The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
by Ronald Neame
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Celia Johnson, Gordon Jackson, Maggie Smith, Pamela Franklin, Robert StephensDirector: Ronald Neame
Brand: Prime
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 115 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-07-06
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Movie Review: Half Sick of Shadows
Summary: 4 Stars
This 1960's film is set in an upscale girls school in 1930's Edinburgh. It tells the simple story of an unmarried history teacher's approaching middle age--a fate she tries to deny by insisting that she is "still in my prime."
Jean Brodie is pretty, intelligent and obviously devoted--some think too devoted--to her students. She has a special, small group of "her" girls that she takes under her wing, filling their heads with highly romanticized notions about history, art & love. Her elitism has attracted the notice of other teachers & the Head Mistress (who wants to give Jean the old heave-ho.) The Head Mistress had tried in the past to have the rebel censored, but Jean rallied the Board of Governors to her side & by the force of her personality, pulled the fat out of the fire. Jean had emerged from that possible fiasco the victor, even if it did nothing to quell the animosity of the other school employees.
Jean is carrying on an affair of sorts with the painting instructor. It is not exactly clear if they had "gone all the way" or not. Maybe once or twice. This secret relationship is collapsing because the painting instructor is Irish Roman Catholic and he refuses to divorce his wife or leave a brood of kiddies. This may have been Jean's hidden motivation--maybe she enjoys engaging in doomed relationships, cerebral affairs with no real commitment.
She more openly dallies with the music instructor who is definitely available--and a Scot to boot. He's something of a clod, but he also comes from a good family & obviously adores Jean & wants to get married & start a family of his own.
There is a scene with Jean sitting under a tree, surround by her special girls. One student is reciting Tennyson's The Lady of Shallot. When she reaches the verse that mentions "the curse," all the girls fall together giggling. Jean musingly continues: "But in her web she still delights/to weave the mirror's magic sights/for often through the silent nights/a funeral with plumes & lights/and music, went to Camelot." Jean has a very sad, almost haunted, look on her face when she concludes: "Or when the moon was overhead/came two young lovers lately wed/I am half sick of shadows, said/The Lady of Shallot."
To me this verse perfectly illustrates Jean's main inner contradiction: She desperately wants & needs love, but her romantic fantasies can never be translated into a real, adult relationship with a man. So she lives in the shadow land of her own self-defeating idealism. This would remain a personal issue and, although perhaps sad, it wouldn't be considered that big a deal. Unfortunately, Jean lives out her fantasies through her coterie of highly suggestible girls. Ultimately her influence culminates in tragedy.
In the end, Jean looses everyone & everything.
Gosford Park
The Secret Garden
Summary of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Based on Muriel Spark?s best-selling novel, the film The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie earned a Best Actress Oscar for its star, Maggie Smith, in 1969. The theme song, ?Jean? written by Rod McKuen, was also nominated for a Best Song Academy Award. An inspiration to the young girls she teaches and a challenge to the 1932 Edinburgh school who retains her services, Jean Brodie (Smith) espouses her wisdom on art and music, defends fascism, and otherwise encourages fiercely independent thinking in her students. As she engages in ongoing battles with the school?s rigid heads and bewilders two men in love with her, Miss Brodie also faces the biggest trial of her life when her career and livelihood become threatened.Maggie Smith is so witty and commanding in this film, you might forget that the script paints Jean Brodie as an ultimately self-deluding spinster. Dame Maggie won the first of her two Oscars for playing a teacher in 1930s Edinburgh more in thrall to her romantic notions of art and beauty than the real world, a cultivator of worshipping "Brodie Girls." (She exalts the Mona Lisa and Mussolini with equal fervor.) Smith's expert playing makes many of the brogue-heavy Brodie-isms worth memorizing ("She seeks to intimidate me by the use of quarter-hours.") and raises the picture above its generally theatrical style. Real-life husband Robert Stephens plays Jean's married lover, Celia Johnson excels as the hostile headmistress, and Pamela Franklin is the deadpan whistle-blower within Miss Brodie's coven. The dippy music of Rod McKuen helps mark the movie as more of a reflection of the '60s than the '30s. --Robert Horton
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