Category: TV and Film

Discussion of TV shows and movies

Austen, balloons, mystery purchase

Updated on October 22, 2014 by Janet Mullany

Who else is planning to watch Death Comes to Pemberley next Sunday? I thought the book was not one of PD James’s best, but quite often not so good books make good tv, so I’m cautiously optimistic. Here’s the preview. What do you think of Matthew Rhys/Anna Maxwell Martin as the dynamic duo?

More Austen news–I attended the JASNA (Jane Austen Society of North America) AGM in Montreal a couple of weekends ago and here are a few pics:

An amazing bonnet, with a booklet on how it was made, being offered at silent auction. It would be the sort of item that, if you could afford it, would have to be placed reverently under glass and gazed upon:

The view from my hotel room, early in the morning:

We gather, most of us all dressed up, for a banquet and ball (there were French officers [!!!] with very interesting headgear in attendance, but you’ll have to take my word for it because naturally I didn’t get any pics of them):

Old Montreal on a lovely sunny day:

And back to the topic of tv, did you see the amazing edition of NOVA this evening, Ben Franklin’s Balloons, in which French people, some of whom were descended from the Montgolfier brothers, and most of whom wore very stylish scarves, successfully duplicated early balloons and flights. You can view the preview here.

And now for the mystery household purchase:

Class Five Flushing Technology Provides Tremendous Bulk Waste Flushing Performance And Best-In-Class Bowl Cleanliness

Pure poetry.

And can you explain why not so good books make the best tv?

Posted in History, Jane Austen, TV and Film | Tagged hot air balloons, montgolfier, NOVA, PBS | 3 Replies

Downton Abbey at Winterthur

Updated on September 11, 2014 by Janet Mullany

As you may know, I’m not at all shy about sharing my feelings about Downton Abbey (summarized as deep loathing). But the clothes in the series are fantastic. Yesterday I took a trip up to Winterthur where there is an exhibit of the costumes that ties in the similarities and differences between the fictional English household and the duPonts in the early twentieth century. Each display had a video clip or montage from the series and a script excerpt. It was a brilliantly done exhibit. I would have liked to have known a little more about the clothes–fabrics, for instance, and sometimes it was a bit difficult to tell what was extant and what was created. Quite often the designers took a surviving scrap of beading, or even part of a garment, and added to it.

So here are some pics. I’m assuming everyone will know who wore what when. Here’s an original gown, very short and daring, and I would have been terrified to wear it since beads were falling off it. Notice how deep the arm openings are–they added in a matching slip.

Here’s a detail of some of the beading on an evening gown.

Gloves! The red ones were worn by one of the characters, the rest are extant.

Coats, featuring some exquisite embroidery.

Summer dresses against a montage of the series (love Hugh Bonneville who I think was wasted in this role, don’t get me started. He’s a terrific comic actor too, and it says worlds for his professionalism that he didn’t play it for laughs). The center one is original and the pattern is very Japanese-inspired.

Here are some of the servant’s costumes. I’m sure the maid’s print dress and apron were original because they looked very worn. The designers used a slightly metallic fabric for the cook’s dress to make it pop for the camera.

And this hat. How I love this hat:

Winterthur is an astonishing place. It is huge, and you’d need days to see everything it has. Henry Francis du Pont expanded a fairly large 18c house by building on another 175 (I think) rooms to house his collection. He bought 18c and early 19c furnishings and even entire rooms from the period at a time when such items were not popular or even considered particularly valuable. There’s one room, for instance that incorporates two doorways, two windows, and a fireplace salvaged from a fairly small Philadelphia house whose owner wanted to install a shop window. There’s another room hung with 17c Chinese wallpaper that required him to raise the ceiling to accommodate it. A complete set of silver tankards made by Paul Revere. And much, much more.

Have you visited any historic houses or museums that you’d like to tell us about?

Posted in TV and Film | Tagged Downton Abbey, Winterthur | 6 Replies

First look at Outlander

Updated on August 7, 2014 by Janet Mullany

Outlander has been a long time coming and it’s finally arrived–you can watch the first episode online here even if you’re not a Starz subscriber. I thought I’d share my thoughts on this first episode. Whatever its faults, I don’t believe there is one careless frame–even the (eeew) field surgery scenes are beautiful in their way. There’s a whole lot of very effective playing around with light and filters–the present day (immediately after WW2) sequences, for instance have a sepia, historic feel to them–and it all looks amazing.

The camera lingers on Caitriona Balfe’s stunning face. Most often she’s gazing at her husband Frank, who is not looking much at her. In fact I liked the scenes with Frank better than the scenes with the Scotsmen, where she comes over as predominantly sulky and stone faced. Maybe she caught it from Sam Heughan, who plays Jamie with a limited repertoire of expressions–I think I counted about three variants on stoic bearing of pain–although there are a couple of flashes of manly thigh. I wait to be impressed.

There is a huge amount of historical filth and grime–the first appearance of a Scotsman suggests a walking collection of rags in the land of bad haircuts. The countryside is gorgeous. The horses are nice.

So what’s not to love? Well, the pacing is off, off, off. Those of us who’ve read the book(s) know that Claire will be going through the stones. Does she get there in episode 1? Eventually, yes. Compared to the brief, brilliant flashback that shows the young Claire on an excavation (lighting a cigarette for her archaeologist uncle, tsk tsk–what, children smoking???–a nice touch) the setup goes on and on and on. I wonder whether it would have been possible to have Claire going through the stones as the end of episode one.

And when she does go through … well, surely this is the Big Moment. We get a black screen. Good. Then … oh dear, flashback to car wreck which is what Claire compares it to, although not I believe in the book, pulling us right out of the moment (and I rarely meets a flashback I don’t like). Bad. I was really hoping for a sort of Hitchcockian Vertigo moment here, lots of wobbly camera effects and panic. Maybe a Blair Witch moment.

Really, all in all, there’s a lot that happens in this first episode but it doesn’t feel that way on the small screen. It’s both disjointed and repetitive. Claire swears, Scotsmen and/or English officers threaten her, she runs, she gets a bit more dirty, performs first aid, rinse and repeat.

I have the greatest admiration for Diana Gabaldon, whose episodic technique was a revelation to me when I heard her speak about twelve years ago: that you can skip onto a scene that you’re dying to write or even a scene that seems to have no particular place to go (yet). Reading her now, I find myself thinking, this scene is great, but really, what are we doing here? Do we ever meet this character again? Do we have to remember him/her? I suspect the TV series will have too many moments like this as well, and it’s too bad.

But, yes, I’ll be watching. Will you, have you? What did you think?

Posted in TV and Film | Tagged Caitriona Balfe, Diana Gabaldon, Outlander, Sam Heughan | 2 Replies

Emma Approved

Updated on June 28, 2014 by Myretta

Are you watching Emma Approved? The people who brought you the wildly popular Lizzie Bennet Diaries and the ill-conceived Welcome to Sanditon have taken on Jane Austen’s Emma and are 56 web episodes into a modernization of the story. Although I don’t feel Emma Approved has the appeal of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, it’s doing a pretty good job of moving the story into the 21st Century. There’s a good cast. Alex Knightley is pretty fanciable. Maddie Bates is hilarious. Harriet Smith is an excellent combination of shy and aspirational (and I’m waiting for Robert Martin to come back).

The sticking point for me is Emma Woodhouse. I know she’s a character of whom Jane Austen said, “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” If I recall my first reading of the book, I thought she was right. I didn’t like Emma very much. But she grew on me, through the course of the book and through each subsequent reading. I’ll admit that she’s not Jane Austen’s most likable heroine. I’m guessing that’s Lizzy Bennet (raise your hands). Apart of Lady Susan, whom we really can’t identify as a heroine, she might very well the least likable. (Although my vote here goes to Marianne Dashwood.)

But Emma Approved Emma is not really growing on me. Perhaps its because she’s too perky. Perhaps it’s because she hasn’t been brought low yet. Perhaps its the actress. I really want to like her. I like what’s being done with this adaptation. I keep watching in the hope that she’ll pull it out yet (and because I think Alex Knightley is adorable). So… what about you? Are you watching? Does it work for you? Do you have reservations? Have you seen the preceding Web series (I refuse to call them “webisodes.)

Posted in Frivolity, Jane Austen, TV and Film | 2 Replies

Trivialities and Austen stuff

Updated on March 20, 2014 by Janet Mullany

I went off to brainyhistory.com today to see what happened today a couple hundred of years ago, and the answer is, not much, or at least not much that interested me. A lot of obscure composers were born on this day. There are always a lot of obscure composers having birthdays.

Turning to the letters of Jane Austen–yes, good idea, let’s talk about Jane Austen–March was not a big letter writing month for her. Her letter of March 9, 1814 to Cassandra contains this sisterly gem:

If Cassandra has filled my Bed with fleas, I am sure they must bite herself.–

Cassandra got busy with the scissors on a letter of March 21 2014 to (maybe) Francis Austen but allowed this to remain:

Perhaps before the end of April, Mansfield Park by the author of S&S–P&P may be in the World.–Keep the name to yourself. I shd. not like to have it known beforehand.

Ah, those were the days. You could be all secretive about your impending release and even about your own identity. No facebook. No twitter. No wall to wall squeeing promo. Heaven.

I’ve been having a Jane Austen-ish time recently, doing what I swore I’d never do because there are too many polluting the world, experimenting with a P&P-based book. More about this darling child, maybe, later. I also went out to Minneapolis for a very short trip–Minneapolis in March, not so good–to talk to their JASNA chapter about Austen and servants. Fun, fast, furious, the weather cooperated, whew.

I also read S&S again. I’ve always thought that one of the wonderful things about Austen is that the books change for you every time, and sure enough, it was like reading a whole new book. I last read it in 2011 and this time I was very much aware of it being “about girls filling in their time waiting by the phone for unsatisfactory men who don’t respond in the right way.” (That was from a post I wrote in 2011 on the JASNA-AGM which was about S&S and hearing Andrew Davies talk about his Austen screenplays.) Because, sorry to say, other than being by Austen, it’s not a very good book. There are so many things in it that don’t work, principally Marianne, Elinor, and Edward.

But Mrs. Jennings. Oh gosh, I love Mrs. Jennings. This time around she was the heroine of the book for me. She’s fun. She’s lively. She isn’t afraid to tease Marianne about Willoughby while everyone else tiptoes around her, not daring to ask whether she’s engaged to him or not. And above all despite the meddling, grasping the wrong end of the stick (considerable), and gossip, she’s kind and loyal and sensible. She knows Marianne will get over Willoughby, and ultimately, get over herself.

Let’s hear it for Mrs. Jennings. Here’s a bit of video for you to enjoy–I love the pained expressions of everyone else while she and Sir John Middleton guffaw away idiotically.

Have you been surprised by a minor character when rereading a book? Do share!

Posted in Jane Austen, TV and Film | Tagged Sense and Sensibility | 5 Replies