The video, starring Jeremy Irons. I have not read the book.
There was a great deal I did not remember at all, and some I misremembered. The one detail I recalled correctly from 1982 was Diana Quick’s bare boob—the first bare boob I had ever seen on television. On the other hand I was completely wrong in thinking it was a story about the World War—the First? the Second?—that concluded with the empty estate of Lord Marchmain being commandeered as a convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers.
Jeremy Irons spends most of the eleven episodes staring glumly or blankly as others talk to him or around him. Anthony Andrews, the other lead, literally disappears into a weirdly pious alcoholism in North Africa. The great delight for me was John Gielgud’s performance as Irons’s quirky, perversely funny father. And Nickolas Grace gives a bravura performance as the flamboyantly gay Anthony Blanche—”Antoine”—who in the end proves the most clear-eyed of them all.
Part way through watching the DVDs I wanted to read the book—especially the Moroccan episode, which I had completely forgotten—and I may get around to it. But by the end I was worn out: far too many unhappy rich people and far too much Catholic piety for my taste.