by Adam Ferenz
This BBC landmark, based on the books by John Galsworthy, debuted in 1967 on BBC2, then a fledgling network, and was repeated, almost immediately, on BBC1, to increased ratings and continued acclaim, despite the shift to color. The series also found success as an import, presaging such works as Upstairs, Downstairs and Downtown Abbey. This was not just a massive commercial and critical hit, it cemented the BBC, particularly in the minds of US audiences, as the place for quality “highbrow” adaptations. That the series mostly still works is testament to the energy and conviction with which it was made. The parts that do not work, unfortunately, mar it enough to bear consideration.
Before continuing, the series has one of the most argued scenes in the annals of television, and that is the family scion Soames’s rape of his wife Irene after she refuses her husband’s advances for years on end, while carrying on an affair with another man. This rape, which is brutal, forms the backbone of much of the series moving forward, yet-realistically, given the times in which the story is set-Soames is never brought to justice. Instead, and somewhat unsettlingly, Soames becomes a figure of fun, and a curmudgeon the audience can identify with. It is difficult to describe how viewing this makes one feel since everyone will have different readings of the appropriateness of redeeming rapists. Yet, it is a cloud that hangs over the series. It does not, however, diminish the fine acting or storytelling otherwise found in this landmark work.
The series, of course, is about the changing circumstances of the Forsyte clan, and how the generations view one another. It is about the world around them becoming industrialized and how the end of the old ways of aristocracy and the new ways of pure capitalism intersect. It is, of course, also largely a soap opera, with plenty of affairs, failed romances, deaths and mysteries. Yet, it contains some humor, enough to ease what could become dreary proceedings. Much of this, in later episodes, is found with Soames, who seems to have both adapted well to a world of automobiles and telephones but still can’t grasp or manage blowing up a balloon.
While the series moves toward this, Irene becomes involved with Young Jolyon, the younger cousin of Soames, an artist who is a bit of an outcast among his wealthy family members. Irene eventually marries Jolyon, but also becomes friends with Old Jolyon, who upon his death, leaves her a fortune and his house, a house which Soames had originally intended to live in with Irene. Jolyon, and Irene have a son, Jon, and Soames, remarried, a daughter, named Fleur, who turns out to be a bit too much like her father in his younger days. She is prideful, vain, petty and grasping. Eventually she breaks Jon’s heart and marries another, for money and prestige, leaving her father alone. She was, of course, the only person he ever loved selflessly. Irene, now a widow, sells the house, and makes an uneasy peace with Soames. The family is shattered, thrown to the winds. Still wealthy, but no longer together, a result of their inability to reconcile a changing world with personal desires or convictions.
There is, of course, so much more to the story than this. Including the reason why the series was shot in black in white, which is because the producers could have waited for color, but had they done that, the cast they secured could not have remained intact. The choice to proceed in Black and White proved a fortuitous one. Each actor came to embody the character they played, and contributed no small measure in the success of the program artistically and commercially. Where some series are about the look of the production, this one is about the feel, and much of that is due to the faces they assembled, each of which seemed born to their role. While the series is of its time, it is also, somewhat, timeless, in that it retains a power to entertain and compel audiences to get swept up in its story.
The way the series shows generational guilt, malice and even, in some respects, elements of fate, is a thing of beauty, which would perhaps be more stunning if not for the matter of the aforementioned rape, which does affect ones views on Soames, who emerges, after initially seeming to be a story about Irene, or Jolyon, or the family itself, as the series defacto lead. Regardless of the issues raised here, the series remains not only a landmark but a worthy viewing experience that is historically and artistically important to the annals of television history.