A Doll's House (1959) [VHS]

A Doll's House (1959) [VHS]
by Patrick Garland

A Doll's House (1959) [VHS]

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Product details

Actor: Anthony Hopkins, Claire Bloom, Denholm Elliott, Edith Evans, Ralph Richardson
Director: Patrick Garland
Edition: VHS Tape
Format: Black & White, NTSC
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Publisher: MGM/Ua Studios
Studio: MGM/Ua Studios

VHS Movie Reviews of A Doll's House (1959) [VHS]

Movie Review: Courageous But Clueless.
Summary: 1 Stars

This movie version of Henrik Ibsen's world-famous play, "A Doll's House," is well done; the acting, directing, photography, etc. are fine. What I find disappointing is the "message" contained in "A Doll's House."

Nora, a trophy wife, realizes that she's being treated like a child by her husband (a doll living in a doll's house) and she rebels, liberates herself as a woman. ... Ok, got it. But is that all there is to the story? That premise may have been controversial back in 1879 when Ibsen wrote "A Doll's House," but today it's hardly controversial at all.

Nora questions her role as a women, questions what her husband and what society in general expects from her as a female, but she in no way questions the *class structure* of the society in which she lives. Nora leaves her husband and strikes out on her own; but here's the question Ibsen's doesn't answer ...

Once Nora is on her own, will she go beyond mere gender politics and question a class structure that unduly rewards the economic elite while at the same time systematically exploits the general population?

None of that troubles Nora's classless view of the world. Her consciousness as a woman is raised, but what about her consciousness as a full member of society. Meaning: as a liberated woman, will she continue to ignore, as she most certainly did as a trophy wife, the brutish, exploitive, dehumanizing nature of market-oriented class relationships.

Like a great many modern-day women, Nora may declare herself a feminist but, still the same, she's not quite ready to give up her credit card at Bloomingdale's, thank-you-very-much.

I don't mean to be unduly harsh on Nora. After all, she made a, you'll excuse the expression, seminal decision leaving her husband; thumbing her nose at him and at society if they don't like "The New Woman" she's determined to become. That's no mean accomplishment on her part. She should be admired for her guts. But what are Nora's/Ibsen's feelings about *class* politics, not just gender politics? We don't have a clue, do we?

What about, for example, the plight of the servants in the story? They live in the doll's house, too, don't they? What about the plight of the poor? Shouldn't it occur to the audience to ask: What will Nora do, economically-speaking, once she leaves her husband? What kind of work is available to her? What kind of work is available to a woman with limited marketable skills -- especially back in 1897 when Ibsen wrote "A Doll's House"?

This never occurred to him?

Or, rather, did it occur to him but he demurred, realizing that tackling *that* subject would really get him in trouble!

The play could have *started* at the point where Nora leaves her husband; then we would have seen not just a liberated feminist dealing with the world around her but also a female *worker* struggling with a system that not only exploits workers in general but is especially hard on minimally-marketable female employees.

Will Nora marry another man after she leaves her husband? If so, will she marry into the same upper-class lifestyle that she just left? That's a rather crucial question, isn't it? But it's a question Ibsen doesn't bother to answer.

Nora questions "her-role-as-a-woman" -- good -- but she doesn't question a society where wealth is polarized, empire revered, and where to support and protect the polarization of wealth and the prerogatives of empire the social, political, and economic deck is stacked against not just women but against all classes other than the wealthy? ... Don't you think an audience, then and now, would find it interesting to see how a sexually-liberated Nora deals with those class-oriented, transgender realities?

By ending the story where he does, Ibsen limits Nora's transformation to a "who-she-is-as-a-woman" awakening. Fine, but that's a decidedly limited, circumspect awakening. It's an awakening that only goes as far as gender politics can take her. The world, as it turns out, is far more complex.

Nora is a heroine; she seeks "gender justice." This takes a great deal of courage on her part. Once the scandal that threatened their happy, well-fed home passes and is no longer a threat, she could if she chose go back to being a docile, subservient wife. To her credit she doesn't do that. But what about *economic* justice? Does she say to her husband, "You're exploiting me as a woman; oh and, by the way, let's talk a while about how you, your cronies and the crowd we run with are reaping the advantages of an ecomomic system that feeds, clothes and shelters the rich on the backs of the masses."

That confrontation doesn't happen. Ibsen, along with many modern-day well-fed, well-clothed and well-sheltered feminists, conveniently -- or rather should we say *tellingly* -- leave that reality unexamined.

The overwhelming majority of books, movies and plays, especially as these vehicles are dealt with by Hollywood filmmakers, concern themselves with the *psychological* relationships between people --love and hate, commitment and abandonment, loyalty and betrayal, greed and selflessness, kindness and insensitivity -- with an examination of those psychological realities very often taking place within the context of male-female relationships.

But not everything can be explained in terms of interpersonal psychological relationships. Important as those relationship are, unless one's worldview is societal and not merely psychological, those kinds of books, movies and plays only go so far and no further.

They may be very well done, as Ibsen's play is very well done, and as this movie adaptation of the play is very well done -- but a drama that excludes history, excludes sociology, excludes politics and excludes economics has limited value if it hopes to speak to the human condition. Ibsen's play, as well as this 1973 movie adaptation of his play, may both rise to the level of art, but they're not courageous art; they are, instead, cautious, circumspect.

In short: Nora is courageous, her creator is not. Ibsen lacked courage in creating Nora in that he has her question a deeply held convention of society, i.e., the prescribed way a woman should act back in 1879; but he fails to have her ask more important, more fundamental questions of the world in which she lives.

It's quite clear in "A Doll's House," that there's an upstairs/downstairs dichotomy in Nora's home. The servants, those who live downstairs, are treated one way, while the economic elite, those who live upstairs (Nora, her husband, their well-to-do friends), given their economic status, are treated quite differently. Those who live upstairs reap rewards greatly out of proportion to what they deserve, living as they do on the backs of the masses; moreover, their often wreckless behavior is harmful to not only those within reach but to society as a whole. So that while Nora wants to know "who-she-is-as-a-woman," what about who she might become once she has to leave her upstairs/downstairs world? Where will she wind up in her future life, upstairs or downstairs? Ibsen never bothers to tell us.

Ibsen shows us Nora's awakening as a feminist, but what about an awakening that goes beyond feminism; an awakening that goes beyond the psychology between men and women?

(Remember the movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"? A white woman, I forget the actress' name, brings home Sidney Poitier and announces to her parents that they're going to get married. This is a typical example of Hollywood solving a complex, multi-faceted societal problem, interracial marriage, by referring to the pyschological realites between a man and a woman while, at the same time, completely ignoring the *other* realities that exist in the world, chief among them the economic system in which the individuals live. ... So, too, with Ibsen's "A Doll's House.")

Let's suppose that after Nora leaves her husband she supports herself, as more and more modern women are doing nowadays. What kind of work can she get? How does her society in 1879 as well as today's soceity in 2009 hold back such liberated woman? And are such women truly liberated if their liberation is merely a sexual liberation and not a more general socio-economic liberation?

How *will* she make her way in the world after she leaves her husband? What's the story there? One would think that Ibsen -- like all writers, always on the hunt for an intriguing story -- would *jump* at the prospect of telling that tale! But he doesn't. Because if he took that path he would be questioning something that it takes real courage to question.

Had Ibsen in his play challenged the class relationships of a mercantile, capitalist, market-oriented society back in 1879, his message would continue to resonate to this day. Were he to do that, producing his play then and producing his play now would require a genuine act of courage on the part of all those participating in the production.

Seeing Nora's husband get p-whipped at the end of the story (Oh, Anthony Hopkins, beware the rolling pin!) must have intrigued audiences back when Ibsen wrote the play in 1879, but today it's merely ... entertainment. ... Gender politics -- and shallow gender politics at that -- devoid of class and economic consciousness.

It's not inconceivable that Nora striking out on her own might have become a maid. Think of that, Henrik Ibsen! At that point, to be fully human, she would have to become more than simply a feminist. To remain courageous, her worldview would have to expand. (She'd have to not only burn her Bloomingdale's credit card but her draft card as well.) At that point Ibsen would have to create for Nora a far more dramatic, far more inclusive, far more *astonishing* awakening than the limited, measured awakening he offers in "A Doll's House."

Courageous as Nora's act of defiance is, it only goes so far. She's clueless when it comes to the fundamental, first-order realities of the society in which she lives. Her heightened consciousness succeeds in throwing off only *some* of the chains society has shackled her with. Others remain, unexamined.

Movie Review: Thought-provoking
Summary: 4 Stars

This film is disturbing in a good way, in that it encourages us to look at our own lifestyles, relationships, and assumptions. The movie has the feel of a play.

Movie Review: Review of Henry Ibsen's "A Doll's House" Starring Claire Bloom
Summary: 1 Stars

I was not even able to view this item, let alone review it, as the DVD kept showing "Invalid Region" and would not play on my UK system. I think I should have been told about this as my address was clearly in the UK and Not USA or Canada. I was therefore disappointed with my purchase and lost money on it.A Doll's House

Movie Review: Bloom to Hopkins to Richardson
Summary: 5 Stars

Ibsen's "A Doll's House with the superb acting of Claire Bloom, Anthony Hopkins and Ralph Richardson. Hubby(Hopkins) dominating and authoritarian in his manner commands his wife lead a perfect and errorless existence. One minor transgression on her part and Hubby goes ballistic. Knowing that her live in almost servant status in the household will end with nothing changing, nothing getting better, she bolts the abode to find her identity and Daddy mind the Baby, much to his consternation. Alls well but the Wife's gone ?

Movie Review: Worth Showing
Summary: 5 Stars

Anthony Hopkins is wonderful as Torvald capturing both the insecure man and the dominating husband. The film is very close to the text. The director staged more aggression from Torvald in the final scene, but my students all agreed that even that, was true to his character and the integrity of the story.

Write your own review

Summary of A Doll's House (1959) [VHS]

This superb version of Henrik Ibsen's classic play A Doll's House stars Claire Bloom (Brideshead Revisited, Charly) as Nora, a sweet and lively but frivolous woman whose puritanical husband Torvald (Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs, The Elephant Man) loves her but doesn't take her seriously. As Torvald assumes a new position as a bank manager, an old debt of Nora's intrudes upon their happy life and reveals secret sides of both husband and wife. The play has been skillfully turned into film, tightening the action and providing the opportunity for intimate performances from an outstanding cast that also includes Sir Ralph Richardson (The Fallen Idol, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan), Dame Edith Evans (Tom Jones, The Importance of Being Earnest), Denholm Elliott (Raiders of the Lost Ark, A Room with a View), and other topnotch British actors. --Bret Fetzer

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