The second episode of Birdsong just aired on PBS Masterpiece Classic. If you missed the series, you can watch both episodes online at this link through May 29th. I urge you to watch it. This is not a review of the show, simply my reaction to it, as I don’t want to reveal too much of the plot.
Eddie Redmayne and Clemency Poesy as the star crossed lovers
Eddie Redmayne is perfect as Stephen Wraysford. He effectively portrays Stephen as a boyish man when he meets Isabelle (Clemency Poesy), and grows up in front of our eyes as he experiences heartbreak and the horrors of war. The final scene had me reaching for yet another hanky.
Even on the battlefield, Stephen's thoughts are not far from Isabelle
Clemency Poesy is simply splendid in the part of the unhappy wife who turns to Stephen for love and comfort, and so was Joseph Mawle as Jack Firebrace.
Clemency Poesy as Isabelle
I have read a number of accounts of the Somme offensive, all of them horrifying. This film does justice to the young men who lost their lives in what can only be described as a scene from hell. At first I wasn’t sure that I would like the frequent cutting back and forth from the battle scenes to Stephen’s memories of his love affair with Isabelle at Amiens, when the countryside looked beautiful and pristine, but now I think the director and writer made the right choice.
Had we watched the story unfold chronologically, the unrelentingly harsh scenes in the trenches and on the battlefields would have worn me down. Just when the story became too emotionally raw for me to take in, the scene would shift to a softer, more romantic time, when Stephen’s life was starting out and he was filled with hope and ambition. There were perhaps a few missteps when the scene would cut away abruptly, but overall I began to see and look forward to the visual and emotional rhythms that this technique created. Life in the trenches was gray and dull and beige. Life with Isabelle was filled with sunshine, lush interiors, birdsong, and green leafy trees.
Eddie Redmayne portrayed Angel Clare in Tess of the d’Urbervilles. His face, with its unique bone structure, is as sensitive as James Dean’s. Coming off his acting stints in My Week With Marilyn, Pillars of the Earth, and his current role as Marius Pontmercy in Les Miserables, I have no doubt we will see him in many more films in the future.
The relationship between Jack Firebrace (Joseph Mawle) and Stephen Wraysford is as important as Stephen's with Isabelle.
As an aside, I urge those of you who enjoy these great PBS offerings to support your local PBS stations now that their funding has been greatly reduced. I was so sad to hear that the NEA sharply cut its funding for PBS. If you enjoy Masterpiece Classic and Masterpiece Mystery, and all the great arts specials, then we must individually step up to the plate and support PBS. Thank you for reading my rant. (And, no, I was not paid to make it! :))
An emotional scene after the Battle of the Somme was when the names of the men of one unit who had gone into battle were called. Only one replied.
Jane Austen's World 
I agree with your review and have enjoyed Masterpiece’s adaptation. The Battle of the Somme and the work by miners in the tunnels was painful, in the least, to watch onscreen. If you have not read Sebastian Faulk’s novel, I suggest you do. Like this film, it was written in an eposidic style and is honest and brutal in its depiction of trench and tunnel warfare.
Thank you for you clear impressions. I agree. I had loved this book….loved it, and was so grateful that Masterpiece made it because, odds are, it would be made right. Bird Song was exquisite, beautifully cast, directed and edited. Yes, it is so important for all of us to support PBS. We are so lucky to be able to see good drama, hear wonderful language and experience works of value.
I, too, must agree with your assessment. To be honest, I loved it then hated it (being a romantic at heart, I wanted a happy ending for Stephen and Isabelle). But I have found my thoughts wandering back to the beauty and power of the story and the visual images juxtaposed therein. In the final analysis, I loved it.
Vic,
This is a rare time when I disagree with you. I found it difficult to watch and very slow and predictable. There was not chemistry between the so called romantic leads. I turned it off and kept trying it again but couldn’t watch either episode in its entirety. The scene with the drunk saved from jumping off the balcony was so slow and trite.
Patty, I understand. People either loved or hated the show, and critics were sharply divided. Some viewers could not see the chemistry between the lovers, but I liked the restrained quality. I had to start watching this presentation twice, which is one of the reasons why I placed the post on my blog so late. But then, when I became involved with the story, I couldn’t wait to see how things would turn out. Eddie Redmayne grew on me, and I was thankful that the harsh battle scenes were softened with the beautiful, almost elegiac score. I have not read the book, which I suspect helped me to appreciate the film for what it is.
Anglophile. I think you are under a misunderstanding.
“and was so grateful that Masterpiece made it.”
All these programmes, Jane Austen, Downton Abbey, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Birdsong and many more are made by the BBC and sold to Masterpiece Classics. They are made here in England. Masterpiece Classics might employ an editor to redit some of them to fit your time and advertising schedules.
As for Birdsong by Sebastian Faulkes, the novel is worth reading. It gives a very good background to the First World war and can inspire further delving and research. The programme I thought was done well. Some of the battle field scenes were harrowing. The love scenes between Isabelle and Stephen were hot!!! Stephens reserve at the start of their relationship was probably not muted enough for a real portrayal of 1914. People would have been even more reserved and formal at first.
Superbly done rendering of the period and the book, BIRDSONG gives us also an introduction to what is becoming the 100th anniversary of the beginning of “the war to end all wars.” Seeing the carnage of the battle of the Somme, et al, we know this World War should horrified us enough.
Thank you for your comments and the photos.
I really liked this series when I saw it on BBC and I hope I will find the time to read Sebastian Faulks’s novel next summer. I’m working on the War Poets from WWI these days and reading their poems and pages from Pat Barker’s Regeneration. I’d like to work on Birdsong with my students next year. Thanks for sharing, Vic.
My father left Oak Park Illinois at age twenty and joined the French Ambulance Corps..Until the end of his life at seventy-five, he awoke screaming almost every night in remembrance of what he saw in the trenches.An entire generation of fine men was lost……the best of the best. Honor, country and duty was everything then……worth the enormous sacrifice. How little these men count now in this selfish world…..Virginia McMillan
Can’t take the battle scenes.
God bless our vets.
I’d like to watch this one! I am a great fan of Eddie :)