"Possession" Ramblings (spoilery)
Jun. 2nd, 2003 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieRented and watched Possession, that movie with Gwyneth Paltrow about the two fictional poets, today. It was pretty good, actually. The directing was quite good, although there are a few bits I would've done differently...the surprise factor of seeing Christabel and Ash in the room and then panning a bit to see Maude and Roland was done too many times to be effective, and tehre were a few camera angles I could've lived without, but overall it was done well...the sets and the outdoor scenery were all gorgeous, too.
Couldn't have cared less about Maude and Roland, but oh well...they just didn't strike me as English professory enough. Trust me here, I know English majors (since I kind of am one) and English professors, even if I am just a sophomore. (I also have an uncle who's an English prof, an uncle who's an art prof, and a grandfather who was the head of the theology department at Belmont College. Higher education and I are good buddies.) Roland especially didn't seem like he'd been through college and was getting an advanced degree. Maybe it was just that the focus of their research was two fictional poets, and not real authors, and that made it all seem less than authentic. That's probably it.
But those fictional poets? Very cool. Flowery and melodramatic (it must have been really boring to live in the 1850s), but cool. Ash unlacing Christabel's corset was sexy as all hell, though. Damn. It almost makes one wish corsets were still in style. Almost. (Tangent: did you know that in the Victorian age, it was a topic of serious debate as to whether it was necessary to eat to sustain life? And you thought the modern age had an unhealthy obsession with thinness...) For the most part, I really liked the narrative structure of Maude and Roland's romance developing out of following the footsteps of Ash and Christabel. There were enough differences that it didn't feel forced, except perhaps on the actors' parts. (No, I'm not Gwyneth Paltrow's biggest fan--there's somethng about those big, blinking eyes that make her look like an owl. She's okay, I guess. The other actor, whoever he was, sucked.)
It was a nice way to while away a rainy afternoon. Glad I didn't see it in the theatre, though.
Couldn't have cared less about Maude and Roland, but oh well...they just didn't strike me as English professory enough. Trust me here, I know English majors (since I kind of am one) and English professors, even if I am just a sophomore. (I also have an uncle who's an English prof, an uncle who's an art prof, and a grandfather who was the head of the theology department at Belmont College. Higher education and I are good buddies.) Roland especially didn't seem like he'd been through college and was getting an advanced degree. Maybe it was just that the focus of their research was two fictional poets, and not real authors, and that made it all seem less than authentic. That's probably it.
But those fictional poets? Very cool. Flowery and melodramatic (it must have been really boring to live in the 1850s), but cool. Ash unlacing Christabel's corset was sexy as all hell, though. Damn. It almost makes one wish corsets were still in style. Almost. (Tangent: did you know that in the Victorian age, it was a topic of serious debate as to whether it was necessary to eat to sustain life? And you thought the modern age had an unhealthy obsession with thinness...) For the most part, I really liked the narrative structure of Maude and Roland's romance developing out of following the footsteps of Ash and Christabel. There were enough differences that it didn't feel forced, except perhaps on the actors' parts. (No, I'm not Gwyneth Paltrow's biggest fan--there's somethng about those big, blinking eyes that make her look like an owl. She's okay, I guess. The other actor, whoever he was, sucked.)
It was a nice way to while away a rainy afternoon. Glad I didn't see it in the theatre, though.