At last! I saw it today! – My impressions on 'Maurice' *SPOILER?*

Don't worry, you weren't too harsh! Maybe you're right about Hugh, I recall he said something about not being able to emote on screen. I wasn't actually a fan of his-before I saw this film that is! I just really felt for Clive. I understood that Forster meant for us to hate him, and I really did feel he was a bit of a coward after he finished his affair with Maurice, but I think he genuinely had feelings for him. I think that he was an idealist at university, possibly under Viscount Risley's influence, and that after leaving he had to slowly face up to the fact that he was responsible for Pendersleigh and his late father's county seat. So he probably became the realist to Maurice's romantic because of this. I think it's sad that he was denied a future with Maurice because his future as the heir to Pendersleigh had already been mapped out for him and he was under pressure as the only son, and unmarried , member of the family to accept his fate. After all, I know it's shallow to put your inheritance and your career before being true to yourself, but I understand why he did it. After all, he had more to lose than Scudder, and possibly Maurice as well. Also, it's not as if it was an easy decision to make-didn't he have some sort of a breakdown prior to it? And he was running scared because of what happened to Viscount Risley. It is quite sad that he eventually became everything he always despised though. But then, wasn't it society and the law's fault that Clive had to choose between coming out as gay or living a (very comfortable and wealthy) lie in the first place? They'd probably face years apart in jail if they were ever caught, they'd be stripped of their possessions etc. So he wouldn't necessarily be happy anyway. The final scene is sad for the reasons you state-Maurice is free, but because he was under pressure and running scared, Clive chose to live a lie, locking his true self away because he made (possibly) the wrong decision. His life is safe, but unfulfilling. That said, I don't think he didn't love his wife-it states in the book that he does, I'm sure. As for the British and their repressed emotions, I can definitely attest to that being true, in my case anyway! Anyway, I think it's to Grant's credit that I sympathised with his character. He made the transition from freespirited, sweet college boy to uptight and judgmental country squire quite well, in my opinion.

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Oh, indeed Clive loved Maurice until the end. Alas in the end Maurice was the strong one. The scene when he kisses Maurice’s hand and says he has not forgotten is telling. However in the film Mr. Ivory cuts short Clive and Maurice’s final contact. In the novel Clive’s last words to Maurice are an invitation to supper the following week. Clive did not want the relationship to completely end. He was someone who knew Clive more intimately than anyone else and in a way that comforted him. He plainly did not want Maurice out of his life. “Those were his last words, because Maurice had disappeared thereabouts, leaving no trace of his presence except a little pile of the petals of the evening primrose, which mourned from the ground like an expiring fire. To the end of his life Clive was not sure of the exact moment of departure, and with the approach of old age he grew uncertain whether the moment had yet occurred.”

I was extremely happy to see on the DVD deleted scenes that Clive and Maurice’s last interaction was shot exactly as in the book. I completely concur in context of the film it would be too unrealistic for Maurice to articulate so forcefully his sudden clarity of vision. However, in my heart of heart I wish the line, “I was yours once till death if you cared to keep me,” could have been include somehow. Out of the entire book that’s the passage that resonated with me.

On a side note the character of Clive is not antiquated. No indeed, once I was in love with a hockey player (now married) who just about verbatim said the same speech Clive recites, “Maurice, Maurice, I care a little bit for you, you know.” The fellow was extremely passionate and definitely in love but could not deal with the repercussions of his family and ancestry to be with me.

I am exuberant to see discussion on this film. I adore it. It holds a special place in my heart because it did change my life. When “Maurice” was released I was 16 and completely uncomfortable with my sexuality. The late 80s was full of messages of suffering and death regarding gay life; whose cautionary tale I heeded. Then here’s a film where boy got boy and the motivating factor was love. To take a line from another Merchant/Ivory masterpiece, A Room With A View, “there’s a yes and a yes and a yes!” What solace! The imagery validated the hopes I had for my existence and forever changed my life view.

I wanted to comment on an aspect of the Maurice and Clive relationship that I've always felt to be the case. It has to do with something that Molassesonassis pointed out, and he's absolutely right. The only thing even passingly antiquated about Clive's character is the vehicle through which it manifests itself, that is, the pretense of upper-class, Edwardian ennui he uses to intellectualize his attachment to Maurice. And people still justify their more 'deviant' desires by dressing them up as indications of their own comparatively deeper, more-worldly-than-thou natures, although today it I think tends to hold a lot less water than it would have then, when you really couldn't be gay. Clive is proof of the old wisdom that says it's a good thing to be in love with somebody who loves YOU a little more. He's never put in a position where he really has to reveal much, because Maurice is constantly giving it away, so to speak. Through the mincing apologies and ill-concealed hurt-feelings that occur whenever he gets too close, he gives Clive all the power. He's is in love with him, of course, and is hyper-wary about what exposure would mean, but the most crucial thing that I found to be underscoring Clive's character and the choices he makes is simply that Maurice has unwittingly created a dynamic that allows him maximum satisfaction with minimum input, and that kind of relationship is as current as it ever was, we just call it co-dependancy now.

Something else worth noting is the novels take on the influence of class-structure. It's obviously a central theme in the Maurice/Alec relationship, but what is much more subtle is that a parallel is found between Maurice and and Clive. They are NOT from exactly the same class. Maurice belongs to what you might call the merchant class, Clive is landed gentry, which would have been a world of difference. It's the nature of the bourgeoise to create a million little distinctions, and Maurice would have been raised to be at least somewhat reverent of and intimidated by Clive. This I think is largely responsible for the undesirable position he finds himself in later. The ultimate triumph of Maurice's character comes at the end, when he realizes he has an opportunity to put Alec in essentially the same situation, and chooses not to.

"Gregariousness is the death of art." -Truman Capote

Sure Rupert is hot! One of my faves! And since "Alexander" I also like Colin Farrell. But not as much as Rupert

I would take into account two left hands if I could only mend your heart.

How wonderful to read about all your impressions of this movie!

Being a product of times that had more in common with the Edwardian Age than today, at least as far as the treatment of gay people goes anyway. I grew up in the fifties and sixties, finishing high school in 1970 when the gay rights movement began and when homosexuality considered to be a mental disease ended. Back then not only was it still illegal in most places to even BE gay, we were never ever mentioned in movies, books (except those by gay authors), tv shows, plays, anything anywhere except in a derogatory and demeaning way. The "fag" always died.
"Maurice" was so important in so many ways. It was I believe,the first major release of a (sort of) big budget film that portrayed gay men in a sympathetic light. This was huge in 1987. I saw the film in a theater in NYC that was packed to the last seat. One middle aged man/woman couple did get up and leave after it became clear what the subject of the film was...I assume that was the reason but they may have forgotten to put money in the parking meter...who knows! The rest of the what looked to be majority gay male audience stayed and watched even the credits, applauding like mad at the ending. I had to remain in my seat and compose my(at the time love starved)self, I was so moved and did not want to walk out into the daylight with a tearstained face. There was another huge line of people waiting to get into the next showing too.
In the horrible eighties, the gay community needed a beautiful, romantic, escapist movie like this...reality at the time was almost just too hard to bear.
Im am glad that it still has an impact, even if only as a quaint costume story.

I don't think that Forster's intensions were for us to hate Clive, that is much too strong an emotion. After all Forster himself was upperclass and remained self-repressed sexually until he was 26. I think we are supposed to pity Clive instead for being caught in that trap of living as others expect us to live. There are some informative notes Forster wrote in 1960 (included in the Penguin paperback edition) in which he talks about who the characters represent. He also says that in response to pressure he once wrote an epilogue in which Maurice's sister Kitty runs into two woodsmen years later, but he decided that epilogues are only for Tolstoy and deleted that version.
Interestingly, the novel though written in 1913-1914 was not published until after his death in 1970.

Hi there, I have just sent you a private message to the email address that you have registered here, if yoiu have msn, i also have that and I would like to chat.

Regards

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