Film Review: Savage House

 I was compelled to see Savage House at the cinema because I think The Favourite was the last time a proper eighteenth-century ‘thing’ was on the big screen. The trailer was certainly very striking, all grime, bad make-up and Richard E Grant in a seriously big wig. It’s an accurate trailer, it sets up pretty much the whole plot (the Devonshires plan to visit a low-scramble noble family) and it conveyed the tone well.

Savage House is clearly in dialogue with Downtown Abbey and The Crown, especially by hiring Claire Foy. As Lady Savage, she’s a sharp, witty and peculiarly layered character, someone who chose the unsettled and uncertain marriage to Chauncey because it seemed more fun than being “a rug on the drawing room floor.” She also gets her bum licked - I’ve never actually seen The Crown but I don’t think her Maj was depicted doing that. 

Richard E Grant is having a ball as Sir Chauncey Savage, a poor Welshman who has conned, tricked and married his way into the nobility but is always aware that he can never carry the air of nobility, no matter how tall his wig. Chauncey starts off the film with hideous bleeding gums and degenerates from there; his gout flairs up, he fights a duel and gets a gangrenous arm that needs removing. He’s clearly a piece of work, but he’d oddly sympathetic in his desperation, seeing hallucinatory pigs wandering the corridors, reminding him of his past.

They have three servants at first, a cook, a maid and a valet. The maid, played by Bel Powling, lends Sir Chauncey a sympathetic ear and willing thighs, but is secretly plotting with the valet to steal as much as possible. She also has a vendetta against the Savage’s daughter’s pet mice. The valet, called Reginald Halifax, is played by Jack Farthing - a pretty great name for an eighteenth century character in itself. He’s a highwayman, a skilled duelist and Sir Chauncey’s best friend. So, of course they find themselves in a duel - with all the characters bribing him to either kill or spare Sir Chauncey.

There are a number of other characters, emergency servants, nosy neighbours (of course called the Bennetts) and bilked business partners. They are all broadly drawn, and exists to pull the Savages further down into the abyss as they try and keep up appearances.

One of the interesting elements of the film is how it uses historical fiction cliches. There are the beauty shots of the great house, which is falling to pieces and tracking shots down long galleries with missing pictures. The film starts with some obligatory harpsichord and occasional bursts of familiar classic opera themes, but for much of the middle of the film the soundtrack consists of anxious drones and hums. As the film progresses, the tension about the oncoming visit of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire grows, until it becomes a source of tension for the audience. Even the dramatic events in the film pale in comparison to this possible dinner party.

The film shows a nobility as ungracious and disgusting as we suspect they probably are, this is no heritage depiction of the ‘stately homes of England’. However, it does fall into many anti-cliches, with people treading in animal dung, gout and leeches, full chamberpots - it’s a very Horrible Histories take on ‘Gorgeous Georgians”. 

As for the history itself, there are great mentions of pox, Jacobites and an eclipse. The pox is treated like covid, with people self isolating. I think they probably meant plague more than pox, as pox is generally meant to represent venereal disease, definitely a problem but not something with a season. There really was an eclipse in 1715 and there were pamphlets about its cosmological and prognostic effects, but there were also detailed predictions by former astronomer royal, Edmund Halley, which the Savage’s daughter, Fanny, recites. 

As for Jacobites, the ’15 rebellion had been a pretty damp squib (especially compared to the later ’45). Sir Chauncey is a whig, supportive of the new German King, as opposed to his neighbours, the Bennett, who declare their support for the Stuarts. Their reasons are because they don’t want a German and find his name to be weak, definitely a comment on the weaksauce political discussions we have nowadays. Jacobites themselves are represented as a different breed, an illness like the pox, which sneaks into the house.

I think the most interesting element of the film is the narration. Despite the very filmic shots and lighting (actual lighting! Real locations!) the cinematic nature of Savage House is undermined by the narration, but its eighteenth-century-ness is bumped up by it. The narration is a little too obvious, we are frequently told about things we can see, it has a slight whiff of ‘second screen viewing’ to it. We can see there are pictures missing and that they are buying replacements, we can see that Lady Savage is selling her jewels, we can see that the family are walking a risky tightrope. The moral of the piece is as blatant as obvious as much of the narration, it turns out that sacrificing everything to the possibility of social clout is a bad idea. However, this is not a “Rake’s Progress” or a moral tale, it’s doing what much Grub Street stuff did, pretending to hold a moral tale so the reader/audience can enjoy the humiliation of the main characters. This makes Savage House very eighteenth century and very Grub Street. I can’t imagine the audience for this film though.  

The Guardian 100 Best Novels of all Time

 The Guardian recently(ish) published a list of ‘The 100 Best Novels’. The way they compiled it was quite interesting, they asked 170 writers and literary types to list their top ten novels and then assigned the ranking by how many times they appeared on these authors lists, weighted by how high the person had listed them.

Of course these lists aren’t worth taking seriously, but they are fun for a bit of a chat.. which I will now do.
The eighteenth century is not highly represented. Poor ol’ Defoe, sometimes called ‘father of the novel’ doesn’t get a mention. Nor did Eliza Haywood or Samuel Richardson. My personal favourite novel, Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones doesn’t make the list either. Jane Austen has four, but she’s more long-eighteenth century. The only actual eighteenth century book represented is The Lives and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, which got into the top twenty, with seventeen of the writers putting it on their list.

One of the things most fascinating about the list is to look at who voted for a book, and also to look at their lists to see what else they picked. Jennifer Egan, writer of Visit from the Goon Squad puts Tristram Shandy as her 9th pick and actually has Clarissa as her third, I presume not many others picked it. Nina Stibb put it 5th (and put Ducks, Newburyport as her first, she’s obviously a bit of a masochist). Sandra Newman, the author of Julia, a retelling of 1984, puts Tristram Shandy as her first, many of the other authors had it between 5th and 8th. The editor of The Scotsman put it at 2. 

The overall winner is Middlemarch, and it seems by quite a high margin, with a third of the people asked putting it on their list, many in the top 5. There’s been a mini outcry about it, with some people claiming to have not even heard of it. To be honest, it makes sense to me, and it also makes sense why Tristram Shandy does so well against its eighteenth century brothers and sisters - this is a list created by writers.

Middlemarch is not quite the page-turner, but it is truly experimental, telling the reader off for becoming too invested in any particular character over an investment in the general network of people. Although Middlemarch’s writing is not as experimental and flashy as Tristram Shandy, its purpose is far more daring. The books on this list are ones enjoyed by people who have read many books and written a few, they want things that go off the beaten path and succeed - they are after something a bit odder, possibly less satisfying but more challenging than the average. 

I enjoyed the list, I’ve read 39 of them, and all but 1 of the top 20. Of course I’d have loved Tom Jones to have got in, had Catch 22 do much better and In Search of Lost Time do much worse, but I like the idiosyncrasies of this list, 3 Sebalds, 4 Austens, reams of Woolf. It’s a strange list.