A Room with a View - E. M. Forster [105]
16 (p. 120) an amateur had painted this inscription: ”Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes”: In the first chapter of Walden (1854), the book inspired by his two-year sojourn at Walden Pond, Transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau writes, ”I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.”
17 (p. 137) Only sovereigns and pennies.... Freddy had half a quid and his friend had four half-crowns: A quid is 1 pound sterling (or 1 sovereign), a bob (the driver’s tip) is 1 shilling, and a half crown is 2 shillings and sixpence.
18 (p. 182) ”let it be a shop, then. Let’s go to Mudie’s”: Charles Mudie opened his London subscription library and bookstore in 1842. Through its book selection and promotion strategies, Mudie’s became a significant arbiter not only of public taste during the Victorian era, but also of the very form novels took: It gave significant institutional support to the so-called three-decker novel (books that, because they comprised three volumes, could be divided among three subscribers at a time).
Inspired by A Room with a View
The 1985 film adaptation of A Room with a View first brought independent film company Merchant Ivory Productions to the public’s attention. Producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory followed their Oscar-winning production with adaptations of two other E. M. Forster novels: Maurice (1987), the story of a love affair between two young men of different social classes, and Howards End (1992), the 1910 novel that cemented Forster’s reputation in the literary world.
In 1961 Ivory, an American, and Merchant, a native of Bombay, formed a production company to film English-language pictures in India for the world market. Like Forster, who went on to write his masterpiece A Passage to India (1924), Ivory spent years in India, and he shot many films there, including Shakespeare Wallah (1965). Ivory also shares Forster’s interest in Italy: Venice: Themes and Variations (1957) was the director’s documentary thesis in cinema school.
In A Room with a View, Helena Bonham Carter plays a charmingly vexed Lucy Honeychurch, and renowned actress Maggie Smith is Charlotte Bartlett, Lucy’s fussbudget chaperone. With good pacing, beautiful cinematography, and excellent direction, Forster’s novel comes alive on the screen in a manner exceptional for literary adaptations, as in the exuberant swimming scene and in thoughtful set pieces, such as the question mark inked above George Emerson’s dresser. Mr. Emerson stole scene after scene in the novel, and Denholm Elliott does the same onscreen.
A Room with a View brought Merchant Ivory Productions nominations for eight Academy Awards, including best picture, best director, and best cinematography. Two of the film’s supporting actors—Denholm Elliott and Maggie Smith—were also nominated. The film won Oscars for art direction and costumes, and for the screenplay, written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, the Booker Prize-winning novelist who has often collaborated on Merchant Ivory films.
Comments & Questions
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