Maurice (film)

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Movie
German title Maurice
Original title Maurice
Country of production Great Britain
Publishing year 1987
length 140 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director James Ivory
script Kit Hesketh-Harvey ,
James Ivory
production Ismail Merchant
music Richard Robbins
camera Pierre Lhomme
cut Katherine Wenning
occupation
synchronization

Maurice is a British film by the US director James Ivory from 1987. The drama is based on the novel of the same name by EM Forster and was produced by Merchant Ivory Productions and Channel Four Films .

action

Maurice Hall, an upper-class young man in Edwardian England , and his fellow student of the same age , noble Clive Durham, fall in love while studying at Cambridge. However, at the request of Clive, their relationship remains purely platonic (apart from a few kisses). Together they skip a lesson because of an excursion into the countryside. Maurice neglects his school duties and is thrown out of school because he does not apologize to the dean . Clive becomes a lawyer , Maurice a stockbroker .

After another homosexual fellow student, Lord Risley, is provoked to commit an immoral act, betrayed, arrested and sentenced to six months in hard labor, Clive suffers a nervous breakdown and renounces Maurice and homosexuality . The possessive Maurice tries desperately to win over Clive. He marries, repressing his feelings, befitting Anne Woods. The desperate Maurice then seeks help from his family's doctor, who shows no understanding and advises him to look for a wife. Maurice then consults the hypnotist Lasker-Jones to have his abnormality treated. But even the hypnotist cannot change Maurice's inclination and advises him to move to countries where homosexuality is legalized. The attempt to break away from homosexuality through hard boxing training also fails.

When Maurice is again hosted by Clive and his wife, he learns to hunt the young gamekeeper of Durham, Alec Scudder know. That night, Maurice cannot sleep and holds his head out the window for refreshment in the heavy rain, unaware that Alec Scudder is watching him down in the park. When Maurice has gone back to bed, Alec climbs into his room using a ladder that he used to renovate the roof that day, kisses him and disappears again. During another visit from Maurice to the country house of the befriended family, it turns out that only Maurice, Alec and an old butler are in the house that night. Plagued by nightmares because of his inner conflict, Maurice opens the window again at night to take a breath while Alec, waiting downstairs, takes this as a sign to him. He climbs through the window again and the two sleep together for the first time.

A few weeks later, Alec visits Maurice at his place of work in the city, but Maurice is initially very reluctant because he fears that Alec, the son of a butcher, is trying to blackmail him. Out of hurt love he almost goes this way, because Maurice stayed away from a meeting without an answer out of fear. The brash Alec feels, as a man from the people, belittled by the fine gentleman. Eventually they go to a hotel and sleep together again. Both fell seriously in love. But Alec plans to emigrate to Argentina with his parents and brother a few days later . Maurice suggests that Alec stay, which Alec refuses.

On the day the ship is due to leave for South America , Maurice goes to the pier to say goodbye to Alec with a present. But to the desperation of his family and Maurice's delight, Alec does not show up at all. Maurice suspects where he is: in the boathouse on the Durham estate. There he meets Clive and tells him - internally very strong - about his love for his subordinates, which Clive is appalled. Maurice does not take any "advice" from him and leaves him, the friend who has been adapted to social expectations, and rushes to the boathouse. He and Alec hug each other happily and never want to part again. Clive, behind his facade of normality, has to live with the fact that he denies his true feelings.

background

After Zimmer mit Aussicht (1985) and Before We Meet Again in Howards End (1992), Maurice is the second part of a trilogy of Forster fiction films made by director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant. The success of Zimmer mit Aussicht allowed them a budget of around $ 2.6 million, which at the time was a lot of money for a movie with a gay love story at the center. The Board of Fellows in King's College at the University of Cambridge had to decide after Forster's death on the film rights to his novels. At first they hesitated to release the rights, because the members of the board considered the novel Maurice to be a weaker work by Forster and they feared that attention would damage Forster's reputation by making a film. Since the board was still enthusiastic about Ivory's filming of Zimmer mit Aussicht and you could see the script, the filming was finally allowed.

Ivory's film is relatively close to Forster's original, but made a change after the scriptwriter Jhabvala's suggestion: In the book, Clive turns away from Maurice and his homosexuality during a trip to Greece, for which the motives in the book are not really clear which was often a criticism of the novel. Jhabvala therefore expanded the character of Risley, who was also decaying in the novel, and added his arrest and conviction in the style of the trial against Oscar Wilde . Rilsey takes his own life in one of the wacky scenes that were cut from the film before the premiere and can also be found on the film's DVD.

For Hugh Grant , Maurice was the first major film role that made him much better known - but his international breakthrough only brought him four weddings and one death in 1994. The other leading actors James Wilby and Rupert Graves were also relatively unknown, and the supporting roles were also starred with character actors such as Denholm Elliott and Ben Kingsley . Helena Bonham Carter , who had her breakthrough in 1985 with Ivory's Room with a View , made a cameo as a spectator during the cricket game.

synchronization

role actor German Dubbing voice
Maurice Hall James Wilby Benjamin Völz
Clive Durham Hugh Grant Nicolas Boell
Alec Scudder Rupert Graves Stefan Krause
Doctor Barry Denholm Elliott Friedrich W. Building School
Mr. Ducie, Maurice's teacher Simon Callow Helmut Gauss
Mrs. Hall, Maurice's mother Billie Whitelaw Barbara Adolph
Dean Cornwallis Barry Foster Joachim Nottke
Mrs. Durham, Clive's mother Judy Parfitt Bettina Schön
Anne Durham, Clive's wife Phoebe Nichols Susanna Bonaséwicz
Lasker-Jones, hypnotist Ben Kingsley Peter Matic
Lord Risley Mark Tandy Hubertus Bengsch
Kitty Hall Kitty Aldridge Traudel Haas
Ada Hall Helena Michell Rita Engelmann
Archie, Clive's brother-in-law Michael Jenn Christian Toberentz
Reverend Borenius Peter Eyre Jürgen Thormann
Featherstonhaugh Matthew Sim Torsten Sense
Judge at Risley's trial Richard Warner Hans W. Hamacher
Lady at the game of cricket Helena Bonham Carter Melanie Pukass

criticism

The reviews for Maurice were largely positive. The film-dienst wrote in March 1988: “The film adaptation of a novel by EM Forster describes both carefully and critically a world in which moral standards and social reality diverge widely. The high aesthetic appeal of the film, because it smooths the problems, is at the same time its weakness. " Cinema wrote that in" noble pictures "James Ivory creates" the depressing moral and soul picture of a society between prudery and hypocrisy. "

Awards

  • 1987 Best Actor Award for Hugh Grant and James Wilby at the Venice Film Festival
  • 1987 Osella for Richard Robbins for Best Music at the Venice Film Festival
  • 1987 Silver Lion for James Ivory at the Venice Film Festival (together with the film Lunga vita alla signora )
  • 1988 nominated for an Oscar for best costume design

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joseph Lelyveld: FORSTER'S 'MAURICE' BECOMES A MOVIE . ( nytimes.com [accessed March 24, 2018]).
  2. ^ Long, Robert Emmet. James Ivory in Conversation . University of California Press, 2005, p. 212.
  3. ^ Helena Bonham Carter (Actors and their Movies). Retrieved March 24, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Maurice (Rotten Tomatoes). Retrieved March 24, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Two thousand and one. Film lexicon FILMS from AZ - Maurice. Retrieved March 24, 2018 .
  6. ^ CINEMA Online: Maurice . In: CINEMA Online . ( cinema.de [accessed on March 24, 2018]).