(22) This is providing us with a mental picture but it just can not be compared to seeing it on the big screen. We can make out so much more detail when it is provided to us and it is no longer something that is hard for people to imagine. .
Even with an outdoor setting the movie does a great job of showing us the brilliance and lavishness that the wealth of New York enjoyed. When Archer and May had returned from their honeymoon she was competing in a archery tournament. The location where it was taking place was described in the book very vividly. .
"The small bright lawn stretched away smoothly to the big bright sea. The turf was hemmed with an edge of scarlet geranium and coleus and cast-iron cases painted in chocolate color, standing at intervals along the winding path that led to the sea, looped their garlands of petunia and ivy geranium above the neatly raked gravel. Half way between the edge of the cliff and the square wooden house (which was also chocolate-colored, but with the tin roof of the verandah striped in yellow and brown to represent an awning) two large targets had been placed against a background of shrubbery. On the other side of the lawn, facing the targets, was a pitched real tent, with benches and garden-seats about it."(160).
Wharton provides us with extensive imagery in her book, but Martin Scorsese's film version has the ability to bring these scenes to life. However, elaborate sets alone can not make a movie.
It takes superb acting to bring Wharton's characters to life, and that's exactly what The Age of Innocence possesses. Daniel Day-Lewis portrays Newland Archer, and he does a great job at showing the feelings of his character. He is strongly attracted to his childhood love who has returned from Europe. She is Countess Ellen Olenska, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who also does an excellent job portraying one of Wharton's characters. Throughout most of the movie the feelings that the two have for each other are never spoken outright, but the "looks" that the two exchange during the movie is all that the viewer needs to recognize that there is a connection between them.