1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:02,400 I haven't got any girl. 2 00:00:02,400 --> 00:00:03,840 There's no child. 3 00:00:03,840 --> 00:00:06,600 Over 100 of our best actors... 4 00:00:06,600 --> 00:00:08,960 You're the most beautiful creature. 5 00:00:08,960 --> 00:00:10,360 LAUGHS 6 00:00:10,360 --> 00:00:13,640 - 146 sets. - GUNFIRE 7 00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:18,480 - SHOUTING - An epic story of love, war and betrayal. 8 00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:21,440 You'd better keep off the grass. 9 00:00:21,440 --> 00:00:23,320 Ahh! 10 00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:28,440 And Sir Tom Stoppard, arguably our greatest living playwright, 11 00:00:28,440 --> 00:00:33,080 returning to the small screen for the first time in 30 years. 12 00:00:33,080 --> 00:00:34,120 Cut! 13 00:00:34,120 --> 00:00:36,680 I don't always love the job. 14 00:00:36,680 --> 00:00:39,960 I usually love the first draft, but this, I loved the job. 15 00:00:39,960 --> 00:00:44,240 It's all for Parade's End, a novel overlooked in its day, 16 00:00:44,240 --> 00:00:46,040 and rarely read now. 17 00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:51,000 I think it is a British equivalent of The Great Gatsby. 18 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:54,640 It's a kind of suicide note to old England. 19 00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:58,080 When you've read it, your life is never quite the same again. 20 00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:01,400 Somehow, Ford Maddox Ford's modernist masterpiece, 21 00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:04,560 written for a particular place at a particular time, 22 00:01:04,560 --> 00:01:06,160 speaks across the decades. 23 00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:10,320 The issues that Ford is dealing with are issues of our times as well. 24 00:01:10,320 --> 00:01:13,440 Political corruption, financial corruption, 25 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:16,760 war, unwanted war, there's a huge relevance to anybody 26 00:01:16,760 --> 00:01:19,320 who's ever had a stream of consciousness, 27 00:01:19,320 --> 00:01:23,120 who's ever fallen in love with the wrong person, or been in a relationship with an ill-fit. 28 00:01:23,120 --> 00:01:25,400 It's a very, very beautiful book. 29 00:01:25,400 --> 00:01:28,040 It may feel strange... 30 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:31,200 like going to bed with somebody who really knew what they were doing, 31 00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:33,560 but what they were doing was slightly unfamiliar 32 00:01:33,560 --> 00:01:35,040 and it will make you smile. 33 00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:39,600 I will be in my room, praying for death, or at least packing for it. 34 00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:41,480 And, for the cast and crew, 35 00:01:41,480 --> 00:01:45,680 adapting it was a process of discovery as much as dramatisation. 36 00:01:46,880 --> 00:01:51,080 It's a wonderful blueprint for an actor, anyone trying dramatise any of those characters. 37 00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:53,160 We all fell in love with that book. 38 00:02:17,960 --> 00:02:22,320 We're now going to do an explosion test with the flying German. 39 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:30,720 In a field in Flanders, a battle is being recreated 40 00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:35,080 in the name of a novel hailed by writers like Anthony Burgess 41 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:38,080 as the greatest ever written about war. 42 00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:45,320 Parade's End snakes back and forth through past and present, 43 00:02:45,320 --> 00:02:49,560 from the drawing rooms of Edwardian England to the Western Front. 44 00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:55,240 But at its heart is a good, old-fashioned love story, 45 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:59,240 centred around Christopher Tietjens, an upper-class civil servant, 46 00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:02,320 then soldier, caught between his wife Sylvia 47 00:03:02,320 --> 00:03:05,720 and a young suffragette, Valentine Wannop. 48 00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:11,520 Parade's End is about 49 00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:17,480 that incredibly claustrophobic world of the early 20th century, 50 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:23,200 where people were just absolutely hemmed in by social convention. 51 00:03:23,200 --> 00:03:27,400 And how that deformed them, really, as characters. 52 00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:29,120 And broke people's lives. 53 00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:34,840 And I think Ford manages to capture that brilliantly. 54 00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:40,360 And all the time you just want to grab hold of these people and say, "Just tell her" or "Just do it." 55 00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:43,520 Oh, Christopher, these boys have got a motor. 56 00:03:43,520 --> 00:03:46,320 They're going to drive me to the Basils. 57 00:03:46,320 --> 00:03:47,880 All right. 58 00:03:47,880 --> 00:03:51,760 As soon as Mrs Wannop has had enough, I'll pop her in the tube. 59 00:03:51,760 --> 00:03:55,120 'It is a World War I drama, but it's not about the Front 60 00:03:55,120 --> 00:03:57,280 'as much as it's about the Home Front. 61 00:03:57,280 --> 00:03:59,720 'And it's really that kind of...' 62 00:03:59,720 --> 00:04:01,240 the ramifications of war 63 00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:04,840 on society, culture and particularly love relationships. 64 00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:06,440 You know, it's... 65 00:04:06,440 --> 00:04:10,760 And those love relationships are metaphorical for all sorts of other things. 66 00:04:10,760 --> 00:04:13,920 It deals with the biggest possible subject - 67 00:04:13,920 --> 00:04:15,840 that is to say, England.. 68 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:18,120 and the fate of England 69 00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:20,600 in the subtlest of ways. 70 00:04:23,080 --> 00:04:26,120 Originally released as four separate novels, 71 00:04:26,120 --> 00:04:28,880 between 1924 and 1928, 72 00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:32,600 Parade's End was written by Ford Maddox Ford. 73 00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:38,320 A novelist, critic, poet and editor, he was born Ford Hermann Hueffer 74 00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:40,800 in London in 1873 75 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:43,440 to a German father and a British mother. 76 00:04:43,440 --> 00:04:47,840 He changed his name to Ford Maddox Ford in 1919 77 00:04:47,840 --> 00:04:52,560 partly to avoid being associated with Britain's wartime enemy. 78 00:04:52,560 --> 00:04:58,680 A close friend and colleague of literary giants like Ezra Pound and James Joyce, 79 00:04:58,680 --> 00:05:02,280 Ford is best known for an earlier novel, The Good Soldier. 80 00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:08,920 He wrote Parade's End a few years after incurring shell shock 81 00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:10,800 at the Battle of the Somme. 82 00:05:12,200 --> 00:05:16,680 Ford served. You know, you're reading about the war by a man who was there. 83 00:05:16,680 --> 00:05:20,920 He's a kind of historian of his own time. I think he said that himself. 84 00:05:20,920 --> 00:05:26,000 He's documenting a society telling its story... 85 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:27,920 for good or ill. 86 00:05:27,920 --> 00:05:32,920 Of course, the book is a great warning about the terrors of war. It's an anti-war book. 87 00:05:32,920 --> 00:05:36,240 Part of his remit with... 88 00:05:36,240 --> 00:05:38,040 Parade's End was to write a book 89 00:05:38,040 --> 00:05:41,520 which would shock people into the realisation of... 90 00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:43,800 quite how costly war was. 91 00:05:43,800 --> 00:05:48,000 How...absurd, ironic, 92 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:51,080 terrifying and ruinous it was. 93 00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:53,000 What does Parade's End mean? 94 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:56,760 Well, it could mean it's all over. You know, let's all go home. 95 00:05:56,760 --> 00:05:59,520 But it means there will be no more parades. 96 00:05:59,520 --> 00:06:02,880 What are parades? What are military parades? They celebrate things. 97 00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:05,360 He says there are no more celebrations. 98 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:09,000 Robert Graves put it a different way - Goodbye To All That. 99 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:12,440 What did he mean by "all that"? He meant the pre-war world. 100 00:06:15,640 --> 00:06:22,040 Parade's End begins in 1912, during the so-called Edwardian Summer. 101 00:06:22,040 --> 00:06:26,520 NEWSREEL: Summer - leisure, relaxation and play. 102 00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:30,560 And when Father went out to bat, you watched. 103 00:06:30,560 --> 00:06:34,960 This is how you looked - mother, daughter and son. 104 00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:40,360 This was a world Ford had known for most of his adult life. 105 00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:45,120 A world where everything and everyone had their place. 106 00:06:45,120 --> 00:06:49,160 One's life really was that... 107 00:06:49,160 --> 00:06:52,840 up in the morning and then for a ride in the park. 108 00:06:52,840 --> 00:06:56,280 After that, tea perhaps somewhere. 109 00:06:56,280 --> 00:06:59,680 Scrumptious little iced cakes and strawberry ices. 110 00:06:59,680 --> 00:07:03,640 The table always had a beautiful white tablecloth on it. 111 00:07:03,640 --> 00:07:06,560 And lovely silver and flowers. 112 00:07:07,920 --> 00:07:10,120 But this is just one side of the story. 113 00:07:12,240 --> 00:07:15,800 This is also a time of great social upheaval. 114 00:07:19,680 --> 00:07:22,880 When people today say the Edwardian era 115 00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:25,600 is so glamorous and exciting and interesting, 116 00:07:25,600 --> 00:07:28,800 they're really only talking about one particular class. 117 00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:30,400 For most people in Britain, 118 00:07:30,400 --> 00:07:33,640 this is a period of great poverty and it's not 119 00:07:33,640 --> 00:07:37,520 a very pleasant place for most people to live. 120 00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:42,200 Women in particular were pressing for change. 121 00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:45,000 CHANTING 122 00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:52,320 One of the most exciting things about taking up the challenge of Parade's End 123 00:07:52,320 --> 00:07:54,040 was looking at the lives of women 124 00:07:54,040 --> 00:07:58,120 and how they were in this kind of pressure cooker and time of change. 125 00:07:58,120 --> 00:08:03,640 Their goal was to get the vote only for married women, and only for married women over 30. 126 00:08:03,640 --> 00:08:05,560 Votes for women. 127 00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:08,880 That was the cry from many a platform 128 00:08:08,880 --> 00:08:12,960 as a determined band of women campaigned for equal political rights with men. 129 00:08:12,960 --> 00:08:15,960 Some of them chose the way of peaceful persuasion. 130 00:08:15,960 --> 00:08:20,680 But others, the militant suffragettes, led by Mrs Pankhurst, 131 00:08:20,680 --> 00:08:23,320 used violent and sensational methods. 132 00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:30,720 It's into this world of contradictions and simmering tensions 133 00:08:30,720 --> 00:08:33,360 that Ford introduces his hero, 134 00:08:33,360 --> 00:08:37,400 26-year-old Christopher Tietjens is the son 135 00:08:37,400 --> 00:08:40,040 of a wealthy, land-owning Yorkshire family 136 00:08:40,040 --> 00:08:45,000 and he represents all the traditional values the War will soon sweep away. 137 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:48,360 He's already a man slightly out of joint with his time at the beginning, 138 00:08:48,360 --> 00:08:50,960 he's a very old-fashioned man in the Edwardian world. 139 00:08:50,960 --> 00:08:54,720 The reason I fell in love with this character is because he's got 140 00:08:54,720 --> 00:08:59,200 a profound sense of duty and honour and virtue about him. He's a truly good man. 141 00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:03,080 A minister has to show the figures for the insurance bill mounts. 142 00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:07,040 Well, they won't. And I should have thought it was this department's duty to tell him so. 143 00:09:07,040 --> 00:09:10,080 When we first meet him, he's a statistician, a very good one. 144 00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:13,640 In a very senior position in the imperial civil service. 145 00:09:13,640 --> 00:09:17,800 You know, dealing with the facts and numbers which make the Empire work. 146 00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:23,800 So his brain's full of often abstract calculations of anything 147 00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:28,280 one might mention. He's a wonderful epitome, I suppose, in a sense, 148 00:09:28,280 --> 00:09:32,160 of what one would say an eccentric, but glorious English gentleman. 149 00:09:32,160 --> 00:09:36,160 I love every field and hedgerow. 150 00:09:36,160 --> 00:09:40,600 The land is England, and once it was the foundation of order. 151 00:09:40,600 --> 00:09:44,320 Before money took over and handed the country over 152 00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:46,640 to the swindlers and schemers. 153 00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:48,440 Toryism, the pig's trough. 154 00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:51,040 He's a Tory, but not in our version, 155 00:09:51,040 --> 00:09:53,440 our modern version of Toryism. 156 00:09:53,440 --> 00:09:56,200 It's not about free market capitalism, 157 00:09:56,200 --> 00:09:59,080 and it's not about releasing laws and taxation. 158 00:09:59,080 --> 00:10:01,440 It's about duty, and honour to the past, 159 00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:03,680 and to those above 160 00:10:03,680 --> 00:10:05,760 and below your station. 161 00:10:05,760 --> 00:10:09,640 Respect...but at heart, what's really good about him, 162 00:10:09,640 --> 00:10:12,360 is that he lives by this code of conduct 163 00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:15,320 whilst the world is going mad around him. 164 00:10:15,320 --> 00:10:17,840 And although he suffers a great deal by doing that, 165 00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:22,200 and at times sees himself that it's foolish, 166 00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:24,400 he's true to his word. 167 00:10:24,400 --> 00:10:27,640 And I think he has the most spectacular set of principles. 168 00:10:27,640 --> 00:10:29,600 I think if I lived half as principled a life 169 00:10:29,600 --> 00:10:32,160 as a man like Christopher Tietjens, I could die happy. 170 00:10:32,160 --> 00:10:35,440 Tietjens' perfect, ordered world 171 00:10:35,440 --> 00:10:37,720 is turned upside down by his wife, 172 00:10:37,720 --> 00:10:40,320 the scheming socialite, Sylvia Satterthwaite. 173 00:10:40,320 --> 00:10:42,840 A devout Catholic 174 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:44,040 with a chequered past 175 00:10:44,040 --> 00:10:47,800 and a child who may or may not be Christopher's. 176 00:10:47,800 --> 00:10:49,720 I'm done with men. 177 00:10:51,400 --> 00:10:54,880 Sylvia, she's one of the most complex characters 178 00:10:54,880 --> 00:10:57,120 I've ever come across in drama. 179 00:10:57,120 --> 00:11:01,240 I'll settle down by his side and I'll be chaste. 180 00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:03,440 I've made up my mind to it. 181 00:11:03,440 --> 00:11:06,160 I'll be bored stiff for the rest of my life, except for one thing. 182 00:11:06,160 --> 00:11:08,240 I can torment that man, 183 00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:11,360 and I'll do it, for all the times he's tormented me! 184 00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:13,720 'She's a mass of contradictions. 185 00:11:13,720 --> 00:11:19,080 'She's simultaneously amoral, and yet, a devoted Catholic.' 186 00:11:19,080 --> 00:11:22,240 She's a big flirt, and yet, she's chaste. 187 00:11:22,240 --> 00:11:24,840 I'm here with a ghastly set. 188 00:11:24,840 --> 00:11:26,840 Would you like to take me on somewhere? 189 00:11:28,440 --> 00:11:32,040 'Sylvia is magnificently evil.' 190 00:11:32,040 --> 00:11:33,680 She wants to be a goddess. 191 00:11:33,680 --> 00:11:34,880 She looks amazing, 192 00:11:34,880 --> 00:11:36,320 and she sweeps into rooms 193 00:11:36,320 --> 00:11:37,920 and people fall at her feet. 194 00:11:37,920 --> 00:11:40,520 And the only person who doesn't fall at her feet - 195 00:11:40,520 --> 00:11:43,520 because that would be, for him, weird - is Christopher. 196 00:11:43,520 --> 00:11:46,040 So it makes her very bitter and twisted. 197 00:11:46,040 --> 00:11:48,200 DISH SMASHES 198 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:51,960 - SHE LAUGHS - Do you know what he's doing? 199 00:11:51,960 --> 00:11:55,840 He's making corrections in the Encyclopaedia Britannica! 200 00:11:55,840 --> 00:12:00,120 If I'd killed him, no jury would convict! 201 00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:02,520 'She's emotionally intelligent. 202 00:12:02,520 --> 00:12:05,040 'She's bright, but she's utterly uneducated.' 203 00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:07,760 And she's bored, and she has nothing. 204 00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:10,440 So in a sense, all of that brain power 205 00:12:10,440 --> 00:12:15,120 goes into manipulating people. 206 00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:17,800 Oh, Christopher, has it been awful for you? 207 00:12:20,680 --> 00:12:24,120 It is thought that you went abroad to look after your mother. 208 00:12:27,200 --> 00:12:29,080 You'll get your own back. 209 00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:31,360 Only I wish you wouldn't do it by punishing me 210 00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:34,160 with your mealsack, Anglican sainthood. 211 00:12:35,520 --> 00:12:37,960 Even though he's constantly a victim 212 00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:40,560 of her machinations behind the scenes, 213 00:12:40,560 --> 00:12:42,840 of her direct assault on his person... 214 00:12:42,840 --> 00:12:44,120 BUT she is his wife. 215 00:12:44,120 --> 00:12:46,320 He will not hear a word spoken against her. 216 00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:47,840 He will support her actions 217 00:12:47,840 --> 00:12:50,480 because that is the gentlemanlike thing to do. 218 00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:52,200 Sylvia and Christopher, 219 00:12:52,200 --> 00:12:56,680 they're absolutely the two worst people to be married to each other. 220 00:12:56,680 --> 00:12:59,480 And it's therefore so reassuring for Christopher 221 00:12:59,480 --> 00:13:00,800 when he meets Valentine. 222 00:13:00,800 --> 00:13:03,680 She's the shape of things to come, 223 00:13:03,680 --> 00:13:05,560 and a very exciting shape she is too. 224 00:13:07,160 --> 00:13:11,360 A campaigner for women's rights, 18-year-old Valentine Wannop 225 00:13:11,360 --> 00:13:16,640 is the antithesis of Tietjens' bored, socialite wife. 226 00:13:16,640 --> 00:13:19,320 When she's not at work to help support her family, 227 00:13:19,320 --> 00:13:22,160 Valentine's out protesting for a better world. 228 00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:24,640 - We are the public! - No, you don't! 229 00:13:24,640 --> 00:13:27,640 'Valentine is full of integrity.' 230 00:13:27,640 --> 00:13:30,120 She has her own moral code 231 00:13:30,120 --> 00:13:33,200 that she's developed herself, without having been told. 232 00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:36,440 'She just knows what's right or wrong.' 233 00:13:36,440 --> 00:13:39,920 - Votes for women! - Oi! Come here, you! 234 00:13:39,920 --> 00:13:41,640 'She stands for things like democracy 235 00:13:41,640 --> 00:13:43,400 'and equal rights for women, 236 00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:45,000 'and all these values,' 237 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:47,560 she's learned through her own experiences. 238 00:13:47,560 --> 00:13:49,280 She's the suffragette. 239 00:13:49,280 --> 00:13:56,280 She represents the woman who is going to make a better world. 240 00:13:56,280 --> 00:13:59,360 She is, if you like, the new, exciting woman. 241 00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:05,080 And the women who's not merely defined by her sexuality. 242 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:08,640 She's very sensual, but she's also a woman of the mind. 243 00:14:08,640 --> 00:14:10,960 Actually, this tea is for my mother, 244 00:14:10,960 --> 00:14:13,680 and I mustn't inflict myself on Mr Waterhouse 245 00:14:13,680 --> 00:14:15,040 with my inferior mind 246 00:14:15,040 --> 00:14:18,520 and my general incapacity for anything much except motherhood. 247 00:14:18,520 --> 00:14:20,520 So, if you'll excuse me... 248 00:14:20,520 --> 00:14:22,320 Oh, that's my first suffragette! 249 00:14:23,680 --> 00:14:26,160 'The beauty of that love story, I guess,' 250 00:14:26,160 --> 00:14:29,760 is that they are intellectual sparring partners. They're equals. 251 00:14:29,760 --> 00:14:32,160 And I think... 252 00:14:32,160 --> 00:14:34,240 although they come at it from different angles, 253 00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:35,800 they're very, very similar people. 254 00:14:35,800 --> 00:14:39,520 They are outsiders in this time period, 255 00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:41,760 and Christopher is of the Tory mind 256 00:14:41,760 --> 00:14:43,520 and Valentine is more forward thinking. 257 00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:45,000 What's funny about them 258 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:47,240 is that they both have such integrity 259 00:14:47,240 --> 00:14:50,120 in how they believe relationships should unfold. 260 00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:53,320 They try with all their might to kind of repress their feelings 261 00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:54,760 and just do the right thing. 262 00:14:57,720 --> 00:15:00,080 Feeling increasingly trapped by his situation 263 00:15:00,080 --> 00:15:04,040 and frustrated with the government bureaucracy, 264 00:15:04,040 --> 00:15:06,880 Tietjens makes a radical decision. 265 00:15:06,880 --> 00:15:09,240 Now, look here, Tietjens. I took you for a sound man. 266 00:15:09,240 --> 00:15:13,160 This department exists to show that, as there are different ways to put things in words, 267 00:15:13,160 --> 00:15:16,320 there are different ways to put things in numbers. 268 00:15:16,320 --> 00:15:19,680 I detest and despise the work I am asked to do in the Department, 269 00:15:19,680 --> 00:15:23,080 whose purpose seems to be to turn statistics into sophistry. 270 00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:24,760 I am resigning. Good morning. 271 00:15:24,760 --> 00:15:28,160 - Don't you want to be a man of influence? - No. 272 00:15:28,160 --> 00:15:29,600 I'd prefer to be in the trenches. 273 00:15:31,680 --> 00:15:33,600 RECORDING: 'Britain is an island, 274 00:15:33,600 --> 00:15:37,520 'and that has always made her different, alone, and secure. 275 00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:44,160 'All the same, 1914 saw some pretty fast trench digging 276 00:15:44,160 --> 00:15:45,560 'along the coasts. 277 00:15:45,560 --> 00:15:46,680 'As people remarked, 278 00:15:46,680 --> 00:15:50,320 'anybody would think the Kaiser was going to invade. 279 00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:52,600 'Different, alone, and secure. 280 00:15:53,880 --> 00:15:57,200 'Yet, not for the first time in history, and not for the last, 281 00:15:57,200 --> 00:16:00,760 'Britain sent her best to fight Europe's battles overseas. 282 00:16:02,240 --> 00:16:04,360 'Off they went, to what? 283 00:16:04,360 --> 00:16:07,240 'Another brush with the Boers. 284 00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:10,120 'Such should be the nature of wars to date. 285 00:16:10,120 --> 00:16:12,880 'Certainly, none of them realised they were to be the first 286 00:16:12,880 --> 00:16:16,040 'in the greatest human sacrifice in history.' 287 00:16:18,080 --> 00:16:20,800 The carnage of the trenches 288 00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:24,120 has inspired countless novels, films, and poems. 289 00:16:24,120 --> 00:16:27,440 But, for Ford Maddox Ford, who'd been close to the front line, 290 00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:32,240 it was bureaucracy as much as battle that broke a man's spirit. 291 00:16:32,240 --> 00:16:36,200 'It's as much to do with the mundanities of moving troops,' 292 00:16:36,200 --> 00:16:39,960 of checking the right people are being asked for fire extinguishers. 293 00:16:39,960 --> 00:16:43,720 That the cook has put his uniforms and utensils away in the right place. 294 00:16:43,720 --> 00:16:48,840 It's about the day-to-day running and mundanities of war. 295 00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:51,720 And I think that's why it reads, to me, as being authentic. 296 00:16:51,720 --> 00:16:53,360 When we tend to think about 297 00:16:53,360 --> 00:16:55,720 the literature of the First World War, 298 00:16:55,720 --> 00:16:57,600 we tend to think of the poetry. 299 00:16:57,600 --> 00:16:59,840 You know, we think about Sassoon, 300 00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:01,240 we think about Owen... 301 00:17:06,200 --> 00:17:09,880 ..and we think about these incredibly visceral, 302 00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:13,000 horrific descriptions of the trenches. 303 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:14,240 The blood and guts and gore. 304 00:17:14,240 --> 00:17:17,200 But, even though this is very serious novel, 305 00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:20,600 Ford has a real gift for comedy. 306 00:17:20,600 --> 00:17:23,240 I mean, it's quite subtle, and in places, 307 00:17:23,240 --> 00:17:27,520 is reminiscent of Blackadder Goes Forth, 308 00:17:27,520 --> 00:17:29,440 Catch-22, books like that. 309 00:17:29,440 --> 00:17:31,680 It's been our pleasure to fit out you and your men 310 00:17:31,680 --> 00:17:32,720 for the task ahead... 311 00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:35,720 - PHONE RINGS - Somebody deal with that telephone. 312 00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:40,280 Or even the Keystone Cops, or that kind of approach. 313 00:17:40,280 --> 00:17:43,840 Bumbling, idiotic, British generals, 314 00:17:43,840 --> 00:17:48,040 crazy bureaucracy, massive frustration. 315 00:17:48,040 --> 00:17:52,840 I notice, Captain Tietjens, you have no fire extinguishers in your unit. 316 00:17:52,840 --> 00:17:54,840 You're aware of the disastrous consequences 317 00:17:54,840 --> 00:17:56,480 that would follow a conflagration? 318 00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:58,520 Yes, sir. I was informed by ordinance 319 00:17:58,520 --> 00:18:01,280 that there is no provision for fire extinguishers 320 00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:04,640 for dominion troops under an Imperial officer. 321 00:18:04,640 --> 00:18:07,240 So I applied, as advised, to a civilian firm... 322 00:18:07,240 --> 00:18:08,880 I don't ask for your memoirs. 323 00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:11,320 Make a note, Levin. 324 00:18:11,320 --> 00:18:13,760 Sometimes it's almost a bit like M.A.S.H. 325 00:18:13,760 --> 00:18:17,680 That you're looking at the absurdity of the bureaucracy. 326 00:18:18,760 --> 00:18:21,920 Christopher can't get fire extinguishers which he needs 327 00:18:21,920 --> 00:18:24,640 because the bureaucrats won't let him have them, 328 00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:26,120 for complicated reasons. 329 00:18:26,120 --> 00:18:28,440 There's endless form-filling to be done. 330 00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:31,360 People are sent the wrong uniforms, 331 00:18:31,360 --> 00:18:35,240 and he's able to laugh at the absurdity of the war, 332 00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:38,040 while taking you to very deep places 333 00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:41,960 about people's emotional state and mental state. 334 00:18:41,960 --> 00:18:45,840 And looking at some of the cleverest young men in England 335 00:18:45,840 --> 00:18:48,200 trying to hang on to their sanity. 336 00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:51,960 So there are these brilliant minds writing sonnets 337 00:18:51,960 --> 00:18:53,960 in an attempt to stay sane. 338 00:18:55,120 --> 00:18:59,920 Give me the rhyme words for a sonnet. 339 00:18:59,920 --> 00:19:02,280 That's the scheme of it. 340 00:19:02,280 --> 00:19:04,800 I know what a damn sonnet is! What's your game? 341 00:19:04,800 --> 00:19:08,000 Give me 14 end rhymes of a sonnet and I'll write a sonnet. 342 00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:11,640 - In two and a half minutes! - If you do, I'll translate it into Latin 343 00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:13,880 - in under three minutes. - Get on with it, then. 344 00:19:13,880 --> 00:19:17,160 A-B-B-A-A-B... Yes? What is it? 345 00:19:22,080 --> 00:19:26,080 How Tietjens, Sylvia and Valentine emerge from the futility 346 00:19:26,080 --> 00:19:28,600 is one of the great pleasures in reading the book, 347 00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:31,040 but needless to say, by the end of the story, 348 00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:34,720 nothing and nobody is left untouched. 349 00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:40,200 Tietjens goes through some really horrific experiences. 350 00:19:40,200 --> 00:19:43,200 Ford uses this as a way of showing us 351 00:19:43,200 --> 00:19:48,000 how the old order is forced to change 352 00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:50,880 through their experiences in the war. I'm thinking of... 353 00:19:50,880 --> 00:19:55,240 There's just one really quite wonderful passage in the novel 354 00:19:55,240 --> 00:19:59,840 were Ford writes about how Tietjens and a young soldier 355 00:19:59,840 --> 00:20:02,560 are literally buried alive 356 00:20:02,560 --> 00:20:05,880 and the young man who's been buried with him is calling out, 357 00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:08,560 "Help me! Please, help me, Captain!" 358 00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:11,920 And Tietjens says something very, very important. 359 00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:14,800 Tietjens just yells back, 360 00:20:14,800 --> 00:20:19,080 "I can't help you until I've helped myself." 361 00:20:19,080 --> 00:20:21,400 So it's a really important moment of the novel 362 00:20:21,400 --> 00:20:25,760 because it's Tietjens recognising that there comes a point 363 00:20:25,760 --> 00:20:30,200 where virtue is no longer the right way to act. 364 00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:32,760 He has to save himself first. 365 00:20:45,120 --> 00:20:47,400 BELLS TOLL 366 00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:51,480 It was just six years after the Armistice 367 00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:54,240 when the first volume of Parade's End was published, 368 00:20:54,240 --> 00:20:56,400 with the others following soon after. 369 00:20:56,400 --> 00:21:01,400 Feted in America, the reception at home was lukewarm at best. 370 00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:06,080 This was as much to do with the way it was written 371 00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:08,840 as its unheroic portrayal of war. 372 00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:11,040 Ford Madox Ford, he's a modernist, 373 00:21:11,040 --> 00:21:14,240 not just in the sense that he's writing about the present day 374 00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:16,880 but in fact, that he's doing so 375 00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:19,040 with a whole new set of tools. 376 00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:22,640 There's all this kind of play with chronicle, you know, 377 00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:24,880 this kind of shifting around in time. 378 00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:29,440 We're here, we're there, we're in the past, we're in the present. 379 00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:30,760 A book like this, 380 00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:34,920 which transforms many of the basic rules of storytelling and writing, 381 00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:37,320 would have been perceived as difficult. 382 00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:42,760 It must have been quite a shock to hear such a complex story 383 00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:46,160 told at such a helter-skelter, modernist pace. 384 00:21:46,160 --> 00:21:49,800 It was almost as if people were seeing their world forged anew, 385 00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:53,200 which is really, I guess, what the Modernist movement was. 386 00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:55,000 But as the decades passed 387 00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:58,160 and readers became more familiar with this style of writing, 388 00:21:58,160 --> 00:22:02,160 critical and popular opinion towards Parade's End changed. 389 00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:06,280 Ford, in fact, is very instructive to a later generation of novelists - 390 00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:08,000 Graham Greene, notably. 391 00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:11,240 Graham Greene could not have written as he did write 392 00:22:11,240 --> 00:22:14,560 were it not for the fact that he was steeped in Ford. 393 00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:19,440 Its growing recognition as a modern classic 394 00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:22,320 was confirmed in 1964 395 00:22:22,320 --> 00:22:26,440 when the BBC adapted it for the first time. 396 00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:29,280 DRAMATIC BRASS MUSIC 397 00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:34,960 The three parts faithfully mirrored the first three novels, 398 00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:40,040 starring Ronald Hines, playing Tietjens as a blustering aristocrat 399 00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:43,920 and a young Judi Dench as Valentine Wannop 400 00:22:43,920 --> 00:22:46,640 in one of her earliest roles. 401 00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:48,040 I say! 402 00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:51,920 Go and see that they don't hurt Gertie, will you? 403 00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:53,680 What? 404 00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:56,400 WOMAN SCREAMS 405 00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:57,840 What's going on? 406 00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:00,960 I didn't like...well, the look of them, not at all. 407 00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:02,920 - I say! - You've been demonstrating. 408 00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:05,760 - Yes, of course, but look! - What possible good do you think... 409 00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:07,760 You wouldn't let a girl be manhandled, 410 00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:09,280 even if you are against... 411 00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:13,960 - Oh! - Here! Wait a moment! 412 00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:16,840 But unlike many of our classic novels, 413 00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:20,480 Parade's End hasn't been attempted again until now. 414 00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:22,160 What do you want? 415 00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:23,440 891, take four. 416 00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:29,120 The task of adapting it fell to Sir Tom Stoppard. 417 00:23:29,120 --> 00:23:30,920 For a man who's tackled everything 418 00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:33,720 from Shakespeare's love life to quantum physics, 419 00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:37,400 - you'd think Ford Madox Ford would be a walk in the park. - Cut there. 420 00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:39,640 HE LAUGHS 421 00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:48,320 The novels are not structured to accommodate a television series. 422 00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:51,320 The book itself is structured in a very complex manner. 423 00:23:51,320 --> 00:23:53,240 It was not a linear story 424 00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:56,240 when you read it from page 1 to page 700 or whatever. 425 00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:00,280 The consequence is 426 00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:03,840 - I'm slightly proud and slightly embarrassed by this - 427 00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:09,120 that there are quite a lot of scenes in this Parade's End 428 00:24:09,120 --> 00:24:11,840 which simply don't exist in the book. 429 00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:16,160 They are, if you like, suggested by the book 430 00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:18,120 but the mise en scene, 431 00:24:18,120 --> 00:24:21,560 you know, Where are we, what are we doing here, 432 00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:24,440 has had to be invented to some degree. 433 00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:27,640 One would look into social history 434 00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:30,680 and other sorts of reference books 435 00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:34,440 and find out what was going on at such a time. 436 00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:39,480 For instance, there's a scene where Valentine witnesses a slashing 437 00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:43,800 of the Rokeby Venus painting in the National Gallery. 438 00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:45,960 Do you think that is all woman are good for? 439 00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:50,240 Hey! What are you doing? 440 00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:54,080 Ford never wrote about that at all, but Tom took the liberty 441 00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:56,640 of using something that would add to our big theme. 442 00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:59,280 'There were lots of things going on 443 00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:03,280 'which I thought about using but never actually did.' 444 00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:06,320 I'm happy to say that the Titanic doesn't figure in my story 445 00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:09,520 since it figures in everybody else's stories of that period. 446 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,040 For writer and director, 447 00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:17,280 the novel provided an opportunity to get closer 448 00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:22,600 to the unique visual language at the heart of Ford Madox Ford's style. 449 00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:24,480 It was the beginning of modernism, 450 00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:30,280 and we wanted to try to reflect the artistic culture of the time. 451 00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:32,760 Ford Madox Ford was tremendously visual. 452 00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:34,680 His grandfather was a painter, 453 00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:39,600 he was friendly with the big artists of the day - Picasso, Juan Gris, 454 00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:43,400 and I was very keen to use some of the First World War artists 455 00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,120 and particularly Paul Nash, 456 00:25:46,120 --> 00:25:48,920 so these organic muddy curves 457 00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:50,880 with fractured trees. 458 00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:54,280 There's one huge shot of a battlefield 459 00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,840 which was like a Nash painting brought to life. 460 00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:00,520 GUNFIRE 461 00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:04,720 MOURNFUL BRASS MUSIC 462 00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:05,880 # Fair and kind... # 463 00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:07,920 Miss Wannop. 464 00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:11,280 Mr Tietjens. 465 00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:15,600 I used some devices - the set of three mirrors, 466 00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:18,680 which is a technique pioneered by the vorticist photographers, 467 00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,960 which I loved as an idea because it reflects the love triangle, 468 00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:25,240 but also, plays with image as the Cubists did. 469 00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:29,040 I found by playing with these mirrors, 470 00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:30,960 we could take Rebecca Hall's face 471 00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,200 and kind of put her nose where her ear should be 472 00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:35,320 and make her look like a Picasso painting 473 00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:37,640 and Tom and I suddenly got very excited by that 474 00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:41,120 as we explored the possibilities of that, because we felt it was a style 475 00:26:41,120 --> 00:26:43,440 that was entirely appropriate to the material. 476 00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:46,040 DOG BARKS 477 00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:50,640 Today, we're exactly 100 years on from where Parade's End begins 478 00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:53,160 but far from making it seem old hat, 479 00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:55,560 the passage of time has only served 480 00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:59,400 to make the novel appear fresher and more relevant than ever. 481 00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:03,120 'I think our fascination with this period is a rich and complex one. 482 00:27:03,120 --> 00:27:04,640 'I think part of it is the fact 483 00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:08,160 'that it's an era on the edge of change, and that it's such a forcibly 484 00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:10,440 painful birth into a new modern era 485 00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:14,000 and that the war marked it. That's, I think, one of our fascinations, 486 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,200 the other one being that it is an era now that only survives 487 00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,880 through accounts. We don't have a living link to that era any more. 488 00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:23,200 EXPLOSIONS, GUNFIRE 489 00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:27,240 The issues that Ford is dealing with our issues of our times as well. 490 00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,520 It's issues about, what does it mean to be English? 491 00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:32,480 What does it mean to be British? 492 00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:35,760 The role of virtue in our society. 493 00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:39,720 What is the role of the good man? 494 00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:41,520 We looked at the politics of Europe, 495 00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:44,720 we looked at the politics of this country and all the uncertainty, 496 00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:50,160 the way all our would-be leaders have been in the dock recently, 497 00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:53,840 you know, whether it's bankers, politicians, press barons, 498 00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:55,880 everything seems up for grabs. 499 00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:59,480 Society seems about to, you know, go topsy-turvy. 500 00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:02,320 I think one has to say, works of art have their moment. 501 00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:03,640 This may be the moment. 502 00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:06,760 It is not so well-known, and now it's going to be. 503 00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:17,840 Next weekend on BBC Two, Alan Yentob examines the extraordinary career 504 00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:21,280 of Ford Madox Ford in a Culture Show special. 505 00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:24,720 Ford became the midwife of English literary modernism, 506 00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:28,440 bringing into the world some of the greatest writers of the language. 507 00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:52,400 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd