Saturday, July 21, 2012

Elizabeth Taylor's Angel - Week 3

From the movie Angel directed by Fracois Ozon and starring Romola Garai and Michael Fassbender

In Part 3 of Angel, Angel spends the season in London, finds her way to Esme's studio and has her portrait painted.  Taylor describes her love for Esme as follows:

Love had laid her waste, so that she was open to other emotions, too, from which she once had been immune.

Esme's sister Nora in contrast...

felt the pains of martyrdom more exquisitely.  She brooded over her sufferings with a saintly acceptance of them, added each new one to her hoard and wondered if any woman ever was so wretched.

Angel seduces Esme with food

...excellent and abundant and.suited to masculine tastes : there was a saddle of mutton and wing-ribs of beef, a York ham with Cumberland sauce and a terrine of grouse.

Esme's declaration of love in the conservatory

was the only time in her life that she had forgotten an animal.

Have you seen the adaptation of Angel by Ozon?  It was interesting that he chose to place Theo rather than Esme with Angel when she discovers Paradise House, n'est-ce pas?

Sam Neill as Theo


Have you seduced someone with food?  Was it a saddle of mutton or a terrine?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I confess that I haven't seen the film and I probably won't. I'm very ambivalent about adaptations of books I love - I have such a strong image of characters and scenes from reading them that I don't want anyone else's image messing with that. For this reason I've never seen any of the films about or adaptations of Virgina Woolf!

Very interesting what you say about the food - is it a coincidence therefore that she later becomes vegetarian when there is no need for meat for Esme? Trust Taylor to use meat as a metaphor!

Alex Daw said...

Ha Ha - your last comment made me smile wryly...I hadn't thought of that....yes - adaptations can be a bit tricky can't they? This one didn't do it for me I'm afraid.

Laura said...

I'm not especially interested in seeing the film; I think this is one I prefer to leave in my imagination.

What is it with Taylor and vegetarianism? It shows up in several of her books, and not in a bad way or anything, but I can't figure out why if it's an important theme or not!

Anonymous said...

I'm a vegetarian myself and I can't quite work out what angle she's coming from to be honest!

Laura said...

I'm a vegetarian as well, kaggsy! I have an impression (based on absolutely no research whatsoever) that vegetarianism has become more common since Taylor's era, and would have been considered unusual bordering on odd during the time she was writing. She doesn't take a firm stand on it, which makes me curious whether she was "for it" or "against it" or just saw it as a quirky character trait?

Anonymous said...

I think you're right Laura - when Taylor was writing it definitely would have been regarded as slightly peculiar to be vegetarian. And you're also right that she doesn't take a stand - curious!

Alex Daw said...

Well of course now I want to read a history of vegetarianism. I have been browsing this site http://www.ivu.org/history/societies/united-kingdom.html and then was led to this page http://www.ivu.org/history/shelley/mary.html which I think makes for interesting reading....what do you think?