In The Age Of The Robber Barons-The Gilded Age-The Film Adaptation Of Henry James’ “The Golden Bowl” (2002)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Leslie Dumont

The Golden Bowl, starring Kate Berkendale, Uma Thirman, Nick Nolte, Jeremy Northam, based on the novel by Henry James, produced by the famous team of Merchant and Ivory, 2000  

Seth Garth who has had a pretty good handle on literary figures like F. Scott Fitzgerald is always fond of using an expression credited to Fitzgerald to the effect that the rich, by this he meant the very rich and in his day rich with a pedigree, and if not a pedigree then some fake papers to that effect and not some upstart noveau riche white trash who made their dough in the garbage business. Now everybody knows another expression if not the author’s name from Anatole France that the rich and poor most democratically, most equally cannot sleep under that proverbial bridge and must adhere to the law-although the latter proposition has taken a serious beating since his day. Put together the Fitzgerald proposition and France’s grind them through the full-blown pen of American expatriate Henry James before that became seriously fashionable after the debacles of World War I when all that pre-war civilization business went bust, put old Henry’s ennobled hierarchy in the shade and you have something like a fairly decent tale of life among the very rich in the film adaptation of his The Golden Bowl.

Yes, of course the golden bowl that will find various places of refuge before the film is done is something of a metaphor for frail humanity, for the imperfections of even a high society, maybe especially a high society life. That is not what I want to dwell on but rather the cracks at the edges of high society that James details in his book and which is only partially expressed through the less cumbersome medium of film. The interior monologues, the psychological motivations of the characters which made James, whose brother William after all was as leading psychologist in his day, something of a break-through author heading toward what we now call literary modernism. No question in the post-Freudian and post-Gothic novel times this James novelistic approach is tough reading and although he has never totally fallen out of disfavor his star has diminished with time. The combined mighty Merchant-Ivory production team along with writer Ruth Prawer Jhavala has made a valiant effort to bring this tough look at high Victorian marriage and its temptations to the fore.     

Here is the play, an expression for a summary of the film that Josh Breslin first uttered to me back when we were lovers and working here before I left for greener professional pastures at his urging, who later told me that it was not really his expression but Sam Lowell’s which tells a lot about Sam’s power over the writing staff at this publication.

Until you remember that it was the late Peter Paul Markin that gave the expression to Sam but enough of this internal literary history and on to the plot line. Couple number one poor but drop- dead beautiful Charlotte played by then rising actor Uma Thurman had a serious affair with a poor but drop- dead beautiful Italian prince of uncertain lineage, Amerigo, played by Jeremy Northam but that affair due to their limited resources and big appetites for luxurious and idle living can go nowhere. Can go nowhere mainly because he is engaged to the daughter, Maggie played by Kate Beckinsale, of a very wealth American robber baron, Adam Verver played by miscast Nick Nolte. Charlotte by the way a girlhood friend of Maggie’s although that did not stand in the way of beating her friend’s time with her intended. And had not qualm number one about the matter. These four characters drive the film aided by a busybody couple who act as foils for various shifts in the drama.    

Rich overlays poor and our Prince marries Maggie and has a son with her after dumping Charlotte like a hot potato when the wedding bells ring and his life take a big swing upward. Charlotte meanwhile still is carrying the torch for the Prince and takes dead aim at him when she goes to London to visit her old friend Maggie several years later. She tries might and main to get her prince but gets nowhere while she is unmarried. Maggie worried about her father who seems to have an art collection hunger worthy of many a benighted robber baron brings Charlotte and dad into contact and from there Adam falls for poor as a church mouse Charlotte and marries her. Somehow having everybody in close contact shifts the playing field as Maggie draws what today would seem incestuously close to her father leaving the field wide open for Charlotte and Amerigo to have a fling, or what turns out to be a fling once Maggie and Papa become wise to what is going on between this adulterous pair.  

Of course in high society nobody wants to offend anybody by actually saying what they mean or what concerns them so many minutes are used to convey what takes many pages to convey in the book about the internal monologues each party goes through to NOT tell what he or she is feeling. This kind of thing can only go on so long and finally as Maggie gets more and proof culminating with the golden bowl caper of what was what between the pair the tension is resolved when Amerigo dumps Charlotte for Maggie and Adam forces Charlotte to go back to America so he can play generous former robber baron with his treasured art collection readied for a museum. Yes, Fitzgerald once again had it right the very rich are different from you and me-and not necessarily for the better.