TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT
UK, 1972, 107 minutes, Colour.
Maggie Smith, Alec Mc Cowan, Lou Gossett, Robert Stephens, Robert Flemyng, Cindy Williams.
Directed by George Cukor,.
Travels With My Aunt is 'light' Greene. Graham Greene writes serious novels and serious entertainments. This is one of the latter - the saga of a relic of the twentieth century, Aunt Augusta, still living in a glorious amoral past, still running risks and daring others and her stiff and starchy bank-teller nephew. Involved in swindles and amusing and violent adventures, they travel through Europe and Augusta's memories.
The film is generally a decorous comedy-adventure, with Greene characters rather than Greene dialogue, except for some of the confrontation sequences. It looks sumptuous at times and won an Oscar for sets.
Maggie Smith does a superb caricature of Augusta, mannered and amusing (along the lines of her artificial Oscar winning Miss Jean Brodie, in contrast to her simple Leila Fisher in Love and Pain and The Whole Damn Thing). Alec McCowan? gives a more naturalistic, but very fine performance as Henry. Robert Stephens appears again with his wife, Maggie Smith, as an Italian adventurer. There is a Trent-Hatch? serenade and direction by George Cukor (The Philadelphia Story; Born Yesterday; A Star is Born; My Fair Lady) is excellent.
1. How serious a comedy was this?
2. How much did the film depend on Maggie Smith's portrayal of Aunt Augusta? Why? How convincing was she?
3. What kind of woman was Augusta? What attitudes of hers were we meant to sympathise with, and what aspects of her character were we meant to dislike or like?
4. Were the episodes of the funeral, the urn, the marihuana, in good taste and comic?
5. What kind of man was Henry Pulling?
6. Did Wordsworth contribute much to the film?
7. Why did Augusta want to involve Henry in her life?
8. How did the travels change Henry - for the better?
9. What did this episode of travels do to Augusta? Did she change, did her past catch up with her, her regrets?
10. What motivated the travels? What was the purpose of the comic episode with her French lover and his wife? What did all this reveal about Augusta as a person?
11. Were your surprised when you discovered Visconti was using her? How disillusioned was she?
12. Was this a Graham Greene 'light' entertainment, or was there something more, especially in Augusta - the relic of twentieth century life and the contrast between verve and convention?
13. The film was praised for decor, costumes and as an old style entertainment -do you agree? Was it a good film?
14. The theme of Augusta's travels through her memories: her motherly regard for Henry at the opening? (Did she intend to reveal herself to him?) Her love for Mr Visconti? Any evidence that he loved her? Romance in her memory? The Gare De Lyon, the schoolgirl, leaving the nuns, the dance and serenade? The bordello style and her escorts? Her finally being lost and tired of using people and being used? Her attack on Henry for thinking, doing, being and dreaming nothing (and his response that he had been shamefully used)? What would have happened to her no matter what side the coin finally came down?
