Customer Reviews

Tom & Viv [VHS]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in Missouri on September 26, 1888. He lived in St. Louis during the first eighteen years of his life and attended Harvard University. In 1910, he left the United States for the Sorbonne, having earned both undergraduate and masters degrees. After a year in Paris, he returned to Harvard to pursue a doctorate in philosophy, but returned to Europe and settled in England in 1914. The following year, he married Vivienne Haigh-Wood and began working in London, first as a teacher, and later for Lloyd's Bank.

Variously diagnosed with "moral insanity," anorexia and hysteria, Vivienne Haigh-Wood suffered from severe menstrual symptoms most of her life, as well as an inherited tendency for manic depression. Having collided in their desperation to escape their mothers, she and Tom married in 1915, to their families' disapproval and to Tom's quickly encroaching disgust. By the time Vivienne was committed to an asylum in 1938, five years after T. S. Eliot deserted her, she was a lonely, occasionally demented figure. Shunned by literary London, she was the neurotic wife whom Eliot had left behind.

Tom and Viv, a gorgeously produced, but terribly sad movie, begins after Tom and Vivienne have met and focuses on their troubled the marriage. The opening scenes show Vivienne fraught with headaches, sudden violent mood swings, irregular periods and showing her finding a type of solace and security in her relationship with Tom. Told from the point of view of both Tom and Vivienne, the movie is judiciously divided into four parts: 1915 - when Tom and Viv are courting, and when Vivienne shows signs of mental illness: 1919, straight after the war, when Tom is beginning to achieve notoriety as a poet; 1932, when Vivienne's illness is beginning to cause public embarrassment to her family, and 1944, after she has been finally committed to the Northumberland House sanitarium.

At first, her family is extremely hesitant to allow the marriage between Tom and Vivienne to take place. Her brother Maurice - stylishly played by Tim Dutton - neglects to tell Tom about her "troubles," and Vivienne's father accuses Tom of being after the family money. Tom, at the time, is a struggling poet, living in an attic in the City with Bertrand Russell who is considered "the most hated man in all of London." Tom feels that poetry is a "mugs game" but he tries to appeal to the good judgment of Vivienne's mother - played with remarkable grace by Rosemary Harris - to let him into the family. Vivienne desperately wants to make Tom happy, and it is to Miranda Richardson's credit that the viewer really gets a sense of Vivienne's quiet desperation. Vivienne is also very supportive of Tom - she reads for him and assists in getting his poetry published; he relies on her completely - she's his "first audience."

Willem Defoe brings a quiet and understated elegance to the role, and he expertly conveys Elliot's obvious love for Vivienne, while at the same time expressing a silent frustration over their relationship. As Vivienne steadily spins out of control, becoming more emotionally erratic, Tom realizes that he's married to a woman "that he loves, but everything that he does with her falls apart." Although he eventually contributed to Vivienne's institutionalization, she remains an honest person, who sticks by Tom, and his beliefs and she spiritually never really leaves him.

With a fine sense of period detail, the film gracefully and elegantly portrays life during the Edwardian era - the stuffy but gorgeous drawing rooms, the hats, the frocks and the newly invented motorcars. Tom and Viv is a fine-looking period piece that is emotionally quite heart wrenching, and the movie contains some of the best performances from some of the finest actors in the business. Mike Leonard June 04.

Careful: This DVD release of TOM AND VIV cuts my favorite scene contained in the original VHS edition--the one in which Viv dresses in disguise and goes to a public reading and book signing given by Tom, who graciously signs her book and pretends not to know her. If anyone else noticed this and has an explanation, please post!

"Tom and Viv" was an excellent examination of the human condition. The way in which the relationship between the title characters is both explicit and implicit is true genius. This movie will draw no lines for you. You are forced to come away with your own conclusions. I have heard people say that they had no investment in either character. I feel that was the point. The viewer is forced to disect the relaionship. It examines love in true deconstructionist style. If you are looking for a movie about the pain and confusion that is any relationship, this is for you I will finish by saying this: I was not the same after watching this movie.

I'm sure Eliot scholars would have a lot to say about the film, but I'm one of those readers of Eliot who has just grown weary of his heavy handedness. So this film spoke to me--Eliot is shown to be overbearing, manipulative, and one unfeeling mofo. Good enough for me.

I have watched "Tom & Viv" a few times now. After the first time, my foremost thought was "What a looney!", in regards to Vivien Eliot and her behavior. But, after more careful viewing and consideration, I've reconsidered that initial, first impression. While Vivien most definitely suffered from psychological problems, compounded by a hormonal condition, it is also a well known fact that physicians of the day considered most emotional and psychological problems in women to be due to "hysteria", due to the fact that women had female parts. Seriously, some doctors (or practioners calling themselves such) thought such "hysteria" could be controlled by either genital stimulation or hysterectomy. Both of these are outrageous and extreme, but then again, in this day and age, so is the idea of "moral insanity". Then again, if T.S. Eliot WAS as much of a stiff and a prig as this movie implies, who can blame her for pouring chocolate into his mail slot, when some snotty secretary throws the chocolate bar she leaves her husband back out of the slot? C'mon... what woman hasn't been pissed enough at her husband/boyfriend to do something "extreme", at one time or another. Take her emotional/mental state, add the hormonal imbalance and then consider, is it HER fault she acts on her impulse? Granted, she loses it completely with the knife/taxicab incident, but then again, earlier in the film, we overhear that she is being given ETHER, as treatment!!! The ignorance of the medical profession of that time makes one shudder!!! This film is, if nothing else, a window onto a terrible time in history for women. The ignorance with which they are treated and the patriarchal mindset of society leaves them precious little way in defense of themselves. Vivien had no where to turn for help, her father having left Tom in charge of her monies. She was probably quite desperate and couldn't do anything at all to help herself. If Tom was as dedicated to the church and conforming to society's "norms", her life must've been hell. You can see the utter helplessness on her face when the "inquisitors" come to "quiz" her, to see if she's crazy or not. (And, the "quiz" is ridiculous!!!) Then, the poor thing is grabbed up while having tea with a friend, in public!!! How awful! Just think what todays medicine could have done for her. Why, even back then, she's finally told there IS help for her, and that she has been left to rot by Tom... it's just so sad. It's all a sad commentary on society's treatment of women. If she had been born today, she might have been a brilliant author (or whatever), in her own right. Miranda Richardson may be playing it "over the top", as some have said, but then again, what if that was how it was? How tragic, for both Vivian, and in the end, Tom, as well. Remember, as this movie tells it, he was never informed of her "conditions" before their wedding. If this is true, he was tricked into a life of hell, by both her and her family. And, given what recourse he had, what could he have done? But, without their life together, would we have a work like "The Wasteland"? Hmm... food for thought. Anything with Willem Dafoe, Miranda Richardson and the rest of this marvelous cast is still better than most of the pap that Hollywood churns out... any day.

Wow! I cannot get this movie out of my thoughts, it was an excellent portrayal of the turbulent marriage between T. S. Eliot and his lovely wife, Vivienne. First of all here is a 'bravo' to Miranda Richardson and Willem Dafoe, they obviously spent many hours perfecting the characters they portrayed so well. I understood what each were going through and it was a tragedy in the end that they could not live their lives together. It was obvious the love was there, but it was a sad, misunderstood love. Excellent job Mandy, you've proved your great acting capabilities to me once again, you never let your fans down do you? I highly recommend this movie to anyone, it was amazing and I cannot quit thinking about it.

Tom and Viv (Brian Gilbert, 1994)

Brian Gilbert's quietly heartbreaking drama Tom and Viv came and went with barely a blip at the box office, though it did get nominated for two Academy Awards; it should have been much more widely seen, I think. But what does the American moviegoing public, especially in the nineties, care for the life and marriage of a poet? For Tom and Viv are T. S. Eliot (Willem Dafoe, once again ignored by the Academy) and his mentally unstable wife Vivienne (Miranda Richardson, who did get a nomination for Best Actress).

The plot is simple and straightforward: American expatriate Tom, who according to the narration of Vivienne's brother Maurice (Tim Dutton) is trying to out-English the English, finds everything he's looking for in England in the person of Vivienne: she's upperclass, moneyed, a member of the British society, but with a wild, untameable streak. He falls in love and they elope, realizing only after they're married that Vivienne isn't just high-spirited, she's quite mentally unsound. Thus, Tom is brought in under the wing of Vivienne's family, made one of them by proxy, and much of the film alternates between Tom's attempts to handle Viv's erratic behavior and him commiserating with various family members. Finally, with everyone at the end of their collective rope, Tom and Maurice come up with a plan that will satisfy everyone except Vivienne herself.

This is a film that plays itself very close to the vest. It's staid, almost glacial on the surface, but simmers beneath with rage and despair. Dafoe and Richardson are both brilliant in their roles, and make an essentially plotless biopic into gripping viewing. Highly recommended. ****

I am surprised that this film has not yet so far made it on to Region 2 DVD; this review is based on watching the video. As ever, I am amused by some of the more stern and unforgiving reviews elsewhere on Amazon; for some people nothing is ever good enough and too many people just cannot wait (as we say in the UK) " to put the boot in" and damn a perfectly serious, well-crafted, if rather grim little movie. If you are looking for a feel-good, relaxing film - this isn't it, but I found it intelligent and sensitive in the manner that it portrays poor Viv sympathetically and Eliot's heroic devotion to her and his marriage vows. It is certainly valuable, too, in the manner that it illuminates Eliot's poetry; links between his circumstances and their married life are subtly established when the dialogue echoes famous lines, or excerpts from the poems sparingly comment upon the content of the film. Eliot is expertly embodied by Willem Dafoe; he comes across as more English than the English, complete with a rather (deliberately exaggerated?) clipped English accent and a permanent case of emotional constipation which found its release in the verse. As Eliot says in the film, poetry is expression "free from emotion" - and that really shows here. Miranda Richardson gives a chilling and touching performance as Viv, bringing out her qualities as well as her frightening afflictions; we realise to what degree theirs was a relationship of mutual dependence - though I would have liked more on Ezra Pound's influence over Eliot's final drafts. The film is dark-hued yet sometimes funny. Apart from its intrinsic value, it is very useful as a teaching aid, helping my students to understand the historical context of the texts we are studying and the biographical circumstances behind the verse. So even if others claim that the film taught them nothing, I have to say that it enhanced our appreciation of a great poet.

This film is a portrait of the marriage of T.S. Eliot and his highly eccentric first wife, Vivienne. There is love between them, real love. However, Vivienne's fitful outbursts and T.S.'s ridiculously conformist ways try their love more and more, as the film goes on. They are a star crossed couple, all right -- T.S. has stars in his eyes, as he yearns toward English propriety, and Viv seems to have stars spinning around her head half the time, like a cartoon of a dazed person. Miranda Richardson is fantastic as Vivienne, she steals every scene she's in. Not that Willem Dafoe gives her much of a struggle -- he plays T.S. Eliot as a very cold, distant sort of conformist. Both actors are excellent, as are Rosemary Harris, playing Viv's compassionate, enduring, regal yet human mother; and Tim Dutton, playing Viv's likeable, somewhat befuddled brother, Maurice.

Watch for the sad ending, with unloved, unappreciated Viv rusting her life away in an asylum... She deserved better -- even when she was at her most crazed, she always had spunk. She fought the good fight -- she was driven crazy by things that SHOULD drive people crazy, it wasn't her fault she had a chemical problem that kept her from dealing with things the way most people do. T.S., I thought, was almost as sad, as the American poet who becomes a British subject. We seem to be presented with a choice of two destinies here -- Viv keeps her soul, but loses her life, or at least the freedom to Live it. T.S. keeps the freedom to live his life, but, in a very real sense, he loses his soul. I was left wishing T.S. Eliot had spirited Viv off to free America, away from the stifling pressures of England, and led a life as an English teacher in his hometown of St. Louis, taking his students on field trips to Mark Twain's All-American birthplace up the river in Hannibal... Maybe they both would have been happier, without all the pressures to conform and "play the game" in England.

A movie with interesting parallels to this one, if anyone's interested, is the German film "Mephisto," starring Klaus Maria Brandauer. There is the same theme of the self-deluding artist, making too-extreme concessions to the politics of the world around him, and involved in incredibly damaging relationships with the women in his life. Another film viewers might like is the Italian film "Il Conformista," by Bernardo Bertolucci. There are numerous parallels.

This is a very interesting piece of filmmaking. I really recommend it. Two thumbs up.

I have just seen TOM & VIV and cannot say how much this film has touched me. It is excellent film-making in every way, from the script to the acting, directing, cinematography and art direction. It also has one of the most beautiful music scores ever. And what a pleasure to see these actors act! Miranda Richardson is superb! And what a great, great actress Rosemary Harris is! She endows every second of her screen presence with meaning and beauty.