discussing family dynamics with her on-screen siblings. “We did a lot of social family events -Emma, Ben, Ed, Felicity and myself — and discussed family dynamics of that period and if they’re relevant now and what it is that we actually really do to each other as a family. It was really helpful and we bonded a lot through those experiences.” This bond between the actors, including Matthew Goode in the role of the interloper Charles Ryder, continued to develop as they started shooting and remained a great source of inspiration and support for the young cast. Whishaw says, “We spent a lot of time together, discussing things, knocking ideas about and helping each other. It was great.”
The supportive relationship, dedication and chemistry of the lead trio was remarked upon by the entire production. It helped create the perfect dynamic for the complicated triangle of Charles, Sebastian and Julia. Thompson comments, “My father, who was a director always said 90% of the work is in the casting and at our read-thru for Brideshead, I thought, God he couldn’t have got it more right. Matthew, Ben and Hayley are only in their 20s but they are already complicated people and actors who can produce the kind of energy and conflict these parts require.”
It was important to the whole cast to get under the skin of their characters as well as the period and the religious subtleties of the complex screenplay. Together with their individual research, the production team employed a religious consultant on the film and the actors had meetings with a priest as well as period consultants to advise on aristocratic life, dialect and conventions of the time.
One challenge for Atwell and Whishaw was to gain an understanding of a child’s upbringing within a devout Roman Catholic aristocratic family and the way that has bound the Marchmains together and affects every part of their lives. Catholicism has been handed down to them by Lady Marchmain with care and duty, like a family heirloom, but this environment and an upbringing largely devoid of motherly love has affected Julia and Sebastian in a much deeper way than Cordelia or Bridey. Getting into the character of Julia, Atwell explains, “I went to a Catholic school, so I’d come with that kind of background but I researched Catholicism in greater depth and looked at the relationship that Julia has with God in the context of the environment she was brought up in.”
At the beginning of the film she describes herself as half heathen, as she rebels slightly from her upbringing in this big house and very dominant Catholic family. Charles then enters her life and opens her eyes to a new world, but ultimately she is on a journey to discover whether her life is predestined or whether she has the freedom to follow her heart. It’s a struggle for her, to find out who she is and what she truly desires compared to what she thinks God wants from her and for her. She ultimately chooses God, the greatest good and highest source of all life, over Charles and romance. But I think it’s far more complicated and interesting than just giving up a man, Julia finally discovers who she really is and she is happy. It’s a revelation rather than a sad ending for her. She’s taking on faith which is a huge thing -quite a miraculous and wonderful thing for many people.”
Sebastian is similar to his sister in many ways. The two of them are the closest of the Marchmain children, often acting like twins, sharing a unique complicity. Sebastian’s greatest conflict is his sexuality and his faith. Whishaw comments, “He’s sort of a lost soul, really. His story is one about his love for a man and a non-Catholic and this conflict between his sexuality and the Catholicism he’s been brought up with. It’s like a shadow following Sebastian around and he’s in constant conflict because of his feelings for Charles and this pressure weighing down on him which is his mother, his family and his faith. Even if you took Catholicism out of the question, homosexuality was a difficult proposition in those days.”
When we first meet Sebastian, however, he is in his element at Oxford, holding court, living an extravagant and hedonistic lifestyle, out of the reaches of his mother and the oppression of Brideshead. “I think it’s important to remember how young the characters are when you first see them,” says Whishaw. “They are still teenagers, bursting with hormones and desires. For Sebastian, his ‘courting’ of Charles at Oxford and that first summer at Brideshead feel slightly dangerous. I think there is something very beautiful about the way the relationship grows, but there is always an underlying tension, too.”
In the film Charles Ryder is the outsider from a middle class background venturing into this aristocratic world, but Whishaw admits it was a world with which he, too, was completely unfamiliar. “I don’t have anyone in my life belonging to a high echelon of society or who is aristocratic, so that was a challenge, although I didn’t go looking to meet lots of Lords and Ladies!” But Whishaw soon found his way into the world of Lord Sebastian Flyte. “I think there is something about the aristocratic sense of entitlement and once you put that lens in front of your eyes, you start to look at the world that way. It’s not that difficult to imagine. From what I’ve read about Evelyn Waugh, he was fascinated by the aristocracy -in love with it, really. You get a sense that there is a lot of Waugh in Charles. For Charles, I think there is a longing to be part of something that feels other-worldly and that has the weight of history behind it. For Sebastian, Charles is attractive precisely because he is from another world altogether, a world free from baggage — as Sebastian sees it.”
During the course of the film Charles’s affection and focus shifts to Julia and Sebastian feels betrayed by his friend, which in turn speeds up his downfall. Whishaw reflects, “I think the seeds of his downfall are already there at Oxford. He is already drinking quite heavily, often to oblivion, always trying to run away. When you finally see him in Morocco several years later, he has run away from his family and his health is really declining, but he has found a kind of peace. I think, in some way, he is trying to find his way back to God.” Lady Marchmain has sent Charles Ryder to find Sebastian and bring him home, but Sebastian is settled and it becomes their final encounter. It is a poignant moment in the film and Sebastian is weak and in hospital. Whishaw suggested shaving his head for this scene, which accentuates the vulnerable and broken person Sebastian has become.
He says, “Sebastian’s an alcoholic, he’s in hospital being treated for fluid in his lungs…This meeting between Charles and him is really their goodbye. I found the scene actually quite hard, because as an actor, you have to play so many things — Sebastian is suffering from alcohol withdrawal, he’s out of breath and slightly delirious and then he meets Charles for the first time in two years…”
In contrast to Sebastian and Julia, Matthew Goode’s character comes from a position of ignorance about Catholicism, wealth and aristocracy. “I didn’t make a concerted effort to go to the British Library to research the part as Charles is meant to be in the dark on a lot of things — although I’ve read some very interesting books about atheism!” says Goode.
He was excited by the script and sourced much of his character from it and the novel. “I think Sebastian and Julia share quite a bit in common with Charles. They’ve all had loveless childhoods and the film is as much about parents screwing you up as it is about religion weighing you down. Charles has had no love from his father or a motherly influence growing up and he’s often on his own, in his own thoughts. I think his upbringing has psychologically damaged him from a young age. When he goes to university and meets this extraordinary, larger-than-life character in Sebastian, he is overwhelmed and as their relationship grows, it’s the first time he’s known great happiness and real love”.
Goode acknowledges the complexities of the story, particularly related to his character, through whose eyes the audience sees the drama unfold. “When Charles meets the Marchmain family, there are so many things going on concurrently. His understanding of what the Catholic religion is, his own ambition in his new surroundings and ambition to love and understand love,” he says. “He’s brought into this world that he would never have seen before and once he’s tasted it -this exciting world a bit above his station -he covets it. Throughout the film, Charles keeps striving for something that is impossible to attain. He thinks all these things that he’s exposed to and that he wants are going to make his life the best it could possibly be when, actually, he was at his happiest during the simplicity of his first summer at Brideshead.”
Brideshead and Castle Howard
Brideshead is the ancestral home of the Marchmain family. It is integral to the film -a powerful character and presence is its own right which affects Charles Ryder almost as much as the charismatic people who live there. As much of the story revolves around Brideshead, it was essential to find a suitably dramatic, beautiful and appropriate setting for this exquisite, aristocratic, period home.
“Brideshead is a character in the book,” says producer Kevin Loader. “It has to register very immediately and be capable of an extraordinary oppressive quality as well as being this place that Charles Ryder finds fantastic, beautiful and light and sunny in an overwhelming way.”
Julian Jarrold adds, “At the beginning it needed to be alluring, beautiful and bewitching and nearer the end, it needed to become sinister, dark and oppressive. We looked everywhere really, but what is described in the book doesn’t really exist anymore.”
The production team looked at houses across England. One house offered them the architecture of the period, a Catholic atmosphere with its exquisite chapel, baroque features and religious iconographic artwork and the important ‘wow factor’ for anyone not to the manner born: Castle Howard in Yorkshire.
“We were very aware that it had been linked to Brideshead Revisited before, as the setting for the TV adaptation,” says Loader. “In fact, some people think it is Brideshead. It is an unbelievable place and has an immediate impact on screen. In the end, it was just too good not to go back to Castle Howard.”
Among the many features Castle Howard had to offer, including a dramatic entrance hall (the Great Hall), which rises 70ft from floor to domed ceiling, were magnificent gardens with a central fountain. “One of the reasons we went there was this fountain,” says Loader. “A lot of the screenplay revolves around this rather dominating fountain at Brideshead and the one at Castle Howard feels like the one in the book. It is a wonderful atlas motif fountain, which sits in perfect configuration to the house -it is a magnificent beast of a fountain!”
The fountain was in the Great Exhibition of 1850 before Nesfield brought it to Castle Howard, where the four Tritons had been made ready to spew water into the central figure of Atlas. Commenting on the versatility of the location, Jarrold says, “The fountain was a key visual element for us, but the Great Hall is also big and theatrical, which fits in with Lord Marchmain. It has a magnificent chapel, a beautiful summer house (the Temple of the Four Winds) where Charles, Sebastian and Julia have drinks on a lovely summer evening, and endless atmospheric corridors. It really fit the bill.”
Castle Howard is owned and managed by the Howard family and in addition to being a great film location, it is also one of the UK’s most popular tourist attractions. There was concern that a six week film shoot during the early summer months of 2007, might clash with the tour parties.
Jarrold comments, “We shot in one wing of the house, while the tourists were ushered past in another wing. I thought was going to be very disruptive, but it worked very well.”
“We’re a pretty invasive group of people (crew, cast, costumes, props) and we wanted to effectively live in Castle Howard for six weeks, and our designers even longer,” says Loader. “Being in a house occupied by its owner who has absolute authority to decide what to do was a huge help and Simon Howard was amazingly supportive. We were also under no restrictions as to what we shot and Castle Howard is stuffed to the gills with treasures.”
Castle Howard has been in the Howard family since its early origins. The house was built over a 100-year period, with sections being added over the years. Simon Howard, who lives with his family in the east wing explains some of its history: “The house that now stands replaced a four-sided keep of sorts. The 3rd Earl of Carlisle in conjunction with Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor designed the house. They started in 1699 and completed two-thirds of it by 1714. The 3rd Earl then decided that he’d start building some of the buildings throughout the rest of the estate. He was more interested in follies and statues so the west wing wasn’t completed until 1750, well after his death. What you see today is an amalgam of Baroque and Palladian architecture which is slightly incongruous, but it works.”
Howard recalls the first Brideshead shoot at Castle Howard and the prosperity it brought to the property with increased public interest, but he was still unsure whether to agree to another shoot at his ancestral home. Ultimately, he thought, “Do I really think there should be another house called Brideshead in this country!?” He adds, “I’ve been involved in the production from day one and on a daily basis during the shoot across decisions on whether items of furniture or paintings can be moved or removed and what can and can’t be done. As a trustee of the Castle, I have those responsibilities, but the whole production went much more smoothly than I thought it would and that’s credit to the film crew and our staff. I enjoyed it! It was great fun.”
During the shoot, the Howard’s also extended their personal hospitality at Castle Howard to the actors to relieve boredom between takes. Howard comments, “A lot of the actors and some of the crew were fascinated by Wimbledon, as is my wife, so we invited the actors to watch between takes. Every now and again we’d wander into our drawing room to find them sitting there watching TV.”
Although Castle Howard acted as one location, the filmmakers used it for approximately six key locations including a section known as the High South. The High South is the upper floor of the south wing and has remained gutted since a devastating fire destroyed a large section of the southeast of the house, including the dome, in November 1940. Howard comments, “It’s quite exciting for us as the filmmakers used areas that were destroyed in the fire and rebuilt one of the rooms — which means we’ve got more rooms now to show the public.”
The main room which was refurbished has views over the majestic fountain and is adjacent to the balcony overlooking the Great Hall. It is used as the main dining room and then the room which Lord Marchmain commandeers as his bedroom when he returns to Brideshead to die. Jarrold comments, “The High South was quite a design job, where we brought in a lot of classic iconography in the shape of religious murals, so they surround the characters at dinner.” Loader adds, “We wanted to create a unique environment for both Lady Marchmain’s world and the big family dinner party with Charles, and later, as the room where Lord Marchmain dies.”
Shooting in such a vast building brought with it various technical challenges, not least lighting Castle Howard. Loader recalls, “Lighting the Great Hall was like lighting a cathedral. The space is as big and it’s just as complicated.”
Director of Photography Jess Hall and Jarrold discussed the various looks they wanted for the different sections of the film and this involved two color palettes for Brideshead to reflect Charles early visits with Sebastian and Julia in 1925 and then later with Julia in 1935. Jess explains. “We wanted the looks to evolve in terms of the story. When Charles first visits Brideshead there is a sort of optimism and he falls in love with the place, and we tried to generate a romantic warmth to it as well as hard sunlight when he sees it for the first time. This is then contrasted with the later period at Brideshead which is quite cool, color-wise and the lighting is quite different, much softer and colder.”
Shooting in one of the England’s most spectacular country houses was not lost on the cast. Stepping into centuries of history, the well-trodden stone slabs of Castle Howard’s corridors gave them a valuable sense of their characters’ background and history. Whishaw comments, “Being at Castle Howard really helped as an actor, as you step into that place and imagine that that is where you live and it immediately does something to you. It feeds you as an actor.” Atwell adds, “Spending all day every day there you get a sense of the space and architecture and you adapt to it. You start to walk and sit differently as you imagine this is the home where your character grew up. I walked through rooms thinking this is my bedroom, this is where I would have played with Sebastian as a child and this is where I would have made love to Charles — all these things make it a lot easier for the part to come to life.”
Brideshead Revisited was shot almost entirely on location in Yorkshire, Oxford, London, Venice and Marrakech, over 11 weeks in the summer of 2007 — one of the wettest British summers on record. The production’s six-week shoot in Yorkshire saw some of the worst weather, with parts of the region flooded and cut off. At times, cast and crew were stranded where the train from London to York abandoned them to fight their way north to the set via other transport. Fortunately Castle Howard stands on higher ground and shooting continued unabated, between thunderstorms. Loader recalls, “At one point the whole of South Yorkshire was flooded. In York, where we were staying, the city centre was flooded and people were canoeing to the pub! But we were incredibly lucky, because the times when we’ve needed to shoot outside, the sun shone. My hope is that when people watch the film they won’t know that we filmed in the worst summer that Yorkshire has seen in some time.” Oxford Filming moved from Yorkshire to Oxford to shoot the early meetings and blossoming friendship between Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte. The weather wasn’t far behind, but thankfully the floods which were to devastate parts of Oxfordshire later, held back until the production had moved on. Several locations were flooded two weeks later, including the stretch of the River Thames/Cherwell where the punting scene was shot, where Charles sees Sebastian for the first time, with the equally flamboyant Anthony Blanche. “Oxford is a beautiful place to work,” comments producer Loader. “It has its own challenges like Castle Howard, one being that it is full of tourists.” During the relatively short shoot in Oxford, the filmmakers needed to quickly establish key points in the Oxford story. Kevin explains, “We had to really establish that sense of wonder of Charles’s first experiences of the architecture and the hustle and bustle of Oxford and then the difference between Sebastian’s world and the one that Charles has come from which is reflected a little in the difference between their two Colleges. Sebastian’s College, Christchurch, is one of the grandest and richest Colleges in Oxford with the largest quadrangle, whereas Charles’s at Lincoln is much more intimate and domestic. We’ve tried to play on those to show the social differences and different places the two characters come from.” Whishaw notes the importance of the first meeting between the two characters which takes place at Lincoln College, in Charles’s room. “They meet when Sebastian vomits through Charles window one evening and it is a kind of love at first sight moment,” Whishaw says. “Sebastian is somebody who is quite aware of the glamour and mystery he trails behind him and he just starts reeling Charles in.” He adds, “He’s also very aware of the class difference between them and knows that Charles is fascinated by him because of that. I think you also see that the seeds of Sebastian’s downfall are already there, with his heavy drinking.” Evelyn Waugh had been an undergraduate at Oxford University at Hertford College and drew on some of his own experiences for Charles Ryder’s initiation into student life and fascination with the aristocratic Lord Sebastian Flyte. Similarly to Ryder, Evelyn Waugh had come from a middle class background and was extremely curious about, and attracted to, the upper classes. Oxford University traces its roots back to the 11th Century and is made up of 39 Colleges, five of which were used for the Oxford shoot of Brideshead. Christchurch is the College attributed to Sebastian in the novel and the one which was used for the exterior shots of Sebastian’s rooms in the film. It is one of the largest in Oxford. Lincoln College doubles for the interiors of both Charles’s College rooms and Sebastian’s rooms. Merton College, which is one of the oldest in Oxford, with its beautiful, medieval buildings, was used as the exterior for Charles’s rooms. Magdalen (pronounced “maudlin”) was used for various exterior shots for the Oxford shoot and Exeter College was also used for various exterior shoots. Lincoln College had not been used for filming before and the producers were delighted to film there. It offered a variety of rooms big enough to maneuver a camera and beautiful quadrangles with immaculately mowed lawns. Loader comments, “It was a multipurpose venue for us and the College were extremely welcoming although there was a lot of anxiety from the Lincoln College gardener when we were careening all over their lawn with a lot of people playing drunken students!” Radcliffe Square (seen in last year’s The Golden Compass) was also used as an exterior location, Charles meets cousin Jasper here and is also seen cycling here with Sebastian. The large exterior shots took in a number of extras in 1920s student attire, many on bicycles. Many of the extras were actual Oxford students who were given parts as long as they agreed to have their hair cut into the ‘short back and sides’ fashion of the day. Venice The Venice scenes were a crucial part of the screenplay for the producers and director Jarrold, as Venice serves as the emotional pivot in the story, when Charles’s affections shift from Sebastian to a lifelong passion for Julia. Jarrold comments, “Venice provides a lovely contrast to the formal world of Lady Marchmain and Brideshead and it’s another vista that opens up to Charles, after Oxford and Brideshead as well as his dull suburban upbringing. Venice also acts as an exotic backdrop which very much serves to develop the characters and move them on in the story, in particular, allowing Charles and Julia’s relationship to blossom.” This crucial development in the plot changes the paths of the key trio forever. Loader comments, “Charles’s relationship with the Marchmain family changes after Venice and his relationship with Sebastian and Julia is never the same. It’s an important moment in the story -the pivot around which everything hinges.” Of course, Venice is also one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world. Its classic landmarks such as St Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge and its iconic ubiquitous gondolas are instantly recognizable but the filmmakers were keen to explore other sides of this unique city to bring 1920s Venice to life. Loader comments, “When you come to Venice, you immediately feel like tourist which is okay as our characters are, in some way, tourists. But we wanted to see Venice slightly more by being guided in by Lord Marchmain and his resident’s knowledge of rather than resorting to the more obvious things. We also took a decision quite early on not to have anyone in a gondola or have any of the cast in St Mark’s Square!” Loader adds, “Still, we filmed in some rather stunning places which we chose to fit the story we were telling and which worked for Julian’s visualization of that narrative. There was plenty of choice.” The production shot in several locations across the city, including Punta Sabbioni, Cavallino, which doubled as the Lido for the beach scenes. The church of San Francesco Della Vigna was used for the chapel scenes in the aftermath of the kiss, where Charles tries to explain his spontaneous act to a devastated Sebastian. The largest scene shot in Venice was the carnival scene, filmed overnight in Campo Castelforte. The magical scene required numerous extras to recreate the classic celebratory Venetian event, combining elements of the Carnivale with street theatre, acrobatics and circus acts. Loader comments: “The scene has a few familiar elements but we haven’t gone for the complete masked ball which happens each February.” Venice as a filming location brings with it many complications, foremost among them that all transportation is by boat, whether for people or equipment. In addition, during the summer months, the city swarms with huge numbers of tourists from around the world. “It is an incredibly difficult place to shoot,” admits Jarrold. “You have so many tourists, coordinating the boats is always difficult, the gondolas all have the right of way so you have to wait for them to clear before you’re able to shoot. There are so many bridges in the back of shots each of which is always packed with tourists. For a period film, it’s very challenging! But when it all comes together, it’s absolutely fantastic. Venice is so beautiful and atmospheric.” Loader echoes this: “Venice has problems and delights. There is boat traffic and tourists everywhere but in many ways, it’s a period-friendly location — you can point your camera almost anywhere.” Some members of the cast were visiting the fabled city for the first time. “I think because everyone always says that they love Venice, I needed to be blown away by it and I was, completely,” says Whishaw. “It was more fabulous than I could have imagined. I would sit by one of the canals with a book. It was heaven. It’s is an incredibly romantic place, but also one that has a slight melancholy atmosphere of a place that was once great and powerful. There’s an air of faded glory about it, which is very appealing. I felt totally privileged to have the opportunity to work there and to see it from that perspective. The production team, including Hair and Makeup, Costume, Production Design and Cinematography worked closely with the director to achieve the look and feel of Brideshead Revisited. Set across the 20s, 30s and 40s, the film covers several periods but has been approached with a nod to modern sensibilities, as well as accentuating the distinct changes in tone as Charles Ryder’s relationship with the Marchmain family progresses and changes. Director of Photography, Jess Hall explains: “I felt that it was a story that could be told in quite a modern way, that it could be a modern period film, which was an interesting challenge.” On the distinctive look for each part of the film, Hall explains, “Each section of Brideshead Revisited sort of has its own look which is something Julian and I talked about quite early on. For Castle Howard/Brideshead, we tried to generate a romantic warmth as well as the harsh sunlight when Charles sees the house for the first time. This is then contrasted with the later period at Brideshead which is quite cool, color-wise. The lighting is quite different, much softer and colder.” He adds, “Oxford then has two slightly different looks but mostly, we went for warmer tones as Charles is still falling in love with the world around him at that stage. For the later scenes in Venice we wanted a warmth for the carnival and we used a lot of firelight and lanterns to bathe the scenes in a warm glow.” Costume Designer Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh, who had worked with Julian on Becoming Jane was familiar with the television series but keen to approach Brideshead with a fresh eye: “I was very important for us to create something individual and new, so I started from scratch, researching the period and fabrics.” Working with the director and actors, Eimer looked to reflect the characters and their development throughout the film through the style and design of their wardrobes. “Costume is really important to a film,” she comments. “It’s really important to me that the actors are comfortable in their costumes and that they are helping to develop their characters in some way.” Whishaw confirms the effectiveness of this process. “I’m always amazed how a piece of clothing changes the way you feel. It does an awful lot for you and your work as an actor. My suits were great because all of that really isn’t me at all.” On dressing him, Eimer notes, “Ben is very relaxed, which worked well for Sebastian because you want him to have a total ease with what he’s wearing. You want him to look gorgeous and individual and fascinating, so that everyone turns to look at him.” For Hayley playing Julia, Eimer needed to mark the moments where Julia is in the spotlight. “There are times when you want somebody to walk into a room and you want a ‘wow’ factor. For Hayley, there are times when you want her to open a door and look great but you also need to make sure the character is believable -it’s a balancing act.” Hair and Makeup Artist Roseann Samuel was delighted by the prospect of working across the period in which the film is set. “It’s a fabulous period and very glamorous. I love finger-waving the women’s hair and doing ‘short back and sides’ for the guys,” she says. As Julia, Atwell has two distinct looks in the film for the 20s and 30s. Samuel comments, “For the 20s, we gave Hayley a classic little Louise Brooks bob and then cut and curled for the 30s period look.” Samuel worked closely with the Costume department and comments, “Eimer made some fantastic costumes and we worked very closely together, particularly before the production started so that everything worked. For Emma Thompson in particular, Eimer had to bear in mind her hair color before she designed her costumes. We looked at going with a more natural color for Emma’s hair, but eventually decided on silver, which is very striking, for this woman who has gone very grey, very young. It’s not meant to age her — just to have a head-turning effect.” For Ben and Matthew, Samuel worked on looks that would start to emulate each other as Charles becomes fascinated by Sebastian. “Charles’s hair starts off a bit neater and then he becomes ‘Sebastianified,'” says Samuel. “His hair becomes looser and freer as he starts emulating Sebastian -they both have floppy fronts and the short back and sides which was the basic look of for the period. When we get to the 30s, Charles’s hair is taken back and he’s much more debonair and stylish. He seems much more man than boy, which is what we were trying to create.” Sebastian has one of the more radical changes in hairstyle in his final scenes of the film, when he is seen in Morocco with a shaven head. Samuel comments, “He’s been living in a monastery, and there are lots of shaved heads and it just feels as if he is part of it. We made him look a bit more skeletal and hollow, as if the drink has taken its toll. He’s a different person to the boy he was.” Directed by: Julian Jarrold Views: 167The Look of Brideshead
Brideshead Revisited (2008)
Starring: Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Hayley Atwell, Emma Thompson, Anna Madeley, Sarah Crowden, Stephen Carlile, Patrick Malahide, Joseph Beattie, Richard Teverson, Mark Edel-Hunt
Screenplay by: Jeremy Brock, Andrew Davies
Production Design by: Alice Normington
Cinematography by: Jess Hall
Film Editing by: Chris Gill
Costume Design by: Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh
Set Decoration by: Caroline Smith
Art Direction by: Thomas Brown, Lynne Huitson, Ben Munro
Music by: Adrian Johnston
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some sexual content
Distributed by: Miramax Films
Release Date: July 25, 2008
