Wonderful masterpiece! This miniseries made after John Steinbeck's novel was first send in Sweden at the spring of 1983. It changed my life. It hasn't come in my opinion a more ravishing and fascinating TV- miniseries as this. A perfect and genial version by a wonderful book and very true to the story. All the actors are fantastic in their roles, but no-one could be more mesmerizing than Jane Seymour as Cathy Ames. An utterly unstable, dangerous, anti-social, paranoid schizophrenic female character that combined with Jane Seymours ethereal, fairy-like beauty and hypnotic, at times mad eyes makes the performance eerie and believable. It must have been a very difficult role to play, considering the characterization of a persona with no spine, no personality/ or a split personality, a non-existent or very low conscience and emotional intelligence to boot which made her although murderously dangerous in the same time the most pitiful and mentally troubled girl not only in this story, but to ever find in literature. She sure didn't have a clue of where she was coming from, or where she was heading. A complete mystery both to herself as well as to other people. Although genetic factors undeniably play in in such cases, did in my opinion the upbringing still have some negative influences, as well on Cathy's life. Her mother (played of Grace Zabriskie) was, although not a lunatic like her daughter a rather manipulative, sanctimonious woman who hated men and certainly was partly responsible of the deranged picture of men, that she inflicted on the young Cathy. The father was conscientious and honest, but weak and dominated by his hypocritical and neurotic wife. They of course didn't deserve the horrible fate they received, but in some point they did let Cathy down (well the mother did at least.) Unfortunately psychology was not a well- developed science at that time. I seem to recall two scenes where Cathy clearly showed some, though weak conscience. First, when she tried to tell her mother that she wasn't forced by the boys to expose herself, but her hysterical and calculating mother wouldn't listen to the truth. And second, when she almost confessed to her son that she "punished" her parents. And of course at the end when to see Aron touched a nerve of bad conscience quite clearly, even in her! Poor woman! Although mean-spirited, witch-likely cunning, still pitiful and her own worst enemy in her totally paranoid and distrusting ways. Yes, it's a masterpiece in every essence of the word and how deranged and crazy it sounds- I think she might love both Adam& Charles in her own way. It's just that that her love was completely unpredictable and could turn to hatred in the most lenient of criticism or demand. So fragile was her picture of her self and so shattered as the true antisocial paranoid schizo she seemed to be.
Review of East of Eden
