Screenplay:
Kate BrookeComposer:
Geoffrey BurgonCast:
Damian Lewis, Rupert Graves, Gina McKee, Alistair Petrie, Ben Miles, Wendy Craig, Ann Bell, John Carlisle, Amanda Root, Barbara Flynn, Gillian Kearney (more)Seasons(2) / Episodes(13)
Plots(1)
John Galsworthy’s nine novels created the inimitable Forsyte family, exploring their triumphs and tragedies over four tumultuous decades. First filmed in the 1960s, the books came to life again in these two sweeping miniseries in 2002 and 2003, featuring Damian Lewis as Soames Forsyte and Gina McKee as Irene, plus an excellent supporting cast: Rupert Graves, Ioan Gruffudd, Corin Redgrave, Emma Griffiths Malin, and Lee Williams. The Forsyte Saga is a compelling drama of love, adultery, obsession, power, and money. The critically-acclaimed series spans three generations of the upwardly mobile Forsyte family at the turn of the 20th century. (Via Vision Entertainment)
(more)Reviews of this series by the user NinadeL (3)
The Forsyte Saga (2002)
A new take on John Galsworthy's popular saga. It’s a classic Hollywood film that not many people found retroactively, but that doesn't change the fact that it's excellent. The 1960s series has remained deeply etched in the memories of those who remember it. And for the new generation, this new mini-series has been created, owing nothing to its predecessors.
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Season 1 (2002) (S01)
"You haven't heard?!" Never mind the classic Galsworthy gossip that drives that entire Victorian society. It's lived in a regular sinusoid of gossip - ball - gossip - ball, in which the ball always squashes the gossip that's too stale and starts new ones so that there's always something going on. These are the problems of a better society, which the left has always despised so much, and yet a certain class has managed to live in them for generations and still have wrinkles from it. All those marriages of convenience are thus the vanity of vanities. However, the important thing is that it doesn't lose the humor and the actors know very well what they are doing. The first thing that catches the eye is Irene's new toilet, and then it becomes clear to everyone that her new architect is not only interested in meeting the requirements of the client Soames, but above all into the pants of his better half. It's nice, it's sophisticated and above all it's endlessly entertaining. The series also makes clever jumps in time, so that we actually go through 50 years in a few episodes and don't even blink. Or rather, the first season ends with the end of the Victorian century so that one can slip straight into the modern century.
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To Let (2003) (S02)
After a brief interlude before the war, it was time for the Forsyth descendants to come of age and the turbulent 1920s began. Cabs are thus replaced by fast cars, crinolines by plunging necklines, and new knits replace old ones. Classic. Soames and Irene's ancient feud is passed on to their children and a modern-day Romeo and Juliet-style romance is imminent. Things like this win Nobel Prizes, so we have official confirmation that it's not kitsch. In reality, it’s material to be enjoyed in sips. It's still great, but the really good stuff in this saga was in Season 1, in the part based on the novel "The Man of Property." Back then you could cut the tension with a knife and no one was more statuesque than Ioan Gruffudd.
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