The Gilded Age

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On Peggy Scott, who I also liked, I enjoyed this article:
https://www.glamour.com/story/the-gilded-age-denee-benton

I couldn't read much of it beyond some vague justification for making up history to suit modern ideologies. Do they have her going to balls and dances in the show? Or is it because of the rush to be woke, they throw in a token black character while ignoring historically more relevat social tensions and very real discriminations against, say, Jews or ethnic immigrants in late 19th century New York?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with others. The sets, costumes, and music are wonderful. The acting is subpar. Fellowes really enjoys simpering characters with irritating vocal effects, so this time we have Cynthia Nixon as Ada (weird casting) in place of Cora. Dislike how the writing seems to be already on the wall for the rest of the series: clearly, the new money family will find out that the old money neighbors have a homosexual son, and they will strike a deal for the new money family to be helped socially to see if Grace over their secret. And of course, we will have a romance between the new money’s son and Marian. So to the script. I do like the friendship storyline between Peggy and Marian though.

Me too. I like the idea of the show more than the performances. I really like following the robber baron era, especially in New York, and I am a big fan of "The Age of Innocence." Very little about the characters interests me with the exception of Peggy Scott and the scenery-chewing of Bertha Russell.

I read that WaPo article where Julian Fellowes copped to being ignorant of the Reconstruction era, which was really cringey. To me, the mismatch of his English nobility experience and the US experience is really showing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with others. The sets, costumes, and music are wonderful. The acting is subpar. Fellowes really enjoys simpering characters with irritating vocal effects, so this time we have Cynthia Nixon as Ada (weird casting) in place of Cora. Dislike how the writing seems to be already on the wall for the rest of the series: clearly, the new money family will find out that the old money neighbors have a homosexual son, and they will strike a deal for the new money family to be helped socially to see if Grace over their secret. And of course, we will have a romance between the new money’s son and Marian. So to the script. I do like the friendship storyline between Peggy and Marian though.

The set looks so cheap! There is no camera depth like when shooting in a real location. And when Mr. Rusell is at his desk in front of the fake fire, the glowing red lights look ridiculous

Agreed. There are so many things off about this show that it will probably become a cult favorite. Someone explain what the heck happened. Please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Julian Fellowes has never done Americans well. We can see that in Downton Abbey. He utterly failed to make something out of Cora's American origins and contrasting it to the British society culture, and her mother, Martha Levinson, was so badly written that I'm not sure what the point was. The best criticism I heard of the character was that it was Shirley Maclaine playing Shirly Maclaine, not Shirley Maclaine playing a fantastically rich American woman of the time period. But in defense of Maclaine, for all his insight and fascination with the British aristocracy, Fellowes' inability to grasp the essence of Americans and the robber barons was blatantly obvious.

I will be fair and also admit Fellowes only wrote one very good season for Downton Abbey that had any realism - the first season. The rest of the seasons were just soap operas, cashing in on the show's popularity rather than attempts at historical accuracy.

There is no comparison between these two shows. The Gilded Age is so poorly done and the acting is so embarrassing that it is a train wreck.

[Anonymous]

The reviews are quite good, maybe it gets better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On Peggy Scott, who I also liked, I enjoyed this article:
https://www.glamour.com/story/the-gilded-age-denee-benton

I couldn't read much of it beyond some vague justification for making up history to suit modern ideologies. Do they have her going to balls and dances in the show? Or is it because of the rush to be woke, they throw in a token black character while ignoring historically more relevat social tensions and very real discriminations against, say, Jews or ethnic immigrants in late 19th century New York?

From the article "....how does a Black and white woman actually build trust in this time and in 2022?" Who cares? 2022 is irrelevant to the series, and the power dynamic between white and black is totally different in 1882 than in 2022, and should be shown as it was. I don't want to watch some stupid fantasy version of a friendship that suits today's sensibilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reviews are quite good, maybe it gets better?

Probably the reviewers are more interested in pretty costumes than watching a proper historical show.

We've lost the ability to capture the past mores and metaphysical relationships with their cultures and societies and that's why today's historical productions are so lacking. All you have to do is to watch the great BBC productions from the 1970s and 1980s into the 1990s to see how bad today's productions are. A big part of it really has to do with that today's directors are afraid to show the past as it was, including the pervasive social and racial discriminations that people took for granted as part of ordinary everyday lives and actions and thoughts and conversations. They'd rather invent an alternative history like Bridgerton. But even in Bridgerton they fail because such a society could only exist with stringent social and class divides that people wore as a second skin.

We can compare Downton Abbey to Upstairs Downstairs of the 1970s to see the difference. It's not a question of whether Downton is too nice and there is a risk, as some directors make, in treating the past as some sort of monster suffering and oppression porn and wanting to get their revenge by tossing in feisty feminists to teach people a lesson or two, but people genuinely did think differently and it affected how they related to just about everything. An excellent example would be Jeremy Brett's Sherlock series, made in the 1980s by BBC. They are not high budget productions like the recent movies, but capture the zeitgeist of the 19th century about as well as it's ever been done because it so accurately portrays the interplay among the classes and genders of British society in a way that is so natural and believable because it is done without exaggeration or attempts at moralizing or imposing a modern sensibility of right and wrong. When Brett's Holmes interviews a lowly maid, his mannerism and language are respectful enough, but it is still different than interviewing a grand titled lady. He is not servile to the latter, but he intuitively understands the expectations required of him by the context he lives in and it is reflected in the mannerism. Brett, and his fellow actors, understood the need to get into the 19th century skin without passing judgment. Today's actors can't - or aren't allowed to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was ok but nearly as interesting as Downtown Abby. the script was trying way too hard to keep hammering the point between "old" and "new" new york. I seriously doubt people back them spent that much time discussing. The truly wealthy arent concerned at all about new money. The Bertha character was silly with her constant babbling about getting accepted by Old New York.
No idea what Cynthia Nixon is doing in that dopey character ada either.

They have the new and old down well. People were overly focused on this then. The old were largely Dutch. The new American English. It was a big deal then.

[Anonymous]

It was not good. Cynthia Nixon brought it down several notches and there are too many Broadway people who we know from other roles. The casting feels disjointed.

[Anonymous]

I am out an outlier in that I really liked it and am looking forward to the next episode. Love the costumes and sets. Yes, the acting and dialogue are not fantastic but the eye candy makes up for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am out an outlier in that I really liked it and am looking forward to the next episode. Love the costumes and sets. Yes, the acting and dialogue are not fantastic but the eye candy makes up for it.

I agree. Marian doesn’t do much for me nor does Ada but I’m entertained enough by the rest and looking forward to the next ep!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was not good. Cynthia Nixon brought it down several notches and there are too many Broadway people who we know from other roles. The casting feels disjointed.

Cynthia Nixon is terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am out an outlier in that I really liked it and am looking forward to the next episode. Love the costumes and sets. Yes, the acting and dialogue are not fantastic but the eye candy makes up for it.

I also enjoyed it. I live Christine Baranski so I was definitely going to watch it anyway

[Anonymous]

I loved the costumes but the sets were total crap. Or at least the exteriors were crap. It looked like they filmed it at some old-time theme park.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am out an outlier in that I really liked it and am looking forward to the next episode. Love the costumes and sets. Yes, the acting and dialogue are not fantastic but the eye candy makes up for it.

I agree. Marian doesn’t do much for me nor does Ada but I’m entertained enough by the rest and looking forward to the next ep!

Marian Brook is played so dull. We're to believe so many people go out of their way to help this charless wet mop? Casting wher as pure nepotism. Too bad Meryl Streep's daughter doesn't inherit her acting genes.