Daisy Miller (film)

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Movie
German title Daisy Miller
Original title Daisy Miller
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1974
length 92 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Peter Bogdanovich
script Frederic Raphael
production Peter Bogdanovich
music Angelo Francesco Lavagnino
camera Alberto Spagnoli
cut Verna Fields
occupation

Daisy Miller is a 1974 American social drama directed by Peter Bogdanovich with Cybill Shepherd in the title role. The film is based on the novel of the same name (1878) by Henry James .

action

The Switzerland in the late 19th century. In Vevey on Lake Geneva , the young, fun-loving and always carefree and a little naive babbling Annie P., called “Daisy”, Miller, who travels through Europe with her mother and her naughty younger brother Randolph, and her compatriot Frederick meet Forsyth Winterbourne. Although originally also from the States, Frederick, who grew up in Europe, has long since absorbed the conventions and customs of the decent and well-groomed European upper class and is a little alienated by Daisy's simple-minded, direct nature. Unlike the uneducated and simple, but also As a very honest Daisy Miller, he maintains the tone of elitist conversation with long-time residents, which he has taken over with casual arrogance and upholds just as much as their bourgeois etiquette and rigid moral norms. Daisy chats non-stop, so the conversation between her and Frederick is sometimes very one-sided. His feelings for this young lady with the, in European eyes, rather vulgar manners, whose awkwardness and unpolishedness Frederick takes off under natural charm, leave him torn. When he meets Daisy's mother, Frederick knows from whom young Daisy learned her way. Frederick's aunt Mrs. Costello quickly notices what kind of spirit the Millers seem to be and advises her nephew, through the flower, against any further contact with these vulgar people.

Nevertheless, Daisy and Frederick decide to visit Chillon Castle by the lake together . Daisy asks Frederick to accompany her, her brother and her mother on the journey to Italy. Frederick Winterbourne would certainly be a good teacher for the xenophobic, uncouth rascal Randolph. Frederick refuses, because allegedly important things would bind him to Geneva. Daisy thinks he has a queen of hearts on site, but Frederick says no. When Daisy asks him again to at least visit her later in Rome, he finally accepts. In Rome, Daisy proves to be quite volatile and is not averse to flirting. But the choice of their acquaintances does not meet the approval of Winterbourne, who actually visits the Millers in the Italian capital. She flirts with the somewhat slippery Signore Giovanelli, whose reputation, however, does not seem to be the very best. One evening all three are walking through a Roman park, Daisy flanked by “her” two men. She observes Mrs. Walker, who is always concerned about honor and decency, and asks Daisy unequivocally to get into her carriage. In her American naivete, Daisy doesn't understand what should be reprehensible about her behavior or what could destroy her reputation. It is up to Frederick, whom Mrs. Walker prays, to make it clear to Daisy that for a decent young lady of society neither a supposedly "threesome" nor this alleged Casanova are the right way of dealing and this behavior is her reputation among those living here Abroad Americans could destroy, not to mention the European nobility.

Daisy contradicts, her behavior corresponds to her temperament and the casual etiquette at home in the United States. Ultimately, she is too naive to recognize the consequences her behavior here on site could have in the future. Frederick, on the other hand, is now so conditioned by Europe that he does not have the strength and power to admit his burgeoning feelings for Daisy and to return her very obvious love for him. More and more under the influence of Mrs. Walker, Daisy gradually slips away from him, who can live out her joy of life much better at the side of the easy-going Italian rather than with the rigid American Frederick. In search of Daisy, Frederick meets her and Giovanelli one evening walking in the Coliseum. Frederick strongly rebukes Giovanelli because this place is known to be a breeding ground for the so-called Roman flu. In fact, a little later Daisy falls ill and dies. Frederick Winterbourne learns from Mrs. Miller that Daisy had sent a message to him while he was on his deathbed. That nothing disgraceful happened between Daisy and Giovanelli, the latter tells him at the grave, in which he describes Daisy Miller as "the most innocent girl" he has ever known. Only now does Frederick understand that any criticism of Daisy's nature and behavior pales in comparison to her openness, honesty and warmth. Daisy Miller truly loved him. Unlike the novel, the film ends with Daisy's burial in the Roman cemetery.

Production notes

Was shot Daisy Miller from 20 August to early November 1973 premiere in Italy (Rome) and Switzerland (Vevey) and on 22 May 1974 in New York. The production cost was $ 2.2 million.

Frank Marshall was in charge of production. Ferdinando Scarfiotti designed the film structures, the costume designs , which received an Oscar nomination, were created by John Furniss .

Reviews

The visual values ​​of this production were praised, on the other hand, the criticism of the performance of the main actor (in) rarely left a good hair. Below are several examples:

Variety magazine called Daisy Miller “a dud” and added, “Cybill Shepherd is missed in the title role. (...) Peter Bogdanovich's production, which is set in the time, is nicely done. But his direction and his concept seem unclear and awkward. The supporting actors Mildred Natwick, Eileen Brennan and Cloris Leachman are accordingly excellent, outstanding and good. "

Vincent Canby of The New York Times found the film “worked amazingly well” and praised Cybill Shepherd for capturing “Daisy's cheerfulness and directness, the spontaneity of a spoiled but very pleasant person”. Bogdanovich received praise for "providing a sensitive, brief glimpse into the hypocrisies and contradictions of the past - without a hint of nostalgia".

Time Out London found, “Bogdanovich's nervous essay in the troubled waters of Henry James, where American innocence and naivete are in constant conflict with European decadence and charm, reveals him less as an interpreter of James than as a translator of him into the more rugged world of Howard Hawks . The violence inflicted on James in the process is forgivable ... but as a result there is no real social conflict in the film, and there is only one contemporary twist on The Final Performance , without admitting the power of this film or the irony of the original James novel have."

The Movie & Video Guide decreed: “A handsome, intelligent adaptation of a Henry James story misses what matters. The tone is cold, and Shepherd's hollow appearance as a naive American who cared about European society at the end of the 19th century almost drowns this film. "

Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: "Strange attempt to film a very mild and uneventful Henry James story, with very careful production but few corresponding leading actors."

In Der Spiegel , Hellmuth Karasek found : Bogdanovich's “Daisy Miller” dies Visconti's “ Death in Venice” . But instead of conjuring up the artificiality of the fin-de-siècle world, its morbidezza, the film slips into an artificial superficiality; Once again, nostalgia is nothing more than an intrusive make-up under which the subject disappears completely. If the film deserves a superlative, it is that it made the most blatant miscast with Daisy Cybill Shepherds: What in Henry James breathes a fascinating naturalness is here mistaken for robustness, innate coquetry is applied here with playmate eyes, and off the casual Parlando becomes annoying chatter. This is how you can turn a natural event into a pain in the ass. In general, Bogdanovich's film looks like non-stop small talk. The director, who, as a cinema novice, literally bathed in over a thousand films before he started shooting, is reminiscent of a swimmer who has left the water and whose traces of drip on the bank become weaker from film to film. "

Kay Wenigers Das Großes Personenlexikon des Films ( The Big Person Encyclopedia of Film) located the Bogdanovich work as a "somewhat bland, albeit optically opulent, literary film adaptation" and saw, like Karasek, a decline of Bogdanovich as a director.

The Lexicon of International Films found: "Very tasteful adaptation of the novel, which is based entirely on visual poetry, atmosphere and the charisma of the main character."

Bucher's encyclopedia of the film found that Bogdanovich had remained “on the surface” since his Daisy Miller film adaptation.

Die Zeit called the film “worth seeing” and found words of praise for Bogdanovich's production: “Anyone who had previously believed that Peter Bogdanovich was at best a skilled imitator or even a mortician of old Hollywood can now convince himself that the cool analytical intelligence of this suspiciously successful Director also works beyond the conventions and traditions of American cinema. Because after 'Targets', 'The Last Picture Show', 'What's Up, Doc?' and 'Paper Moon' is 'Daisy Miller', based on the novel by Henry James, Bogdanovich's first film to be set before the invention of cinema. There are no quotes, no cinematic allusions, no complacent play with cinematic set pieces, not even the obvious attempt to copy or reconstruct the atmosphere of Orson Welles' thematically related film ' The Magnificent Ambersons' . Instead, Bogdanovich and his co-author Frederic Raphael adhere unusually closely to the external process and the dialogues of the original. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Critique in Variety
  2. ^ Review in the New York Times, January 5, 1975
  3. ^ Review in Time Out London
  4. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 290
  5. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 241
  6. ↑ Daisy Miller in Der Spiegel, February 3, 1975
  7. ^ The large personal lexicon of films, Volume 1, p. 445. Berlin 2001
  8. ↑ Daisy Miller. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 25, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  9. ↑ Bucher's Encyclopedia of Films, Verlag CJ Bucher, Lucerne and Frankfurt / M. 1977, p. 93.
  10. ↑ Daisy Miller in Die Zeit, January 24, 1975

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