Superb. Within the constraints of the 3 hours Martin gave himself, this adaptation had everything including a wonderfully elegiac rhythm that adjusted subtly to the transitions between events in the War and peacetime scenes in Amiens. This structure worked perfectly for me creating a rare sense of engagement in the inner lives of the characters especially Stephen, Isabelle and Jack (Firebrace).

Eddie Redmayne was simply stunning as Stephen: pitch perfect and conveying the quiet unobtrusive subtleties of a love so overwhelming that it was beyond conventional morality, beyond guilt; but also convincing in the edgier demands of the front in a War of unspeakable horror and waste. Without the resources of a major studio budget it was a great achievement to invest the scenes in the trenches and especially underground with Jack and the Sewer rats, with such a keen sense of authenticity both moving and suspenseful.

Casting was excellent with solid performances ably supporting the principals; the excellent Joseph Mawle (Jack), an imperious Matthew Goode as Captain Gray and a likeable Richard Madden as the eventually tragic Captain Weir. For a story the whole dramatic fulcrum of which was the love between Stephen and Isabelle, the casting of Isabelle was critical: and the quirkily beautiful Clémence Poésy was a fascinating mixture of ethereal detachment and earthy passion. We believed in this passionate love even before a word was spoken between them in episode 1 and later when living together after she had left her husband and step-children.

Current hot writer Abi Morgan has two other major productions on show at the moment in Shame and The Iron Lady. For me Birdsong is by far the best of the three. Not a word wasted; not a phrase too much, the rigorously economical writing allowed the characters to breathe and the actors to flesh out their parts without the burden of carrying too much plot development. A beautifully judged screenplay.

Editing and cinematography were unobtrusively effective throughout with one jarring exception and Nicholas Hooper’s quietly insistent score, often relying on a plangent single piano melody line, perfectly underpinned and reinforced the dramatic cadences of the narrative throughout.

An adaptation up there with the best the BBC has done and unless it’s timing of broadcast versus the BAFTA etc season works against it, one that should win shed-loads of awards.

One or two scenes seemed to need a little more time to develop making me wonder whether these might have been filled out satisfyingly had this been two 120 minute episodes or even a 90 minute opener and a 120 minute conclusion.

I have only one cavil about this excellent film: I am absolutely bewildered that Martin ended 3 hours of superb filming so abruptly. There are two elements to this: 1st and so hard to understand; at the very end where Stephen walks towards the house and his daughter runs up to him, Martin cuts literally just a few frames too soon as Francoise does not actually reach him. There are plenty of ways to make this closing shot more satisfying: e.g. Stephen crouching down to Francoise’s level and we close as the two speak is just one – but they should connect. The poignancy and emotional power of the moment that the whole 3 hours before has led us to is chopped with an abruptness that seems almost amateurish.

The second disappointment relates to the whole of the ending. Directors must engage with two emotional frames of reference in any scene: the first and by far the most important, is the rhythm, the natural pulse of the narrative; appearing neither too rushed nor to slow. The second element is the emotional rhythm of the audience: we attune ourselves to the pace the Director gives to his narrative and when the dramatic drive speeds up or slows, great directors lead us through these transitions, these changes of pace. Of course sometimes the dramatic effect sought is a startling, shocking abrupt cut, but generally this process is one of gently smoothing out transitions between scenes. This happens constantly in films but goes unnoticed through the L-cut: watch any film carefully and you will for example hear dialogue from the next scene before the images of the present scene have gone.

With time-shifted narratives these transitions can be confusing and disruptive to our engagement in the narrative – this happens quite a lot for example in the current J.Edgar movie. It is bewildering therefore that having controlled these rhythms and transitions impeccably throughout Birdsong, giving a very distinctive atmosphere and tone to the film, elegiac as I have described it above, Philip Martin should wrap the whole 3 hours up in a 35 second final scene, ending several frames early. Having guided us firmly and confidently through the whole of his film it’s as if Martin has run out of time and makes us sprint the last stretch. To so radically change the pace of the film right at the end seems perverse. Certainly my wife and I both felt surprised and a little cheated: we needed a little time to savour the bitter-sweet conclusion to a dramatic journey that had so totally absorbed us for 3 hours.

A small point perhaps and I hope it doesn’t sound too precious: but it is the only tiny disappointment in a superbly made, beautifully acted, moving and evocatively successful adaptation of a much loved book to the screen.

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I must say Zettle I was absolutely finished off on Sunday night. First we had a (very lacking in pace this week) "Call The Midwife" which ended in old soldier Roy Hudd losing both his legs quickly followed by his life due to ulcers and then this, "Birdsong" where the flower of British youth was mown down in their droves. Bloody hell! Talk about being reminded of your mortality - I thought the BBC had a remit to cheer us all up on a Sunday night.

I almost decided not to watch Part Two, having been kept awake the previous week by Part Two but in the end I was pulled in by Eddie Redmayne's mesmerizing face. What a brilliant piece of casting that was. I also loved Joseph Mawle as Jack Firebrace - again he has one of those faces you could stare at for hours!

Some people I spoke to about this didn't like the lingering camera but for me that was what was so good about it. It totally captured both the pre-war dream state and the interminable waiting that people who have fought in wars always say is the biggest part of it.

I am glad they left out third modern thread that appears in the book. In 3-hours it would have detracted from the intensity.

I see what you mean about the abrupt ending. I'm nor saying I disagree with you either. But this did wok for me. As someone who must have seen Jenny Agutter run down a platform with arms wide open, crying, "Daddy. My daddy," I'm not sure I could have taken a similar ending without being reminded too much of it - who know, maybe that's what the director thought too! For me the ending began not there, but in that tunnel just before the light went out of Firebrace's eyes and he saw his son John. The parallel there was very strong - we didn't need another reunion. The memory of his words, "The only thing is to love and be loved' struck home and we knew exactly where we going from there. Piling it on would have gone into schmalz for me.

More of this, please, BBC!

I watched both parts of Birdsong even though it didn't fully convince me and I often found the drawn-out scenes irritating. I do admire, though, the bravery in allowing each scene so much room to breathe in this age of whizz-bang speed, I just think it was over-done to the point of self-indulgence at times.

My main problem with it was not caring enough about the two main characters or being convinced by their passion and motivation. I found the sister far more interesting and believable than Stephen and Isabelle. Also, the dialogue was so difficult to hear at times that I was missing plot developments - either that, or I was drifting off with boredom, because I was bored quite a lot of the time.

I agree with Jem about the ending. It did seem abrupt, but to go too far into that final scene would have been to spark off another storyline and that would have weakened the ending of the story just told. Also, I felt that Stephen was tentative about his future with Jeanne and his daughter and the little girl's running to him, but stopping without quite making contact with him, and his almost non-reaction was very eloquent. I was left with the feeling that everyone wanted it to work, and it probably would in time, but it was early days, which was believable and satisfying.

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Can anyone tell me why the novel was called 'Birdsong'? Does it refer to something beautiful that emerges after the ugliness of war has subsided? What can be heard on a battlefield after a war has ended?

In the novel he comes out of that battle and it's what he hears after everyone has died. I guess it's like the poppies that grew in Flanders Field. The beauty of nature will always manifest itself even in the midst of so much carnage.

Vikram Seth played a recording from the BBC Sound Archives of Nightingales and Lancaster Bombers in a Surrey Wood on their way to bomb Germany on Desert Island Discs a weeks ago. The juxtaposition of the two different sounds and what they both suggested was profoundly affecting.

Thanks, Jem, I thought it must be something like that. It must have been an enormously moving moment in the book, a shame that they didn't try to replicate it in the TV series.

Jan/Jem - I do SO agree about the sound level. I went into our tv settings and increased the treble and decreased the base which gives extra acuity for the spoken word. It is frustating that an actor, rightly modulates their voice yet the technical people can't capture the variations and balance the levels between scenes.

I certainly wouldn't have wanted the ending prolonged much as I agree the danger for this one was tipping into sentimentality. But it did seem to me, as we see the girl run up - they should connect: it's like reading a sentence and someone has left out the full stop - you know how to read the sentece but there's a sense of closure missing. The overall brevity of that last scene was so out of synch with the rhythm of the rest of the piece - that was what caught me unawares.

I can understand someone finding the pace of the scenes and the held close-ups irritating but for me I felt a real sense of what was going on behind the eyes of both. This drew me in to their relationship I felt in a special way. I thought the sister was a vital and important character - but it was Isobelle that men would lose their heads over I think - with the emphasis on 'men'. We are the romantic gender - women are far to practical and wise in the realities of the world to ever believe love will conquer everything. But then on the generalisation front lots of the stronger sex do tend to fall for bad guys.

best

z

I agree you'd have to be blind or gay not to fall for Clemence de Poesy. But there was a definite suggestion that he would form a relationship with the sister in the end - born of their past connection, linked to the little girl's future and ultimately that their mutual liking would grow into love.

it was Isobelle that men would lose their heads over I think

Yes, but for how long? There seemed so little to her, how long would it have lasted had there been no impediments in the form of her marriage, the war, to increase their longing? As it was, there was so little real understanding between them that she ran away when she became pregnant with a child she believed he didn't want.

The sister was a real, rounded person, unlike the insubstantial Isobelle, with an apparently real liking for Stephen, and he for her.

We are the romantic gender - women are far to practical and wise in the realities of the world to ever believe love will conquer everything.

Hmmm, don't know about that! I think it's more a matter of maturity than gender and, as Stephen matures, he attaches more importance to love that grows out of liking rather than 'love' that is just a reaction to wafting prettiness. He can cope with a real woman, not just a living work of art.

Incidentally, I read that, in the book, Isobelle is several years older than Stephen, which Clemence Poesy certainly is not. Disappointing that they cast a much younger actress than the part demanded, that their bravery did not extend to keeping more closely to the original in this respect.

By the by, did anyone laugh out loud when Stephen sprang back to life at the end of the first part? I saw it coming, how could the story continue with him dead, but it still made me laugh. But I was annoyed when it happened again later in the story.

I could point up lots of irritants and inconsistencies. But I kept watching through both parts, it had enough to hold my attention and moments of real quality.

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Actually, it probably made me laugh because I saw it coming.

You'd have known it anyway had you read it, No it didn't makeme laugh. Nothing made me laugh in this.

Jan - Ouch! But you're probably right about the maturity thing.

The kind of overwhelming passion between Isobelle and Stephen perhaps only exists in place one can only visit - never live. I suppose Faulks was suggesting this very point when the sister warns Stephen right at the start that Isobelle will probably hurt him in the end. But of course warning someone under the spell of such a passion is a complete waste of time.

I was tongue in cheek about the romantic bit but there is some truth in it I think: perhaps why many women are delighted to see their partner behaving in a romantic way over the years - a good signal perhaps that the feeling is still there.

But then what do I know about such matters - as a mere bloke? (kidding)

It does seem to be something about men and women that we have been fascinated over centuries by doomed/passionate love in novels and films. I guess in the end there are different kinds of love and it may be that the (tragic) grande passion is as much a curse as a blessing to those who experience it. Speaking personally the love one feels for one's children runs as deep as it is possible to go. But that's a (very) different story.

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z

It reminded me a bit Le Grand Meulnes.

No that love never would have survived the practicalities of life. But that's the kind we want stories about. They would have been short of money and there'd have been rows and the passion would have died - far better to have her killed off before they could get back together. but, if Stephen lived to be an old man he would never forget his one grand passion.

You're right, of course, Zettel. Overwhelming passion can't be stemmed by warnings or practicalities - in the movies or in real life.

You'd have known it anyway had you read it

What do you mean? Simply that, had I read the book, I'd have known what happens? Well, obviously. The point I was trying to make is that, dramatically, I found it unsatisfactory. Or are you trying to make some other point?

No. Just that I'd read it so knew what was going to happen but the way they did that didn't spoil it for me even so.

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I should have said "One would have known that" but the word "one" used to mean "you, including me" isn't in my vocabulary.

There's just something so terribly corny about having us think he's dead and then having him splutter back to life.

I thought you could pull it off once but twice was pushing it a bit. The issue of knowing what happens is obviosuly inherent to any film based on an adaptation. It's an interesting question given how many films are made that way. I suppose that's where Goldman's dictum about you can't be true to the book - "you can only be true to the spirit of the book" gains extra weight: because of the different forms - we are looking for the film to enhance, offer something different or extra to whatever we got out of the book.

Because of the differences of form - which underlies Goldman's remark - and the limitations inherent to film of communicating large amounts of factual detail (often a key element in the literary form) it is perhaps not surprising that many of the best films with a literary source have been based on short stories 'Don't Look Now' and 'Death In Venice' to mention just the first two that come to mind.

I believe the best 'filmed' medium for book adaptation is the series. Some Hollywood fool is probably going to try to cash in on the remarkable success of the Danish 'The Killing' series: and it is almost certain to be doomed as 'The Killing I' was 20 hours of sequential films and 'Killing II' was still 10 hours. With that 'space' plot, character and relationships can be given space to develop and build.

I don't see any reason why the same priciple could not work in the cinema: intially a 3/4 film series with co-ordinated release so that you build up the tension you get with TV awaiting the next episode. I believe the people who understand and value the special quality of seeing a film on the large screen in a cinema would buy into that process. People who only ever watch things on TV or DVD would not be affected as they'd wait for the TV/DVD release. But the initial cinema release would add to the cinema market. Can't get anyone interested in the idea though.

best

Z