SOURCE: A review of The Age of Innocence, in The Nation, New York, Vol. 257, No. 10, October 4, 1993, pp. 364-65.

In the following excerpt, Klawans complains that after an artful and exciting opening sequence, The Age of Innocence becomes a flat costume drama, directed with none of Scorsese's characteristic flair.

I wish Martin Scorsese [in his The Age of Innocence] had understood that the characters in Edith Wharton's books are just a bunch of Italians, like the rest of us. Maybe they eat turtle soup at dinner and have their gowns shipped transatlantic from Worth; but hypocrisy is still hypocrisy and illicit passion still elevates the pulse, even for those living in The Age of Innocence. Wharton, who knew from experience about hypocrisy and its effect on the adrenal gland, wrote that book at least partly as revenge, mocking those upright old New Yorkers who once had kept her trapped...