Mrs Dalloway

Very few people have the brains to make a really bad film; whereas anyone can turn out a respectable dull one.

But that’s just it. A respectable dull adaptation will not do; Woolf is not suited as is say Austen and Dickens to the pleasant if stuffy Masterpiece Theatre presentation of British manners and customs — it is offensive to try; one would prefer a flailing ambitious failure. I don’t know if justice could be done to Mrs Dalloway, but for a start there needs to be some rhythm in the image to match her prose, overwhelming dread and passion, a clock to chime every hour, and a really insane quality of seeing-things and hearing-things (the birds must sing in Greek chorus!). Oh, but how could film ever duplicate her manner of floating along with her characters, a sort of presence, a — yes, the unseen – which follows and flits one to the other? This film certainly does not have that knack, the transitions rather awkward and stark where they should be seamless, flowing. But fundamentally the film lacks the essential thing the novel possesses: sheer reverence for life and death.

It begins to get it, perhaps, in the party scene, or in any case chooses a cop-out which succeeded in exciting me: for really all I need is long takes of Vanessa Redgrave emoting to a voiceover of Woolf verbatim to be excited. The film avoids voiceovers for much of the runtime which is admirable, but I don’t see how else you do it; you do it, but creatively. The party scene begins to build an energy. But still it won’t really do; you cannot turn her words so easily to this purpose; “Here I am!” will not substitute for “For there she was.”

I especially wanted to respect this when I saw Eileen Atkins — whom I adore — tried her hand at the screenplay; it tries to retain too much literally while losing sight of the larger things. The skywriting scene, so essential! loses all meaning when nothing behind it is shared. Why include it if you cannot include her words? It is literary, not cinematic. The point is not that everyone is looking at it. The point is that everyone is thinking about it. And so it goes…

It’s lovely to look at, though, I must say that; lovely, and it was nice to see many scenes played out. Performances are great in general — you feel the actors get it, as if they’ve studied and understood Woolf, but haven’t a way to put it across — although Rupert Graves is just awful as Septimus; really an awful actor, and he was given all the best parts imaginable throughout the 90s.

Oh, it’s a decent try, but wants to be respectable rather than passionate; it is Richard Dalloway rendered cinematically, it crushes and confines Woolf and drains all the life out of her as he did to Clarissa in creating Mrs Dalloway. But I have higher hopes for Orlando and The Waves to come: they may yet be Peter Walshes or Septimus Smiths rendered cinematically. They may dart and dash and live and die and understand and impart — or be really bad. After this, one can only hope!