[gentle instrumental music]
♪ ♪
Here we are.
Hello, darling.
I wouldn't put it past Sebastian
to have started dinner.
Thank you, Wilcox.
Well, darling, I've collected your chum.
I thought you were dying.
I thought so too.
The pain was excruciating.
Julia, do you think if you asked him,
Wilcox might give us champagne tonight?
I hate champagne.
And Mr. Ryder has already had dinner.
Mr. Ryder?
Charles drinks champagne at all hours.
I believed myself very near to heaven
during those languid days at Brideshead.
And that gives me a craving for champagne.
It is thus I like to remember Sebastian as he was that summer,
when we wandered alone through that enchanted palace.
Is the dome by Vanburgh?
It looks later.
Oh, Charles, don't be such a tourist.
What does it matter when it was built if it's pretty?
It's the sort of thing that interests me.
Oh, dear.
I thought I'd cured you of all that,
the terrible Mr. Collins.
Hmm?
Sebastian in his wheelchair
spinning down the box-edged walks
of the kitchen gardens in search of alpine strawberries
and warm figs,
propelling himself through the succession of hot houses
from scent to scent and climate to climate
to choose orchids for our buttonholes.
It was an aesthetic education to live within those walls.
Since the days when, as a schoolboy,
I used to bicycle around the neighboring parishes
rubbing brasses and photographing fonts,
I had nursed a love of architecture,
but my sentiments at heart were insular and medieval.
This was my conversion to the baroque.
Ahhhl.
Why is this house called a castle?
'Cause it used to be one, till they moved it.
What can you mean?
Just that.
It used to be a castle about a mile away
down by the village.
Then when they took a fancy to the valley,
they pulled the castle down,
carted it stone by stone up here,
and built a new house.
I'm rather glad they did, aren't you?
If it was mine, I couldn't live anywhere else.
Hmm.
It isn't really mine.
I mean, just at the moment it is,
but usually, it's full of ravening beasts.
If only it could be like this always,
always alone, always summer,
the fruit always ripe,
and Aloysius always in a good temper.
[laughter]
Ahhl.
Charles.
Charlesl.
Aloysiusl.
How do we stop this thing?
Are you all right?
- Very funny. - How's the ankle?
Very, very funny.
[laughs] Come on.
I suppose you'll be in bed for months now.
One day, in a cupboard, we found a box of oil paints.
Mummy bought them these paints.
Somebody told her that you couldn't appreciate the beauty
of the world unless you tried to paint it.
Sebastian gave me the idea of decorating the garden room.
She couldn't draw at all.
The colors in the tubes were very bright,
but every time Mummy mixed them, they came out a kind of khaki.
Be reasonable.
Well, you're ahead of me anyway.
Charles, you do that every single time.
It's a grand room.
I knew little of oil painting
and learned its ways as I worked.
By luck and the happy mood of the moment,
the brush seemed to do what was wanted of it,
and in a week, it was finished.
Not bad, Charles.
Do you think your mother would mind?
Well, we won't know till she sees it, will we?
One day, we went down to the cellars with Wilcox
and saw the empty bays which had once held a vast store of wine.
A lot of this old wine just wants drinking up.
We should have laid down the 18s and 20s by now.
Her ladyship says to ask Lord Brideshead.
He says to ask his lordship.
His lordship says to ask the lawyers.
That's how we get low.
Oh, I know there's enough to last ten years,
but what happens then?
That's what I want to know.
Wilcox welcomed our interest.
We had bottles brought up from every bin,
and it was during those tranquil evenings with Sebastian
that I first made a real acquaintance with wine.
Now, for the fullest of appreciation,
first warm the glass gently at a candle flame.
Fill it a third high with Chateau Lafitte, 1899.
There.
Swirl the wine gently round the glass.
That is a claret.
It's a burgundy.
I have a burgundy in my hand.
You didn't have you just poured this?
- I have claret in my hand. - This is burgundy.
This is burgundy. I know this is burgundy.
Yes. This was claret.
The glass that I opportun-
- [laughs]
Inopportunately dropped out of my hand,
this legless glass.
[laughter]
This is my glass.
Charles, have another biscuit and try again.
No, this is claret.
This is a king of clarets.
It was a brother, definitely a brother.
Go in there.
Up to the light.
Under the nose.
Breathe.
It's like a flute...
by still water.
Ought we to be drunk every night?
Yes, I think we should.
Yes, I think we should too.
On Sundays, a neighboring priest called to say Mass.
Sebastian's faith was an enigma to me at the time
but not one that I felt particularly concerned to solve.
I took it as a foible, like his teddy bear.
He's such an old bore, Father Phipps.
He kept me back half an hour after Mass
talking about cricket.
Do you want some cold coffee?
Yes, please.
It's so difficult being a Catholic.
Does it make much difference to you?
Of course, all the time.
Well, I can't say I've noticed it.
Are you struggling against temptation?
You don't seem to be much more virtuous than me.
My dear Charles, I'm much, much wickeder.
Well, then.
Who was it used to pray, "Oh, God, make me good but not yet?"
I don't know. You, I should think.
Here.
I do... all the time.
But it's not to do that.
Good Lord, another naughty scoutmaster.
I suppose they try
and make you believe lots of nonsense.
Is it nonsense?
I wish it were.
It sometimes seems particularly sensible to me.
My dear Sebastian, you can't seriously believe it all.
Can't I?
No, I mean about Christmas
and the star and the ox and the ass and the three kings.
Oh, yes, I believe all that. It's a lovely idea.
But you can't believe things because they're lovely ideas.
Well, I do.
That's how I believe.
Do you believe in prayer?
Oh, Charles, don't be a bore.
I'm trying to read about this woman in Hull
who's using an instrument.
You started it. I was just getting interested.
Well, I'll never mention it again.
But he did ten days later,
when our peace was disturbed
on the occasion of the annual agricultural fair.
The house, which seemed to have slept during the past weeks,
awoke to a flurry of activity, and Brideshead,
Sebastian's elder brother, came down to preside.
Queer fellow, my brother.
Now he's here, I think we should stay out of the way.
He's in his element today.
He's a very big part of the agricultural show.
He looks normal enough to me.
Oh, but he's not.
If you only knew.
He's much the craziest of us,
only it never comes out at all.
He's all twisted inside.
He wanted to be a priest, you know.
I didn't.
[scoffs]
I think he still does.
He nearly became a Jesuit.
It was awful for Mummy.
She couldn't exactly try and stop him,
but, of course, it was the last thing she wanted.
I mean, imagine what people would have said.
"The eldest son."
it's not even as if it were me.
Oh.
And poor Papa.
The Church had been enough trouble to him
without that happening.
I wonder if I'd have been like that if I'd gone to Stoneyhurst.
I should have gone,
but Papa went abroad before I was old enough.
The first thing he insisted upon was my going to Eton.
Has your father given up religion?
Well, he's had to, in a way.
He only took it up when he married Mummy.
When he went off,
he left it behind...
with the rest of us.
You must meet him.
He's a very nice man.
Now, don't look down, Charles.
So, you see, we're a mixed family religiously.
Brideshead and Cordelia are both fervent Catholics.
He's miserable. She's bird-happy.
Julia and I are both semi-heathens.
I'm happy.
I rather think Julia isn't.
Mummy is popularly believed to be a saint,
and Papa is excommunicated.
I wouldn't know which of them were happy.
Anyway, however you look at it,
happiness doesn't seem to have much to do with it,
and that's all I want.
I wish I liked Catholics more.
They seem just like everyone else.
My dear Charles, that's exactly what they're not,
particularly in this country, where they're so few.
I mean, it's not just they're a clique.
Everything they think is important is different
from other people.
I mean, they try and cover it up,
but it comes out all the time.
So, you see, it's difficult for semi-heathens,
like Julia and me.
Sebastianl.
God, that sounds like my sister, Cordelia.
Cover yourself up.
Where are you?
Go away, Cordelia.
We're not decent.
Yes, you are.
I guessed you were here.
You didn't know I was about, did you?
I came down with Bridey.
I stopped off to see Francis Xavier.
He's my pig.
And then I had lunch with Colonel Fender
and then on to the show.
Francis Xavier got a special mention,
but that beast Randal got first
with a very mangy-looking animal.
Darling Sebastian.
It is lovely to see you.
How's your poor foot?
Say "how do you do" to Mr. Ryder.
Sorry. How do you do?
I am sorry about your pig.
They're all getting pretty boozy down there,
so I came away.
I say, who's been painting the Garden Hall?
I went in to get a shooting stick and saw it.
Be careful what you say. It's Mr. Ryder.
But it's lovely.
I say, did you really?
You are clever.
Oh, why don't you both come down?
There's nobody about.
Bridey's bound to bring the judges in.
No, no, he won't.
I heard him make arrangements not to.
He's very sour today.
He didn't want me to have dinner with you, but I fixed that.
Oh, do come on.
I'll be in the nursery when you're fit to be seen.
We were a somber little party that evening.
Brideshead was only three years older than Sebastian and I,
but he seemed of another generation.
I hope Sebastian is seeing to the wine.
Wilcox is apt to be rather grudging when he's on his own.
He's treated us very liberally.
I'm delighted to hear it.
You're fond of wine?
Very.
I wish I were.
It's such a bond with other men.
At Oxford, I tried to get drunk once or twice.
But I didn't enjoy it.
Beer and whisky I find even less appetizing.
Events like today's show are in consequence a torment to me.
I like wine.
My sister Cordelia's last report
said that she was not only the worst girl in the school
but the worst there had ever been
in the memory of the oldest nun.
That's because the Reverend Mother said
that if I didn't keep my room tidy,
Our Lady would be very grieved,
and I told her that our Blessed Lady
didn't give two hoots whether I kept my gym shoes
on the left or the right of my dancing shoes.
Reverend Mother was livid.
Cordelia, Our Lady cares about obedience.
Bridey, don't be so pious.
We've an atheist in our midst.
Agnostic.
Really?
What were the...
entries like this year?
Were you pleased?
No, the standard was remarkably low,
not a decent animal to chose between.
If I'd had my way, no prizes would have been awarded.
It would have served Randal right.
Cordelia.
By the way, did I tell you I'd seen the Bishop of London?
No, Bridey, you didn't.
He wants to close the chapel.
He couldn't.
Do you think Mummy would let him?
There are so few of us.
It isn't as though we're old Catholics
with everyone on the estate coming to Mass.
Does that mean we're going to have to drive miles
on winter mornings?
We must have the Blessed Sacraments here.
I like popping in at odd times, so does Mummy.
So do I, but it'll have to go sooner or later.
Perhaps after Mummy's time.
No, thank you.
The point is
whether it wouldn't be better to let it go now.
You're an artist, Ryder.
What do you think of it aesthetically?
I think it's beautiful.
Is it good art?
Well, I don't quite know what you mean.
Oh, Bridey, stop being so Jesuitical.
I'm sorry; I thought it was an interesting point.
Well, if you'll excuse me.
I must take Sebastian away for half an hour.
There are some family matters to deal with.
It's time you were in bed, Cordelia.
Must digest first.
I'm not used to gorging like this at night.
I'll talk to Charles.
Charles?
Mr. Ryder to you, child.
Send her to bed if she's a bore.
Are you really an agnostic?
Does your family always talk about religion all the time?
Not all the time.
It's a subject that comes up naturally, doesn't it?
Does it?
It never has with me before.
Then perhaps you are an agnostic.
I'll pray for you.
Thank you.
I'm sure it's more than I deserve.
Oh, I've got harder cases than you.
I've got Lloyd George, the Kaiser,
and Olive Banks.
Who's she?
She got bunked last term from the convent.
The Reverend Mother found something
that she'd been writing.
If you weren't an agnostic,
I should ask you for five shillings
to buy a black goddaughter.
Nothing would surprise me about your religion.
It's a new thing that a priest started last term.
You send five bob to some nuns in Africa,
and they christen a baby and name her after you.
I've got six black Cordelias.
Isn't that lovely?
That night, I began to realize
how little I really knew of Sebastian
and to understand why he had always sought to keep me apart
from the rest of his life.
He was like a friend made on board ship on the high seas.
Now we had come to his home port.
Sorry I've been ignoring you.
Bridey's got all these papers he wants me to take to Papa.
It's all right.
I had a nice talk with Cordelia.
She's going to pray for me.
She made a novena for her pig.
Now, come on. We must pack.
I've decided you'd better come to Venice with me.
But that's absurd. I haven't got any money.
I've thought of that.
We live off Papa when we're there.
The lawyers pay my fare plus first class and a sleeper.
We can both travel third for that.
You see, it's fixed.
But I haven't got any clothes for Venice.
Oh, Charles.
[joyful shouting]
And so Sebastian and I came to Venice.
We had traveled on the long, cheap route by boat and train
on wooden seats in hot carriages filled with peasants
and the smell of garlic as the sun mounted higher
and the country began to glow with heat.
You've been here before?
No.
I came once from the sea.
This is the way to arrive.
[speaking ltalian]
Hello, Plender.
Hello, milord. How are you?
Very well, thank you.
Mr. Ryder.
- How do you do, sir? - How do you do?
We expected you on the morning express.
His lordship thought you must have looked up the train wrong.
Ah, well, we came third.
His lordship said to tell you that he was at the Lido.
Did he?
[speaking ltalian]
Presto, Maria.
[speaking ltalian]
Si, si.
This is your room, milord, the one you had before.
Right, thank you.
Mr. Ryder, you're next door.
[bell tolling]
[speaking ltalian]
Scuse.
[speaking ltalian]
Mosquitoes.
Mostica, not now.
[speaking ltalian]
Make hot wash.
If I may, sir.
[speaking ltalian]
[rattling and clanging]
It's this Venetian plumbing, milord.
It's not to be trusted.
I'll get some hot water presto.
Presto, Maria.
[speaking ltalian]
It's a bit bleak.
Bleak?
Come here.
Now, look at that.
I don't think you could call it bleak.
[laughs]
[speaking ltalian]
Hot wash.
Not so hot wash.
[speaking ltalian]
Better look respectable to meet Papa.
Plender, is my father alone?
- At the moment, milord, yes. - Good.
Charles, we needn't dress for dinner.
Darling Papa.
Goodness, how young you're looking.
This is Charles, Papa.
Charles, don't you think my father very handsome?
How do you do?
How do you do, sir?
Whoever looked up your train made a betise.
There's no such one.
We came on it.
You can't have done.
Only a slow train from Milan at that time.
I've just been to the Lido.
I've taken to playing tennis there with a professional
in the early part of the evening.
It's the only time of day when it's not too hot.
How very energetic of you, Papa.
I hope you boys will be comfortable.
My room's wonderful.
This house was built for the comfort of one person only.
I am that person, I have a room this size
and a very splendid dressing room besides.
And Cara has taken possession of the only other suitable room.
- How is she? - Cara?
Oh, she's gone to visit some Americans
at a villa on the Brenta Canal.
She'll be back with us tomorrow.
So what shall we do tonight, Papa?
Oh, we could go to the Luna,
though it's getting very filled up with English people now.
Would it be too dull to stay here?
Cara is bound to want to go out tomorrow.
No, no. That would be lovely.
Well, we dine at 8:00.
We could go out and have a drink first.
[people conversing]
I had been full of curiosity to meet Lord Marchmain.
When I did so,
I was first struck by his normality,
which, as I saw more of him, I found to be studied.
It was as though he were conscious of a Byronic aura
which he considered to be in bad taste
and was at pains to suppress.
Why, I wonder,
are the ltalians always supposed to be so good at sweets?
We had an ltalian pastry cook at Brideshead
until my father's day.
Then we changed to an Austrian, so much better.
Now I suppose there's a British matron
with beefy forearms.
How do you two propose to spend your time here,
bathing or sightseeing?
Well, I should like to do some sightseeing.
Mm, Cara will love that.
You can't do both, you know.
Charles is very keen on painting.
Yes?
Yes.
Any particular Venetian painter?
Bellini.
Ah, which one?
I didn't know there were two.
[laughs]
There are three, to be precise.
Painting then was very much a family business.
How was England when you left?
It's been lovely this summer.
Was it?
It's my tragedy that I abominate the English countryside.
I suppose it's very wrong to inherit great responsibilities
and be entirely indifferent to them.
I am all that the socialists would have me be
and a great stumbling block to my own party.
However, no doubt my elder son will change all that
if they leave him anything to inherit.
He's rather a poppet, isn't he?
Hmm.
Don't worry.
He's really very sweet underneath.
He does frighten me a bit.
You'll soon get used to that.
Well, shall we walk or take a cab?
Oh, I think a cab.
[speaking ltalian]
Where do you want to go?
I'll show you something very, very special.
The Bridge of Sighs, St. Marks.
[birds chirping]
Lord Marchmain's mistress appeared the next day.
Bon giorno, Cara.
Bon giorno.
I was completely ignorant of women
and could not with any certainty recognize a prostitute
in the streets.
I was not, therefore, indifferent to the fact
of living under the same roof as an adulterous couple,
but I was old enough to hide my interest.
Lord Marchmain's mistress, therefore,
found me with a multitude
of conflicting expectations about her,
all of which were, for the moment,
disappointed by her appearance.
How lovely to see you, Sebastian.
You must be Charles.
How do you do?
My dear.
Alex, Vittorio Corombona has asked us to her ball.
Shall we accept?
It's very kind of her, but as you know, I do not dance.
No, but for the boys.
It's a thing to be seen, the Corombona Palace
lit up for a ball,
and one doesn't know how many such balls
there will be in the future.
The boys must do as they like, but we must refuse.
And I have asked Mrs. Hacking Brunner
to luncheon.
She has a charming daughter.
Sebastian and his friend will like her.
Sebastian and his friend
are more interested in Bellini than heiresses.
Oh, but that's what I've always wished.
I have been here more times than I can count,
and Alex has never let me inside San Marco, even.
Let's become tourists.
There's an extraordinary little man,
Daisy Guzzoli's uncle.
He knows everybody.
He'll make a marvelous guide.
Mr. Charles Ryder.
Ah, and now, off to see our works of art,
Tiepolo...
So we became tourists.
All doors were open to Cara's little Venetian nobleman.
With him and a guidebook, she came with us,
flagging sometimes but never giving up.
A neat, prosaic figure amid the immense splendors of the place.
As a child, I had no religion.
I was taken to church weekly
and at school attended chapel daily.
But as though in compensation,
from the time I went to my public school,
I was excused church on the holidays.
The view implicit in my education
was that the basic narrative of Christianity
had long been exposed as a myth
and that opinion was now divided as to whether
its ethical teaching was of present value,
a division in which the main weight went against it.
Religion was a hobby
which some people professed and others did not.
At the best, it was slightly ornamental.
At the worst,
it was the province of complexes and inhibitions,
catchwords of the decade,
and of the intolerance, hypocrisy,
and sheer stupidity attributed to it for centuries.
No one had ever suggested to me that these quaint observances
expressed a coherent philosophical system
and intransigent historical claims,
nor, had they done so,
would I have been much interested.
My father did not go to church except on family occasions,
and then with derision.
My mother, I think, was devout.
It once seemed odd to me that she should have thought it
her duty to leave my father and me
and go off with an ambulance to Serbia
to die of exhaustion in the snow in Bosnia.
But I later recognized some such spirit in myself.
Later, too, I have come to accept claims
which then, in 1923,
I never troubled to examine
and to accept the supernatural as the real.
But I was aware of no such needs that summer.
Some days, life kept pace with the gondola
as we nosed through the side canals
and the boatman uttered
his plaintive musical bird cry of warning;
On other days with the speed boat
bouncing over the lagoon in a stream of sunlit foam.
Every morning after breakfast, Sebastian, Cara and I
would leave the palace by the street door
and wander through a maze of bridges and squares
and alleys to Florien's for coffee
and watched the grave crowds crossing and recrossing
under the Campanile.
I was drowning in honey, stingless.
The fortnight in Venice passed quickly and sweetly,
perhaps too sweetly.
It left a confused memory of fierce sunlight on the sands,
of cool marble interiors,
of water everywhere lapping on smooth stone
reflected in a dapple of light on painted ceilings,
of a night at the Corombona Palace
such as Byron might have known.
I remember most particularly one conversation
towards the end of my visit.
Sebastian had gone to play tennis with his father,
and Cara at last admitted to fatigue.
We sat in the late afternoon
at the windows overlooking the Grand Canal.
It was the first time we had been alone together.
I think you're very fond of Sebastian.
Certainly.
I know of these romantic friendships
of the English and the Germans.
They are not Latin.
I think they are very good
if they don't go on too long.
It is a kind of love that comes to children
before they know its meaning.
In England, it comes a little later,
when you are almost men.
I think I like that.
I think it's better to have this first kind of love
for a boy than for a girl.
Alex, you see, had it for a girl, his wife.
Do you think he loves me?
Really, Cara, you do ask the most embarrassing questions.
How should I know?
I assume.
He does not,
but not the littlest piece.
But then why does he stay with you?
Because I protect him from Lady Marchmain.
He hates her.
But you can have no conception how he hates her.
My friend, he is a volcano of hate.
He can't breathe the same air as she.
He won't set foot in England because it's her home.
He can scarcely be happy with Sebastian
because he's her son.
But Sebastian hates her too.
Oh, no. I think you're wrong there.
He may not admit it to you.
He may not admit it to himself.
They are full of hate,
hate of themselves,
Alex, and his family.
And how has she deserved all this hate?
She's done nothing except to be loved by someone
who was not grown up.
When people hate with all that energy,
it's something in themselves they're hating.
Alex is hating all the illusions of boyhood:
Innocence,
God, hope.
Sebastian is in love with his own childhood.
That will make him very unhappy-
his teddy bear, his nanny.
And he is 19 years old.
How good it is to sit in the shade and talk of love.
Come, let's go and meet them.
[thunder booming]
[rain pattering]
Sebastian drinks too much.
I suppose we both do.
Oh, with you, it doesn't matter.
I've watched you together.
With Sebastian, it's different.
He'll become a drunkard
if someone doesn't come to stop him.
I have known so many.
Alex was nearly a drunkard when I met him.
It's in the blood.
I see it in the way Sebastian drinks.
It's not your way.
Cara.
[laughs]
English weather.
Well, thank God.
It's driven the English away.
It's sad for the boys' last day.
We arrived back the day before term began.
On the way from Charring Cross,
I dropped Sebastian in front of Marchmain House,
his family's London home on the edge of Green Park.
Good morning.
Well, Marchers.
I won't ask you in,
'cause the place is probably full of my family.
See you in Oxford.
Have a good journey up tomorrow.
The taxi took me all alone to Bayswater,
where my father greeted me with his usual air of mild regret.
Here today and gone tomorrow.
I seem to see very little of you.
Perhaps it's dull for you here.
How else could it be otherwise?
Have you enjoyed yourself?
Very much.
I went to Venice.
Yes, yes, I suppose so.
The weather was fine?
Yes, Father.
That friend you were so concerned about,
did he die?
No, I went to Venice with him.
I'm very thankful.
You should have written to tell me.
I worried about him so much.