Author Topic: Movie Discussion: Maurice: caution-spoilers  (Read 12032 times)

Offline Lumière

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Re: Movie Discussion: Maurice
« Reply #10 on: February 14, 2007, 02:56:38 pm »

I love line Wayne reminded me of recently, Scudder saying: "And don't delay!"

Me too ..

Love this too.. :)

[writing a letter to Maurice]
" Pretend to the other gentlemen that you want a strout. It's easily managed. Then come down to the boathouse. Dear Sir, let me share with you once before leaving Old England if it's not asking too much. "


Offline belbbmfan

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Re: Movie Discussion: Maurice
« Reply #11 on: February 14, 2007, 03:04:20 pm »
God, now I really want to see that movie again. I haven't seen it since the last time i saw in the theatre, which was 20 years ago  :o. I was studying for my first year exams at university then. Things were tough for me then, not just because of the exams. I have very fond memories of the movie Maurice being one of the things that lifted my spirits all those years ago.
There was hope, not everything had to end in tears...

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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Movie Discussion: Maurice
« Reply #12 on: February 14, 2007, 04:03:44 pm »
I think that is what I liked most about the film--it had a happy ending! I hope I haven't given too much away!!

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Re: Movie Discussion: Maurice: caution-spoilers
« Reply #13 on: February 14, 2007, 04:54:21 pm »
Maybe we should ask "scudder" if he/she has anything to say about this movie!!

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Offline Kerry

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Re: Movie Discussion: Maurice: caution-spoilers
« Reply #14 on: February 15, 2007, 08:13:37 am »

I rather like this (very gay) review of Maurice, found on the Net at www.mattviews.wordpress.com/2007/01/15/64-maurice-e-m-forster (beware spoilers) . . .

Written in 1914, first published in 1971. Must-read for every gay man.

Very few, perhaps none of the contemporary gay fiction paints a more authentic, true-to-life picture of how a coming-of-age gay man is torn between his sexuality and the need to assimilate to social and cultural constructions of the “normal” than E. M. Forster’s Maurice does. Perhaps the fact that it was written before our time, prior to any of the gay activism and social awareness, renders it feasible to afford such brilliant verisimilitude. Forster does not offer any explanation nor attempts any effort to justify his protagonist’s queerness. The result is an honest, often heart-breaking and at times poignant map of emotions, inner-working of a tortured mind.

Maurice follows the teenage boy through public school, then Cambridge, when his undefined flesh received the first blow of reality, and finally his father’s firm. Like many gay men who have yet to fling open the closet door, Maurice senses the hostility that envelops many gay men before they even have the tiniest clue what all the social taboos refer to. Growing in what he calls “normal” social and domestic milieu, he conceives that assimilation to this “normality” founded on a phony morality contriving to validate heterosexuality the rule of the game. He meets someone who has too strong an acumen of right and wrong and who lays down the lines on which the unusual relationship shall proceed, and who nudges the relationship to a direction of platonic restraint. Clive, who always feels threatened that he will lose his salvation, found himself at an early age crossed at having this “other desire.” Clive’s desire to pull out of their relationship, to be with a woman who would secure him and diminish his lust, to become a “normal man”–strikes him a hard blow and transforms his repulsion and misgiving into shame. Peals of dismay overwhelms him as he becomes convinced, from his suffering to the full hilt, that one must be “normal” to have dignity.

The course of Maurice’s self-enlightenment is one of utter inspiration. His coming to term to his sexuality and his identity reaffirms that the gravitas of humanity is the ability to love freely. If there is only one thing in his life that he is being real, that would be his desire. He realizes how much he has overcome, that for years after living in the shadow of his deceased father, whom his family expected him to model in such taken-for-granted manner, his fear and stigma. Once he comes to grasp the desire (the longing for men, the adoration of men…) should be self-validating and there is no need to attach a punitive name to this desire (the truth of his feeling), he has triumphed over his self and finds a way to a niche behind the world’s judgments.

Maurice, despite the fact that it was ahead of its time when written, speaks the truth of the hearts of many who are stricken by the very stigma, shame, and fear decades later. It reassures us that assimilating to any normality, or abiding by any standards does not give us dignity. Instead dignity manifests itself and comes to engulf us without our knowing when we are at ease with who we are. What makes a profound impression on me about the novel is not the gay protagonist, but the inexplicable loneliness Maurice has to live and to persevere. Maurice seems to hold the key to trouble but deep inside he is rather a simple-lifer who searches for love and wants to be loved. It makes me realize someimes there are maladies in life so strange that one has to pass through them in order to attain the true happiness.


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Re: Movie Discussion: Maurice: caution-spoilers
« Reply #15 on: February 15, 2007, 11:19:40 am »
In one of the early scenes, the students are sitting around taking turns translating Plato's Symposium from the Greek with their professor. It's about love among men. Suddenly, the professor breaks in and says, "Pass over the unspeakable vice of the Greeks." Later while rowing on the Thames (?) they are all having a laugh over it. Greece appears several other times in the movie. I've noticed the depiction of Latin and Mediterranean countries as symbolic of a more passionate way of living fo in several Merchant/Ivory films. In another spot, the psychiatrist, played by Ben Kingsley, says, "The British have never been tolerant of human nature." (This quote is not quite right--can someone help me out?)

'Nother thing: Ben Kingsley plays the psychiatrist with an American accent--why is this?

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Re: Movie Discussion: Maurice: caution-spoilers
« Reply #16 on: February 16, 2007, 12:31:59 am »
When we first meet Scudder, we are tempted to think of him as a slacker, and as someone who scorns the English nobility. But he is much different than that--early on we see him watching Maurice at the window, and he laughs joyfully as Maurice hangs out the window to drench himself in the rain. I then began to think of him as a naif, an innocent being who revels in the beauty and hedonism of nature.

"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline David

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Re: Movie Discussion: Maurice: caution-spoilers
« Reply #17 on: February 16, 2007, 07:49:30 am »
Did anybody else recognise Denholm Elliott as the Doctor?

He is more famous for playing the sidekick to Indiana Jones as Marcus Brody.   He was also the Butler in the 1980s movie "Trading Places" with Eddie Murphy.

Elliott was bisexual and married.  He was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 and sadly passed away in 1992.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2007, 07:15:33 am by DavidinHartford »

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Movie Discussion: Maurice: caution-spoilers
« Reply #18 on: February 16, 2007, 08:50:18 am »
He was also very good as the father in A Room with A View. I didn't realize he was no longer with us! In Maurice he was the doctor but also was Maurice's father. I liked him--he didn't think Maurice had to continue at Cambridge and had some progressive views, for England anyway.

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Offline Überlibran

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Re: Movie Discussion: Maurice: caution-spoilers
« Reply #19 on: February 17, 2007, 04:18:48 pm »
I had to come here and comment because my signature is a quote from the movie! Maurice is one of my all-time favorite films, and it's nice to know there are people on the board who love it also.

Quote
In another spot, the psychiatrist, played by Ben Kingsley, says, "The British have never been tolerant of human nature." (This quote is not quite right--can someone help me out?)

'Nother thing: Ben Kingsley plays the psychiatrist with an American accent--why is this?

Front Ranger- I think Maurice's psychiatrist had an American accent in the book, but no explanation was given why. I guess they just kept that for the movie.  Also, the quote you're looking for is "England has always been disinclined to accept human nature." Very interesting observation...
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