Augustus Melmotte is a European-born city financier whose background is as mysterious as his business. Only weeks after his arrival in London, he announced a new venture and promises instant... Read allAugustus Melmotte is a European-born city financier whose background is as mysterious as his business. Only weeks after his arrival in London, he announced a new venture and promises instant fortune.Augustus Melmotte is a European-born city financier whose background is as mysterious as his business. Only weeks after his arrival in London, he announced a new venture and promises instant fortune.
- Won 3 BAFTA Awards
- 7 wins & 12 nominations total
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaMrs. Hurtle indicates that the year is 1870. Trollope did his homework creating the fictional railroad enterprise. In 1870 Salt Lake City had almost three times the population of either Los Angeles or Denver, benefiting from the post-Civil War expansion westward and the booming silver and copper mines in the Intermountain West. Also by 1870 Salt Lake City was connected by rail to the Union Pacific Railroad and other smaller regional lines connecting to the mines. Building a railroad to haul ore from the US Rockies to a Mexican seaport on the Gulf of Mexico and to return with goods, supplies, and homesteaders made commercial sense and could easily have been supported in principle by a US Congress governed by America's Manifest Destiny.
- Quotes
Sir Felix Carbury: I may not be possessed of great wealth or property, but I am a baronet and a gentleman.
Augustus Melmotte: And I'm not, you imply.
Sir Felix Carbury: No! No, that's not what I meant at all!
Augustus Melmotte: I think we understand each other very well. You're to provide the rank and position and I am to provide the money. That's the bargain. I buy my daughter a place in society by paying you to marry her.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Two Loves of Anthony Trollope (2004)
This novel is Trollope's longest, and possibly his most complex. Someone has estimated that there are over 100 named characters, and subplots abound. However, all the plots and subplots involve Augustus Melmotte, a shady character with grandiose schemes. Melmotte has the uncanny ability to make people want to give him money. He wants the money because his goal in life is to be an English gentleman.
If there had been a weak actor playing Augustus Melmotte, the whole movie would have fallen apart. This movie hung together because David Suchet played Melmotte so well. You'll have to see the film to know just how completely Suchet takes over the role of Melmotte.
Most of the supporting cast was at the usual high BBC level. Matthew Macfadyen plays Sir Felix Carbury, the cad, very well. Paloma Baeza plays Hetta Carbury, his lovely sister who is everything Sir Felix is not.
I think that the two weakest actors were Cillian Murphy as Paul Montague, and Miranda Otto as Mrs. Hurtle. Paul Montague is supposed to be the perfect Victorian hero. He's an engineer, and he isn't driven by greed. He's driven by the goal of designing and building the Mexican railroad. (The Mexican railroad is the starting point of Melmotte's rise to financial power.) The problem is that Murphy doesn't look or act the part. His character is not that different--in appearance or manner--from Sir Felix Carbury. They are supposed to be at opposite poles, but they aren't.
Miranda Otto is an Australian actor who has been given the role of an American from Oregon. Otto has a strong Southern US accent, which doesn't work. It's certainly possible that Mrs. Hurtle was originally from the U.S. South, and moved to Oregon. However, her Southern accent doesn't sound right, and it's clear that she is struggling with it whenever she's on screen.
As an interesting side note, Mr. Brehgert, a Jewish banker, is acted by Jim Carter, who plays Carson the butler on Downton Abbey. He's in love with an elegant Englishwoman, and his religion stands in the way of their marriage. His bank lends money to Melmotte. That's another subplot that revolves around the mysterious Augustus Melmotte.
I enjoyed this miniseries, and I recommend it highly. Without Suchet it could have been a failure. With Suchet, it's a triumph. We saw it on the small screen at home, and it worked very well. (There are a few outdoor scenes that would work better in a theater, but most of them are fillers put into the movie to "open it up." The real plots take place indoors, and they work well on DVD.) Seek out this movie and watch it! You'll be glad you did.
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- Дороги, які ми вибираємо
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- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 15 minutes
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- 1.33 : 1