macarthur classics on DVD | cinema classics on DVD | visual arts videos
issues of aging videos | health videos | previous collections
to order a cinema classics DVD title | about us | contact us | home

Howards End - Special Edition 2 Disc Set

" There are two conversations in Howards End (1992) between Henry Wilcox, a wealthy businessman, and Margaret Schlegel, who becomes his second wife. The first is amusing, the second desperate, and they express the film's buried subject, which is the impossibility of two people with fundamentally different values ever being able to really communicate. Around these conversations revolves a story involving those dependable standbys of circa 1900 British literature: class, wealth, family, hypocrisy and real estate."

"The movie stands with 'The Remains of the Day' (1993), 'A Room With a View' (1985) and 'A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries' (1998) among the best work by the team of director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, who between 1961 and Merchant's death in May 2005, made a series of films that could be described as 'Merchant-Ivory' and everyone would know what you meant.

They made high-end films with low-end budgets, which gave them freedom from studio interference, and they often began with novels by such as Henry James and E.M. Forster that had the advantage of being out of copyright. Actors would reduce their fees to work with them, knowing Oscar nominations were likely, and indeed Emma Thompson was named best actress for her performance here as Margaret, and both Thompson and Anthony Hopkins, who plays Henry, were nominated for 'The Remains of the Day.'"

"'Howards End,' based on the 1910 novel by Forster, is a film seething with anger, passion, greed and emotional violence. That the characters are generally well-behaved says less about their manners than their inhibitions. That's where the two conversations between Margaret and Henry come into play. Listen to them, and you have the underlying method of the film."-------- Roger Ebert

DVD - 2 Disc Set

• Stunning new high-definition digital transfer, enhanced for widescreen televisions
• New Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
• Building Howards End, a new documentary featurette including interviews with James Ivory, Ismail Merchant, Helena Bonham Carter, costume designer Jenny Beavan, and Academy Award®–winning production designer Luciana Arrighi
• The Design of Howards End, an in-depth look at the costume and production designs for the film, including original design sketches
• The Wandering Company, a 48-minute twentieth-anniversary documentary from 1984 about the history of Merchant Ivory Productions
• Original 1992 behind-the-scenes featurette
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

Director: James Ivory
Color
142 minutes
Released: 1992
Rated: PG

Country: England
Language: English
Genre: Drama

library pricing and ordering

macarthur classics on DVD | cinema classics on DVD | visual arts videos
issues of aging videos | health videos | previous collections
to order a cinema classics DVD title | about us | contact us | home

Copyright 1996, 2005, Library Media Project, Chicago, IL dvdclassics@librarymedia.org
Call us Toll Free (800) 847-3671