Favorite Characters: Christopher Tietjens (Parade’s End)

Yeah, I’m writing about Parade’s End again.  It was inevitable, and I promise you it won’t be the last time.  Christopher is but one of several tremendous characters that beg to be explored, and I’m sure I’ll find more to gush over when I read the books or the screenplay or see the miniseries again.

 

But today is about Christopher.  You wouldn’t think a stiff, conservative toff who treats his wife like a chore and is tempted to cheat on her would be sympathetic, but my goodness.  Kudos to messrs. Ford, Stoppard, and Cumberbatch for imbuing this character with so much feeling.

 

I’ve already said how I’m taken by the way Christopher loves Sylvia despite himself.  He weathers the storm of her slights and rages, burying the strength of his feelings for her, but you can see them spilling out at every corner.  His expression when he receives a telegram from her after a long separation cuts me; even before he opens the envelope, he finds his defenses melting away.  When she tries to provoke him when other men, he keeps his distance so as not to make a scene, watching in silence and trying not to lose any fragments of his heart.

 

For a repressed, upper-class numbers man, he feels incredibly.  His love for Sylvia’s child, who only might be his as well, outpours to a surprising extent.  When Michael can’t sleep, he quietly sends the nanny out and soothes the boy with a gentle description of his own childhood.  Likewise, his regard for Valentine is monumental.  After meeting her just a few times, this awkward man slides into conversation with her so easily, it’s as if they were lovers in another life.  And yet, from his careful manner with her, you’d think he’s afraid they’ll both combust if their fingers are allowed to touch.

 

This is the most intriguing thing about Christopher.  There are emotional characters and uptight characters, but it’s not often that you see both traits at play in such contradiction between a single one (Randall Brown from The Hour is another terrific example.)  It’s not just that he feels so strongly – it’s that he lives in a society that doesn’t allow him to do so.  Unlike Sylvia, who tears at these confines and displays her feelings freely, Christopher can’t step from the box in which he’s been raised.  He can’t let himself go against what’s expected of him, though his feelings are as acute as hers.  Some people would say Christopher has a martyr complex, and that’s definitely true to an extent, but it always comes across so genuine to me – I think he quite literally doesn’t know how to be anything else.

 

This quality comes to a head during Christopher’s service in World War I.  After his first stint in France, he’s simply unreachable to Sylvia.  He finally opens himself for a moment one restless night, describing the sounds of the different bombs with an unsettling manner that’s somehow frantic and numb at the same time.  Later, in the midst of an air raid with no recourse and the sky falling around him, his act of desperation is to compose a sonnet with end rhymes provided by a fellow soldier.  All that panic and fear, all the wishing and longing and regretting, all the wondering if he’ll withstand the night, and he sublimates it into poetry.  Is it any wonder I like him?

Further thoughts on Parade’s End

bolumrehberi.com

So yesterday was basic plot, pedigree, and production.  Much fannish gushing – good times.  But that doesn’t capture why Parade’s End really grabbed me.  For that, we have to dig deeper into our main characters, Christopher and Sylvia.

 

Christopher is a good man; every character says so.  He’s courteous to his servants and generous with his friends.  He genuinely loves a child that may not be his, and he stands by his wife through all her scandalous behavior.  He’s the sainted Last Good Man in England.  But he’s also stilted and priggish, and his unshakeable convictions make other people feel inferior.  He has an utterly-British stiff upper lip, and he puts convention and duty over the needs of his heart.  

 

The last point is where Christopher really gets me.  For all his stiffness, he’s incredibly soulful.  Benedict Cumberbatch is superb.  Christopher’s emotions are always just barely peeking through his mask of English propriety.  The façade drops occasionally, but there’s so much he destroys himself to keep buried.  Look no further than his love for Valentine:  here’s a man starved for kindness, badly in need of one who understands him, and here’s a young woman to give him all that.  But that Just Isn’t Done, so he denies himself, and his desire lives only in his eyes.

 

If Christopher comes across as cold, Sylvia is like fire.  Social chatter has painted her as “the whore” since before her marriage, and she chafes under the judgment she perceives in Christopher’s goodness.  She rages at him, misbehaves at parties, and acquires broken hearts wherever she goes, playing the part she’s been assigned in the court of public opinion.  

 

On paper, she should be the unlikeable side of the triangle to make you root for Christopher and Valentine, but I find her so compelling and sympathetic.  Though I’ve seen Rebecca Hall in other films, she captivates me here.  Christopher’s not the only one who hides his emotions; while Sylvia isn’t so carefully controlled, her theatricality and audaciousness disguises her true feelings by a showy sleight of hand.  She goes to extraordinary lengths to keep from seeming vulnerable.

 

The thing is, they do love each other.  It’s true Sylvia’s been unfaithful, but much of her behavior is purely for show.  It’s Christopher she dwells on, Christopher she wants to move.  And just look at Christopher’s face when he gets a letter saying she’s ready to come home.  Never mind reading it – her handwriting is enough to wreck him.  

 

Their fatal flaw is that neither can give the other what they need.  Sylvia needs passion – someone who’ll roil at her behavior and jealously confront any romantic rival.  She acts out in an attempt to kindle Christopher’s passion, but he loves her by taking her exploits in stride and not making a scene.  And of course, her fiery approach to marriage isn’t at all what Christopher needs.  He needs someone who can see beneath the mask without him having to say anything.  

 

I’m not a love-triangle person by any stretch, but the entanglements here are so rich.  Obviously, Christopher and Valentine are set up as the better match, and I love them together, but I’m also so drawn to the painful love between Christopher and Sylvia.  Throughout, I didn’t know if I wanted Christopher to settle down with his kind little friend, or if I wanted Christopher and Sylvia to find a way to truly connect and actually show the love they felt.  Just beautifully done.

Parade’s End (2012)

nytimes.com

Okay, so this BBC/HBO miniseries bowled me over.  I watched it over five evenings, and each night I went to bed with my eyes welling up in the best possible way.  Throughout my week of viewing, it was never far from my thoughts, and once it ended, I had to fight to impulse to immediately rewatch it, buy the screenplay, and rush to the library for the books it’s based on.

 

The miniseries is based on the Ford Madox Ford tetrad of the same name, condensed into five hours.  Despite the fact that it’s set in England before, during, and after World War I and deals heavily with love and the aristocracy’s swan song, a certain popular British series couldn’t be further from it in tone and quality.  As such, said series will remained unnamed in this review.

 

Our main focus is on the unhappy marriage between Christopher and Sylvia Tietjens.  Their union has never been warm or healthy – the brilliant, stiff Christopher married the vivacious, volatile Sylvia after she became pregnant, and neither of them is entirely sure if the child is his.  However, Sylvia was “forgiven without mercy” for her unfaithfulness, and Christopher has spent the ensuing years being polite and dutiful but cold to her.

 

Sylvia’s attempts to provoke a reaction, any reaction, from Christopher go as far as running away with another man.  While she is “abroad” (the preferred explanatory euphemism,) Christopher meets Valentine, a sweet, intelligent suffragette with whom he feels a near-instant affinity.  They fall into conversation with almost intimate ease, but since it’s only episode 1 and there are five hours to contend with, it can’t be as simple as that.  Christopher is an old-fashioned man with firmly-held values, and he won’t cheat on or divorce his wife, despite her own infidelity.

 

What follows is an epic, complex tale that dances over the lines between love and hate, duty and sacrifice, conviction and foolishness.  We see the quiet beauty of stolen moments in the fog, the arch whispers of drawing-room gossip, and the nerve-shattering chaos of the trenches.  Wars are fought with words and artillery in bedrooms and on battlefields.  The love story is messy and winding, with enough longing to rival Persuasion, Sunday in the Park with George, and In the Mood for Love combined (I’ve had Sunday practically on a loop since I started watching.)

 

It’s a “talkie” of a series, lovingly laced with Tom Stoppard-penned dialogue that is by turns witty, earnest, insightful, and aching.  The lavish production values, coupled with Susanna White’s artful direction, make it a visual feast.  It’s like a sublime fusion of a poem and a painting.  I can’t say enough about Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall as Christopher and Sylvia, and the rest of the cast is populated with splendid performances by fine actors (highlights include Miranda Richardson, Janet McTeer, Roger Allam, and Anne-Marie Duff.)

 

Come back tomorrow for more on Parade’s End, specifically on the main characters and their relationship – one measly review just can’t cover it.

 

Warnings

 

Sexual content, including a few sex scenes and some nudity (although not nearly as much as you’d expect from HBO,) a little swearing, drinking, smoking, and war violence.