Duke (Philip Latham) and Lady Rosina (Sheila Keith) walk into the wood around Gatherum
Dear Readers,
On Trollope-l this weekend we got into quite a conversation about the merits of film adaptation versus the eponymous books they are based upon. There was a strong tendency to value books over films (as you might expect), but this was countered by arguments films may be as artful and meaningful as verbal texts. An evaluative criteria of faithfulness was countered by someone who said he much preferred the invention and use of the past these films bring to bear on modern situations. I tried to adjudicate between the several positions staked out.
I took the still iconoclastic view that while one might say there is a loss from book to film, there is also much gain. The kind of insight and information offered is simply different. That many people don’t pay attention to what they are seeing, and movies remain a disrespected commodity (it’s to the studios’ advantage that they do, for that keeps a mass audience coming) is part of why many still do not study a movie. I’ve found some apparently faithful adaptations to be masterpieces and some free adaptations to be poor. It just depends on who did what. No adaptation is really faithful is where we have to start; in fact the desire to be faithful is only part of the motivation and mostly in cases where the novel is a cult object. Just as often the adapter wants to revel in and change the material, pull out what’s relevant and make a new statement out of the favored material.
I suggested that each era (like literature) also has its schemata, and as when you sit down to read a 19th century novel you automatically historicize, so this must be done with films. Films of the 1970s have different aesthetics than films today. The 70s films seem more boring or dull, but then they have long brilliantly acted scenes which have mostly gone from films today. Films today have 8 second scenes and favor montages and epitomizing moments over long developed scenes.
Well, a propos of this conversation, I found myself getting the greatest kick and much comfort, amusement and even strength from Raven’s depiction of Lady Rosina de Courcy (as played by Sheila Keith) in his Pallisers 10:21 (see previous blog on Pallisers).
This character does come from Trollope’s The Prime Minister: as in Trollope’s PM, Lady Rosina is an intense relief to the Duke (Philip Latham): unlike just about all the new people and most of the old in his govenment that the Duchess (Susan Hampshire) is filling Gatherum Castle with, Lady Rosina is not a sycophant; she is not ever trying to use whatever conversation she has with someone to forward her interests (money, jobs, prestige, whatever can be gotten). When Trollope’s Lady Rosina discusses the value, strength, and reasonable price of cork sole shoes from Mr Spouts (a shoe dealer in Silverbridge, a town in Barchester where Gatherum is to be found), she discusses them for their own sake. The Duke loathes what the Duchess is making out of Gatherum, and we are supposed half to agree with him: the Duchess knows this is the way to keep politics going, and Trollope wants us to see how corrupt human ways are and expose personal politicking as central to an ongoing review of how politics works in the corridors of power. This another phase of Trollope’s examination of politics: in Phineas Finn, Trollope went into issues and what happens when someone votes their conscience, in Phineas Redux, the issues more generally of how parties work and if they are an evil or a good. Can You Forgive Her? shows us the problems of a career for a man with no money; in The Prime Minister we have Ferdinand Lopez, a man without connections and (partly as a consequence) without any conscience.
The thing is although many readers remember Lady Rosina, if you really look carefully in Trollope’s novel, you find there is but one, only one scene of the Duke walking with Lady Rosina, and only one dialogue about cork sole shoes: PM, Vol I, Ch 27, in the 1994 Penguin edition by David Skilton, pp. 233-35. Trollope uses this brilliant flared moment for amusement and contrast, and we remember it, and he then makes her the subject of debates and passing remarks in quarrels and discussions between the Duke and Duchess in which the Duchess’s point of view is shown to be that of an admired politician in the book, the Duke’s Nestor, the Duke of St Bungay. Not all these are dramatized; our narrator tells us of them, using occasional bits of dialogue and free indirect speech. Lady Rosina character also provides a link to Mr Sprout who the Duchess (disobeying the Duke’s orders) goes to politick on behalf of “her” candidate, Ferdinand Lopez.
In other words, Trollope is not interested in any real way in Lady Rosina for herself nor in the feel of the scenes between her and the Duke. It’s only what she stands for generally. We are not to admire her especially as she is as narrow as the others and she is there to show us aspects of the Duke’s turning away. She is narrow, an egoist, not a woman of any kind of wide or thorough knowledge, but she is for real.
Raven has altered the character enough to use her differently and he has presented her at length in the part where she appears. In Raven we have two full scenes, one lengthy, pulled out of the one dramatized scene in Trollope and from the different dialogues between the Duke and Duchess and the narrator’s comments on Lady Rosina and the Duke and Duchess’s attitudes towards her. The Duchess is exasperated by the Duke’s presence and herself bored silly by the woman. This way of changing a text is common in adaptations. The adaptor is interested in a particular character or theme in ways the original writer was not and again and again goes to the same scene or set of scenes and develops them, usually further and in a slightly different direction. Andrew Davies does this all the time (he does it in the 2008 Sense and Sensibility).
Now I find these scenes just delightful. Raven’s Lady Rosina is the Duke’s aunt and the Duke remembers how much he enjoyed Christmas when she was there, and how she liked walking with her when he was an adolescent boy. In Trollope she remains a distant relation/friend, some sort of cousin and he didn’t know her when he was young; in fact she’s a “remnant” and character he makes recur from his Dr Thorne (the third of the Barsetshire novels), where she was presented more as a snob and narrow than anything else. Raven’s Lady Rosina is aware of what’s happening in the castle and not just as a snob or upper class woman “in the old grand manner” as Raven’s Dolly Longstaffe has it (he is imported from Trollope’s late dark satire, The Way we Live Now, as a satirical Addison-like observer — modelled on the character in the American Hollywood film, All About Eve), but as a genuinely humane woman who knows the politicians around her are a desperately ambitious lot and is aware the Duke ought to be spending time with them; as a lonely woman she is grateful to him and heartened by his attention. Unlike Trollope’s Lady Rosina, Raven’s character talks about this.
(If first the reader would like to have the full context; that is to say, summaries of the episodes in the part) so as to situate these scenes, click for a further blog on 10:21.)
Here is their first scene together. I enjoy her and these scenes so, I’ve transcribed them.
***
10:21; Episode 16: Entertaining
Two scenes. The first one invented and based based on what we have as to content and feel: Raven uses some of the narrator’s descriptions. It’s there to introduce Lady Rosina. The second scene he adapts The Prime Minister, II, Chapters 21, pp. 180-81 (Lady Glen complains to Duke about Lady Rosina as his choice and he defends himself); Chapter 27, pp. 233-35 (the cork sole dialogue).
Scene 3 (of the part): Tents out in the vast lawn of Gatherum castle; buzzing of voices heard
Establishment shot: the master tent and people seen at a distance in clumps from it
Camera comes closer and we see Duchess emerging on someone’s arm, Marie behind her, Dolly crosses over between them and the camera
Erle’s shoulder now next to Dolly as they watch (and we with them)
Man: “Your grace … pull … bow to the extent of your arrow …”
We see the Duchess pull on the bow in her arrow
Man: “and release”
She does it.
Dolly: “I think all these bows and arrows are damned silly.”
She looks at him and shoots, and we watch and it’s a near bull’s eye!
Making a bull’s eye, triumphant
Surprised sounds of awe; applause and the cry: “Excellent!”
Duchess: “I’m out (unintelligible) again. Gatherum archery fount open to all comers.
Dolly: “Great shot, Duchess.”
Duchess: “Thank you, Dolly.”
Erle humming and laughter
Dolly: “A fluke of course. Just her luck. Otherwise she’s doing it all very well.”
Erle: “And she has had the good sense to ask some people who ain’t politicians, huh? Like you for one.”
Dolly: “Oh I’m here that I can proclaim her success around London.”
Erle: “You’re also here because she likes a mixture, hmmm.”
Dolly: “By jove, she’s got it.”
We see fat and comic characters walking along.
Dolly: “There is Boffin the grocer. He looks ill. I suppose she’s hoping he will give some of his greasy sovereigns from the till to the party funds.”
Erle: “Oh (taking a piece of a sandwich from tray servant has brought them) thank you.”
Dolly: “At the other end of the scale, there’s Lady Rosina (looking ahead … )
Erle: “Lady Rosina?”
We see them walking at a slight distance.
Dolly: “Lady Rosina de Courcy.”
Erle: “Oh yeah?”
Dolly: “She’s Planty Pall’s aunt. She’s as poor as a beanstalk but grand in the old manner. The Boffins and the rest are going to like rubbing shoulders with her.”
Erle: “Ah, but is she doing to like rubbing shoulders with them?”
Dolly: “She’s only here for the forage, poor old girl (we hear applause in the background). She wants to get her head in a bucket and hope nobody will talk to her.”
Scene 4: Further along in the lawn where it’s beginning to get woods around and less grassy and controlled, more natural
Establishment shot: back to Duke and Lady Rosina, in a medium length shot
Dialogue (the opening Raven gives as dialogue from what Trollope’s narrator reports Lady Glen thought before she accosts Plantagenet in Ch 21, free indirect speech)
Lady R: “I must say Plantagenet you are very considerate. It isn’t every Prime Minister who would spend his time squiring his old aunt.”
Most people would not walk with their old aunt
Duke: “Hmmm. There is no one whose company I’d rather have.”
Lady R: “But uh all your colleagues [camera catches Erle and Dolly passing by] all these statesmen you have here …”
Duke: “I don’t see any statesmen. They’re politicians.”
Lady R: “Even politicians must be more important to you than aunts.”
Duke: “Um, they are far less aimable. Do you remember those walks we used to go on when I was a boy? It was the best part of the holidays. When you came and took …. [I can’t catch it] careful …
[Camera sees swamp like puddle and their feet]
Duke: “The contractors must have missed this place. You don’t want to get your feet wet.”
Lady R: “Don’t you worry, Plantagenet [camera now on her picking up her dress and showing cork soles under elegant old lady’s boots] Sprout’s cork soles. [She walks through.]
Duke nods. “Sprout’s cork soles, uh?”
Lady R makes an assenting noise. “Mr Sprout, the bootmaker in Silverbridge specializes in cork sole boots. Very reasonable charges. I cannot afford fancy prices you know, and they’ll bring you high and dry through almost anything.”
Lady R: “Through any mess which contractors may make if not through the kind which is made by politicians.”
Plantagenet turns around to smile at her.
***
Raven’s character encourages the Duke in his behavior; thanks the Duke for his kindness and attention and seems glad however that he has chosen to walk with her. On their second walk and second scene she tells him with her strong shoes she’s game for 5 miles a day every day with him. They really smile at one another as no one has in this part but the Duchess and her son, Silverbridge, thus far.
Here is the second tracking shot scene of the Duke and Lady Rosina:
***
This follows hard upon one where the Duke is accosted by Sir Orlando Drought (Basil Dignam), the head of the coalition in the house, and Drought urges the Duke to “do” something, which is specifically spend money on arms.
Mastershot mise-en-scene of this first encounter. First we see the Duchess as hostess with everyone around her, all doing characteristic things (Dolly leans over piano, flattering, teasing), Orlando and Lopez (seen from the back) at a card table.
When Orlando follows the Duke out to the nearby aviary/green house and and insists on presenting his ideas, we are to see this is ridiculous and the Duke has a hard time being patient. The words come from a scene in Trollope (The Prime Minister, I, Ch 20, pp 168-69, 173-75 in the 1994 Penguin Prime Minister edited by David Skilton) which is transposed to the indoors; tellingly, the issue of wasting money on armament would have been relevant to a 1970s audience.
Then by contrast we have the Duke and Lady Rosina again walking together on the green lawn and into the wood. Again Raven milks The Prime Minister, II, Chapters 21, pp. 180-81; Chapter 27, pp. 233-35
Episode 17, Future Politic:
Scene 10/11 of the part:
Establishment shot: Lady Rosina and the duke walking together across the lawn
Lady Rosina: “You look rather worn today, Plantagenet. I fear lest you find my company tiring.”
Duke: “Far from it, Aunt Rosina. Your company is my only solace just now. (He points back to the castle.) Castle! crammed with people. Half of them strangers to me. It is as much as I can do to be polite to’em. In fact um, (he falls silent and has a full look on his face as a man having many thoughts that make him so absorbed he forgets where he is; her face looks full too, but she is alert and in control, not so troubled) no, to one at least I am afraid I was I was barely polite. The other night I deliberately snubbed (nods his head) Sir Orlando Drought.
Lady Rosina: “The odious man with the scarlet face. I can hardly blame you for that Plantagenet.”
Duke: “He happens to be important in my government.”
Lady Rosina: “and look as if he knows it.”
Duke: “ooooh yes.”
Camera tracks them off the screen and we see empty grass; then we pick them up walking in another path.
Duke: “Everywhere I go he torments me. For all I know he’s lurking near us now ready to jump out.”
We are seeing them through branches, the way we see repeatedly the Duchess and others politicking (she with Lopez, Erle with Orlando, Duke with Orlando) through the bars of the bird cage in the aviary-green house of Gatherum. When Lopez talks with Everett at the Beargarten, we see them through the smoke of Lopez’s thin cigar.
Duke: “Behind every bush. Seize on me with one of his foolish and impertinent suggestions.”
Lady Rosina: “You are paying the price of being a great man.”
Duke: “I sometimes wish I were a little one.”
Lady Rosina: “You will never be that.”
She is genuinely listening to him.
He hesitates, looks at her and then up, and then walks on. Again we see them walk off screen, and now we see empty spot and camera picks them up again in a wider meadow.
Duke: “I wish they’d all go away.”
They come upon young people in pairs first walking and then half-running towards them, they giggle; they are flirting. They pass the middle aged duke and elderly lady. Duke lends an arm to help Lady Rosina get out of their way. Now the camera picks them up in a part of the forest; steady quiet walking, and now they are by an oneiric lake.
Duke: “All of them Aunt Rosina except you. I don’t think you know what comfort these walks of ours are to me.
Lady Rosina: “How very kind of you to say so, Plantagenet. Well, so long as I have Sprouts cork soles to walk on, you may depend on me for a good five miles a day (a gleam seen in her eye). She smiles at him and he back.
He looks gratified, and the next scene is Lopez with Sexty Parker plotting to make money in an underhanded gambling way on the stock market; Lopez need Sexty’s money to gamble with, so again there is an ironic contrast. Again Raven has invented a scene out of mostly narrated material from PM, II, Chapters 43, 46, pp. 377-78 (narrated), 395-96 (Lopez’s letter to his father-in-law purporting to explain his business).
The camera takes us for long walks in a beautiful lawn garden and forest, and we have a number of twisting tracking shots, one of which ends with Lady Rosina and the Duke by an oneiric lake and (I think) can remind us of the Duke in 1:1 when young walking with Griselda Lady Grantley (also changed much from the book), another early attempt at escape. That scene was lovely and spring-like and he was young. Here, like all the other actors, Latham is made up to look aging.
***
This scene in its context appeals to me mightily and I suppose Raven meant it to. Raven and the film-makers of the 1974 films are addressing a person in the 1970s and still today who loathes politics from a different angle than the 19th century person. They are taking from Trollope what is meaningful to us today and developing it.
We want a different sort of refuge than Trollope envisaged, one which we can assume has a certain level of comfort and education, and this Lady Rosina is a figure from an egalitarian vision of the world. In Trollope we have rather depictions of tradespeople and working class characters in elections who are incapable of thought, are sycophants by instinct, are supposedly contented with the system as it is; this is quite a contrast to Disraeli who presents them as hiding their real angers and resentments, quite as capable of thought and understanding and knowledge too as upper and middle class characters; ditto in George Meredith.
Adaptations are meant to do just what Raven is doing, whatever kind they are (faithful, commentary or free). As Milne (he of Winnie-the-Pooh) said (who wrote an interesting play out of Austen’s P&P) the author of the new work develops what is there for the contemporary audience and makes it doubly meaningful: in terms of what was, and what is. The light shed works both ways. The adaptor uses a new media as best he can. So Raven does here.
Ellen
Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Two 
“The blog on Rosina is terrific.
Nick”