Fire is the dominant icon of The Jewel in the Crown. Much like its the theme, this 1984 English miniseries is, or was intended to be, an inferno. Fire as purifier and destroyer; the fire of human passions, love and anger; the fires of hell; the heat of the sun.
However, though it burns brightly, it is flame that threatens too often to eat up its fuel or escape its grating. Based on Paul Scott's Raj Quartet, the 14 episodes attempt to do justice to what is, I believe, a quite elliptical plot, not naturally suited to television.
While there is a visceral pleasure to the death, intrigue, violence and romance, the overall effect is somewhat bewildering. I can only assume this was Scott's impression during his time in India as an army officer during WWII.
The novels begin during the last days of the Raj, the English regime which controlled India, as WWII was reaching its zenith and a Japanese invasion of India appeared imminent. The episodes follow several storylines interlinked by characters, locations and actions, but not so much by plot.
The one constant throughout these stories is Ronald Merrick (played excellently by Tim Pigott Smith), a sadomasochistic and anachronistic English policeman and officer. He is evil, flat-out, a man who believes that all relations are ones of power, ruler and ruled; a racist who takes on a nannying, dictatorial style with 'the natives'; and a manipulative liar, willing to use any means to get on.
How people respond to him often indicates their moral standing. Those characters who hate him recognise in his brutality something of the English regime's treatment of India; those who accept him are either of that order, or see his political uses in ensuring the country doesn't get out of hand.
But while rejecting this icon of Nietzschean power, it's not clear what Scott proposes in its place. Merrick is killed in the end, and people who knew him surmise that he actually wanted to die, having fallen in love with an Indian boy. It is not the discovery of his homosexuality that upsets him, one character surmises, but the fact that the love proved his own racial theories false.
But romantic love is not set up on a pedestal in place of power. Death haunts the screen, and the dynamics of power disturb those of love too. There is little room for humanism, either. Charles Dance's Guy Perron concludes that all those Englanders who love India can really do is hope.
But a question hangs in the air, even here, at the conclusion - hope in what?
Regardless of the (perhaps deliberately) inconclusive story and moral scheme, the show was a treat to watch. The characters, complex and multifaceted, benefit from the wealth of acting talent available in England at the time. Piggot-Smith stands out for maintaining an air of menace and madness, without ever resorting to melodrama. Even as a one-armed, scarred villain, his pomposity has just the air of human frailty to keep any caricature in check.
Filmed on location in India (except the interior shots), there is a wonderful sense of place throughout.
It allows the themes of fire, heat and incomprehension to be conveyed televisually. The vast landscapes, the heaving streets, the beating sun... and fire, always returning to fire. Appropriately, the show ends with an image of the series' symbolic heart, a painting called 'The Jewel in the Crown', consumed by flame.
However, though it burns brightly, it is flame that threatens too often to eat up its fuel or escape its grating. Based on Paul Scott's Raj Quartet, the 14 episodes attempt to do justice to what is, I believe, a quite elliptical plot, not naturally suited to television.
While there is a visceral pleasure to the death, intrigue, violence and romance, the overall effect is somewhat bewildering. I can only assume this was Scott's impression during his time in India as an army officer during WWII.
The novels begin during the last days of the Raj, the English regime which controlled India, as WWII was reaching its zenith and a Japanese invasion of India appeared imminent. The episodes follow several storylines interlinked by characters, locations and actions, but not so much by plot.
The one constant throughout these stories is Ronald Merrick (played excellently by Tim Pigott Smith), a sadomasochistic and anachronistic English policeman and officer. He is evil, flat-out, a man who believes that all relations are ones of power, ruler and ruled; a racist who takes on a nannying, dictatorial style with 'the natives'; and a manipulative liar, willing to use any means to get on.
How people respond to him often indicates their moral standing. Those characters who hate him recognise in his brutality something of the English regime's treatment of India; those who accept him are either of that order, or see his political uses in ensuring the country doesn't get out of hand.
But while rejecting this icon of Nietzschean power, it's not clear what Scott proposes in its place. Merrick is killed in the end, and people who knew him surmise that he actually wanted to die, having fallen in love with an Indian boy. It is not the discovery of his homosexuality that upsets him, one character surmises, but the fact that the love proved his own racial theories false.
But romantic love is not set up on a pedestal in place of power. Death haunts the screen, and the dynamics of power disturb those of love too. There is little room for humanism, either. Charles Dance's Guy Perron concludes that all those Englanders who love India can really do is hope.
But a question hangs in the air, even here, at the conclusion - hope in what?
Regardless of the (perhaps deliberately) inconclusive story and moral scheme, the show was a treat to watch. The characters, complex and multifaceted, benefit from the wealth of acting talent available in England at the time. Piggot-Smith stands out for maintaining an air of menace and madness, without ever resorting to melodrama. Even as a one-armed, scarred villain, his pomposity has just the air of human frailty to keep any caricature in check.
Filmed on location in India (except the interior shots), there is a wonderful sense of place throughout.
It allows the themes of fire, heat and incomprehension to be conveyed televisually. The vast landscapes, the heaving streets, the beating sun... and fire, always returning to fire. Appropriately, the show ends with an image of the series' symbolic heart, a painting called 'The Jewel in the Crown', consumed by flame.