The Duchess

didn't see it tonight nanapug but have seen it before and agree it's a good film. I don't really like Keira Knightley (find her pout too distracting) but I think she was good in this. Have you read the book? It's excellent, and as you say, very sad. All the money in the world didn't make up for the fact that she was an oppressed woman with no power even to keep her own children.

I really enjoyed this film and didn't realise it was based on fact. Hope there's some more good films coming up - I need to record some stuff as I'm shortly going to be laid up with my second knee replacement!

I agree the book is fascinating. A more interesting woman than the film implied and living in interesting times. I think the film made her appear more of a victim than the book did.
Go girl, gamble away a huge % of your husband's fortune! Go and visit Marie Antoinette! Take an active interest in science! Go out on the political campaigning trail!

Excellent book, OK film, but Keira Knightley? Not really up to being Georgiana who was an immensely influential woman in the politics of her day. Was she a victim? I am not sure, although it is a tempting view to portray in a film. Her personal life was fraught with suffering and yet she overcame illness and prejudice to become one of the most respected political figures of her age. The Spencer family tree makes for interesting reading!

Oh, thank you, I will get the book and have a read. The older I get the more interested I am becoming in this sort of history, and wish I had taken more interest at school. However, when I think about it, all I can remember is having to learn dates........

I think she was a victim - however wealthy and privileged her background, she had only one purpose from the moment of her birth and that was to marry well and produce heirs. For a woman of intelligence and character that must have been suffocating, even in a relatively happy marriage. But to be married off at 17 to a man who did not appear to care for her, who had numerous affairs and moved in his mistress (also Georgiana's friend, it must be acknowledged) was never going to make for a happy ending. She was definitely a victim of a society where children were the property of their father causing her to suffer exile from her children with the Duke and the forced relinquishing of her baby by her lover. The Duke meanwhile kept all his children, including the illegitimate ones, within his family. Ultimately it was all these children who were the biggest victims.

I just don't think we can judge the 18th century by the standards of today. How do you mean these children were victims? They went on to be Dukes of Devonshire, Earls Spencer etc.
While I agree about the apparent hypocrisy of a man keeping his children while an "errant" wife was deprived of hers, those were the standards of the time. Georgiana had affairs, especially that with Charles Gray and "knew the score" I imagine.
The fascinating parallel with her descendant Diana Spencer is of course what really excites the imagination! Another case of "3 of us in the marriage".

gracesmum I think they were victims of losing their mother at a tender age, that's all. Who knows what emotional harm they did or did not suffer? I agree that we can't judge by today's standards but I don't believe people's feelings towards their children or a child's need for love and security have changed.

I'm just an old cynic (well, not so old) but I don't think children saw all that much of their mothers in those days, certainly not the aristocracy. As in Royal circles, a woman's place was to provide the heir and a spare, then the children would be married off to eligible partners from similar dynastic families and the whole cycle would start over again.
So it was when Diana married Prince Charles, she was expected to do her duty and shut up about his infidelity.Is it any wonder the aristocracy has so many dysfunctional relationships?

I'm sure you're right and I am normally quite cynical as well. I have always had a soft spot for Georgiana since I read about her at quite a young age on a visit to Chatsworth (obviously not the biography this film was based on!) and probably have an overly romantic view of her. However I think it's true that her daughter Georgiana wrote very movingly of her in later life, and her illegitimate daughter by Charles Gray named her daughter Georgiana. Perhaps they felt they had missed their mother's love? We will never know.

The past is another country, they do things differently there. And the same could still be said of the upper echelons of the aristocracy if Charles and Diana anything to go by.
Of course all rich women were victims, being married off and used as brood mares. Children removed asap to ensure mothers became fertile and available to husbands at earliest date.
But she was perhaps less of a victim than many inasmuch as she did a number of interesting things and was far more "liberated" than her equivalents in the Victorian age.

Was that why they used wet nurses Jess? I hadn't though of that.

Interestingly enough, Georgiana did not use a wet nurse but fed her babies herself ( the ones she was allowed to keep). Her mother apparently disapproved. Don't know why I'm fighting this woman's corner, I'm not obsessed, honest

nightowl; you'd love the film A Royal Affair [I raved about it last year] about Queen [I think] Caroline of Denmark. Like Georgiana, a woman way ahead of her time. I must get it on dvd. If I do I'll pass it on [I'm on a mission to get everyone to watch it, I was so bowled over by it!]. I agree about Keira. It's a pity because she does aspire to be a good actress but isn't quite up to it. Not sure what happened to the film she made about Freud which was supposed to show how good her acting had become?

In the upper echelons yes I believe so Crimson.
I think also the fashions must have mitigated against breastfeeding. Picture an Elizabethan dress for instance. Totally inaccessible for feeding and if you leaked breast milk into something like that, in the days before washing machines and dry cleaning, then you would have stunk to high heaven - like some kind of particularly ripe cheese in no time. So they would have had to stay in their nighties etc. and not returned to society.
My favourite interaction between clothes and breast feeding is that Chinese women who wore tops that opened asymmetrically (down the neck and then diagonally across chest) would only use one breast to feed, and would therefore only produce milk on that side.

Didn't they get mastitis? Or did they tightly bind that side? They must have ended up very lopsided ....

Thanks for the recommendation crimson I will look out for that one. It's difficult to get to watch anything I want to here, OH controls remote control with a fist of iron but my new year project is to set up a little haven in the dining room with a tv donated by DD. Can't wait to get out all my old favourites and try some new ones

I'm going to do that with a bedroom. Got a tv and a dvd player to put there. Going to have a 'film watching room'!

You bet they would be lopsided. But i gave up one side a month before the other with DS2 - or rather he gave up one side etc etc They do seem to operate independently which is pretty clever. They tell people with twins for instance to swap em round in case one twin hungrier than other, would have one bigger boob.

Yes; mine always had a preference; was never sure if it was a comfort thing or a right handed left handed thing [with me, not them].