The Age of Innocence

If you like Scorsese's direction (which can be distinctive even in a costume historical drama) and can appreciate the performances of Daniel-Day Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer, you'll be pleased. After all, The Age of Innocence is no highbrow Scorsese, but rather a slow-moving tale from the "better class of society" about transcending the social conventions of the time. The period atmosphere of New York in the second half of the 19th century is of course excellent, but that's kind of what we expect from Martin Scorsese. And yet even despite a fairly linear story, it's still a very watchable affair, and that's mainly because of the acting, the period sets, and the excellent soundtrack. (07/01/2019)

In terms of craftsmanship and aesthetics, this film is top-notch. The camera work is excellent, and the sets and locations are amazing. The story, however, is peculiar at least. The first half in particular is slow and incredibly tedious. I really liked the storytelling style, but the pace really needed to be faster. Nevertheless, the depiction of the lifestyle of that time is precise. (12/03/2004)

It is clear to me why this film from Martin Scorsese’s filmography is not talked about much. In terms of its story, The Age of Innocence is unbelievably boring, and the only thing that salvages it is the way Scorsese filmed it. Michelle Pfeiffer’s story might have been the most interesting thing in the whole movie. But that’s still not enough to turn this into a good film. Just imagine that the movie you’re watching is not set in New York but in the English countryside and the level of its blandness becomes clear. This movie aspired to give me a visual brain lobotomy. (30/11/2014)

“I want, and I can’t.” More than two hours of filmmaking elegance at a level that few directors manage to achieve. I didn’t get the impression that the plot was conventional and that only the rendering of it was extraordinary. Both aspects are beyond the average and both logically complement Scorsese’s filmography. Though The Age of Innocence is actually another one of his films about violence and organised crime, the violence and crimes in it are hidden, unmanifested. The rules of behaviour are determined by clans, though not mafia clans in this case, but familial clans. Those who do not want to lose their prestige, as if anything else mattered, must not mention that fact, nor can they even think it. The characters harm themselves with words, or rather by avoiding words. As in the book on which the film is based, their true intentions and repressed desires are revealed to us by an honest narrator, a physically absent yet omnipresent guide to the now so distant world of the New York upper crust in the late 19th century. The narrator says what the characters dare not say. Together with the setting, she speaks for the silent protagonists (I had assumed that sophisticated work with colour, props and blocking had gone extinct along with classic Hollywood – fortunately that is not the case). In the diegetic world, Countess Olenska takes on the role of a woman who does not intend to conceal the state of things as she has come to recognise it. She does not want to be another victim of social conventions, another obedient, loving wife. However, she doesn’t have immunity to protect her from the impact of her frankness. The power to save her belongs to Newland, who is consumed from within by the necessity of choosing between a woman who speaks the truth and a woman who says only what is appropriate. Thanks to the narrator, the (post-)modern narrative techniques (letters read to the camera, the director’s self-reflexive cameo as a photographer, the one who records the lives of the characters) and the careful guidance of our attention (through music, making words visible and the moderate use of close-ups and “archaic” curtains), we clearly and comprehensibly learn more about the characters than the period and setting in which they lived allowed them to learn about themselves. More than relationship dramas that focus primarily on the surface without looking beneath it, The Age of Innocence rewards us for the attention that we give it. And it does so without losing any of the emotional power of the story about the violence that we still commit every day. We just don’t talk about it so openly anymore. Of Martin Scorsese’s films, I currently consider this one to be his best. 90% (29/08/2012)

Formally precise, but reprehensibly shallow and uninteresting in content. Lewis and Pfeiffer have a lot of feeling, as do masters Scorsese and Bernstein, but due to its emotional coldness and excessive runtime, I unfortunately can't view the film as anything other than an educational glimpse into the lives of the social elite of the 18th century. And the fact that it is a very believable and visually impressive glimpse doesn't change that. Not even the best director could have saved this romance. 65% (10/01/2014)