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Yar, you be here: Daisy Miller > Customer Reviews Daisy Miller Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 8 Reviews)Best Henry James on film
Peter Bogdanovich's 1974 adaptation of Henry James's novella doesn't follow standard period-picture protocol. Though faithful to its source, "Daisy Miller" has an old-fashioned Hollywood feel, showing the obvious influence of Howard Hawks and Orson Welles (whom he originally asked to direct). As the hapless Daisy, Cybil Shepherd delivers her dialogue in a snappy style reminiscent of classic screwball comedy. Barry Brown, Eileen Brennan, Cloris Leachman and especially Mildred Natwick shine in supporting roles. Bogdanovich captures James's Americans-abroad social milieu with remarkable fidelity (which means that you won't be hearing many British accents in the cast). Extras are few but choice. Bogdanovich provides a brief interview explaining the genesis of this film, as well an audio commentary explaining its ties to his earlier, Oscar-winning "Last Picture Show." Underrated Masterpiece - James Captured.
Peter Bogdanovich chose to make an historical costume film in 1973 against all commerical and critical trends, yet looking at his earlier films, Last Picture Show, What's Up Doc, and Paper Moon, it's not hard to say that all he did direct were historical films--even What's Up Doc has it's roots in the 1930's. Henry James portrait of the quintessential American girl of 1876 struck many as anachronistic, and further allowed the animus arising from Bogdanovich's and Shephard's personal lives cloud their judgement about this film. I think they are all wrong. Cybil Shephard does a remarkable job as Daisy Miller, capturing every maddening nuance that James wrote in his novel. Her performance is shaded, funny, and moving, especially among the group of talented actors surrounding her on this film. In fact, there is no performer who is miscast or does poorly in the film. A large part of the reason this film works so well is that Bogdanovich and Frederic Raphael stuck closley to James' original text, adding little and fleshing out only in a few key scenes. The use of the actual places James set the story also add the force of the work. I like this film better than the Ivory-Merchant versions of Henry James -The Bostonians - The Europeans - mainly because, unlike Bogdanovich - they seem to have little joy in the actual shooting of a film, whereas Bogdanovich's shot choice and blocking stem from his love of cinema and his knowledge of the art. Daisy Miller is a lost film which anyone interested in the art should watch. Reading the James novel before viewing this helps, but this film captures the book so well, reading the James may not be as necessary as for other adaptations. The director's commentary is not to be missed either; Bodganovitch is wry, fatalistic, proud, and erudite all at once. One theme that runs constant betweent the film and commentary is how many of the people involved in the film died young, which is funny in a deeply cosmic way. When I teach Daisy Miller, I will show this film.
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