Customer Reviews

Lady Caroline Lamb [VHS]

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is based on the story of Lady Lamb. She is a woman with strong emotions and at the beginning of the story is shown to have to take some concoction to quell her stridency. The actress, Sarah Miles, is outstanding. I felt like I was going through all the same emotions when I watched her act. Her need to be loved by someone who couldn't truly love. She had love but it was not enough. Her husband truly loved her but she pushed him away, distancing herself by their differentness. He was more logical and self-controlled as opposed to Lady Lambs excessive outpouring of whatever she was experiencing at the time. When she started the affair with Lord Byron, she couldn't care less for anyone, she gives into her feelings and forgets everything around her. Nothing matters but her expression. Yes, she was narcissitic but sad, very sad. She wanted the world to understand her emotions to accept passion at its extreme. Of course, this was not acceptable and still isn't. Her only rock was her husband who stood by her at all costs. This was so tenderly heartbreaking and I was touched moreso than many movies I have seen. And believe I have seen a whole lot. It is not an uplifting film and involves a scandal that ends in tragedy. It is very grating on the nerves, it is raw emotion that is acted out brilliantly by Miles. I hope you like it!

Lisa Nary

I love this video/movie. Actually I had seen it before and loved the story, based on true life story of Lady Caroline Lamb, and her husband, Irish Minister, Charles Lamb. This is a wanton love story of the love affair of Lady Caroline Lamb and Lord Byron, and the degradation she suffered when she was no longer first in his eyes. The actors are fabulous, and Sylvia Miles is perfect in the part, and Richard Chamberlain as the handsome Lord Byron. Sir Laurence Olivier is the Duke of Wellington, and Margaret Leighton Lady Caroline Lamb's mother in law. This was the most notorious cabinet-level sex scandal of the 19th Century, and well worth watching. It is such a sad story too of "hell hath no fury of a woman scorned".

I saw this film in a moment of illness which created delirious openness, and was completely floored. Theatrical and magnificent, like a piece of kabuki theater, mask-like and stylized, and yet quite visceral and immediate. Exquisite period costumes and settings, and a palpable sense of movement throughout. For example, the opening sequence shows Lady Caroline galloping impetuously over the moors, so English, so exciting, then dismounting and running through the halls, bursting through the doors, and saying breathlessly, "He has proposed!" Such a great way to show that the character is impatient, romantic, restless, maybe a little mad or at least a bit uncontrollable. Wonderful concise strokes like this throughout, as when Lord Byron is shown first as a kind of savage boxing a negro man for his supper. He is shown first to be brutal, sensual, earthy, before we know he is a great poet.

A rare period of film history, when the production values were still very high and formal, but the acting and stories were becoming more immediate and raw. The film is thematic rather than narrative in purpose. It carries the story more with "mood" than with plot, which is very cinematic and quite poetic. Sometimes historical facts are altered to create a better montage, which as a filmmaker I completely agree with. No boring biopic here.

Gorgeous color photography, wonderful handling of crowd scenes (there is an interesting look into the rousing early 19th century Parliament), and stellar acting by Sarah Miles, Jon Finch, and Richard Chamberlain. Chamberlain is a startling figure, almost obscenely handsome and flaunting it; Finch is a sultry dandy, oh so pouty and a little dark and unsettling; Miles is all eyes, cropped boyish hair, and fabulous unconventional weirdness. At one point she dons blackface and male drag to play Byron's page, and she carries giant feathers to fan him; it is almost too much. It makes one nostalgic not so much for the early 19th century as for the late 1960's. A perfect story to film then, when the oddness and androgeny of Miles' character and the frills and dandy sexiness of the men paralleled so well the new gender types of the late 60's. Quite an experience for a dog day Tuesday afternoon.

I'm so glad I bought the LP of the soundtrack for it brings back the memory of the one and only time I saw this film when it first came out. I remember a lush and beautiful production with fine performances and a heartbreaking story that apparently is based on the truth. I would love to see this film again and relive the roller coaster ride Lady Caroline lived in her relationship with Lord Byron. This is as grand a love story as Wuthering Heights and just as tragic.

I saw this film in the theatre and was bowled over by the raw, nervy performance of Sarah Miles. She was incredible--more like a frayed violin string than something human. The art direction is sometimes breathtaking, sometimes a little too 1970's but it always works. Richard Chamberlain's "Lord Byron" is awe-inspiring and Margaret Leighton can freeze San Antonio with with one lift of her eyebrow, but Jon Finch really keeps the film anchored to the deep tragedy that befalls his wife and his political career.

Hard to enjoy it despite a number of quality actors. (John Mills's, Margaret Leighton's, and Ralph Richardson's performances were well done; Chamberlain's character was just a difficult one for me to enjoy). It isn't a comfortable theme, although it is worth contemplating. Sarah's totally out-of-period hair and initial costume continually distracted much of what insight I would have had into her character.

This film takes the general idea of the doomed love triangle of Lady Caroline Lamb, Lord Byron, and William Lamb, and creates a modern romance around it. It blithely assumes modern dating customs. None of the characters are like their historical counterparts--their historical counterparts are actually more interesting. The dialog is modern, and does not even include some very famous remarks that Lady Caroline and others made. (For example, Lady Caroline was first introduced to Lord Byron at a party, and refused the introduction on the grounds that he was "mad, bad, and dangerous to know.") The plot does not follow well-recorded historical incidents, which actually would have filmed well. (Like the ones where Lord Byron seethed with jealously when Lady Caroline waltzed with others, not only because the waltz was scandalously close but because his lameness prevented him from dancing.) The actors all have modern faces, expressions, and posture.

All we get is a stereoptyped weepy Lady Caroline, a stereotyped abusive seducer of a Lord Byron (there's lots of interesting stuff about his sex life that's not in the film, such as homosexuality and incest) and a stereotyped well-meaning husband (even William Lamb was into flagellation in real life). For that matter, in real life Lady Melbourne was an extremely clever woman, and so manipulative that her own niece Arabella compared her to the scheming Marquise in _Dangerous Liaisons_. She worked hard to take Caroline away from Lord Byron, and they may actually have had an affair despite their considerable age difference. The niece herself (the one Byron married) was an intellectual and a talented mathematician.

I could go on . . . If you want romance and thrills, read some good biographies instead of watching this film.