Hindsight

Film/Television ramblings, and other good things
The Forsyte Saga (2002)

Sorry for my slow blogging of late, just feeling a tad cotton-headed of late, no real excuse.  Well...maybe two, with the summer over, I am back teaching four classes, so a bit taxed.  Plus am trying to find a tenured track position so busy with that as well.  There has to be a small college somewhere that will let me teach film and media from a cultural studies perspective, and also see the value in hiring someone who had a whole other career in media, prior to graduate work. Think a good thought for me, la de da!  So, yep, I've been a bit sluggish. However, great television to the rescue.   I have found myself transfixed with the 2002 series The Forsyte Saga.  What a brilliant mini-series, where characters are richly drawn and allowed to be not just human but humane, ugly and messy, as we all are.  This Saga is so perfectly rendered, with a slight exception in the casting of the character of Irene.  The actor who plays Soames, Damien Lewis, is magnificent, subtle, sad and trapped by his own inability to freely love.  Oh god, it sounds so sad, and it is at time, but also so touching, I loved this series.  What I think makes a series like this so beautiful is that it does what I believe art is meant to do, at least on some level, remind us/awaken us to the fragility and yet magnificence of the human spirit to forgive, move on, and continue to love.

Cool footnote, MGM made a rather tame version of the saga following the war, but Greer Garson is a much better Irene, and Flynn is actually quite good here as Soames.  Wonder if He knew it? Doubt it.