Austen Again

[poliphilo]

Another film version of Pride and Prejudice?

Actually there haven't been that many. If you set aside the adaptions that translate Austen's themes to other cultures- Clueless, Bride and Prejudice- the last full-blown big screen version (correct me if I'm wrong) was the 1940 production with Larry Olivier and Greer Garson (and a script- how very weird- by Aldous Huxley.)

Of course we're still in thrall to the BBC film with Colin Firth all dripping wet- but that was made for television.

And it's already ten years old.

No, it's all the other Austen novels that have been filmed for the big screen recently. Producers have been tip-toeing round P & P. It's the big one, it's the Eiger, it's the one you'll never be forgiven for getting wrong.

I like the idea of Sutherland and Blethyn as Mr and Mrs Bennett, but do Knightley and Macfadyen have what it takes to be the Elizabeth and Darcy of their generation? Well, we'll see.

It's odd how much we love Austen. She's one of those very rare authors who have never gone out of favour- either critical or popular- and her reputation has never stood higher than it does now.

And yet her society could hardly be more different from our own. It's as strange and fanatastical- in it's own buttoned-up way- as Middle Earth. But actually that answers the implied question. One reason we enjoy her is that she lets us escape into Another World.

But that's not it. No. The chief reason we return to her, generation after generation, is that she writes such great love stories. Pride and Prejudice is Romeo and Juliet- only for adults. Most love stories are quest stories. The loved object- male or female- is a grail, an all but unattainable object of desire. But Austen gives us both sides of the story- not one grail seeker, but two grail seekers groping towards each another though the mephitic glooms and smokes of the Wasteland. In most love stories one lover is analysed to death and the other is a dummy, but Elizabeth and Darcy are equally real.

Austen is our greatest psychologist of love.

Comments

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

Minor correction- Clueless was based on Emma, the young girl who interfered with her friend's love life but couldn't sort out her own. The movie that updated P&P to modern Western culture was Bridget Jones' Diary.

Straight Regency era tellings of P&P have been done a few times, the 1940's version being the last movie length that I know of, though I think there may have been one in the 60's (?).

P&P is endearing because the main characters are complicated without being boring and interesting while being realistic. It's finely balanced and it invites the reader without insulting them. It's a different world, which can be off-putting (many JA fans I've talked with have said they disliked her when they read her works as teens, because they thought it was just about getting married) or it can be an adventure to a foreign setting, the past.

As for the present adaptation, I'm a little worried about the drama they'll doubtlessly introduce and the pairing they'll have to do to fit it into a two-hour frame... but I'm looking forward to it and it should be fun.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the correction. I have to admit I haven't seen Clueless.

There have been several TV versions of P & P. The BBC seems to come up with a new one every decade (though I reckon they'll have a hard job improving on the '90s version.)

I disliked Austen as a teen. I thought she was cruel (to characters like Lady Catherine and Mr Collins.) These days I relish the delicate savagery of her caricatures.

I read an interview with Donald Sutherland. He said he had doubts about the project but was finally sold on it when he learned that he and the girls would be getting together to workshop a "family laugh". It sounds like it will a thoughtful production.

[cdpoint.livejournal.com]

I considered Macfadyen a drip until I saw him as the young Henry V in Henry IV Part 2 at the National this summer. He was quite convincingly commanding, in perfect voice for the part.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Macfadyen is entirely new to me. I can't place him at all. It's encouraging to know he's good enough to have played Hal (one of the trickiest and most interesting Shakespearian roles.)

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Of course we're still in thrall to the BBC film with Colin Firth all dripping wet- but that was made for television.

Made for television or not, it's wonderful. I have a handful of friends who read the book after seeing Mr. Firth all dripping wet, young people who might never have taken the time to read it. (And oh, what they would have missed!)

I like the idea of Sutherland and Blethyn as Mr and Mrs Bennett, but do Knightley and Macfadyen have what it takes to be the Elizabeth and Darcy of their generation? Well, we'll see.

I can't think of a part more perfect for Donald Sutherland. He's had his share of really awful movies...but I can picture him in this part.

AS for Kiera Knightley- She's too skinny for that part. I'm sure she's actress enough to PLAY the part, I like her very much. BUT Elizabeth....maybe it's in my mind's eye, but I always pictured Miss Bennett as being 'healthy' looking.

I dunno. I loved the TV version so much, I'm not sure if I'd go see it. And I even liked the Olivier/Garson version, because I though Ms. Garson was a class act.

but I think Colin Firth will always be the embodiment of Mr. D'Arcy.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think the Ehle/Firth version is as close as definitive as these things get. The one thing I didn't like was the performance of Alison Steadman as Mrs Bennett. It was just too screechy. You have to be able to believe that Mr and Mrs Bennett were once a love-match and Steadman made this all but impossible. Blethyn, I'm happy to say, has said she's going to play Mrs B not as a caricature but as a real woman with real worries .

I'm afraid Kiera Knightley has too modern a face and film-starrish a face. Elizabeth Bennett, according to Austen, has fine eyes, but is much less of a conventional "beauty" than Jane.

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

The only description given of Elizabeth in the books is that her figure is 'light and pleasing', so Elizabeth should have a trim figure (after all, she is a girl who thinks nothing of a three mile walk in the early morning), though I doubt that Regency 'light' quite matches the modern skinny hollywood actress look. Kiera Knightly might be too thin for anything other than a waif, frankly, but I don't think ELizabeth was a stout lass either.

My big peeve with both the previous TV version and this movie adaptation is that they wish to portray Elizabeth as a hopeless romantic. Both have inserted lines about her being determined to only marry for true love. In the books, Elizabeth is rather more practical than that, and while she does turn down one proposal, it is not because she could not 'love' her suitor, but because she could not respect him and they could not make each other happy, which is something quite different. Likewise, when she is attracted to someone else, she does listen to the advice that the match would be unwise from a prudent standpoint. When she finally is won over, it is not because she falls into a passion for the other person, but because she comes to respect him and see him as a good match for herself in temperment and disposition.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You're quite right. Elizabeth's feelings for Darcy are a good deal less passionate and a good deal more common-sensical than Cathy's feelings for Heathcliff. But the Brontes get in the way and distort our vision of Austen. It's a pity. Austen was smarter about people and the nature of love than almost anyone who came after her.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Love as a quest story--grail seeker. Wonderful.

"In most love stories one lover is analysed to death and the other is a dummy"--yes!

(And, please: how is your new "bestest friend" this morning?)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

We haven't heard from her- though we've spoken again with her supervisor. We're agreed that K just doesn't get it.

[queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com]

I've never been particularly interested in reading P&P.
Your post just changed that.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad.

I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I've just decided that when I finish the book I've currently got on the go I'm going to re-read Emma.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've never gotten into the Brontes. For me Austen and Dickens are the great British 19th century novelists. They're the only ones I feel a need to re-read.

Austen's relationship with her society is interesting. The tension between conformism and rebellion is one of the sources of her power.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Austen is a very grown up writer. There are times when I want to chuck her across the room because of her kow-towing to power, but then she wins me back with some precise, unique observation of human behaviour. She sees things no-one else had seen before her.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's exactly it. "Saving and repressing."

And there certainly are a lot of things that are missing from Austen. The whole "gothic" side of life for starters.

[seaslug-of-doom.livejournal.com]

Congratulations, you have just won the 'most literate comment section of the day' award.

I have not yet had the pleasure of reading Austen but I will. Right now, though, it's going to be time for a bit of Joseph Conrad.

I was the victim of a southern public school (as you likely know, public school means something entirely different here than your public schools) education, so the classics were seldom touched on. Typically one jumped from Greek myth to Shakespeare to Dickens to Steinbeck.

We often, for reasons I am unable to ascertain, read Shakespeare, always Julius Ceasar, aloud. You have not experienced suffering until you have heard Marc Anthony as performed by a poor southern white trash boy from Wahneta, Florida: "Thuh eeviyul thayat men doo liyuvs after theyum."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the award. It looks really nice on the sideboard.

I think there's something to be said for not studying the "classics" at school. A bad teacher can kill them stone dead. It's much better to come to them as an adult of one's own free will.

So where are you starting with Conrad? Nostromo is monumental and The Secret Agent is the first and (and arguably the best) book ever written about terrorists.

[seaslug-of-doom.livejournal.com]

Well, I have Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, and Nostromo sitting here. I had thought to go in that order. I'll make a note on The Secret Agent.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Under Western Eyes is good too. It's about a revolutionary cell. Conrad passionately hated the early 20th century equivalents of Bin Laden.

But Nostromo is the masterpiece. It's a HUGE book.