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Category: Jane Austen

“…No, I haven’t, but I’ve seen the movie.”

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Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to critics,
and have imagined them to be men of much greater profundity then they really
are. –Henry Fielding

Thank you, Mr. Fielding. I hope to remember to be humble. I have finally seen the new Pride and Prejudice movie (I am not addressing this part to Mr. Fielding, as he is dead of course, and the book was written about 60 years or so after his time) and I am weighing in.

Firstly, I welcomed it with delight. As I sat in the theater during the opening scene–a marvelous, expansive scene of a country sunrise–I thought of how much I enjoy seeing a new adaptation of this old novel. And I asked myself not to expect it to be what I…er…expected. I know the novel, having read it several times, and I don’t mind seeing something that adds to it. In fact, I love being shown something more about the characters I love in a credible way. But I tend to be rather protective of the story, and hate to see it unnecessarily tweaked, and heavens–altered.

I attended the movie with four friends–all of whom are familiar with the story from previous film versions. One is currently reading the novel–she hadn’t finished it yet, but she does have a good grasp of the period.

This movie tries hard to put the long book into movie length. It did so by changing scenes in the novel, eliminating some and causing the necessary conversation to occur elsewhere. It eliminated Mrs. Phillips, a sister of Mrs. Bennett, and the Hursts, the married sister of Mr. Bingley and her husband. The latter did not do any real harm to the story, but being anal about P&P, I had to mention it.

I had made some critical remarks before about some movie photographs re: costuming, but now I am going to take them back–because I feel the movie did an excellent job with that. It illustrated very well the difference in dress between an ordinary young woman and a member of the nobility, and I also admired how Mrs. Bennett was dressed in the style of her own youth–something I feel is realistic for a woman of her time who did not have the time or money to spend in London keeping up with the latest style, and like many older women of today, chose to stay with what she was used to wearing. Even her shoes were of a Georgian style–shabby and soiled, but right. For that, I am (as Jane would say) all admiration.

I have mixed feelings about the relative poverty the Bennetts were shown to have. (If you haven’t seen the movie yet–although I believe I am one of the last to have seen it–the Bennett manor house seemed to be in the center of a barnyard). Possible–certainly. Intended by Jane–I tend to doubt. The Bennetts in this movie appeared to be more like a relatively well-to-do farm family than gentry. They were restricted financially, but I believe that they would not have lived so inimately with their livestock. Mrs. Bennett was conscious of appearances, and if they could afford expensive ball gowns for their daughters, I should think they could afford to have fences. Ahem….

Other story elements…I have to wonder if someone not familiar with the story could have followed it in the film very well. I can’t have that perspective, and neither could any of my friends. Has anyone heard anything in that respect? The scenes cut rapidly from one to the other, leaping across time without giving any indication of it. There was almost a feeling that the story took place in a few weeks’ time instead of several months. And I did miss the nuance that the eliminated scenes could have provided…as a better showing of Lydia’s character before her downfall, and more of an understanding of Elizabeth’s character.

Additionally, I think it did not give Lydia’s elopement the emphasis it deserves in the story. I may be mistaken, but her act, a shattering event in the book, did not seem to come across as the crisis it would have been. Perhaps in needed more real time in the movie? I am not sure.

Nitpicks: Some scenes bothered me, as the one in which Mr. Bingley looked in on Jane in her sickroom–I am sure this would not have happened. Darcy with his shirt unbuttoned! This was a great departure from propriety for a gentleman, and if it could not have been helped, he would have begged Elizabeth’s pardon for his state–even if he was in love.

I could have done without the very last scene. ::Sigh::. Something about it seemed… well…modern to me. I was glad to learn they were already married in that scene, but their being out of doors in what constituted their underwear (with servants about somewhere) seemed a bit wrong.

Not nitpicks: In many ways I loved this movie. The characterizations were wonderful and so was the acting. I loved Darcy’s shyness, once one of my friends pointed out that his discomfort was likely due to not knowing how to act when socializing with his inferiors–and I mentally kicked myself for not thinking of that. In short, I want to see the movie again. And I feel it will generate more interest in Jane Austen, and this is always good! And I did love that kiss in the proposal scene, in spite of Darcy’s shirt. Some things are just timeless.

Thank you for tolerating my reflections on this movie, since it is not a new topic here. I am going to go back and read previous opinions given in Risky Regencies now that I have a perspective.

Laurie

 

Posted in Jane Austen, TV and Film | Tagged , | 6 Replies

Fun Friday Quiz

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Since it’s the end of the week (and a loooong week it was, at least for me as we head into this irritating, er, festive season), and a week away from Jane Austen’s birthday, I thought it might be fun to try another quiz. 🙂 This one comes again from the Jane Austen Centre newsletter, and is an Austen-at-Christmas theme. I’ll post answers tomorrow. Good luck, and let us know how you do!

1) With what feelings did Fanny Price creep slowly up the staircase at Mansfield after the Christmas ball?
a) Hopes and fears
b) Restless and agitated
c) Both of the above

2) What was served at the ball?
a) Soup and negus
b) Turkey
c) Bullet pudding

3) Who usually visited the Bennetts at Christmas?
a) Mr. Collins
b) Mr. Bingley
c) The Gardiners

4) Where did they spend Christmas after Elizabeth and Darcy married?
a) Netherfield
b) London
c) Pemberley

5) Who spent Christmas at Uppercross with the Musgroves, to improve the noise at Lyme?
a) Louisa
b) The little Harvilles
c) The Crofts

6) What amusement did Mrs. Musgrove find for them?
a) Making decorations with silk and gold paper
b) Snapdragon
c) A parlor game

7) Mr. and Mrs. Weston held a party on Christmas Eve. Who was absent?
a) Emma
b) Mr. John Knightley
c) Harriet

8) What nearly prevented the party from going ahead?
a) A fever
b) A sore throat
c) Snow

9) Jane Austen was born just before Christmas in what year?
a) 1770
b) 1775
c) 1776

10) What was the main ingredient of a Regency mince pie?
a) Brandy
b) Raisins
c) Meat

Posted in Frivolity, Jane Austen | Tagged | 4 Replies

Following in the footsteps?

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It is a fact universally acknowledged that when discussing the works of Jane Austen, the topic of who is her successor comes around. Who do you think has filled her unfillable shoes? I propose Stella Gibbons, author of Cold Comfort Farm, a classic that has this quote from Mansfield Park in its frontispiece: Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.

It’s the story of Flora Poste, a young woman who likes to have order and sense in her world. When she is orphaned, she goes to live with her distant relatives, the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm. There, Flora, whose mission in life is to collect material for a book she will write three decades later in the style of Jane Austen, finds the Starkadders in dire need of not only sense and sensibility but persuasion too. She sets to work reforming her relatives, channeling their peculiar energies into rewarding occupations. Even though Gibbons is satirizing the earthy, elemental novels of Mary Webb, wildly popular in the 1920s and 1930s, it doesn’t matter if you haven’t read them–the book is still as funny as a rubber crutch. Particularly purple passages are marked with asterisks like a travel guide.

There’s Amos, the preacher who leads the Quivering Brethren; Seth, who goes a-mollocking when the sukebind hangs heavy in the hedgerows, but whose real passion is the movies; Mad Aunt Ada Doom who saw something nasty in the woodshed when she was little; Elphine, who likes to flit around the countryside wearing artsy clothes and reciting poetry; and a rich cast of non-Starkadders like Mr. Mybug, the sex-obsessed intellectual who’s writing a book proving Branwell Bronte wrote all of his sisters’ novels.

The BBC made a film of Cold Comfort Farm (1996) directed by John Schlesinger with a wonderful cast, including the lovely and talented Rufus Sewell as Seth, Kate Beckinsale as Flora Poste, and Ian McKellen as Amos.

Any other contenders for the title of the 21st (or 20th) century Jane Austen?

Posted in Jane Austen, Reading | Tagged , , | 9 Replies

P&P Finally!

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Yesterday I finally got the chance to see the new Pride & Prejudice movie, after having spent several weeks listening to rants and raves and mixed reviews. Now I can be opinionated about it, too, and at great length, for which I apologize!

I’m always fascinated (and sympathetic) to those who take the huge RISK of trying to bring a beloved book into a film. In fact, my critique partners, Therese Walsh and Kathleen Bolton, and I wrote an article on the path taken by the producers of the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and how we as authors could apply similar methods when faced with the task of revising an unwieldy manuscript.

There are things that must be cut, for practical purposes, and then many things which must be added as well in the way of sensory detail not supplied by the author. And inevitably, these changes will annoy some viewers. So I have a healthy respect for anyone taking on the task of reinterpreting a classic, even if I don’t always agree with the interpretation. How stale a production might be that tried too slavishly to reproduce a book! Rather like a musician merely playing every note the composer wrote, without putting her own soul into the work.

Since we’ve already talked about it, I’m not going to delve too much into details of historical accuracy and fidelity in this P&P. Some things did jar me but I got used to them as there was so much to like, even love, about this film. Anyway, on to my favorite thing about this movie: the characterizations!

First let me say I’m a huge fan of Colin Firth in the role of Mr. Darcy. But I absolutely loved Matthew McFadyen’s different take on it, too. I’ve already heard protests that Darcy was arrogant and not shy, but I disagree. I think of this passage from the book (which was kept in the movie, though slightly adapted):

“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,” said Darcy, “of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.”

To me this doesn’t smack of a lack of desire to make friends; just an admission of difficulty negotiating tricky social waters. I see this Darcy as a serious young man, who succeeded to wealth and its accompanying responsibilities fairly early in life, and who has already been burned at least once (by Wickham) and possibly by fortune-hunting females as well. He’s too smart to be unaware of Caroline Bingley’s plays for him. I could see that that might add a level of wariness that would make it hard to start up relationships.

At the same time, he’s powerfully attracted to Lizzie’s playfulness, which comes across nicely in Keira Knightley’s performance. She comes across a bit sillier at the start than I expected, but it gave her more room to grow, too. Again, a different but effective interpretation (and I loved Jennifer Ehle in the ’95 version, too). As for the critics who must endlessly harp on her underbite—it’s just plain mean-spirited. She’s very cute and has such lovely expressive eyes.

I was also impressed by the treatment of secondary characters. Rosamund Pike was lovely as Jane (the actress in the ’95 version was not quite pretty enough—I feel mean-spirited myself to say that, but it’s true). Simon Woods was a bit startling as Mr. Bingley—what a buffoon! But also fun. Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennett was an interesting blend of wit and sympathy (I always found him a fallible but sympathetic character despite some Austen scholars’ desire to assign him the role of villain in the piece). And it was no surprise that Dame Judi Dench made a splendid Lady Catherine De Bourgh.

The really pleasant surprises (to me) were the well-rounded characterizations of Mr. Collins, Mary and even Mrs. Bennett. Mr. Collins (Tom Hollander) was delightfully absurd and yet escaped pure pomposity because he was so earnest in his desire to please. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him as he presents that little flower to Lizzie, or when he tries to get Darcy’s attention at the ball. Mary (Talulah Riley), too, was more than a mere pedant; she looked so sad and confused and out of place in that household. Now I really understand why people are interested in writing her story! Even Mrs. Bennett gets her semi-redeeming moment, when she challenges Lizzie to think how she would feel with five daughters to settle in life.

Now as for that controversial ending—I have to say it felt wrong to me. NOT because it added a prologue not in the book, and NOT because it showed a bit of sensuality. I liked that! But it felt rushed and somehow out of order. A friend with whom I saw the movie said it was odd for Darcy and Lizzie to be talking about pet names after they’d clearly consummated their marriage already. That may be part of my problem.

What I personally would have liked to see is more of what happened between the engagement and the post-coital bliss. Maybe a wedding scene. Or maybe even the beginning of the wedding night, with all that lovely awkward tenderness of young lovers, then a discreet fadeout, to keep the rating OK for teens but allow those who want to imagine the rest.

OK, everyone, feel free to agree or disagree. What did you think of what was done with the characters? Did you like the ending? If not, how would you have ended the film?

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, a Romantic Times Top Pick!
www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Jane Austen, TV and Film | Tagged , , , | 8 Replies

Christmas Notions

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All right, first of all, the answers to yesterday’s quiz! They are:

1) A bag
2) A brougham (this was the one I got wrong–I thought they were ALL Regency carriages, oops)
3) Clematis
4) A library that loaned books to members who paid a subscription fee
5) To fill the page one way and then write in the spaces the other way
6) Though I was tempted to go with the decayed fruit answer, it was of course: Add decorative items to it
7) A coat
8) Stays
9) Members of Parliament
10) Poker

So–how did everyone do?

And I have been giving a lot of thought to Christmas matters lately. I took Megan’s advice and piled many of my favorite Christmas-set books in a basket, where they look all festive and beckoning! There are several anthologies there, as well as Kate Huntington’s “Mistletoe Mayhem”, Regina Scott’s “Twelve Days of Christmas”, Mary Balogh’s “A Christmas Bride”–and many others, which I’m sure I’ll talk about more as the season goes on.

When I was writing my own Christmas novellas (“A Partridge in a Pear Tree” in “A Regency Christmas”, and “Upon a Midnight Clear” in “Regency Christmas Magic”, a story that features my own personal favorite couple of my own creating, Antoinette and Mark) I did a lot of research on Christmas in the period. Of course, many of the traditions we consider to be, well, traditional come from the Victorian period. Trees, stockings, Santa Claus, though not Barnes and Noble gift cards (my own favorite family tradition!). In the Regency, Christmas was a much lower-key time, though it had its share of fun. Greenery was used for decorations, rosemary, bay, holly, laurel, mistletoe, fashioned into swags and wreaths. Here is a bit of a poem from 1825:
“Bring me a garland of holly,
Rosemary, ivy, and bays”

Gifts were probably exchanged, though not the great mountains we expect now (no Barbie dream homes and Tickle Me Elmos), maybe a few songs sung, though many of the older carols were heard more as hymns in church. There might be roving bands singing “wassail” songs from door to door, looking for food, coins, and (what else?) wassail. In London, there were often Christmas pantomimes, and it seems Astley’s Amphitheater had a Christmas show. On Twelfth Night, there were often masking parties, and cakes where whoever got the bean would then be “king of the bean” for the party.

Jane Austen, as far as I can find, only mentioned the holiday once in her surviving letters, wishing her sister Cassandra a “merry Christmas”, and saying she was invited to dine at a friends’ house (she was not going to go due to bad weather, but then it seems the weather cleared and she went after all). There are some hints in the books–“Persuasion” features a scene of Christmas at the Musgrave house, where the girls are cutting out silk and gold paper for ornaments, the small boys run riot (too much candy?), and the fire roars. Lady Russell remarks, “I hope I shall remember in future not to call at Uppercross in the Christmas holiday.” And in “Emma”, they attend a Christmas party at the Westons’. Mr. Elton says, “At Christmas everybody invites their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst weather.”

I tried to stay true to this in my own stories, while still being festive and holiday-ish (it’s a holiday anthology, after all!). My characters play games (“Partridge” centers around a sort of scavenger hunt based on the song), attend parties, and drink wassail, while finding love, of course. Which I hope you’ll have in abundance this holiday season.

Posted in Jane Austen, Regency, Research | Tagged | 4 Replies