The Age of Innocence
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Movie Reviews of The Age of Innocence
Movie Review: A Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
I can't believe that no one has reviewed this film. Everything about it is magnificent - the story, directing, cinematography, acting, sound. Scorsese is America's best director, and this may be his best film. Truly a masterpiece.Movie Review: A remembered film.
Summary: 4 Stars
In THE AGE OF INNOCENCE where monogamy is highly regarded in upscale society, divorce is needless to say an intolerable embarassing resort to broken marriage. But there are few who dared to determine it and make their own destiny, thus a story of love revolution or so called betrayal is told.This is an immensely sentimental film casting some of the best character-portraying screen performers at that time. The younger Daniel Day-Lewis with masculine jaw lines and features is the clear choice for the perfectly chivalrous yet fragile aristocrat gentleman Newland Archer. His instant choice of wife, the forever decently sweet and optimistic May Welland is played by no one else but the well known innocent ageless princess-like Winona Ryder. While May's bold, flirtatious cousin Countess Olenska is forbidden siren Michelle Pfeiffer, blonde with every curl desirable.
Pay attention to many details of the beautiful 19th century New York backdrop setting to the very end of the film. And the stunning head titles design, a slowly racing work of blossoming roses.
Movie Review: Mean Streets
Summary: 5 Stars
In THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, Martin Scorsese has abandoned hisoft-tread mileu, the mean streets of present-day New York, for a period and setting that some have speculated would be more appropriate subject matter for a Merchant-Ivory film.
But New York is New York and Mr. Scorsese seems as mesmerized by the New York of the 19th Century as he is by the New York of the 20th. Edith Wharton's dry, satiric prose is given an erotic bloom, bursting blossoms and vivid colors splashing across the
screen with an energetic immediacy that Mr. Scorsese usually reserves for graphic bloodletting. The struggle of Newland Archer, as played by Daniel Day-Lewis, between a boundless liberalism and the strict, repressive society around him is present in this fine actor's every gesture. To contrast his performance here with his wild, ferocious work in Scorsese's GANGS OF NEW YORK is to bear witness to an almost absurd level of versatility. Winona Ryder is somewhat miscast but conveys ample complexity. It is Michelle Pfeiffer's radiant performance that sets the picture ablaze, though. You want to drown in her eyes, even as the world is crushing her with every spin.
Movie Review: Manners, Morals, Modesty, Mores---& Misery.
Summary: 5 Stars
Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Edith Wharton's exquisite tragedy of manners "The Age of Innocence" is a lush, meticulously staged, heartbreakingly gorgeous but hideously painful experience to watch: it is a tale of two young people, lured away from societal restraint and social decency by Passion, ensaring themselves in a Death Trap, one that will claim their lives, reputations, and souls. Watching "The Age of Innocence" is like watching some glorious rare bird, entrapped in a gilded, gem-studded cage, fight its way to freedom---even though the bars of the cage bristle with diamond shards and daggers. We know the bird is doomed; we know the wages of Passion is Death. We watch anyway, transfixed.
Published in the 1920's, Edith Wharton's "Age of Innocence" was a scrupulous study of a society that had already been obliterated by a rapidly changing, far less 'innocent' continental Republic. In the novel and the movie, we are ensconced in unspoken yet binding social contrivances of New York of the 1870's, and quickly introduced to a bizarre menage a trois of striking characters: Newland Archer (played to the nuanced, agonized hilt by Daniel Day Lewis), a young and bold attorney, comfortably settled in New York society yet not a leading light; May Welland (played all sweetness and light---and cunning---by an effective Winona Ryder), born into a solid family, a blithe spirit projecting innocence, and Newland's fiancee; and the Countess Ellen Olenska (played by Michelle Pfeifer, in a role tailor-made for her), May's cousin, a New Yorker ensnared in a marriage of convenience to a disreputable European count of dissolute habits and degenerate nature.
Archer, initially suspicious and disapproving of the unconvential and slightly disreputable Countess Olenska, succumbs quickly to her charms and is smitten; passion unfolds; disaster, precictably, follows.
This intricately crafted, meticulously guilded Age of Innocence is made innocent, of course, by its merciless social strictures, its severe, sere social codes. Scorsese introduces us to this beautiful, fragile, wickedly punishing bell jar of social mores and etiquette, delves deep into its evanescent detail, its galleries of paintings and tapestries, its sitting rooms of studied gentlemen cutting and lighthing their cigars, its panoply of dinner plates and intricately crafted repasts.
"The Age of Innocence" follows the excruciatingly painful, totally surreptious battle waged between Olenska and her would-be lover Newland Archer versus Decent Society. Scorsese has a deft, steady hand here: the visions of 1870's New York high society are so clear, so rich, so lush, so vibrant that they bring tears to your eyes; kudos should go to Scorcese's faithful German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus ("Goodfellas", "Gangs of New York"), who also produced the riveting lushness of Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula"---small wonder "Age of Innocence" resembles 'Dracula' in atmosphere, richness, and ambience.
But whereas Coppola's bloodsuckers drank the blood of their unwitting prey, Scorsese's vampires feast on the reputation and integrity of their fallen victims. This is a meticulously balanced society in which social regard and worth is measured in thank-you notes and milliseconds; it is an artificial construct, perfectly presented by Scorsese, which is as unbearably, unworkably fragile as it is judgmental.
The acting here is uniformly solid: Daniel Day-Lewis is note-perfect as the conflicted Archer, Pfeifer woefully diplomatic as the frustrated Olenska, Ryder confident in her role as a latter-day Machiavelli on the Hudson, all smiles and naive charm. Backing up the leads is a veritable host of veteran actors, including Richard Grant as the sneering Larry Lefferts, Miriam Margolyes as a shrewd but effusive Mrs. Mingott, the impeccable Stuart Wilson as the mustachio-twirling "villain" Julius Beaufort (an engine of destruction for this 'age of innocence'), and a besieged Mary Beth Hurt as Beaufort's long-suffering wife.
As painful as first love, as acute as the death of a beloved friend, "The Age of Innocence" is a breathtaking, living, breathing work of art. But the casual viewer, unarmed for its force, should beware: here be Dragons.
Movie Review: Beautiful
Summary: 4 Stars
Martin Scorsese has made a masterpiece here. His long shots coupled with the exquisite costumes and glorious scenes are breathtaking. Ryder gives a shockingly incredible performance. Pfieffer follows suit, as I had this inner plea for her to win all that she sought.The supporting cast (including bit players) were also perfectly placed and helped create this piece into "Master".
This film is truly a feast for the eyes, creating a visual world that perfectly reveals the society in which it is set. More importantly, the screenplay draws us into a world where emotion and its expression are defined by the rules of class. Subtlety and depth are keywords for the story in this film, and the actors compliment the presentation by giving well rounded, natural, and believable performances. Oscar Nominated for Best Art Direction, Best Music Score and Best Apated Screenplay. Oscar Winner for Best Costumes. Fans of Martin Scorsese might love this and others think this is Scorsese`s Oddest Film.