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Brideshead Revisited (25th Anniversary Collector's Edition) | 
| Directors: Michael Lindsay-hogg, Charles Sturridge
Actors: Anthony Andrews, Stephane Audran, Claire Bloom, John Gielgud, Jeremy Irons
Studio: Acorn Media
Category: DVD
List Price: CDN$ 72.99
Buy New: CDN$ 48.73
You Save: CDN$ 24.26 (33%)
New (18) Used (1) from CDN$ 48.73
Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 1609
Format: Full Screen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.5 x 1.2
MPN: ACRDAMP8814D
UPC: 054961881499
EAN: 0054961881499
ASIN: B000GYI3DG
Theatrical Release Date: January 18, 1982
Release Date: October 10, 2006
Availability: Usually ships within 1 - 2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Ships from the USA. ALL ITEMS ARE BRAND NEW! Delivery takes from 10-14 Working Days.
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From Amazon.com
Fill a bowl with alpine strawberries, break out the Chateau La Fitte (1899, of course), and bask in this benchmark 1981 British miniseries based on Evelyn Waugh's classic novel. Adapted for the screen by John Mortimer (IRumpole of the Bailey/I), this impeccable, nearly 11-hour production mesmerized American viewers during the course of its PBS run in 1982. In his breakthrough role, Jeremy Irons stars as Charles Ryder, a disillusioned Army captain who is moved to reflect on his "languid days" in the "enchanted castle" that was Brideshead, home of the aristocratic Marchmain family, whose acquaintance Charles made in the company of an Oxford classmate, the charming wild child Sebastian. Anthony Andrews costars as the doomed Sebastian, whose beauty is "arresting" and "whose eccentricities and behavior seemed to know no bounds." The "entitled and enchanted" Sebastian takes Charles under his wing ("Charles, what a lot you have to learn"), but vows early on that he is "not going to let [Charles] get mixed up with [his] family." But mixed up Charles gets. He becomes a friend and confidante, not to mention a lover, to Sebastian's sister Julia (Diana Quick). Meanwhile, the self-destructive Sebastian's life spirals out of control. IBrideshead Revisited/I boasts a distinguished ensemble, including Laurence Olivier in his Emmy Award-winning role as the exiled Lord Marchmain, Claire Bloom as Lady Marchmain, and the magnificent John Gielgud as Charles's estranged father. Grand locations and a haunting musical score make this a memorable revisit of an irretrievable bygone era. For those who scheduled their weeks around the original Monday-night broadcasts or those visiting IBrideshead/I for the first time, this boxed set release will be, as Charles rhapsodizes at one point while strolling the castle grounds, "very near to heaven." I--Donald Liebenson/I
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 needs subtitles...and bad picture quality September 21, 2008
DMC (Quebec, Canada)
I love BR but I wish there were subtitles. These actors--save for Irons--can't enunciate so that normal people can understand them. All those exagerrated Bri-ish accents are a pain to understand particularly when the actors awallow all their words. br /
 Great, great story and production--lacking transfer November 20, 2004
Fargo K. Jenkins
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
There are regrettably no interviews with the cast or production team, no director's commentary, and no deleted/extended scenes, though since we've all been forced to endure the butchered Home Video version this as full as full can be version is in a sense full of them. There are no theatrical trailers or television spots. pImage quality is good and one thing that's mentioned in the production report is just how painstaking the video/audio restoration really was and how VERY lucky they -- and we -- were to be able to find the original film master in England and then clean it up. pOnce again, and this is becoming a great joke in the film community, a US company picks up the distribution/restoration rights to a foreign country's film treasures and then releases the best version ever made outside the market it originated in. We did it to the Japanese with Macross and we did it to England with Brideshead Revisited.pThe performances here are truly fine beyond description. Jeremy Irons has seldom surpassed his work here, and neither Anthony Andrews nor Dianna Quick (as Julia, Sebastian's sister) have ever bested their performances in this film. pIn addition to the three leads, the miniseries offers an incredible array of superior performances by John Gielgud, Claire Bloom, and Laurence Olivier; the cinematography and art design is flawless; and the score by Geoffrey Burgon is exquiste. pMortimer's script is remarkable in that it not only manages to recreate the novel, it also manages to capture the intangible, spiritual elements upon which the book plays but seldom directly references. A must-own work for any one who appreciates the best of the best; strongly, strongly recommended.
British drama at its best June 17, 2004
onlyme1234 (netherlands)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This must be one of the alltime classics of British drama. Saw it on TV when it was aired, bought the VHS and when released on DVD, bought it on DVD. Well, that must be saying something. It is one of my favourites. I think this must be one of those productions where you can say in hindsight that you would have done it in exactly the same way. I do not have higher praise to give. Shame the DVD release does not give extras and is really badly done. One would have thought that a high profile production like this deserved a better fate.
 Great TV drama June 9, 2004
jbn 63
This is a beautiful television production. Nothing I have seen captures so well the manners, dress, language and attitudes of upper and upper-middle class Britain in the twenties and thirties.pThe acting is superb, the script even better. Based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh, John Mortimer's dialogue wastes not a word and uses pauses and silences to extraordinary effect. pAs a portrayal of a family and its entourage this 11-part series bears comparison with the very best, even perhaps the Godfathers I and II, and with top notch photography to portray the stunning sets - on an art deco-drenched QEII, at Oxford, Castle Howard and at a Venice Palazzo - this could be the ultimate TV production of all time. pBut perfect as it is technically, Brideshead has, for me at least, a couple of problems. The first is, the sheer improbability of the main plot. Essentially, the central figure and narrator, initially rather boring Charles, makes friends with dashing Lord Sebastien Flyte at Oxford (after the latter vomits through Charles' window), and finds himself immediately taken into the bosum of Flyte's highly aristocratic family; ultimately Sebastien's ravishing sister Julia falls in love with him and he comes very near to inheriting the family estate. The Flyte/Marchmain family is portrayed as charming, but also deeply and somewhat offensively dismissive of anyone they consider beneath them: Julia becomes quite vicious about her husband Rex, once she has tired of him. Lord Marchmain, a rather feckless former alcoholic and wife-hater, at one point muses on Neville Chamberlain who at that moment was doing his best to avoid world war "knew him. Mediocre fellow". I just can't believe that this family would have given tuppence for Charles, a mere middle-class architectural painter, far less virtually adopted him. pThe second problem is that Charles is not even very likeable. He drifts through the film looking bored or worried and acting self-righteously. He cheats on his wife and generally bad mouths her, prefers to consort with his lover than go see his two year-old child who he's never actually seen due to a long trip abroad, and does little to actually help his dear friend Sebastien (who has descended into alcoholism) except frequently tell us morosely and self-indulgently how much he loved him and what a sacred love it was.pThe cause of these problems surely goes back to Waugh himself and the original novel, which was part autobiography, part wish-fulfilment. Waugh was partly Charles, and like Charles, Waugh wasn't always lovable. The upper classes were Waugh's favorite subject, his bread and butter, and his vice. He was irresistibly drawn to them and wanted them to love him and confide in him too. Sometimes they did, because he was a brilliant society novelist, not just a good architectural painter. But not quite as much as everybody, from servants to Lord and Lady Marchmain, appears to love Charles. pHowever, I think this only makes the whole production more interesting. And such is the charm of the brilliant cast, which includes Jeremy Irons in the lead along with Olivier and Gielgud in majestic supporting roles, I suspect many people will consider my low opinion of the characters quite misplaced.
Et In Arcadia Ego March 20, 2004
Jay (Republic of Ireland)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Brideshead revisited, Evelyn Waugh's portrait of a world trying to come to terms with the obliteration of what for its inhabitants were absolute certainties, by war and its aftermath represents a mountain of almost Himalayan proportions for any would-be adaptor, so much so that it's surprising that anyone was ever mad enough to try. Luckily for us though John Mortimer (more widely celebrated for Rumpole of the Bailey) was indeed mad enough to give it a go. What he came up with has over the intervening years come to be seen as one of the finest adapted screen plays ever set before the viewing public.pRemaining remarkably faithful to the spirit of the book, Brideshead Revisited is told from the prospective of the painter Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons). From a decidedly upper middle class background, when we first meet our narrator, Charles is an officer in the British army at the outbreak of World War 2 whose general disillusionment is exceeded only by his distaste for army life. From this present we are taken back twenty years by Charles' reminisces to his first term at Oxford University at the beginning of the 1920's and to his developing relationship with the aristocratic and charmingly dissolute Sebastian Flyte (Anthony Andrews). Supported by a truly superb cast of characters including, Jane Asher, Diana Quick, Clair Bloom, Nikolas Grace, Sir John Gielgud and in what was to be his final performance Sir Laurence Olivier. The acting is just what you would expect from such an accomplished bunch, as close to perfection as can ever be obtained.pAs absorbing as the story is, it is almost overshadowed by other aspects of this production. Shot on location at Castle Howard, Yorkshire (the home of the then chairman of the BBC George Howard, even though this production was made by the BBC's rival Granada Television), Oxford, Venice and aboard the cruise ship the Queen Elizabeth II. The location filming has a beauty that at times can be truly breathtaking, with a lushness and sensuality that is a perfect foil for the decadence of the Sebastian and his circle.pJust as in Waugh's original text, the whole atmosphere of the piece is redolent with nostalgia. This takes two forms, the most prominent from the beginning is Charles' nostalgia for his youth and idealism, his feeling that his life could be what he wanted it to be, the friends he knew, his time with the Flyte family and his love for Lady Julia. Secondly and perhaps most importantly is nostalgia for the world of the Victorian and Edwardian upper classes with its certainties and its view of Britain as the centre of the greatest Empire that the world had ever known. Post World War 1, it was rare to find an aristocratic British family who had not suffered the loss of a Father, Son or Brother in the trenches and this longing for a world which was as irrecoverable as Lyonnesse was all too real for many people of all classes and backgrounds.pIn this story of the rise and to a certain extent destruction of a single man, Waugh has given us a metaphor not only for the British aristocracy, but for the wealthy and socially mobile wherever and whenever they may be. I remember once discussing the novel with my Father and he expressed the opinion that while Waugh may not have loved the aristocracy as such, he certainly loved the life of an aristocrat. In many way's Brideshead Revisited reminds me of Edward Elgars' Cello Concerto, possessing the same kind of painful beauty combined with the most agonising sense of grief and heartache, but in the final analysis it is this love that colours both the book and this adaptation, rendering it as sublime as the memory of a summers afternoon and just as unattainable.
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