Brother Cadfael: A Morbid Taste for Bones
cheap videos, movies for sale
|
 |
List Price: $19.95
Features
• Closed-captioned
• Color
• NTSC
In Theaters : 12 January, 1995
Video Release : 11 September, 1999 |
| [ + Zoom ] [ Buy Now ] |
Video : This item is currently not available. |
|
Brother Cadfael: A Morbid Taste for Bones Customer Reviews
|
|
|
|
♥♥♥♥♥
|
A Truly Rare Benedictine.
|
When the decision was made to produce for TV several episodes from her mystery series about Brother Cadfael, that 12th century crusader turned herbalist monk turned detective who has been, ever since his creation, one of the most compassionate and unusual sleuths of literary history, novelist Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) was not entirely happy. In fact, according to this series's star, Sir Derek Jacobi, Ms. Peters had very mixed feelings about giving up her brain child and entrusting it to other people who went about cutting and adjusting everything, from the storylines themselves to the way the protagonists speak and even the sequence of the stories, to the necessities and limitations set by the new medium. But she eventually acquiesced and at one point promised that "the next one I write, I'll make sure it's easier for you all to film."
While the thirteen episodes that were eventually produced are, thus, not entirely true to the individual Chronicles they are based on - and "A Morbid Taste for Bones" certainly is no exception in that respect - they are closer than many other movie or TV versions of famous works of literature. Most importantly, they maintain not only the core storylines but also the historical authenticity, atmosphere and spirit set by Ms. Peters's books in a marvelous fashion; portraying, like the novels, vividly and with great care for detail medieval monastic life as well as a society caught in the middle of a civil war (that between Empress Maud and King Stephen for the throne of England), with shifting allegiances, intrigue, favoritism and again and again, innocent victims caught between the front lines. And Sir Derek Jacobi brings both the wealth of his experience and skill and all of his own shrewdness, intelligence, sense of humor and empathy to the role of the medieval Benedictine sleuth and thus truly becomes Cadfael - for the thousands of new fans who are discovering the series through its enactment for TV just as much as for us who loved the books before they were ever transposed to a visual medium: Due to his experiences as a crusader endowed with a keen sense of reality, a certain world-weariness and a deep sense of morality alike, he not only understands the letter of the law (both divine and worldly) but more importantly, also the deeper implications of the same, and always finds a way to apply the church's teachings in a truly Solomonic manner, and to arrive at solutions that are as just as they are compassionate and pragmatic. - A tremendous cast of supporting actors rounds out an overall excellent production; to mention just a few, Julian Firth as the ambitious and narrow-minded Brother Jerome and Terrence Hardiman as Abbot Radolfus (as well as, in other installments of the series, Sean Pertwee and later Eoin McCarthy as Under-Sheriff Hugh Beringar, who joins Cadfael in his investigations whenever, as is so often the case, these transcend the world of monastic life and require the administration of secular justice as well as clerical insight).
"A Morbid Taste for Bones" is actually the first Chronicle of Brother Cadfael; the TV adaptation, however, is set somewhere between "The Virgin in the Ice" (the sixth Chronicle, which brings some unexpected insights into Cadfael's past), "The Devil's Novice" (the eighth Chronicle), "The Raven in the Foregate" (the twelfth Chronicle) and "The Rose Rent" (the thirteenth Chronicle).
The story opens with a number of visions experienced by young Brother Columbanus (Nick Patrick), who claims to have had encounters with St. Winifred, in her earthly life a girl from a remote Welsh village decapitated by an evil-spirited nobleman. The saint, Brother Columbanus claims, has told him that she is unhappy with the lack of care and dedication her grave receives from the local village folk, and wishes to be relocated nowhere else but to Shrewsbury's very own Saint Peter and Saint Paul. After a heated discussion over the appropriateness and dangers of such an excursion, the monks decide to mount an expedition to Wales to save the maiden saint's bones. Predictably, they are anything but welcome - not only are they emissaries from an English abbey, which in itself would be bad enough already; they also seek to take what village folk consider their greatest treasure and, more importantly, the village's holy protectress. When wealthy squire Lord Rhysart (John Hallam), who has led the village in opposing the monks' mission, is found murdered, they quickly find themselves implicated. Cadfael, of Welsh descendance himself but now part of a mission from an English abbey, ends up between all lines of allegiance in trying to find Rhysart's murderer; but find the murderer he must, to ensure the success of his brothers' mission and their safe return home. And more than ever, it takes all his world-wisdom *and* all his understanding of the divine to unravel the mystery. |
|
Brother Cadfael: A Morbid Taste for Bones movies, videos.