Scorsese's Stunning Adaptation of the Novel by Edith Wharton
Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder and Michelle Pfeiffer star in The Age of Innocence (1993), an absorbing and beautiful period piece directed by Martin Scorsese, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks. The film is a faithful adaptation of the 1920 literary classic by Edith Wharton (1862-1937).
Wharton was born into one of old New York's most prominent families, and she set The Age of Innocence in a fictionalized version of the world she lived in up through young adulthood. But by the time she wrote the novel, she was in her late fifties, divorced and had resided in France for a long time. Looking back from a distance of 35 or 40 years, she saw a complex society filled with worldly and sophisticated people, and her title must be taken as irony.
Wharton's novel of manners is far removed from Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and GoodFellas, yet The Age of Innocence is one of Scorsese's best movies. Perhaps one thing that attracted the filmmaker to adapting Wharton's story was the opportunity to delve into the history of his beloved New York City, which he again did later in Gangs of New York. Also, Scorsese might have identified with Wharton's theme of social entrapment and individual freedom, which the filmmaker had earlier explored in a different context in his semiautobiographical Mean Streets. Furthermore, Wharton's ruminations on love, marriage and morality may have resonated with Scorsese, who, at the time he made The Age of Innocence, had been married and divorced four times.
A Rigid Social Code and Repressed Love
The story is set in 1870s New York, and the movie opens with a dazzling sequence at the opera. It's a performance of Gounod's Faust, and a soprano pulls petals off a daisy and sings in Italian, "He loves me, he loves me not." Almost all of the city's aristocracy is in the audience, including the protagonist, Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis in a superb performance).
The opera is followed immediately by another brilliant sequence, a ball where stylish couples dance to Strauss waltzes. We see a society signifying to itself and outsiders that all is well, but a voice-over narrator (Joanne Woodward) informs us, "This is a world balanced so precariously that its harmony could be shattered by a whisper." It's at this ball that the engagement of Archer to the lovely May Welland (Winona Ryder in a fine performance) is announced, and the narrator says, "In them, two of New York's best families would finally and momentously be joined."
Archer loves May, but then he encounters her cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer). Ellen is married and has resided in Europe for some time, but she is estranged from her husband and has come back to New York to live. However, she receives a chilly reception because she poses a threat to the social order. As for Archer, he is quickly drawn to Ellen, and soon he becomes besotted with her.
Day-Lewis is convincing as a man caught up in smoldering, unrequited love. But the film's great achievement is its enthralling depiction of a society where observing rituals and a rigid social code means everything.
Scorsese's Visual Treatment
The Age of Innocence features Oscar-winning costumes, gorgeous art direction and charming locations. In terms of look and tone, Scorsese appears to have been guided to some extent by two wonderful Luchino Visconti movies that are set in the same historical period: Senso and The Leopard. Scorsese gives his film a dynamic quality by keeping the camera moving almost incessantly, and the editing is marvelous. The sequence showing an elegant dinner at the van der Leydens' is a visual tour de force. Also, there's an unforgettable shot of a bustling square in old New York packed with well-dressed men holding onto their bowler hats on a windy day.
The movie is filled with interesting visual details that serve both mood and story. For example, in the home of the person the narrator calls "the matriarch of this world," there hangs John Vanderlyn's painting The Death of Jane McCrea (now in Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum), which shows Iroquois Indians about to kill a woman. In the film, the narrator refers to the New York aristocrats as "the tribe," and their way of dealing with Ellen Olenska amounts to emotional savagery.
As the movie winds down, Archer is shown in the Louvre gazing up at Peter Paul Rubens' painting of people kneeling before Marie de' Medici as she accepts a symbol of government from the personification of France. It has been arranged for Archer to visit Ellen in her Paris apartment later that day, and as he stares at the picture, he must be reflecting on the events in New York that drove her to seek refuge in Europe.
DVD Details
Below I have listed all the details for the DVD containing The Age of Innocence.
Release Date: November 6, 2001
Feature Film Runtime: 2 hours 18 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG for Thematic Elements and Some Mild Language
Widescreen (2.35:1), Color
English 5.1 Dolby Digital
English 2.0 Dolby Surround
French 2.0 Dolby Surround
English Subtitles
French Subtitles
Spanish Subtitles
Portuguese Subtitles
Chinese Subtitles
Korean Subtitles
Thai Subtitles
Filmographies
Theatrical Trailer
