The Jewel in the Crown (1984)
Country: GB
Technical: col/1.33:1 TV Mini-series (12h58m)
Director: Jim O'Brien, Christopher Morahan
Cast: Tim Pigott-Smith, Geraldine James, Art Malik, Wendy Morgan, Judy Parfitt, Rosemary Leach, Peggy Ashcroft, Eric Porter, Charles Dance
Synopsis:
In the dying days of the Raj, British expats struggle to come to terms with the changes taking place in India, though their responses to it differ between young and old, civilian and military.
Review:
After Brideshead Revisited, this flagship Granada TV production was one of the last to come out of the studios, though naturally it was filmed abroad as the time demanded, adding to its cost. Still, it was one of those television events around which viewing figures clustered at the time, and the resurgence of interest in things Indian, further enhanced by Merchant-Ivory's Heat and Dust and Lean's A Passage to India, saw the middle classes rushing to (re-)read Paul Scott's novels. All three of course saw events from a white perspective, and a woman's at that, but that was to be expected. In itself, the series now seems dated in its pacing and grainy analogue cinematography, but James and Malik are superb, as indeed is Pigott-Smith, though harder to like!
Country: GB
Technical: col/1.33:1 TV Mini-series (12h58m)
Director: Jim O'Brien, Christopher Morahan
Cast: Tim Pigott-Smith, Geraldine James, Art Malik, Wendy Morgan, Judy Parfitt, Rosemary Leach, Peggy Ashcroft, Eric Porter, Charles Dance
Synopsis:
In the dying days of the Raj, British expats struggle to come to terms with the changes taking place in India, though their responses to it differ between young and old, civilian and military.
Review:
After Brideshead Revisited, this flagship Granada TV production was one of the last to come out of the studios, though naturally it was filmed abroad as the time demanded, adding to its cost. Still, it was one of those television events around which viewing figures clustered at the time, and the resurgence of interest in things Indian, further enhanced by Merchant-Ivory's Heat and Dust and Lean's A Passage to India, saw the middle classes rushing to (re-)read Paul Scott's novels. All three of course saw events from a white perspective, and a woman's at that, but that was to be expected. In itself, the series now seems dated in its pacing and grainy analogue cinematography, but James and Malik are superb, as indeed is Pigott-Smith, though harder to like!
Country: GB
Technical: col/1.33:1 TV Mini-series (12h58m)
Director: Jim O'Brien, Christopher Morahan
Cast: Tim Pigott-Smith, Geraldine James, Art Malik, Wendy Morgan, Judy Parfitt, Rosemary Leach, Peggy Ashcroft, Eric Porter, Charles Dance
Synopsis:
In the dying days of the Raj, British expats struggle to come to terms with the changes taking place in India, though their responses to it differ between young and old, civilian and military.
Review:
After Brideshead Revisited, this flagship Granada TV production was one of the last to come out of the studios, though naturally it was filmed abroad as the time demanded, adding to its cost. Still, it was one of those television events around which viewing figures clustered at the time, and the resurgence of interest in things Indian, further enhanced by Merchant-Ivory's Heat and Dust and Lean's A Passage to India, saw the middle classes rushing to (re-)read Paul Scott's novels. All three of course saw events from a white perspective, and a woman's at that, but that was to be expected. In itself, the series now seems dated in its pacing and grainy analogue cinematography, but James and Malik are superb, as indeed is Pigott-Smith, though harder to like!