Daisy Miller (1974) – DVD
***/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras B+
starring Cybill Shepherd, Barry Brown, Mildred Natwick, Eileen Brennan
screenplay by Frederic Raphael, based on the novella by Henry James
directed by Peter Bogdanovich
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Daisy Miller is that rare literary adaptation that improves when considered next to its source. Not content to deliver the consumption porn that would later define Merchant-Ivory and their fellow travellers, director Peter Bogdanovich instead serves up a bittersweet evocation of an oblivious life lost and an all-too-conscious one wasted in check, employing the tools of cinema–not just art direction–to make his aesthetic/emotional case. Here, one feels the pressures of late-19th century mores as they close in on the title character and the civilized restraint that keeps its protagonist from acting on impulse; the costumes and furnishings, though lavish enough, are not the main event. And while the self-contained nature of the piece (endemic to the Henry James source) keeps the film from touching greatness, it's still very sensitive work in a genre that is normally beneath contempt.