Tipping the Velvet
|
List Price: Our Price: $23.99 You Save: $6.00 (20%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $12.99 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Tipping the Velvet
Movie Review: Here's a TIP--Buy this DVD!
Summary: 5 Stars
I just finished watching "Tipping the Velvet," and I am STUNNED by how magnificent it was! I cannot believe that I waited so long to see it. The only thing I regret about seeing it for the first time tonight, though, is that I'll never get to see it for the first time ever again.
I don't want to say much about the plot; however, I will say this to describe it: Set in the 1890's Victorian England, Tipping the Velvet starts with us meeting 17-year old "Nancy Asteby," a sea-side bred and oyster-shucking girl in who can't understand why kissing her boyfriend makes her feel nothing. When a traveling cross-dressing vaudeville singer "Kitty Butler" performs in drag at a local playhouse, Nan develops a crush on her and sets off on a journey. Determined to be Kitty's "sweetheart," Nan follows her and the show to the larger theaters of London. Nan cuts her hair and turns herself into a male impersonator to be a part of Butler's act, and thoroughly enjoys her new butch persona. Nan and Kitty fall in love, but problems arise. Nan's journey takes her from experiencing a plethora of ups and downs, while traveling through the circles of London's lesbian aristocrat society and sorjournes with her understanding the contentment of love.
Tipping the Velvet is based on the novel by Sarah Waters, adapted by and made into a three-part series by the BBC. The quality of the cinematography is superb, better in fact that many movies I've recently seen. The coloring is as gorgeous as the women. In a post-movie interview, Waters comments that she loves the film, but that really intense and excellent scenes were omitted from the movie that were in the novel. That means I'm going to buy the novel and read it for sure.
Go rent this movie. Buy it, in fact, because you'll want to anyway.
Movie Review: One of the better lesbian-themed films
Summary: 4 Stars
Tipping the Velvet was amazing in its treatment of sex and gender issues -- these include prostitution, female to male cross dressing, a queer hedonistic elite underworld, lesbian relationships and concomitant family issues. The film also sticks a bit in at the end about the more general politics of the day (probably early 20th century in England). In the third episode, Nan seeks out Florence, a woman she had once had an incipient attraction for, when she's living in dire poverty on the streets, and has nobody else to turn to. Florence's brother is a a socialist, and along with Nan, gives a stirring speech at the end about how capitalism causes great poverty and inequality (it's said the average age of a poor person is 29, while a wealthy person on average lives till 70). As a socialist, a lesbian, and a student of history I found this, as well as the whole movie, very engrossing.
All said, however, it perhaps tries to deal with too many complex issues without really examining them in enough depth. For instance, at one point Nan is walking around in men's clothing, and besides a few odd stares, we don't really grasp what a transgendered person must have had to deal with during that time period. At one point, Nan and her girlfriend are running away from bigoted men, but phew, they so strangely and easily escape a good beating (and perhaps raping). Life for somebody like Nan, and other queer people during the period must have been a lot more gruesome than depicted in the film.
Still, despite a lack of complexity, I found this to be one of the best queer-themed films out there. If people are looking for better films on issues such as being transgendered and lesbianism, I'd recommend 'My Life in Pink,' a French film about a young boy who's certain that he's a she, and 'Fire,' an Indian lesbian relationship film banned in India because it talks about homosexuality.
Movie Review: Excellent,excellent,excellent.
Summary: 5 Stars
Take away the Lesbian themes, and this could be sold as a comming of age and self discovery film. The main charachter the Oyster girl took the journey of self discovery, and survived the pitfalls of life and love, that happen today in the 21st century in straight relationships.Although Tripping the Velvet is a slang term.I felt it was much more a story of survival and retribution.However I am not up on Gay Histroy but I don't feel the ending would have hppened in Merry Old England..Movie Review: Can Nan the oyster girl find love and happiness in London?
Summary: 4 Stars
The title of "Tipping the Velvet" is a euphemism, and given that this 2002 BBC production is about lesbians in Victorian England you can connect the dots on that one on your own. The story begins with Nan Astley (Rachael Stirling) wishing that Kitty Butler (Keeley Hawes), a male impersonator at the local music hall, would toss her the rose she always gives to one member of the audience at the end of her song. Nan has to keep going back until that finally happens, but that moment is the real start of "Tipping the Velvet." The ending comes when it is Nan who has to decide which lucky lady in the audience gets the rose.
When we first meet her, Nan is an oyster girl, working in her family's oyster bar in a coastal town. Watching Kitty dressed as a man stirs feelings in Nan and the two becomes friends, although it takes a while for those feelings to ignite. First Nan is Kitty's assistant, and when Kitty goes off to London to be a success Nan not only goes along but eventually becomes her partner, both on and off stage. But then Nan has the first of several rude awakenings that turns her story into pretty much the lesbian equivalent of Moll Flanders. If you have been looking for something different, then this three-part series would certainly fit the bill. It is certainly a captivating tale, although sometimes it veers too much towards camp or melodrama. Yet we have an affection for our heroine and certainly want her to find happiness on her own terms.
One advantage of the series is that the three parts constitute such distinct periods in the story of Nan's life. Just as we have the symmetry of receiving and giving of the symbolic rose there is a similar correspondence between the end of the first two parts, as Nan gets to be the person who walks in and then one of the people who is walked in upon. The first part focuses on Kitty and life on the music hall stage. The second has Nan starting off continuing to dress as a boy picking up older men and then becoming the plaything of the rich and decadent Diana Lethaby (Anna Chancellor), who throws revelries for her friends that includes at least one object that stands out as an example of why British television is closer to American cable than American network television. The third part brings Nan to the lower class home of Florence Banner (Jodhi May) and her Socialist brother Ralph (Hugh Bonneville). With the Banners, Nan enjoys a simple life until the prospect of returning to the stage brings up new opportunities and old memories.
It does seem strange that there was such a thriving lesbian community, both among the upper and lower classes of Victorian society, but then "Tipping the Velvet" is about Nan looking for love and trying to survive in the real world, and not about finding acceptance for her Sapphic love life. Indeed, although she expects to be rejected because of her lesbianism, Nan is really attacked only once, although of course this turns out to be by the one person whose love and acceptance she thought she could count on. The three-part series is based on Sarah Waters' novel, adapted by Andrew Davies ("Bridget Jones's Diary"), and directed by Geoffrey Sax, who is a bit too enamored of cutting back and forth between a pair of reaction shots as a different sort of cinematic double-take. Overall the tone tends to be cute, more than bawdy, although there are some unpleasant moments that help define the dark points in Nan's life before the requisite happy ending.
Movie Review: francais
Summary: 5 Stars
ce dvd est bien fait. les actrices sont merveuilleuses quelle charmante aventure bien racontee et bien tournee. mais j ai un probleme, j aurais aimer l avoir en francais.svp a quelle endroit je pourais avoir des dvd en francais.help, help. merci.jeannine.