A Room With A View Bonus Tracks
Per usual, Dame Sophie has follow-up thoughts
I mentioned a few issues ago that I recently started writing for Telly Visions, a site devoted to covering British (and British-adjacent) TV and film. The site’s editors, Lacy Baugher Milas and Ani Bundle, are encyclopedia-level knowledgeable, and in addition to editing and writing for the site, they are the hosts of a weekly podcast, handily also called Telly Visions.
Episodes drop on Tuesdays and are usually devoted to a TV series that’s just debuted, or to a new British film. Occasionally, they take a retrospective look at a classic series or film, and this week, they allowed me to enthusiastically barge my way into their conversation about one of my all-time favorite movies, A Room With A View.
It was a delightful conversation, and because we had to call it at the one-hour mark, I still had some notes about things I find interesting or delightful about the film. I’m going to share them here as bonus tracks / very in-depth liner notes.
If you’ve never seen the film before, fear not! The original trailer–which is wild to watch now, what with its total lack of contextualization for characters’ names or basically anything that’s happening–manages to convey the very broad gist of it. Edwardian period, Italy, England, Italy again, a tiny baby Helena Bonham Carter, a nearly equally tiny baby Daniel Day-Lewis, a cavalcade of great British actors of stage and screen, kissing.
A Room With A View has maintained an unbreakable grasp on my heart for nearly 40 years, and is a mainstay of routine quotes and allusions among my family and friends.
Herewith, some choice moments for those wanting to reminisce and for anyone wondering what the big deal is with this movie.
Mr. Emerson père et fils learn that Miss Catherine Alan and Miss Teresa Alan love cornflowers, so the gentlemen pick a bunch and decorate the ladies’ room at the Pensione Bertolini with them, and then festoon Miss Catherine with ones in her hair and a floral necklace. You can see a bit of it here and just imagine the elder Mr. Emerson saying that there are “no jewels more becoming to a lady!”
I know George Emerson is the romantic lead, but his father is my actual favorite. He has first-rate politics (scoffing that the cathedral of Santa Croce being built through faith alone “just means they didn’t pay the workers properly!”) and manages to summarize nearly the whole of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning in seconds, punctuating his kindly, dramatic speech about why he and George should swap their rooms (with views of the Arno River) with Miss Charlotte Bartlett and Miss Lucy Honeychurch (their rooms sadly lack views, though they were promised to have them, per the title of the novel and film): “I don’t care what I see outside, my vision is within. <pokes himself in the chest w/his fork> Here is where the birds sing! Here is where the sky is blue!” Watch this and tell me Mr. Emerson Senior is not the top-tier senior dreamboat everyone deserves:
If anyone has thoughts of remakes or a film focused on small side characters, I would like to suggest a story focused on the scorchingly hot cart driver who makes sure to deliver Lucy to George rather than to the Reverend Mr. Beebe’s company. We could bring in his exquisitely beautiful lady friend who gets chased off by the humorless and Far Too Reverend IMHO Mr. Eager on the ride out to the picnic.
Lucy Honeychurch is a coiled spring of romance, willfulness, and tempestuous emotions waiting to go boinggggggg. She’s very well trained in being well behaved, but at every turn, her more ungovernable thoughts and feelings are finding ways to assert themselves. Her preference for the intensity of Beethoven and the romance of Schubert; heading out into Florence’s sights alone and without her Baedeker guide book; the way she takes every opportunity to watch couples kissing and surreptitiously sneak peeks at nude men (when they literally run into her line of sight, I mean, she’s not a Peeping Lucia). This is a young woman in search of something 180 degrees away from marrying the likes of Cecil Vyse.
Speaking of Cecil, we were really down on him in the podcast, and while he is wholly unsuited to Lucy and an insufferable upper class twit for most of his scenes, his moment of dejection on the stairs after Lucy breaks off their engagement suggests there’s hope for him yet. He didn’t see it coming, and knows he probably should have.
I enjoy considering Lucy’s Romantic inclinations in counterpoint with this charming, silly music hall song of Freddy’s. The Honeychurches contain both multitudes and excellent hair.
Sadly, two of my most-used references — Eleanor Lavish’s “Observe my foresight. I never venture forth without my Mackintosh squares.” and Mr. Eager politely whining, “Another lump if you would, please, Mr. Beebe?” — didn’t have accompanying clips to share, but you get the gist. There’s just no end to this script’s utility!
Dames Nation: Keeping It Classy-fied
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Closing it Out With Some Charming Odds & Ends
In the podcast, I alluded to a couple of short documentaries available with the DVD, and it turns out they’re available on YouTube, as well! Here’s Thought and Passion, which is mostly an interview with director James Ivory, and The Eternal Yes, comprised of interviews with Helena Bonham Carter, Simon Cowell, and the late Julian Sands, of blessed memory.
My eternal love of this movie extends to the font used on all the title cards (it’s Delphin and you can buy it for your personal use!) and stationery that conjures the artwork (mosaics?) also featured in the title cards. I’m so glad Crane still makes their Florentine line, available in both red and blue.
I can’t find a clip of it, but one of my favorite scenes is a 4-minute comedy of errors about making change so that Charlotte can reimburse Freddy for having paid the carriage driver who brought her from the train station to Windy Corner. All the totally new-to-my-ear terms for coins and how things add up to a pound? A buffet for my specifics-loving heart! Best of all (or worst, in terms of comprehension, but most fun in terms of variety) is that many of the coins have several names. A pound is also a sovereign. A shilling is also a bob, and is also comprised of two sixpence (a sixpence also being a half-shilling). I’m strongly considering printing out and laminating this handy infographic from the Royal Mint Museum.
And finally, having basic working knowledge about an overly complex and now-defunct monetary system may well come in handy when watching other historical shows about the British, which is relevant because there’s a lovely little trailer out for the forthcoming new season of All Creatures Great and Small, set to arrive on MASTERPIECE in January 2024!
And always remember, if the vibes are off, there’s never a bad time to heed the wisdom of Minnie Beebe, and ask your Uncle Arthur equivalent to take you out to tea.
This movie is also forever in my heart; I discovered it as a Julian Sands-obsessed teen and have watched it more times than I can count. Thank you for this trip down cinematic memory lane!
Agree on every point. Thank you!