Word: helena
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Napoleon's young aide-de-camp, General Gaspard Gourgaud, left a journal describing the Emperor's last years on St. Helena, a speck of British territory in the South Atlantic. Gourgaud's entries, unintentionally hilarious, record the great man's stupendous banality after he lost the thing that made him interesting -- his power. "October 21 (1815). I walk with the Emperor in the garden, and we discuss women. He maintains that a young man should not run after them . . . November 5. The Grand Marshal (Montholon) is angry because the Emperor told him he was nothing but a ninny . . . January...
...collisions of ego might be wonderful -- gridlocking motorcades as they move from villa to casino, colossal bribes to get the best table in the restaurant. St. Helena with a dozen Napoleons on it, huge solipsisms crashing into one another, interpenetrating, great weather balloons of malignant ego drifting in the subtropical breezes...
...style suits this spirit admirably, counterpointing and controlling the theatrical overplaying he encourages among his players. Maggie Smith as Lucy's dithering chaperone is marvelous, and so is Denholm Elliott, blustering common sense as George's father. Daniel Day Lewis as the well-named Vyse is terminally repressed, and Helena Bonham Carter establishes herself here (and in the recent Lady Jane) as one of the screen's most intriguing newcomers. No one plays adolescent petulance better just now; no one better understands the budding young lady's secret of being charming in spite of herself. Only Julian Sands as George...
...story of Jane and Guildford, as told by Screenwriter David Edgar and Director Trevor Nunn (the Nicholas Nickleby team), has the superficial air of the standard movie history lesson: courtiers elegantly whispering in drafty castle corridors. But they have not forgotten that their central figures, nicely played by Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes, are adolescents, full of hot passion for each other and idealistic schemes for reforming a kingdom the grownups have muddled. The result is a portrait of a teen queen that is lively, ironic and affectionate, and a movie that is not so much stodgy...
...NUNN'S EFFORTS would be entirely fruitless, however, were it not for the expertise and finesse Helena Bonham Carter in providing Jane with a credible range of emotions to complement the metamorphoses undergone by her character as she progresses from shy, introverted, young scholar to innocent bride to the ruler of England. The catalyst which triggers this series of changes is her growing love for Guilford and her subsequent initiation into womanhood. Even taking into account the self-imposed constraints of cinematic exposition, Jane's blossoming into adulthood occurs far too quickly; on her wedding night, we see her reading...