Kyle Soller as Francis with his son, shaking hands with Ross (Episodes 3 & 5, second season)
Dear friends and readers,
It’s been over three months since I last wrote about the second season of the new Poldark: on the two episodes which dramatize Francis Poldark’s (Kyle Soller) having finally found and accepted himself, becoming the man, husband, father, cousin (brother really) he’d always wanted to be, and then his tragic (accidental, ironic, useless) death by drowning: 2 Poldark 4-5: exemplary and tragic heroism. I’d been having enormous technical difficulties watching the second season on my BBC iplayer, and when I saw that Amazon.uk was making available the complete scripts for the second season when they would begin to sell the DVDs for the second season, I decided to wait for both before writing any more blogs. I did finish watching the second season using the BBC iplayer but knew I had missed so much.
For example, I had no idea that the episodes were opened with Eleanor Tomlinson singing the folk song she first performs the first Christmas after she and Ross wed and go to Trenwith (see Series 1, Episode 4, p 245), no idea the soft acqua-colored waters were the palette for the second year’s opening. It matters what song a series opens and closes with, what pictures (this time more of Demelza) we see; these set the mood, the realm we enter into and then provide closure.
From the paratexts and opening and closing music of the 2nd season
It’s feminocentric to use a word now fallen out.
Well the DVDs and second season scripts arrived early in December, and it has taken me all this time to first re-see the first season or year (all 8 episodes), read the complete scripts for the first season (and read/skin, look at Graham’s Ross Poldark and Demelza once again), and watch the second season or year (all 10 episodes) and read the scripts up to Episode 5 once again (reading Jeremy Poldark and beginning Warleggan). (I do other things.) Before I resume with Episode 6 (the equivalent of one third into Warleggan), I’d like to look at the first new season as a whole for a second time. The first time when I had come to the conclusion Horsfield and her film-making team and actors were consciously creating a new mythic matter, I hadn’t been able to read the scripts. I first found the scripts for the first year this August while I was in Cornwall in a Cornish bookshop. Before that, who knew?
Scripts are of enormous importance in understanding and enjoying a film. It is after all not the novel the actors are realizing, but the scripts. And the words go by so quickly, much is missed and in my experience we get a distorted memory view of what we saw and heard.
Aidan Turner as Ross (Episode 1, first season)
Eleanor Tomlinson as Demelza (Episode 8, first season)
I see some of the same flaws (or problems) in the new series (e.g., too much and quick juxtapositions) and some of the same differences from the 1970s older Poldark (e.g., the older series was more comic, more subversive in outlook), and also some of the improvements (the new series is actually literally closer to the novels at key points), but want to do justice to mainly to the dialogue which is much much better than I gave credit for. Also in the scripts you have Horsfield’s descriptions of the settings, her comments on how the actors should be behaving, looking, their actions. There is close continuity and give-and-take between the characters as they speak and act; the psychology comes from all these things. While reading I sometimes found that the realized scene was less subtle than it felt while reading, sometimes too hurried, too declamatory, too melodramatic for what the words were implying. By reading the short juxtaposed scenes on the page you can see the continuity more, feel it.
In addition, there is much lyricism in the language, as well as the acting and movement or rhythms of the music and action. It’s this latter I most want to call attention to: how there is an overall pattern-like effect across season 1 in the best episodes. Horsfield wanted less complicated language, because she was fitting everything together as a kind of projected world view of another time and different kind of people (almost). Think about the repetition of Aunt Agatha (Caroline Blakiston) and her tarot cards; how these recur and are pointed with the dialogues between her and Elizabeth (Heida Reed), the scene of wreath-making with Demelza, Prudie (Beatti Edney), and Jinny (Gracee O’Brien) picking up refrains of the song, Jud a low-voiced (Phil Davis) grunting
Aunt Agatha laying an ominous card down
The relationship of Demelza and Ross is a slow developing romance and the many short dialogues where they seem not to be saying any new or much are part of a patterning. Francis’s in effect deterioration and self-punishment and destruction of others works this way: short patterned scenes with George (Jack Farthing). Then there are the rituals, which include the auctions I now feel. Elizabeth and her baby, Geoffrey Charles, with a butterfly.
And there is much more inward than I had realized. Much is brief pointed still and swift dialogue but the two together and repetition does it: these two are characteristic of the first season:
She desolate
He at work
A couple of examples and I’ll have done. I’ve picked two sequences for their typicality. The first is a piece of the long scene where Ross first sees Demelza beaten by young men when she tried to rescue her dog from serving as torture for entertainment and everyone else looks on and laughs. Notice the class commentary, the nuances of immediate motives intertwining
Early still: the boy grabs and ties the dog’s tail
Demelza held back for a bit as she desperately tries to rescue her dog
65. EXT. TRURO, MARKETPLACE …. ROSS’S POV: George, Cary and other gentry, all braying with laughter.
Something hardens in his expression. Calmly he moves forward, pushing through the crowd. Then he sees something which makes him hesitate:
ROSS’S POV: Elizabeth pushing forward to see what’s going on, followed by Francis. As they get nearer, Elizabeth turns away in distress.
This kind of baiting disgusts her.
ON ROSS: Knowing that if he steps forward he must eventually encounter Elizabeth. But how can he not step forward? Calmly he takes his riding crop from his boot and walks towards the young gentlemen. They are young, all them fully convinced of their absolute right to do as they please.
POV THE CROWD: Some cheering, some curious, most expecting the newcomer (Ross) to join in with the tormenting.
ON THE YOUNG GENTLEMEN: Some of them notice Ross approaching. They see his expression and start to run.
ROSS: Enough!
One — a young man with an arrogant face — stands his ground and sneers defiantly.
ROSS: If you’ll take my advice, you’ll run.
YOUNG MAN: Or else, sir?
Impassive, Ross hits him across the face with his whip. The man shrieks and flees, clutching his face.
Henry Garrett as Captain MacNeil
Now a sequence of quick scenes: we have just seen Captain MacNeil questioning Ross and Demelza (with Ross telling Demelza not to “underestimate Captain MacNeil”), Ross getting Elizabeth’s letter about Verity’s elopement whose tone to him worries him, the brief focus on Blamey and Verity’s “first meal together,” Demelza’s fearful POV with Garrick near,
Ruby Bentall as Verity, Richard Harrington as Captain Blamey
Demelza after Ross and MacNeil gone, before it darkens
Ross on the beach hiding the oars, then first dialogue of Dwight coming to Demelza’s house, move to darkened Trenwith:
59. INT TRENWITH HOUSE. Elizabeth is doing her household accounts when Ross is shown in .
ROSS: I came as soon I could. How’s Francis?
ELIZABETH: He’s half a mind to go after her .
ROSS: Persuade him against. He’s no match for Blamey.
ELIZABETH: Or Verity. For I think she’s now the bolder of the two.
ROSS Certainly the most reckless.
ELIZABETH She has the courage of her convictions. Which I applaud even if I seem to disapprove.
A brief moment between them. The merest hint that Elizabeth wishes she too had the courage of her convictions. Then Francis barges in.
FRANCIS Well, Ross, are you pleased with your handiwork? Clearly it was you who helped her.
Ross is looking at Francis in utter bewilderment.
ROSS: I? Arrange Verity’s elopement? Have you taken leave of your senses?
CUT TO:
60: INT. NAMPARA HOUSE, KITCHEN – NIGHT 58
Demelza’s anxiety mounts (as she realizes what Ross is planning tonight – Mark s escape – and how it might be compromised by Dwight’s arrival).
DEMELZA: I – I don’t think Ross would want you here —
DWIGHT: Have I forfeited his good opinion? Or his trust?
DEMELZA: Oh no, not that, but — he has business tonight — and mebbe visitors-
There is the sound of someone tapping on the window. Demelza almost leaps out of her skin.
Matthew Wilson as Mark Daniel’s fierce face to Dwight (Luke Norris)
This is Ross and Francis talking, wrestling, POV Elizabeth
Followed by Paul and Mark Daniel rushing into Demelza’s house, “soldiers everywhere,” and then paired scenes of different kinds of anger: the long-time smoldering and nuanced digs and anger of Francis and Ross, Elizabeth failing to moderate, with the blazing hatred of Mark and guilt of Dwight, Demelza panicking. The language refers us back and forward to next sequence, with action and nuanced descriptions of what is happening. One sequence seems to have closure with Ross succeeding in seeing Mark off, and outrunning the soldiers, back into the house, the other Elizabeth’s indignation. Demelza’s walk to Francis, confession; there is a separate sequence of the Carnemore Copper Company members now bankrupt because Francis has told George the names; and finally much longer (appropriately) Demelza telling Ross what she has done, said to Francis, and (as in the book) Ross’s adament anger at her betrayal and refusal to soothe her. A telling aspect of this is in the book the narrator (Graham) makes the point the woman is to be sacrificed to her family and leaves us feeling how both Demelza and Verity were to make their lives dispensable, and emphasizes Demelza’s fault is that she lied to Ross and has lost his trust; while Horsfield comes down hard on the demand everyone consider the group first:
98. INT. NAMPARA HOUSE. DEMELZA: Can you forgive me?
ROSS: I will try.
DEMELZA: But Francis will not.
ROSS: No.
DEMELZA: And you will not forgive him. And I’ve caused a
rift between the two sides of our family.
ROSS: Yes.
DEMELZA: I will never be happy until it’s healed.
ROSS: Then I’m afraid you’ll be unhappy for a very long time.
The 1970s (as it does several times) elided over this discomfort, Ross scarcely scolds Demelza (Francis’s cursing it was felt perhaps was enough) but the conflict and meaning is lost while here if another side is taken, you do see what’s at stake. Essentially it is a fight between the men over women and if you look at the stills matched, you see men angry at one another over women, women trying to stop this, or mourning — a rare moment of more light is on Verity and Blamey at a late supper.
The epitomizing stills are things like flour kneeded into bread, location is one of the characters, and the use of light and darkness and angles at which characters are shot:
Ross and George on the beach (Episode 7 of first season)
Demelza by the cliffs (episode 8)
People remember the visuals best, but the words, sounds, dialogue are what gives the experience the meaning in our minds too. I did wish there were more of camera angles and shots in the scripts; they are rather written to resemble novels. But there is enough.
Next Poldark blog will be brief recap of Episode 5 and move into Episode 6 of the second season.
Ellen
Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Two 
Thanks for your measured and well-supported analysis. Most of the “commentary” out there is just silly, jejune and uninformed emotionalism. Is the director beginning to pander to this kind of audience? I sensed an unfortunate soapy, dumbed-down direction in character, language, and culture at the end of Season Two. I hope I’m mistaken.
Thank you for your writing, and I learn a great deal from your entries.
I chanced upon your blog while looking for more commentaries on the differences among 1975 and 2015 television productions, and Graham’s books. I’m new to Poldark being introduced only recently as 2015 on Horsfield’s interpretation on PBS. Subsequently, I bought and read the first 6 of the books and then currently viewing the 1975 version (Season 1 and just about to start Season 2).
I find myself attached to 2015 and I’m glad that it stays close to the book. Just by that category, I suppose, I like 2015 much more. Ellis’ screen presence is mesmerizing; and in my thinking, can stand above that of Turner’s. Clive’s is on par with that of Stoller’s. However Rees’ performance of Demelza is on target, I also believe, Tomlinson’s Demelza shows a kind of vulnerability that is uniquely endearing. For me, some character interpretations in 1975 such as that of Caroline Penvenen, Dwight Enys, Pascoe and McNeil fell short. I think one missed opportunity also in 1975 is not having Aunt Agatha’s presence much early on. Elizabeth characterization in 2015 is less sinister compared to 1975 which I believe makes it more plausible and believable for the audience to have a mixed emotion of being her as a “frenemy” to both Demelza and Ross. 1975’s Elizabeth is totally a put-off, a shallow competition that does not provide equal weight to Demelza’s fear of losing Ross to her. As for George, I think Farthing’s acting is commendable but his physicality, for me, is problematic. I thought that George physical makeup should also be as equally imposing as that of Ross’s.
It will be interesting to know if there is a consensus that one’s preference is shaped by one’s first exposure to the story. Would it be generally surmised that if one had seen the 1975 version first, or for that matter the 2015 in my case, one is inclined to be attached to it? After all, storytelling captures not only the story it tells but also the emotional and psychological state at those moments that predispose one person to be engaged with it in the first place. Sincerely,
Dear Mr or Ms Segil, Honesty should compel us to admit that often the first iteration of a book in film form if we like it and it goes on for a time, is the one we become wedded to.
I prefer the 1975 individual hours still: each one seems to me so well done, and I like most of the earlier interpretations of the characters and still feel if the earlier series is turning out to be less literally faithful, the character types and details are closer to the 1945-53 books. I grew to accept the 1970s anachronistic way of having Demelza pregnant and then that powerful scene where he chases her on the meadow and the dialogue between them but I know the new series is truer to the text and morally much better.
I put that down to 1970s being a more genuinely questioning era than our own and at the same closer to 1945-53 than 2015-16. This especially true of the new Demelza and Elizabeth; the new ones are further away from Graham and the 18th century in the books too. I agree with you I like the earlier 1970s interpretation better: I feel they are truer to the book: Graham’s Demelza does make Ross the center of her identity, and while his behavior to Elizabeth hurts her, and she is vehemently opposed to say his smuggling, she does not act aggressively hostile nor do they bicker. I find the 2015-16 bitter comments between them unsettlingly. But the modern film-makers’ idea is a woman who says the husband’s views are those she’ll follow (which would be unquestioned in the 18th century) would not be acceptable today. The violence of heroines in modern series also leads to this new Demelza’s violence. Conversely, feminism is on the retreat and the 1945-53 and 1970s ambitious, coolly rank-conscious, and transgressive woman is unacceptable so the new Elizabeth is pious, sentimental, and easily fooled by Warleggan. In the 18th century companionate marriage was relatively new and Graham’s original portrait closer to history.
I don’t want to criticize too strongly individual actors so I’ll say finally many of the new realized scenes are not as good as Horsfield’s scripts call for. Turner lacks the nuance of Ellis, but it’s more than him. The new director makes the actors too melodramatic. Still standout performances include Kyle Soller as Francis, Richard Harrington as Blamey (I wish he had a more major role, like say Enys), Caroline Blakiston as Aunt Agatha, Eleanor Tomlinson if you can accept the new interpretation, but often in scenes they just don’t get the subtle effects of the earlier groups. The darker view of Jud (Phil Davies) is truer to the book — though there is much comedy in the books (and Paul Curran did that very well). Horsfield missed badly on her new Jinny and Jim; the story was too cut. Keren was a misogynistic nightmare; not so in the book, she has some sympathy. And so it goes.
I admit the new group has entered my dream life. When I read the books I no longer quite see the old set of actors nor is their point of view framing my reading, nor the new one. I do love how much longer the hours are (60 minutes rather than 45) and more hours: 10 for 2 books in the second season rather than 8. I missed out the way the first Christmas in the old series, and the full realization of the Caroline-Enys story which is now done justice too. The framing is somewhere in between for me now (I see where the 2015-16 is at moments closer, truer, even better) so finally Graham’s text wins out.
I hope I haven’t been confusing. It’s hard to distinguish and talk about 3 different versions of characters and stories: Graham’s, the 1970s with 6 different script-writers and more directors, and now 2015-16 with Horsfield doing all the scripts, but different directors,let alone that the stories are meant to mirror the 18th century in Cornwall.