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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"The First 'Entitled' American Child", May 13, 2007
Willa Cather was astonishingly prescient in pointing out one kind of child the American plutocracy - entering the age of celebrity - must inevitably produce. Her character Paul is a bored kid at the throat of everyday parents, teachers, and classmates because they lack the artistic glamour that enraptures him. (Today he'd sport tattoos and metal studs on his face, imagining these would give him the charisma of a rock star.) Since he's full of artistic temperament, yet has little real talent himself or money of his own, he's eager to lick the boots of any artistic types or even of the rich swells who frequent concerts in his hometown. Working as an usher at the local Pittsburgh opera house and freely serving as a valet to the leading man at the adjacent theater, he dreams of one day hobnobbing with the really moneyed upper class New Yorkers who live the high life, drinking champagne and staying at the Waldorf.
Still, he is on target in seeing the Pittsburgh of his day as a pretty dull place, given over as it is so largely to the life of routine wage slavery and philistine materialism. He yearns for something more, something finer and joyous, and his awareness that something's missing in everyday life is the open sesame to our sneaking sympathy and finally pity for him.
This wonderful adaptation of Cather's short story avoids the dullness that so often characterizes Masterpiece Theater productions of classics. While wholly faithful to the story, it has been reconceived as a film. The camera moves a lot, the 19th century settings are superb, opera arias and harp music of the period are added, and above all the subtle acting of Eric Roberts, ranging from requisite sly smiles to fitting looks of childlike bemusement and finally loss is undeniably brilliant.
This outstanding DVD from an old PBS series deserves to be better known.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
American Idol 1900, June 2, 2007
This short story adaptation is beautifully wrought. The acting, direction, scenery, costumes all work together to bring over the kind of quality production one remembers well from the heyday of the BBC back in the 1970s when "Brideshead Revisited" was shown on PBS. Now that PBS does auctions, and the BIG Three do amateur-hour auditions, one must turn to HBO. The story is wonderfully conceived. A young boy, bored to death in the everyday life of Pittsburg, and crushed by uncaring adults including an unsympathetic father, is drawn to the arts, visual and performance. He has what has come to be known a an artistic temperament, is shy, withdrawn, effeminate, and unproductive. He has no talent,no discipline, no artistic training, no ambition. He just wants to "be" an artist or be with artists. His kind now makes up about 50% of the upper-middle class in America, and attends schools like Oberlin to major in romance languages or Russian literature. Is the author sympathetic? Is she saying that those of artistic temperament can't live in brutal America, or that this wannabe wants the wrongs things - champagne, cut flowers, suites of rooms at posh hotels - and wrongly thinks them artistic? Who knows? And where might I ask do they dig up these gorgeous young men with Irish pale skin and jet black hair to play in these dramatizations of classics, while our cop shows and audition shows and fake tropical islands are solely populated by uglies?
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Only a Paul in a Gilded Age, August 12, 2009
This loose adaptation of Willa Cather's 1906 McClure's magazine piece first aired on PBS's "American Short Story" series in 1980. The program's host, Henry Fonda was clearly in declining health here.
SYNOPSIS--
Paul is a starry-eyed youth from suburban Pittsburgh who questions what's already been determined for him by parental and societal expectations. A totally unmotivated student, Paul often spends his evenings in the company of those he finds glamorous-- actors. He's chronically late for school and falls asleep in class. When his uncaring recitivism brings a suspension from high school, Paul's father insists that he take a pre-arranged job.
To this point Paul's perceived existence has been gray and oppressive-- a busy offiice environment is saddest of all.
Given 2K to deposit in employer Denny & Carson's bank account, the thrill seeker absconds with their funds. Paul rides the train to NYC, buys a Brooks Brothers suit and takes a suite of rooms at the Waldorf Astoria. An elegant but unsustainable upper class Gilded Age lifestyle lies in stark contrast to the reality of Paul's troubled world, and dire consequences of his embezzlement clearly foreshadow a tragic denouement.
Eric Roberts is outstanding as Paul; also interesting is Tom Stewart's "hale fellow well-met" Yalie who invites him to indulge in some cat house recreation. This invitation is declined when Paul spots his father at the hotel's front desk. Hasty flight from responsibility ends alongside a rural Pennsylvania rail track.
Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 imdb user poll rating.
(6.5) Paul's Case (TV-1980 - Eric Roberts/Michael Higgins/Gus Kaikkonen/Tom Stewart/Lindsay Crouse/Justine Johnson/Andrew Ethier/Henry Fonda (host)
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