`The French Lieutenant`s Woman` - antiSemitism in Victorian England???

Question

Saw this film again, and whilst the cinematography is worthy of Rembrandt (the great Freddie Francis) the script and acting misrepresents.

Sarah Woodruff is ostensibly Jewish although this is never stated outright. But it is the `Jewish` thing which separates her both from the gentiles and from the Jewish converts. The only link between Woodruff and prostitution is that both single Jewesses and whores were aliens and that Jews were treated as whores.

This is not clarified in the film and indeed it is only in the last reel that we learn she did not have an affair with the French lieutenant and was virginal.

Harold Pinter did not have children with Merchant and married a Catholic. Jeremy Irons also married a Catholic. I believe the screenplay and the acting are undermined that this reality.

The film ostensibly and by using Streep is trying to compare the alienation and persecution of Jewesses then and now. Unfair and untrue. Still lousy.


Has it really improved?????

Answer 1

Load of rubbish. They had a Jewish Prime Minister.
John Fowles pioneered this smart aleck way of writing about the Victorians which is still with us even though his novels have faded into well-deserved obscurity.

Answer 2

Some Jewish people alienate themselves..but being in too closed jewish communities and the identity and life evolving around specifically jewish customs and rituals...this shouldnt be a basis for anti semitism as every one has there own more code...
My experience of Jews is of modern and progressive Jews for which there are many who understand that there are many religions and each of us is expressing god that way...
this is similar to hinduism...but conservative Jews do not appreciate this or belive that one can exist with others without the community.. thus the faith is people faith and land..

I used to work at Heathrow T1 and you see Jewish people all the time ..many unoticeable moderates...which one can empathise with being the religion is ones own indiviudal faith and is usualy private...

but then you see the more consrvative fellows who dress differently...some of these people when accpeting change refused to take money from our hand and ask to put the change down on the counter..This was insulting and derogatory but in their faith must mean something else...
I would also compare this to the lady who wore a full veil and decided to converse with me....

these people live to their own set of norms and it does not matter who they offend ....

why is it that all over the world one can communicate and get on with life easily and straightforwards but these people treat people differently but then expect to be treated the same...

If I put the foot on the other shoe and put money down on the counter and said to the guy ...your jewish i wont touch your hands...this may be described as Anti Semitic ...but why so they feel okay to go around doing this...

Secondly knowing that your behaviour might offend some people why would you bother to buy your drink if you are going to behave like this ...surely they know about manners...but they want their cake and eat it!

Answer 3

In real life, Jane Austen had a sad life. She did not get to marry the man she loved, because she didn't have the money. I like the clothes, but once I went to a costume party wearing a tight corset, and could only stand for short periods of time without fainting. I wouldn't mind being Queen Victoria. Prince Albert was notoriously good in bed!!!!!!

Answer 4

where do you get the notion Sarah is jewish? As you mention, it is never stated in the book.

Answer 5

And I fear it will be ever thus.