Halse (Robin Ellis) and Ross (Aidan Turner) discuss the death of Ray Penvenen (John Nettles, a man of integrity, conviction, but also rank, thus standing and considerable wealth in land) (3 Poldark 2)
“Many years ago I wrote four novels about the Poldark family and eighteenth century Cornwall. After finishing them, the modern world [and suspense novels intervened]. Eventually the idea of writing another book about them came to be something not really open to serious consideration. But sometimes the totally unexpected occurs,and one day, for no discoverable reason, it became necessary for me to see what happened to those people after Christmas night, 1793 … to return to an old mood was as much of a challenge as creating a new one. The Black Moon is the result” — Winston Graham, Author’s Note prefacing The Black Moon)
There are three sets of dates: One for the time the novels were written by Graham (the first four 1945-53, the second three 1973-77), one for the time they are said to be occurring (1783-1793, 1794-99 respectively) and now two sets of dates for the film adaptations which mirror the 40 years apart eras they are filmed in (first series, 1975-78, 2015-2017).
“That part of his character [Ross’s] which made him so critical of authority also worked against himself. The same faculty which questioned the rightness of the law and the lawmakers was sharp to keep his own actions under a similar scrutiny … ” (Graham’s The Black Moon, towards the end of the book)
Friends and readers,
How unexpectedly fitting. I begin my series of comparative blogs on the new and older Poldark films a day after Graham’s 109th birthday. On his blog, Robin Ellis (once Ross Poldark) announced June 30, was Graham’s birthday: he had been born June 30, 1908, Victoria Park, Manchester, where his one historical novel not set in Cornwall, Cordelia, written 1949, takes place.
Winston Graham, 1945, around the time he wrote The Forgotten Story and Ross Poldark (thanks to Jim Dring)
Ellis has not been permitted by history, his fan base, and his later career to dismiss his role as Ross, even if he wanted to, which if he ever did (and he must’ve) he has long given up.
Robin Ellis, recent promotional shot, Truro
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Aiden Turner as Ross first seen in the new series
Robin Ellis as Ross, coming home to Demelza (and Jud) from the wars in wars, early scene in older series
These blogs are based on the mini-series as now aired on BBC. This first is on the first two episodes, adapted from The Black Moon and imitating some of the previous mini-series (especially the way the Morwenna-Drake love scenes on the beach are done). I compare them to the older series, for which I provide summaries and evaluations in the commentary and both to the fifth Poldark book, The Black Moon.
I begin with the second episode of the third season of the new Poldark (2017), Ellis is again in the new series, and a pivotal moment. Now he is Rev Mr. Halse (Robin Ellis) in the scenes from The Black Moon (5th Poldark book, 1794-95). Ellis as Halse is given role in the book given to Ralph Allen Daniel (a real local landowner, magistrate at the time), an offer in The Black Moon to become Justice of the Peace (in this latest mini-series episode an MP, a very different role, not local). Ross, wrongly he realizes (ever so slowly), partly because the profoundly vindictive, punitive, reactionary capitalist George Warleggan (Jack Farthing) takes the powerful position (including tax and fee rates, punishment, legal procedures).
We can measure the distance of the first four Poldark books (written 1945-53, Ross Poldark, Demelza, Jeremy Poldark, Warleggan) from this trilogy written 20 years later, (1973-77, The Black Moon, The Four Swans, The Angry Tide), upon which the third and two seasons at least next must be based. In the second Poldark series, Graham chooses to realize truly historical characters (not just invented ones), linchpin capitalists and great landowners, Tory (Lord Falmouth, from mother’s side a Boscawen) or Whig (Sir Francis Basset, later Lord Dunstanville). Not fantasy figures at all. And in both episodes Ross is deeply conflicted over what he has done in the past, and what he should do for the future, and at the close seems to have decided retreat into his nuclear family and friends is the best right option. He will discover that he is wrong here.
Ross and Demelza (after credits and wild scene of Ross stopping Elizabeth from going over a cliff) reflecting on their way of life: she wants to know if he is avoiding thinking about something
He will not let her see inside him, and tells her, she, on the other hand, thinks too much (he means aloud)
The pace of the Poldark world novels has calmed down in the second realization. Graham says in Poldark’s Cornwall, it was “like breaking into a sound barrier.” It’s a lot slower, far more attention to the particulars of politics in the 1790s in Cornwall, London and France. And that is part of the difficulty both mini-series had to deal with. They somehow have to get some of this new matter in. One can see this in the new realization which is far more consciously political. Yes the newer Poldark mini-series is again much more melodramatic than the older, without comedy, literally closer to the books, using cinematographic techniques, montage, interwoven juxtaposition and parallels a lot more than the older series. And a strong depiction of a community, a way of life. But both fill in matter, the 2017 even more so. For example in the newer series, added to Elizabeth giving birth, and all the mortal dangers that brings, Debbie Horsfield has dramatized the death of Ray Penvenen
Caroline Penvenen Enys (Gabriella Wilde) grieving over her dead uncle (from sugar sickness, i.e., diabetes)
and the death of Demelza, Drake and Sam Carne’s father — both referred to at the opening of The Black Moon, but not made into parallel episodes.
Much less is doing in The Black Moon than had been happening in the previous four novels. So Horsfield and before her the great Alexander Baron (the scriptwriter for the first four episodes of the 1977 Poldark, he was a fine novelist and wrote many BBC screenplays for powerful mini-series in the 1770s, especially for Dickens and the 1983 Jane Eyre) invent, they fill in, they don’t get to Elizabeth’s childbed with Valentine until Episode 2, which scene opens The Black Moon. Horsfield also has her characters commenting on the action, reflecting on their behavior and choices, with a (to me) odd didactic effect. Baron’s older series had to deal with the problem that the dramatization of Warleggan had so departed from the book that Trenwith was supposed burnt down and Ross gone for a couple of years fighting in France (they have to bring Ross back, invent a new house, explain who Aunt Agatha is), but there is a skilfull sophistication of dialogue, very novel-like, more subtly suggestive so Agatha in the older series (Eileen Way) really needles George (Ralph Bates) slowly, spitefully, something the new Agatha (Caroline Blakiston) with her relationship with Elizabeth (Heida Reed) is only said to be doing.
I’m not going to recap this year, but leave my readers to read one of the many that turn up on TV blogs (more probably in the autumn, when PBS broadcasts a probably much re-arranged and somewhat abridged version of the third season), even if they are snarky and trivializing or downright mocking (see one, and two). Rather I’ll evaluate selectively in terms of the previous series, attending to how both connect back to the books. In comments I’ll detail the plot-design and events of the 1977 series (click for Episode 1 of the 1977; and click for Episode 2, much more briefly) since they were not recapped originally and are of great interest.
I hope to stir the reader to return to the older series and also read the books. Here are my two blogs on Graham’s Black Moon: Re-entry, Land, politics, love and coerced marriage, religion and revolution; Violence the basis of this order.
My first response is as all previous encounters: I think how this not as good as last year (in this third season the dressers of Ross are back to allowing him to have utterly unkempt hair), and neither as effective, uncompromisingly like the books in spirit, as the 1970s films. Yet — as in previous encounters I admit Horsfield is following the general story and at moments more literally true, elaborating seriously on what is in the books. The 1970s equivalent did not show Elizabeth trying to get rid of the child or bring on parturition, and crudely or melodramatically as Horsfield had the actors clash (Turner as Ross just happens to be on a cliff where Elizabeth seems to be trying to throw herself over); these are incidents George half-glimpses in the book whose significance he fails to understand. It is made pointedly clear in episode 1 that Ross and Demelza (Elinor Tomlinson) believe Elizabeth’s second baby’s father is Ross. Ross cannot resist hanging around Trenwith; after the baby is born, we see him running frantically on the beach to calm himself, bending over in twisted ways frustrated that he can do nothing for this son; Demelza justifies her returning to see her father die despite his abuse of her because there is a special bond between father and child which must not be ignored. Horsfield is developing cores of the books:
I’ve read that Horsfield and Co are not eager to go on to Books 7-12; if so, they are making an implicit fuss about the possible fathering of Valentine by Ross to little purpose. She has added in episode 2 that Elizabeth does not like her new baby, will not hug or soothe him (Verity notices how cold she is): this is not true of Elizabeth in the books: she may favor Geoffrey Charles, but she loves both her sons and shows concern, solicitude, tenderness towards both (far more than she ever did towards Francis her first husband, or George now). Ross’s indifference towards his son, leaving Valentine to endure the mistreatment of George, the stepfather reaches a tragic and twisted climax in Bella (Book 12). It is all over the new series’ nuances, from Ross’s concern, to his guilt, to Demelza’s warning, in the pointed talk about who the new baby resemble, George’s overdone pride in his “heir.” Graham’s Black Moon is quiet about this until near the end when driven by Warleggan’s cruelty to her, Aunt Agatha suddenly rouses his suspicions in a way never to be undone. The 1977 film only hints at this in Prudie’s suspicions that this eighth month baby is a ninth money one (Episode 2) and Aunt Agatha’s final revenge when George forbids her party and she details what a eighth month baby should be missing (which Valentine is not missing).
first shot of intensely sincere Sam, by his father’s bedside
Sam’s (Tom York) religiosity brought out far more. Both were much more melodramatic than the previous series and sometimes look like travel ads, and there is not quite the need for Turner to charge across the landscape regularly. These lead to implicit silliness, but much is good. The Morwenna-Drake (Harry Richardson and Ellise Chapppel replace Kevin McNally and Jane Wymark, whom Richardson and Chappell resembles) scenes are very well done and touchingly done at length. Horsfield brings out how radical politically the two brothers are — somewhat unconsciously
Morwenna and Geoffrey Charles — on the beach, by the seashore
The sweet Drake will lead them into mysterious caves
What she has done that is interesting and new in an original way is reverse events we are shown. The emphasis in the book is on the Warleggan household — partly Graham was feeling his way back after a 20 year hiatus. We begin and end there in The Black Moon. Alexander Baron filled in far more of the Nampara household, but he did not try to rearrange so consciously, and kept Ralph Bates and Jill Townsend to the fore in the story. Horsfield makes a strong effort to show that Elizabeth is learning to dislike George very much (she does not in the earlier series as she is with George in his reactionary hierarchical attitudes, equally resentful of the Carne brothers, though reasonable and judicious). Horsfield is characterizing the era culturally, giving us a sense of what farm life and mining again (the second episode opens on the mine as so much of the first two seasons did) was like.
Verity and Elizabeth
Agatha saying goodbye to Verity — Verity brings out the best in everyone
We have Verity (Ruby Bentall replaced Norma Streader) added (she begins to become a minor character in the second three novels and disappears altogether in the later ones) and her baby, and when it’s thought that Dwight has either drowned or been killed, Verity is led to believe her husband’s merchant ship was lost in a storm. This is another attempt to reinforce by inventing parallels, in this case (I felt successful) because of the power of the actress’s presence (and our memories of Richard Harringtno as Captain Blamey from the previous series). I liked this quiet prosaicism and thought it was carried out mostly by Eleanor Tomlinson in her role as Demelza. I find regrettable Horsfield seems to feel she must characterize the revolution as senselessly violent, and give strong anti-liberal thought talk to Ross and the new Sir Francis Bassett (John Hopkins) at Bassett’s political salon.
There is strong acting, especially among the older actors: John Nettles’s death as Ray Penvenen is to be regretted as he was such a force on the screen; Ellis is again pitch perfect as Halse (he has a real feel for the era). John Hollingforth as Captain Henshawe, Richard Pope as Pascoe. Among the younger actors, Luke Norris (replacing Richard Morant) as Dwight Enys is utterly believable when called to help Elizabeth give birth, married to hard Caroline (politically at any rate), and in closing brief shots seen aboard ship, using overvoice to pen his letters to Caroline, captured, escaping, and then doing what he can to relieve the suffering of the other victim-prisoners in the French prison.
Luke Norris as Enys at the moment of capture
The new series is luxuriating in the number of episodes (10, 60 minutes each) they have been given for 2 and 1/2 books (The Black Moon and The Four Swans will be covered this third season), while the older one was held to a strict four episodes of 45 minutes, with one extra for each of the three novels (they covered all three in 13 episodes). This might account for the more meditative and reflective quality, with more invention of back stories not in the book in the new series, but it is surprising how much the older series included, and they did not drop characters as is now done here.
Since Phil Harris as Jud was not used as comic or subversive foil the way Paul Curran had been, now dropped with little explanation, he is not missed as much as he would be. We’ve never had the moderating Nicholas Warleggan of the book (and older series, presented as a man who is diplomatic and prefers to be honest), only the cutthroat sneering [uncle] Cary (Pip Torrens). There is still little comedy.
The Warleggan (Jack Farthing) of this first two hours is over-the-top in his egoism, drive to ape “his betters” and chip on his shoulder; he is in effect a fool, ruining his own marriage by his coldness; by contrast the Warleggan of the older series (Ralph Bates) was motivated by a passion for Elizabeth, and more inward genuine complicated feelings. The new series again wants more nudity among the males so we are “treated” scenes of Sam and Drake swimming in the nude — without much motivation.
But interestingly (to me) in both mini-series Ross is taking something of a back seat, is in his soul in retreat as he is so conflicted over what he has done in the past and what his future should be. That is why he rejects Bassett and the Rev Halse’s offer. I just wish (as have others) that Horsfield didn’t feel it necessary for Turner to charge across the landscape on his horse, or make him use frantic gestures to signal inner frustration. Graham’s idea seems to have been to keep Ross as private a man as he, Graham, was.
Final scene (episode 1), she melancholy, he withdrawn apart
Ellen
Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Two 
1977 Poldark: the second season, Part 1 covering the opening of The Black Moon:
Homecoming: Demelza stands waiting for Ross, Paul Curran as Jud just by
George trying to persuade the now trapped Elizabeth
The writer is Alexander Baron, usually very strong, the producer has changed (!) to Anthony Coburn, and we do have less effective use of landscape; it’s as yet a backdrop rather than integrated as it was in the first season’ director is now Philip Dudley.
I regret to have to say that the second season of Poldark last night (as I watched the first hour) was off to a shaky start. Understandably enough as a year passed between the first season and the second, the film-makers feel they have to remind viewers of all the characters, what happened in the first season and instruct new viewers who were so unfortunate as not to have watched
Season 1 so we get dialogues like, “I remember you … ” or “Do you remember how” or worse yet, “But who comes here?” sort of thing.
Some of the more minor or secondary actors didn’t return, and I feel as I’m watching the joy of the first season which was that the actors seemed by the end to be having a really good time, enjoying acting out this fantasy, has dissipated a bit. This first episode has taught me the truth of Ellis’s remark that part of the power of the first season was after a while all the actors really loved doing it; they enjoyed Cornwall and they had jelled together as a team. They liked the roles they were given in fantasy and entered into it with spirit. However, I do see that Ellis as Ross, Rees as Demelza, Jill Townsend as Elizabeth and the two people playing Ross’s faithful servants, Paul Cannon as Jud and Mary Wimbush as his wife, Prudie were very strong in their scenes I have hope all will jell and begin to feel like living people in the midst of life.
As in the last time I watched this opening of the second season — done two years after the first — there is a real sense of falling off as the players attempt to re-gain the momentum they had had in the previous series. They are stuck with some improbabilities beyond Elizabeth’s pregnancy by Ross (which comes from the conventions followed in the book): Ross’s re-appearance has to be explained; George and Elizabeth have to be provided with a new house. I’ve read since watching the first (Poldark’s Cornwall by Graham) that the film-makers did not succeed in obtaining as good a house as the one which served for Trenwith nor did they have full rights of ingress and egress.
On the other hand, Ii you go over, you can observe in the stills, the revenant like opening. Once again a man expected perhaps not to return, returns, and he returns much sooner than expected. The opening is Walter Scott-like: the man on the horse, in regency English military garb, he’s set upon by people desperate (their land enclosed). I’ve put two stills from his visit to his sister’s house (information given to newcomers there), and then the joyous reunion of Demelza and Ross (Ellis and Rees). Beautifully done. Their faces light up with eager life.
One last flaw: they have committed a gross improbability. All will remember (if anyone has read any of these postings or my blog) how Ross raped Elizabeth the night she sent him the letter she was determined to marry George Warleggen (Ralph Bates is back) for his money and what power and prestige he could give her and the hope of going to live in London (her Moscow). Not only is it an improbability that a girl gets pregnant upon one bout of sex (as the film presented Demelza doing) it’s even more improbable a rape such as we are to imagine would impregnate Elizabeth. But this is what we are to suspect — from a powerful hectic conversation between Jud and Prudie where Prudie is anxious to shut him up. You see Elizabeth wants her now husband, George Warleggen to believe she’s given birth to an 8th month child since they’ve been married 8 months. In fact the child is full term, 9 months and it was 9 months ago that Ross raped her.
So there is this kick or secret at the core of the new series: the son Warleggen is taking such delight in is not his, but his arch-enemy’s.
As I wrote in the first book Ross does not impregnate Demelza after one night; they have sex for several nights (unlike the film where he, gentleman that he is sends the “good” girl back to her family) and then he up and marries her, after which they begin to develop a real relationship as a couple. Now it may be that in the books Graham has Ross and Elizabeth have an affair before she marries Warleggan; I shall read on to see.
However, I have to admit while this improbability makes hay of the character of Elizabeth (how is she to behave to Ross if we are really to imagine he’s raped her — though I’m beginning to see where this TV show like many films depends on the average viewer not taking it seriously, not imagining for real), it does turn Warleggan into a dramatic dope, rather like Othello, only since Warleggan in bullying Elizabeth over her first son by Francis (Warleggan wants to send him to school, threatens to beat him with a hard stick) and over this new baby comes out as ugly, we are urged to laugh derisively. It’s not his this child he is taking such pride over, but Ross’s. They even managed a baby with light brown hair (Ellis has lightish brown hair, Bates dark black brown).
And they have also given too much room to the character who is a straight take-over of Gainsborough stuff, Caroline Penvenen (Judy Geeson) back with yet more improbable hats and overfancy dresses.
Yet having watched for 16 hours even here I see some threads which are developing which will overcome these meretricious choices. For example, Demelza’s brothers return and they have gotten religion. A satire and exposure of methodism has begun. Ross is again involving himself on behalf of those enclosed. The scenery and photography is breath-taking — I put the four opening shots of the series in our album. We begin with the sublime scene on the cliff we ended on.
And Ross and Demelza’s reunion, their relationship, the two actors acting this out, the re-fixing of their house are all really fine and touching and believable. One (I) feel glad to be back with them, glad he’s back again (a new revenant) and she’s survived and has carried on. I hope other of my favorite characters (and actors return), like Verity Poldark Blamey.
Enough was here for me to give them time to get back on their feet, into their roles and with a story worth doing. For example, the power of Jill Townsend’s performance. We watch her give birth. There is a (for the 1970s) frank, powerful and effective scene. Unlike the Pallisers (5 years earlier), we just don’t sit outside with the (here putative) father and grandfather, but we are allowed in. Bloody, in pain, linen upon linen soiled and messed and used, hours and hours suggested and much misery and screams. Even her ridiculously impeccable hair up to now, gets all wretched and messy.
I had not noticed that part of the power of Elizabeth’s (Jill Townsend) childbirth is how she screams how “I hate you, I hate you.” This is not explained but I surmize it may refer either to her present bullying husband (George Warleggen Ralph Bates) or Ross who raped her and whose baby it is that is near killing her. Perhaps she’s reliving the rape. But it could also be Why should she have to endure this anyway?
I’ve also put in the album a still of Warleggen bullying her boy by her first husband (threatening to flog him) and one of Ross’s two servants, Prudie and Jud, discussing how this was no 8 month baby. Two of Demelza’s evangelical-methodist brothers, and some catches of landscape. The very elderly Aunt Agatha (90s) who Ross is not permitted to visit but wants to see him. I now realize what this could mean is this property Warleggen is lording it over (he’s put cruel mantraps on the grounds) might be willed to Ross as it’s actually owned by Agatha.
The episode sets up the antagonism between Ross and Warleggan as central to the coming series; this in fact supercedes Ross’s homecoming. George has enclosed his land again, set up man-traps, is continuing to rackrent and throw people out of cottages; after the loving reunion of Ross and Demelza (done very strongly so the two actors clearly got along — semi-joke alert), we are introduced to Demelza’s two brothers, their methodism and relative ignorance/innocence set before us and they are provided with a house, and jobs (Drake is set up as carpenter). Demelza’s brothers have gotten religion. A satire and exposure/satire but also much sympathy with methodism as a means of self-respect and rebellion has begun. Ross is again involving himself on behalf of those enclosed.
It’s at such moments throughout the first 16 episodes and now in this the series proves the validity of its fundamental norms of historical and present reality. The costumes too remain dirty, torn and decidedly unfancy for most of the characters.
A new character presented in the film (introduced towards the close of Poldark 1), the book, Aunt Agatha, 91, lives with Elizabeth. An aging old lady dependent on others (in the 1970s at home care in Britain had started). The heterogeneous nature of households in the 17th through 19th century) and feelings about kin in the local community brought in: she wants to see Ross and he feels he ought to, but George (the bully of the house) forbids it. She is in the books from the start, but in 1977 only appears in the second series, because the story needs her as motivation and tale-teller.
So not only the heir but the land may be Ross’s. And I put a final still of Ross coming over to this newly built house, again the revenant, where there will be an open clash between him and Warleggen.
The character of Aunt Agatha and her antagonisms to George and his cruelty to her are well done as also (quietly implicitly) Jill Townsend’s Elizabeth. The actress had to get across the frustrations and miseries of a repressed conservative woman, not easy — especially without flashback or voice-over (which the series of the 70s eschewed). The best scene is the terrible childbirth where she screams: “I hate you I hate you” in the midst of her long agon, and we are not sure if this is Ross or George she refers to. We watch her give birth. There is a (for the 1970s) frank, powerful and effective scene. Unlike the Pallisers (5 years earlier), we just don’t sit outside with the (here putative) father and grandfather, but we are allowed in. Bloody, in pain, linen upon linen soiled and messed and used, hours and hours suggested and much misery and screams. The doctor being there is seen as useful (as he is not in the novels) Even her ridiculously impeccable hair up to now, gets all wretched and messy.
Very good is the use of Jud Paynter and his wife Prudie as bringing in the doubts about Elizabeth’s birth, the obsession of George with _his_ son. I’ve also put in the album a still of Warleggen bullying Elizabeth’s boy by her first husband (threatening to flog him). He is among several whose leg is almost done in by the mantraps — which are historically accurate. The actors for Paynter and Prudie go right back to the roles in the way of Ross and Demelza
Ah yes and the lady who is an escape of Gainsborough costume drama (Judy Geeson) is back; a still of her at the window, complete with fancy hat. Absurdly overdressed and the scene where they greet one another again would be much better were they in their real clothes.
The writer is Alexander Baron, usually very strong, the producer has changed (!) to Anthony Coburn, and we do have less effective use of landscape; it’s as yet a backdrop rather than integrated as it was in the first season’ director is now Philip Dudley. The scenery and photography is still breath-taking — I put the four opening shots of the series in our album
To sum up, a few points:
Scott-like opening
Elizabeth in childbirth either reliving the rape or sex with George: I hate you, I hate you
Ross as revenant
E.M.
Poldark, Season 2:2: the happenings made a metaphor drawing upon Baron’s experience of Franco’s Spain
Morwenna, Geoffrey Charles and Drake on the beach
Sam in the meeting house — politics treated slightly comically; in 2017 conversations between Sam and Demelza much more earnest and she is against his ideas of sin
The second hour of the second season of Poldark improved, markedly. Partly that’s because much of the next hour was filmed on location in Cornwall. When they do this, the series often soars. It seems to fill the actors with intense energies as they act out these adventurous and romantic scenes among these sublime places.
Here Demelza’s younger evangelical brother begins a love romance with the governess hired by Elizabeth to care for her boy, a poor cousin, Morwenna Chynoweth (Jane Wymark); the two are defying the prohibition to live any life of her own meted our to Morwenna.
As we have this couple beginning to defy the status they have been given, so there are scenes taking place in the established church where the vicar becomes angry and resentful at Demelza’s two brothers Methodism. In the church they do not wait for Warleggan and his wife to arrive and start singing on their own. George sees as subversive and it is partly and connects to Jacobitism, disruptive of the establishment, ignoring who is supposed in power.
Dr Enys has been captured aboard a ship, and is in prison, probably tortured, and Ross insists in trying to go free him — risking his life. Demelza’s not keen for she’s pregnant and needs Ross — he’s the Captain remember, the one with property and prestige and now they’ve her brothers to keep too. These scenes between Demelza and Ross constitute a motif of the hour — they are taken from an important element in the books: Ross’s restlessness, which continues to the Loving Cup where I stopped for now.
There is a repeating motif here: the revenant. Ross is a revenant. He first appeared at the opening of Season 1 a revenant from the American wars; now he’s a revenant from the French and Irish ones, and he’s preparing to return not to a war set up by a civil authority, but to smuggle out a man in danger of torture and death. This will give him a chance to be a revenant once again.
It’s a powerful archetype: Martin Guerre comes to mind. This time though Ross is not leaving behind people who were glad to see the back of him and hoped him dead (the Warleggans) but Demelza.
There are more bullying scenes of George Warleggan and the old woman, Aunt Agatha. It’s hard to feel for Elizabeth when one sees her cold snobbish behavior to her cousin-governess, her lies, and her despising of the people in church. But this time through I know the actress is trying to show us a woman who has made a bad decision and can’t come back from it. She does not agree with George. She would not throw the Crane brothers off their land; she is pressured into signing a document which kicks them off. Ross didn’t want them either but to make up for his leaving Demelza he gives them land.
The curious intertwining: George Warleggen’s heir is really Ross’s, and we know Ross could be Agatha’s heir to this property, not Warleggan. Unless he ends up hanged or dead (from torture).
The hour ends with Ross’s attempt to rescue Enys. He has secured the help of Tholly Tregirls (as he does in the book) but he makes the mistake of trusting someone to help him get in; he pays this man who then turns him in. Now I know this is not in the book and Ross’s near execution is not either. It’s an over the top piece of drama which allows a climactic close and to show us next time how both sides do atrocities. Baron would know this: he was in Franco’s Spain, wrote about it, so in this disguised drama we see an significant point about torture and execution.
E.M.
Horsfield makes a strong effort to show that Elizabeth is learning to dislike George very much (she does not in the earlier series as she is with George in his reactionary hierarchical attitudes, equally resentful of the Carne brothers, though reasonable and judicious).
I don’t recall Elizabeth ever feeling any real dislike toward George in the novels. She may have disapproved of some of his actions or reacted with anger. But dislike?
Now it may be that in the books Graham has Ross and Elizabeth have an affair before she marries Warleggan; I shall read on to see.
I’m rather confused about this comment.
It would help if you would give me some sense of where in the blog the two statements come from. The second is clearly wrong: sometimes when I am writing I am so tired that words come from my brain that make no sense. So let me know about where that one is.
I feel that Elizabeth learns to dislike George slowly; she slowly sees she has made another very bad choice for husband. By the end of Warleggan (the book), she has realized how easier it was to live with Francis. But for her to recognize something of what George is takes time. We see her intuitive distrust when she says she is now in a cage (to herself) when she says yes to him, and when she tries to put off the date. In The Black Moon, She sees how screwed up his values are, and the narrator says she wonders why she is not more afraid of him when he proposes his four candidates for Morwenna’s hand (and body). When in Four Swans, he becomes cruel to Valentine out of jealousy and suspicion, and when he has her watched, she is very grated up — the word dislike is not used, but she might not admit to herself she dislikes him. In The Angry Tide she is angry, and then it becomes real. True, she goes ahead with inducing early parturition. We have to remember this is not 2017 but the 1790s; she has to live with him.
I did watch the new BBC Poldark episode 3 last night. I can’t watch the BBC programs on my BBC iplayer any more so must wait for friends to send copies. In that Episode 3 Horsfield has Elizabeth seeing how awful George is when he condemns a girl assaulted by someone whose patronage he wants (not in the book at all), and starting laudandum in order to cope. I suggest that Horsfield is inventing in order to make more obvious (less subtle) than Graham’s portrait. She begins to dislike her baby because she dislikes both men by this time. At the end of the book The Angry Tide George says to Ross they both killed her. It’s truer to say her lack of power as a women did her in. I won’t say bad choices for a husband as it is so easy to make a bad choice. She has no option to walk back from these bad choices.
After all I am glad of these replies. I’ve begun reading towards a book and these prompt me to think more about the texts and films.
did watch the new BBC Poldark episode 3 last night. I can’t watch the BBC programs on my BBC iplayer any more so must wait for friends to send copies. In that Episode 3 Horsfield has Elizabeth seeing how awful George is when he condemns a girl assaulted by someone whose patronage he wants (not in the book at all), and starting laudandum in order to cope.
I was so disgusted with this. This is a prime example of the BBC going too far.
Dear Ellen,
It’s beautiful women and handsome men! I mean the new series, though of course everyone was attractive in the ’70s series, too. I do look forward to seeing this next fall and am rereading The Black Moon. But in a way I am pleased you prefer the old series–so much better, I think. But fascinating that Horsfield sticks closer to the books.
Closer to the books? Where in the books does Elizabeth start opium?
The court scene was not in the books. Caroline and Dwight don’t marry until he is rescued from France etc. etc. the time line is all over the place. It will be interesting to see what the writers do with Morwenna and the loathsome vicar and what they rearrange it that brutal story line.
Well all right: you have pointed out where she has elaborated or developed hints and suggestions and offstage scenes. I agree that Elizabeth taking laudanum is not in the novel, and she develops her dislike and even horror at George later in the books (at his proposals for husbands for Morwenna, when she sees what the marriage is for Morwenna) but early in The Four Swans she finds herself surveyed and distrusted and is coming to the conclusion she has made a disastrous second choice, far worse than her first. People in his era (especially women who had few medicines for pain to trun to) took Godey’s Lady’s Drops and some in the way of opioids. This kind of detail was added to Mansfield Park in Rozema’s 1999 film.
I’ll amend and say both mini-series departed: the first by eliminating and smoothing over the uncomfortable. And both brought in Ross and Demelza much earlier and made their story the frame when The Black Moon is at first the story of Warleggan and Elizabeth. That’s how Graham got himself back into his material after a 20 year lapse.
Love your opinions as always. I never had the chance to see the 70’s series so I rely on the books. Thank you for your everything.
People in his era (especially women who had few medicines for pain to trun to) took Godey’s Lady’s Drops and some in the way of opioids. This kind of detail was added to Mansfield Park in Rozema’s 1999 film.
I understand that. But Graham did not portray Elizabeth in that manner. And frankly, I found it unnecessary and ridiculously overdramatic on Horsfield’s part.
Chacun a son gout. It is true there is much over-the-top melodrama in this new series. It’s far stronger than the first one; and at the same time, much much less comedy.
I had not noticed that part of the power of Elizabeth’s (Jill Townsend) childbirth is how she screams how “I hate you, I hate you.” This is not explained but I surmize it may refer either to her present bullying husband (George Warleggen Ralph Bates) or Ross who raped her and whose baby it is that is near killing her. Perhaps she’s reliving the rape. But it could also be Why should she have to endure this anyway?
I naturally assumed that she meant Ross. After all, he had given her a good reason to express hatred toward him.
Good comment. Yes. Why should she not hate Ross? She probably kept on with the marriage she had promised because she realized she was pregnant. Ross gave her no help once he left that morning. Did nothing at all.