Visions of a Gilded Age: Film Adaptations of James and Wharton
Saturday Afternoons at 2:00 pm in the Clark Auditorium
Out of the same era and milieu as the American artists featured in the Clark’s summer exhibition, “Like Breath on Glass,” the novels of Henry James and Edith Wharton have elicited a wide range of film adaptations, which this series will survey.
July 12: The Heiress. (1949, 115 min.) William Wyler directs this adaptation of Henry James’ Washington Square. Olivia de Havilland won an Oscar for her portrayal of the beset daughter of domineering father Ralph Richardson, who fends off her fortune-seeking suitor Montgomery Clift. Oscars also won for set and costume design, as well as music by Aaron Copland.
July 19: The Innocents. (1961, 85 min.) Deborah Kerr stars in Jack Clayton’s atmospheric and chilling adaptation of the James novella The Turn of the Screw, as the governess on a country estate. The children in her care are haunted by ghosts, or is she the one succumbing to evil visions?
July 26: The Bostonians. (1984, 120 min.) Vanessa Redgrave and Christopher Reeve lead a distinguished cast in this classic Merchant-Ivory adaptation of the James novel, set amongst the women’s suffrage movement in 19th century New England.
August 2: Portrait of a Lady. (1996, 142 min.) Jane Campion directs Nicole Kidman as the James heroine Isabel Archer, a spirited and independent American woman abroad, who falls under the sway of worldly Europeans, Barbara Hershey and John Malkovich.
August 9: The Golden Bowl. (2000, 130 min.) Merchant and Ivory are back again, with a sumptuous look at James’ final novel, about a wealthy American played by Nick Nolte who is collecting art in Europe with a plan to build a museum back home. His young wife Uma Thurman becomes entangled with the marriage of his daughter Kate Beckinsale.
August 16: The Age of Innocence. (1993, 138 min.) Martin Scorsese’s direction dazzles in this adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel about New York society in the 1870s. Proper lawyer Daniel Day Lewis is engaged to Winona Ryder, but can barely resist the charms of the scandalous Michelle Pfeiffer.
August 23: The House of Mirth. (2000, 140 min.) In Terence Davies’ stark but sensitive adaptation of the Wharton novel, Gillian Armstrong is the precarious social climber trying to make her way into New York society, at the mercy of ruthless characters like Dan Ackroyd and Laura Linney.
Saturday Afternoons at 2:00 pm in the Clark Auditorium
Out of the same era and milieu as the American artists featured in the Clark’s summer exhibition, “Like Breath on Glass,” the novels of Henry James and Edith Wharton have elicited a wide range of film adaptations, which this series will survey.
July 12: The Heiress. (1949, 115 min.) William Wyler directs this adaptation of Henry James’ Washington Square. Olivia de Havilland won an Oscar for her portrayal of the beset daughter of domineering father Ralph Richardson, who fends off her fortune-seeking suitor Montgomery Clift. Oscars also won for set and costume design, as well as music by Aaron Copland.
July 19: The Innocents. (1961, 85 min.) Deborah Kerr stars in Jack Clayton’s atmospheric and chilling adaptation of the James novella The Turn of the Screw, as the governess on a country estate. The children in her care are haunted by ghosts, or is she the one succumbing to evil visions?
July 26: The Bostonians. (1984, 120 min.) Vanessa Redgrave and Christopher Reeve lead a distinguished cast in this classic Merchant-Ivory adaptation of the James novel, set amongst the women’s suffrage movement in 19th century New England.
August 2: Portrait of a Lady. (1996, 142 min.) Jane Campion directs Nicole Kidman as the James heroine Isabel Archer, a spirited and independent American woman abroad, who falls under the sway of worldly Europeans, Barbara Hershey and John Malkovich.
August 9: The Golden Bowl. (2000, 130 min.) Merchant and Ivory are back again, with a sumptuous look at James’ final novel, about a wealthy American played by Nick Nolte who is collecting art in Europe with a plan to build a museum back home. His young wife Uma Thurman becomes entangled with the marriage of his daughter Kate Beckinsale.
August 16: The Age of Innocence. (1993, 138 min.) Martin Scorsese’s direction dazzles in this adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel about New York society in the 1870s. Proper lawyer Daniel Day Lewis is engaged to Winona Ryder, but can barely resist the charms of the scandalous Michelle Pfeiffer.
August 23: The House of Mirth. (2000, 140 min.) In Terence Davies’ stark but sensitive adaptation of the Wharton novel, Gillian Armstrong is the precarious social climber trying to make her way into New York society, at the mercy of ruthless characters like Dan Ackroyd and Laura Linney.
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