The film stars real-life couple Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward as Mr. and Mrs. Bridge. The character of Mrs. Bridge is based on Connell's mother, Ruth Connell.[4]
Plot
The story of a traditionally-minded family living in the Country Club District of Kansas City, Missouri, during the 1930s and 1940s. The Bridges grapple with changing mores and expectations. Mr. Bridge is a lawyer who resists his children's rebellion against the conservative values that he holds dear. Mrs. Bridge labors to maintain a Pollyanna view of the world, against her husband's emotional distance and her children's eagerness to adopt a world view more modern than her own.
Joanne Woodward read the first of Mr. Connell's two novels when it was published in 1959, and for many years, she hoped to adapt it into a television production. Originally, she did not intend to play the character of Mrs. Bridge due to the difference in age, but by the late 1980s, when developing the project proved difficult, that was no longer the case.[5]
After a dinner at which James Ivory met the Newmans for the first time, they decided to adapt the books into a feature-length film. After a script was finished, Paul Newman agreed to play Mr. Bridge, which brought in enough financing to shoot the film.[6]
Estimated at $7.5 million, with $500,000 immediately earmarked on interest payments for loans, it was considered a very modest budget, but it also granted Merchant and Ivory the freedom to make the film as they wished. The entire crew took very low salaries, while Newman and Woodward both took much lower salaries than to which they were accustomed.[6]
With the exception of a scene in Paris and another that took advantage of an Ottawa snowfall, Mr. & Mrs. Bridge was shot entirely in Kansas City, Missouri, on the same streets that Connell would have traveled as a child and teenager.[7] No sound stages were used as real houses, auditoriums and office buildings were all used as sets.[6] The residence used as the Bridge home is just a block west of Loose Park on W. 54th St. There is also a scene set in the vault of the old First National Bank (now the Central Library); the same vault has been repurposed as the Stanley H. Durwood Film Vault.[7]
Much of the film was shot out of sequence to save money. For example, when filming the law office of Mr. Bridge over a single morning, the furniture and Newman's makeup and clothes were changed every hour, as the scenes jumped through spring 1932, autumn 1938, winter 1945, and summer 1938.[6]
Budget constraints also prevented the art department from renting their set dressings, forcing them to rely on loans and donations. Brunschwig & Fils[who?] donated $100,000 worth of fabrics and wallpaper, Glen Raven Mills of North Carolina[who?] donated period awning material, and Benjamin Moore donated 100 gallons of paint. A local law firm lent a dozen Tiffany lamps and paintings by Kansas City artists of the 1930s. Merchant borrowed bridge tables from a local society woman and a desk used by the founder of Hallmark greeting cards from his son, who was the head of the company at the time.[6]
According to production designer David Gropman, the Bridges' home was filled with the personal belongings of the Connell family, with Evan Connell's sister, Barbara Zimmermann, lending all of her porcelain, her whole collection of silver, her Christmas tree ornaments and her coffee urn. A lamp that Evan Connell made as a boy can be seen in the bedroom of Douglas Bridge, while marble bookends that used to belong to Evan Connell's father were used to dress the law office of Mr. Bridge.[6]
Costume designer Carol Ramsey also had to borrow the production's entire wardrobe, including $4,000 of sashes, merit badges, handcarved neckerchief slides and Boy Scout pins from 1938 for Douglas Bridge's Eagle Scout ceremony. The London tailors Gieves & Hawkes agreed to make the entire wardrobe for the film's male characters in return for a screen credit.[6]
A native of Klamath Falls, Oregon, Ivory would tell The New York Times: "The world of Mr. and Mrs. Bridge is the world I grew up in... It's the only film I've ever made that was about my own childhood and adolescence. When we talked about it, that seemed true of Paul and Joanne, too. We talked a lot about manners, about the way things used to be done."[6]
When Ivory was honored by the Houston Cinema Arts Festival in 2014, he presented Mr. & Mrs. Bridge as a personal favorite, adding that it was the one film that he would most like to see reappraised: "It had a wonderful story, great script and fabulous acting. So the fact that it was not as well received as some of the others was disappointing. Maybe there is something inherently depressing for Americans to think about, to look carefully at Mr. and Mrs. Bridge. When it was released we had focus groups after the film. And there was a gap of at least a couple of generations between the audiences and the family Connell had written about. People couldn't understand why Mrs. Bridges was acting the way she did, because they didn't know what American life was like in the 1930s and '40s."[8]
Reception
Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Chicago Reader wrote, "I'm not much of a James Ivory fan, but this 1990 adaptation of Evan S. Connell's novels deserves to be seen and cherished for at least a couple of reasons: first for Joanne Woodward's exquisitely multilayered and nuanced performance, and second for screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's retention of much of the episodic, short-chapter form of the books. It's true that she and Ivory have toned down many of the darker aspects, but as [The Village Voice] critic Georgia Brown has suggested, Woodward's humanization of her character actually improves on the original. Connell's imagination and compassion regarding this character have their limits, and Woodward triumphantly exceeds them."[9]
Vincent Canby of The New York Times praised the film, calling it "a vigorous, witty, satiric attempt to give dramatic shape to two aggressively anti-dramatic prose works". He also commended Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward for "the most adventurous, most stringent performances of their careers", observing that "there is a reserve, humor and desperation in their characterizations that enrich the very self-conscious flatness of the narrative terrain around them".[10]
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward is an American retired actress. She made her career breakthrough in the 1950s and earned esteem and respect playing complex women with a characteristic nuance and depth of character. Her accolades include an Academy Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She is the oldest living Best Actress Oscar-winner.
Merchant Ivory Productions is a film company founded in 1961 by producer Ismail Merchant (1936–2005) and director James Ivory. Merchant and Ivory were life and business partners from 1961 until Merchant's death in 2005. During their time together, they made 44 films. The films were for the most part produced by Merchant and directed by Ivory, and 23 of them were scripted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927–2013) in some capacity. The films were often based upon novels or short stories, particularly the work of Henry James, E. M. Forster, and Jhabvala herself.
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was a British and American novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of film director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant.
Ismail Merchant was an Indian film producer. He worked for many years in collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included film director James Ivory as well as screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
Evan Shelby Connell Jr. was a U.S. novelist, short-story writer, essayist and author of epic historical works. He also published under the name Evan S. Connell Jr.
James Francis Ivory is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. For many years, he worked extensively with Indian film producer Ismail Merchant, his domestic as well as professional partner, and with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. All three were principals in Merchant Ivory Productions, whose films have won seven Academy Awards; Ivory himself has been nominated for four Oscars, winning one.
Shakespeare Wallah is a 1965 Merchant Ivory Productions film. The story and screenplay are by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, about a travelling family theatre troupe of English actors in India, who perform Shakespeare plays in towns across India, amidst a dwindling demand for their work and the rise of Bollywood. Madhur Jaffrey won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival for her performance. The music was composed by Satyajit Ray.
The Remains of the Day is a 1993 drama film adapted from the Booker Prize-winning 1989 novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro. The film was directed by James Ivory, produced by Ismail Merchant, Mike Nichols, and John Calley and adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. It stars Anthony Hopkins as James Stevens and Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton, with James Fox, Christopher Reeve, Hugh Grant, Ben Chaplin, and Lena Headey in supporting roles.
Heat and Dust (1975) is a novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala that won the Booker Prize in 1975. The book was also ranked by The Telegraph in 2014 as one of the 10 all-time greatest Asian novels.
A Room with a View is a 1985 British romance film directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. It is written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who adapted E. M. Forster's 1908 novel A Room with a View. Set in England and Italy, it is about a young woman named Lucy Honeychurch in the final throes of the restrictive and repressed culture of Edwardian England and her developing love for a free-spirited young man, George Emerson. Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench and Simon Callow feature in supporting roles. The film closely follows the novel by the use of chapter titles to distinguish thematic segments.
The Householder is a 1963 film by Merchant Ivory Productions, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory, and direction of James Ivory. It is based upon the 1960 novel of the same name by Jhabvala.
Autobiography of a Princess is a 1975 film directed by James Ivory and starring James Mason and Madhur Jaffrey. It was written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and produced by Ismail Merchant.
The 56th New York Film Critics Circle Awards honored the best filmmaking of 1990. The winners were announced on 18 December 1990 and the awards were given on 13 January 1991.
The Bostonians is a 1984 romantic drama period film directed by James Ivory. The screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is based on the 1886 American novel The Bostonians by Henry James. The film stars Vanessa Redgrave, Christopher Reeve, Madeleine Potter, and Jessica Tandy.
The Europeans is a 1979 British Merchant Ivory film, directed by James Ivory, produced by Ismail Merchant, and with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, based on Henry James's novel The Europeans (1878). It stars Lee Remick, Robin Ellis, Tim Woodward and Lisa Eichhorn. It was the first of Merchant Ivory's triptych of Henry James adaptations. It was followed by The Bostonians in 1984 and The Golden Bowl in 2001.
Donald Rosenfeld is an American film producer who was the president of Merchant Ivory Productions from 1986 through 1998. Rosenfeld was the lead producer on the major Merchant Ivory films created in what is now considered their golden decade. Along with Ismail Merchant, James Ivory and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Rosenfeld worked on the creation of the well-received films Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, Howards End, and The Remains of the Day, among others. Rosenfeld was the youngest producer ever to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1992. He's now the publisher of County Highway, a magazine in the form of a 19th-century newspaper founded by David Samuels and Walter Kirn.
Heat and Dust is a 1983 British historical romantic drama film, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based on her novel, Heat and Dust (1975). It was directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. It stars Greta Scacchi, Shashi Kapoor and Julie Christie.
Melissa Stewart Newman, also known as Lissy Newman, is an American artist, singer and former actress who appeared in the 1990 film Mr. & Mrs. Bridge, and at the 30th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.
The Householder is a 1960 English-language novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. It is about a young man named Prem who has recently moved from the first stage of his life, a student, to the second stage of his life, a householder. The book is a bildungsroman, which is a story where the protagonist develops mind and character as he passes from childhood through various experiences usually through a spiritual crisis into maturity.
Mrs. Bridge is the debut novel by American author Evan S. Connell, published in 1959. In 117 brief episodes, it tells the story of an upper middle-class, bourgeois family in Kansas City in the period between the First and Second World War, mostly from the perspective of the mother, the Mrs. Bridge of the title. Mrs. Bridge and her family are forced to deal with the changing habits and morality of the America of that time, especially in the areas of civil rights and gender equality. The book was followed in 1969 by Mr. Bridge. The two books were adapted for the screen and the resulting film was released as Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990).
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