Sat 13 Nov 2010
A TV Mini-Series Review by Dan Stumpf: NOSTROMO (1996).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV Drama[6] Comments
NOSTROMO. BBC-TV mini-series, 1996. Claudio Amendola, Paul Brooke, Lothaire Bluteau, Claudia Cardinale, Joaquim de Almeida, Brian Dennehy, Albert Finney, Serena Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, Roberto Escobar. Based on the novel by Joseph Conrad. Director: Alastair Reid.
Somewhere over the last couple months I found time to watch Undersea Kingdom (Republic, 1936) in which Ray Corrigan battles the tyrant of Atlantis while dressed as a Mardi Gras Queen. It’s done with the usual care Republic lavished on their serials: splendidly tacky sets, ambitious special effects and action action action, but it lacks the energetic stuntwork that usually graced their films of this period, and I only mention it because shortly after seeing this I watched another lengthy tale of internecine warfare in an exotic locale, a 5-hour BBC miniseries from 1996 of Joseph Conrad’s 1904 Nostromo.
While I was watching it, I re-read the book, which proved to be a rewarding experience as the film adds some clarity to the characters and narrative while the book … well Nostromo is Conrad at his best, which is very good indeed: fights, shooting, hair-breadth escapes and house-to-house street battles, all laid on with surprising thoughtfulness and skill as Conrad makes it happen to people we believe in.
The mini-series carries this complex plot without dropping it, though they expand on the narrative where Conrad didn’t and rearrange it for clarity, which was probably necessary in the miniseries format. Characters who come on late in the book are introduced earlier in the film to provide for continuity, and sometimes they say baldly what Conrad only hinted at.
Colin Firth and Serena Scott Thomas as the English couple who form the nucleus of the story acquit themselves quite well, Albert Finney throws in a fine character part as a disreputable doctor (one of Conrad’s finest characters) while Joaquim de Almeida and Roberto Escobar make a daunting pair of villains.
Only Claudio Amendola, in the title role, disappointed me, and that was probably a personal thing. Conrad wrote the character as a stylish swashbuckler, the kind who would have been played by Doug Fairbanks Sr. in the old days, or perhaps Errol Flynn or Gilbert Roland in Hollywood’s golden age: a man who can leap onto a speeding train, gallop across the plain, and cut buttons off a coat with one sweep of a knife.
Amendola seems formidable enough, but entirely too serious, as if the producers saw the character’s end and wanted to telegraph it to us early on. As I say though, that’s entirely a personal thing and I didn’t let it spoil my enjoyment of a fine effort that should be more widely available.
Editorial Comment: The mini-series, for which I have not yet unearthed the exact dates of its first (and only?) run, is available commercially on VHS but not on DVD. For the former, think the $40 range.
November 13th, 2010 at 12:59 am
I like Conrad and this sounded worth watching , but not at the quoted prices.
Luckily I found a supposedly “Like New” used VHS copy–and from a California seller!–for $11.99 plus shipping on Amazon. Thanks for the recommendation, Dan.
November 13th, 2010 at 2:36 am
Dan
I think you did a fine job on explaining why the miniseries is not quite the same as Conrad’s novel. He is a difficult writer to recreate on film, and I think this is a superior job of trying to do so. I’d rank it with Jack Conway’s VICTORY, which is one of the best Conrad screen adaptations or Carol Reed’s OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS.
Like you I found Amendola lacking in the key role. He wasn’t bad or anything like it, but he was a bit wan for a dashing revolutionary — the part called if not for Errol Flynn or Fairbanks at least Gilbert Roland or Anthony Quinn — at least a touch of grand old style big screen overacting.
That said it is a well produced, acted, and written series that captures one of Conrad’s best loved works.
Considering how prolific he was there isn’t a lot of Conrad on screen to compare it to. In the talkie era, VICTORY, THE SECRET SHARER(part of a two part anthology), Hitchcock’s SABOTAGE (SECRET AGENT), a bad remake as SECRET AGENT with Bob Hoskins and Robin Williams), LORD JIM, THE DUELISTS, THE ROVER, APOCALYPSE NOW, a TNT version of HEART OF DARKNESS, and a version of CHANCE whose title I can’t think of. Slim pickings considering.
November 13th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Conrad is a big favorite of mine and I’ve read most of his fiction. I remember reading NOSTROMO many years ago and found it to be excellent. The TV version I saw on PBS and enjoyed it also, though they did have to abridge the novel. Even at 5 hours it’s hard to do a long novel justice. Carol Reed’s OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS has been unjustly neglected but is still available on vhs tape. I consider it an excellent movie and wish it was on dvd.
November 13th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Walker
I agree about Reed’s version of OUTCAST. Outstanding cast too — Ralph Richardson, Trevor Howard, Wendy Hiller, Robert Morley…
It’s been on TCM at least once — a blessing, because before that I had only seen it once on USA badly butchered to 94 minutes from the original 102.
November 19th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
[…] of Gilbert Roland and Widely Available (as I was at the end of my previous review ), his six Cisco Kid movies from Monogram are out on DVD in pristine prints not seen since their […]
December 31st, 2023 at 8:26 pm
[…] —- NOTE: Dan’s review of the 1997 miniseries BBC adapted for TV from the book can be found here. […]