A Case of Amnesia in British Heritage Cinema: Ladies in Lavender
This paper was inspired by some work I have started onhistory, mem ory andidentity combined with my interestin film, which I have been trying to smuggle into ourveryliterary English Department. Forsome one working on historyand identity, heritage cinema isaspecialtreat because ituses carefully selectedandstylizedimagesofthe pastin order to create a sense ofidentity in thepresent-day audiences.
Heritage is a developmentin British culture which started in late 1970s with a set of government policies, when the Conservativesunder the leadership ofMrs. Thatcher embarked on a campaignto make cul ture, as they understoodit,more accessible to thepublic, andtherefore more profitable(Weight 2002:577). In1983 the National HeritageActes tablished the Historic BuildingsandMonuments Commission for Eng
land, an executive public body commonly known as English Heritage.
The Commission defines itsgoalsinthewebsite as follows:
• toconserveand enhance thehistoric environment,
• to broaden publicaccesstotheheritage,
• toincrease people’s understanding of thepast.
The Commission have taken it uponthemselvesto turnhistory in its various forms into a tourist attraction,hence the reconstructed Viking villages in York, Roman soldiers in the streets ofChester, but also the preservationof country houses and otherhistoric buildings.Asaresultof
their activities andsubstantialgovernment funding, during the1980s the numberof listedbuildings andmuseums increasedmore than ever be
fore. Hewinson quotes theMuseumsand GalleriesCommission, which estimates that towardsthe end ofthedecade"a new museum opened in theUK every14 days"(1987:165).Cultural historians commented on the popularity of Sunday museum visits by sayingthat a new culture, "mu
seum culture,” came into being, "filling a gap left in people’s lives by the loss of a religiousdimension" (Storryand Childs1997: 306).
The enemies of Mrs.Thatchercomplainedthat more emphasiswas placed on Britain'sheritagethan on contemporary culture. The pastwas packaged, marketed and sold to the dismayof some -mostly left-wing - historians, such as Neal Ascherson, who argued that commerce de
based culture, that the product of the heritage industry was vulgar in toneand reactionary in content, because it sanitizedthe past, celebrat ingthe glory, preserving the countryhouses, butconcealing the real con
ditionsinwhichmost people lived. They argued that theheritageindus try demonstrated that in the midst of economic declineand facinga cri
sisofnational identity, Britain could only turn to the past, andwallowin nostalgia fortheglory of the days gone by.
For the British, the past was not a foreign country but a dominion offering safe passage for anyone who preferred not to confront the nation’s failure to discover a post-imperial identity. In particular, the heritage boom was a tes
tament to a confused England; a country beset by troublesome Celts, blacks and Europeans, seeking solace in vanished glories which were “bent a bit”
to make them more appealing. (Weight 2002: 581)
There are,however, voices, even on the political left,whichdefend heritage culture as a postmodern mingling of high and low culture and ademocratic presentation of "historyfrombelow.” Raphael Samuel uses the phrase inhis Theatres ofMemory (1994), where he accusesthe op
ponentsofheritageofsnobberyand conservatism. He pointsoutthat eventhe leftist critics adopt a patronising stance to thepublic,denigrat ing heritage on the basis oftheconservative assumption that popular culture is lowandtherefore inferiorto high culture, that thespectacleis alwaysinferior to the printed word,and that “knowledge” is the privilege of theacademic elite (263-70).Samuel claims that:
The new version of the national past, notwithstanding the efforts of the Na
tional Trust to promote a country-house version of "Englishness” is incon
ceivably more democratic than earlier ones, offering more points of access to “ordinary people,” and a wider form of belonging. Indeed even in the case of the country house, a new attention is now lavished on life "below stairs"
(the servants’ kitchen)... (160)
He goeson to claimthat the heritageversionofhistoryis not only more democratic,but alsomore feminine, as it focuses more on the fam ilyand domestic life.
Heritagecinemaisprobablythebest-known product of theheritage industryworldwide; it is most famously represented by the so called Merchant-Ivory films.ThesearefilmsproducedbyIsmail Merchant and directedby JamesIvory, and frequentlywritten bytheirscriptwriter,Ruth Prawer Jhabwala. Early Merchant-Ivory films were finely detailed cos tume dramas and adaptations of literary classics such asE.M. Forster's Room with aView, Howard’sEndand Maurice. What they had incom
monwas that they lovingly recreated Edwardian England. In the 1990s James Ivoryreachedfor contemporaryliterature setinthe past andsuc cessfullyadapted Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day, whileheritage actors started presenting their own readings ofthe classics (e.g. Emma Thompson’s SenseandSensibility).
Aristocracy, venerable buildings, pastoral landscape, English ec centrics occuroverand over again in heritage films offering a picture of quaint, gentle England. Thesefilms usuallyare largebudgetproduc tions, whichenables them to compete with Hollywood films at thebox office. Interestingly enough, they use filmstars in amanner very simi
lar to thatof Hollywood. Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham-Carter, and Hugh Grant are not only film stars acting in costume dramas; they have become part of heritage themselves.
The critical opinion on heritagecinema is as divided as theopinion on heritage. Some critics link it to retro fashion, interiordecoration and tourism, labelling heritage as the "LauraAshley school offilmmaking” (Fuller 1987: 40). They pointout that heritagecinema celebratesrather than investigates the past (Craig 2001: 5). AndrewHigsonargues that
"eventhosefilms that developanironicnarrativeofthe past end up cel
ebrating and legitimating the spectacle of one class andone cultural tra
ditionand identityattheexpenseof others through the discourse ofau thenticity, andtheobsession with the visual splendours of period detail” (1993: 119).The major line of defence focuses on thosefilms’ ability to challengemainstream representationsof gender andsexuality. Richard Dyernotes how heritage has been surprisingly hospitable togaywriters and gay subjects (2001:43). Emma Thompsonin her adaptationof Sense and Sensibility reads the novel as a female empowermenttext. Women seem to be important to this genre not only as subjectmatter, actors, di
rectors, but also as theaudience.
I would like to focus in this paperonLadies inLavender (2004) to show howthe genre has evolved into a self-parody, which uses a collage of motifs to maketheaudiencefeelgood. Ladies in Lavender is an adap
tationof a short storybyaminor English writer William J.Locke;Charles Dance, who also wrote thescript, directsit.Thefilm is Dance’s debut as director, buthe is well known as an actor specializing inheritage cinema (Jewel in theCrown, White Mischief, Gosford Park). Ladies in Lavender is setin 1936, in a small fishing villageinaremotecorner of Cornwall.The main characters are twoelderlywomen, Janet and Ursula Widdington, whoenjoy aquiet existence ina beautifulhouseby the sea.The plot is structured like that of a fairy tale. The first ten minutesofthefilmes tablishthe serene harmony in the houseandthe village, which is then disrupted when Ursula discovers a young man washed out on their tiny beach. The sisters take him into the house and nurse him with great care and devotion although they can hardlycommunicate with him andthey knownothingabout his origins.The boy’s communication skills greatly improvewhen he is given a violin. His talent is fully appreciated only when the other foreigner in the village, Olga Daniloff, hears himplay. She turns out to bea sisterof aRussian virtuosoand is determined to put the boyintouch with herbrother. Her plans are initially sabotagedby the caringoldladies,who find ithard to let goof theirfind. For a moment it seems that the two strangershavecompletely upset the ordered world ofthe village; the old doctor isfrustrated by his futile pursuit of Olga;
Ursulabecomesan embarrassment for her sister when she falls desper
ately inlovewith the boy. Theconflict isresolvedwhen the two foreigners hastily leavethevillage without saying goodbyetoanyone.Although this is painful for thesisters,thefinalscenes show thevillage restored to the original stateof equilibrium, whenwhat seems to bethe entire popula
tion gather roundthewireless in theWiddingtons’living room to listen totheirboy playing with Boris Daniloff at the Royal AlbertHall.
Charles Dance tookgreat care to equip his debut withall the para
phernalia of heritage cinema. The village, and especially the sisters’ house, isphotographed insoftfocusand from such angles that each shot could be used as aBritishTourist Authorityposter.Asoneof thereview ersnoticed, thecombinationofplantsfloweringinthe garden is impos
sible, even in Cornwall. The cars, interiors, furniture and crockery are a meticulous reconstructionof1930sdetail. In a mannercharacteristic forheritagecinema,thefilm does not represent, it celebrates a myth of provincial England andthe virtues of her people.
The myth is reinforced by casting. As John Ellis says in Visible Fic
tions, “stars have a similar function in thefilmindustry to the creationof
‘narrative image’; they provideaforeknowledge of thefiction, an invita tion to thecinema”(1982: 238).Thegreatestassets of Ladies in Lavender are the leading actresses, Maggie Smith (cast asJanet)and Judi Dench(as Ursula). Their namesare immediately recognizable; theyaretheDames ofBritish heritage cinema.Dance casts them in roles in whichthe fiction mirrors the star image that hasbeencreated for thembytheirprevious rolesand bythe media. Yet by doing so he limitstheir potential for per
formance on screen. It is in those roles thatcontradicttheimage of the star thatwe tendto notice the actual performanceofthe actor. Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger cast in therole of anintellectual, ormore real istically, NicoleKidman as Virginia Woolf in The Hours. If the fiction in volves performing the image, then the star is perceived not to perform, butto beherself. This is thecaseof Smithand Dench inLadies in Laven
der, their image undermines the fictionality of their roles.They do not act; they are on the screen.
The film falls into a trap of self-parody of heritage; it becomes pseudo-heritage,where thedirector seemsto be ticking off a list ofneces
sary ingredients. OneSight and Sound critic rather jokinglypointed to a shot of a steam engine asa must accessory inheritage films; Dance gives us several shots ofa steam-powered thresher at harvest time. The ma chine comes straightfrom a museum, brightly coloured andspotless; it is operated by a team ofhealthy,rosy-cheeked peasants, who are clearly enjoying themselvesoutin the open air. There is no trace of thedustof harvest, or ofhistory inthese shots.
Another subplot thatseems tobe ticked off thelist isUrsula’s infat uation withthe much younger man, which serves as thesubversive ele
ment, breaking the taboos andbroadeningthe horizons of gender. The audience are invited to revise their assumptions about erotic fascination;
the film points out how paradoxically our culture condonesthe relation
ships between highly mature men and much youngerwomen, butnot betweenelderly women and much younger men. However, once this is pointedout, the subject is dropped, Ursularecovers from herinfatuation and the young manturns to a suitablyyoungerwoman.
I admit that it would be unfairto dismiss the film on the grounds that the director managed to hirea couple of great stars, or that thema chinery is too shiny.My reservation is not so muchabout thepresence of the Dames, as about the object oftheir attention, the character of the youngPolish violinistwhom they nurse back to health. Thisis the piece of information thatI have been holding back from those readers who had notseen thefilm: theyoung shipwreckedman is Polish. From the point of viewofthe narrative structurehis functionis that ofan in truderwhodisruptsthe harmony of thelocal community. He is alien, a foreigner who speaks a language impossible to identifyat first. Although incomprehensible,he isyoung, beautiful and innocent; thereforehe be
comes a mystery,ratherthan athreat.What is more, he turns out tobe courteous and to havemusical education, which enables the director to define his class identity without mentioning his past or his country’s history.
Paradoxically,the film which celebrates the past by lingering lovingly on thedetails of English furniture andthefloral pattern on the china de
nies the foreigner any right to history. Althoughhis injuryis a broken ankle, not a skull fracture, he strikes the audience as someone suffer ing from amnesia. There is no mention of how andwhere he has come from;Poland doesnot exist, he does noteven havea personal past. We do not know what heismigratingfrom; all we know isthat he is onhis way toAmerica.1 understand that the director isthus constructing afig ureof theother, which is yet another must accessory of a heritage film.
Onecould argue that he is the familiar figureof the"wandering Jew,” if not forthefact that his surname is Marowski. ForDance, Polandmeans
"nowhere” in the same way asit meant “nowhere” forAlfred Jarrywhen he was writing theplay Ubu Rex.
What strikes the audience even more is the fact that the pedantic attention todetail seems to have vanished when it came to construct ing this character. ThePolish violinist is calledAndrea, a most unlikely Christian name, though definitely easier topronounce than Andrzej. He is played by Daniel Briihl,a rising star of the German cinema,best known for his role in Goodbye Lenin. Briihl manages to pronounce some of the Polish words, but when Janet plays the piano and he cannot bear the noise, his Polish “Stop it!" (“Przestań!”) isveryloudly mispronounced.
Evidently the foreign character does not deserve as much loving atten tionto detail as a glasssalter.
Liz Lochhead once wrote about another heritage film:“weneed to ask what truths about thepresent we arehiding from ourselves by lying aboutthe past”(2001:16).AsI write these words, the election campaign in Britain is in full swing. TheConservative party leader, Michael Howard, has madeimmigration policy thecentre of his campaign;three days ago, on 19th April 2005, he saidon BBC news that Britain could faceraceriots unless people hadconfidence incontrols onimmigration. In the midst of ageneral hysteria in themediaabout Islamophobia andthetrappings of multiculturalism, it must have been rathercomforting for theBritish audiences to watch twoelderlyEnglish women fussing over anangelic foreigner, especially that hereally wanted to go toAmerica.
REFERENCES
Craig, Cairns. 2001. “Rooms without a View.” Film/Literature/Heritage. Ed.
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Dyer, Richard. 2001. “Nice Young Men Who Sell Antiques: Gay Men in Her
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Ellis, lohn. 1982. Visible Fictions. London: Routledge.
Fuller, Graham. 1992. “Shots in the Dark.” Interview 22.3 (March): 40.
Hewinson, Robert. 1987. The Heritage Industry: Britain in the Climate of Decline.
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Higson, Andrew. 1993. “Re-Presenting the National Past: Nostalgia and Pastiche in the Heritage Film.” Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism.
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Storry, Mike, and Peter Childs. 1997. British Cultural Identities. London: Rout
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