Pride and Prejudice: Adaptations of Austen

[Primula Baggins]

DVDs last a lot longer than tapes, too. And the DVD set takes up only a fraction of the space.

[Estel]

I've got to go with TH on a few things here that I think the Keira version did better than the BBC:

1. The girl who played Jane in Keiras version was actually pretty. With all the descriptions in the book about how pretty Jane was, I was very disappointed in the BBC Jane - even the girl who played Charlotte in the Keira version was prettier than the girl who played Jane in the BBC version. The Keira version did much better with this character.

2. The girl who played Charlotte in the BBC version was, I thought, rather pretty, whilst the girl who played her in the Keira version was actually plain. Not ugly, but plain. Much more expected, after reading the book.


I haven't been satisfied by Mr. Darcy in either of the two portrayals, to be honest. I did, however, get much more visual satisfaction from the guy in the Keira version Yummy

And yes, the American ending in the Keira version sucked horribly.

[Wildwood]

Ok - this thread has a million pages in it, by now, and I can't possibly read 'em all! :D:D:D But twice in the last couple weeks, I have found the latest P&P film, on HBO, and watched it.

I can't understand what makes me do it! :D:D:D:D It's such a gorgeous movie and it just infuriates me no end! :D:D:D:D:D The bee in my bonnet right now, though, is Donald Sutherland's Mr Bennet.

I sure hope he was directed to do it that way, and that it was not his idea, because I always like him before this. :D:D:D:D:D His Mr Bennet is so dogged, so hen pecked, so utterly defeated! I hate it. I really do.

In the book, Mr Bennet is no henpecked husband. He has utmost contempt for his wife. Any affection is long past, and he cant' possibly respect her, so he contents himself with laughing at her. She can't quite figure it out, so consumed is she with her own conerns. It goes right over her daffy head, so he is quite safe in being as almost-but-not-quite-spitefully playful with her as he wants to be. In fact, only Elizabeth and Jane are at all able to comprehend his treatment of her!!

He has a similar contempt for his children. The only one he actually values and respects, for her own self, is Elizabeth. Jane he can approve of, but Elizabeth he respects and has some sort of expectation from!!! Hence his great atsonishment and alarm when she accepts Mr Darcy, etc.

He is not even defeated, except momentarily, when Lydia first runs away. His natural sangine nature and equanimity soon assert themselves and he even makes a playful peace with *that*.

In no case does he ever get ordered about by Mrs Bennet; rather he takes express delight in vexing her by at least appearing to not care a fig what she thinks is important (the visit with Mr Bingley).

So compare the book Mr Bennet to the Sutherland Mr Bennet, and you can't even see the same person in there anywhere. Sutherland's portrayal makes me think of a dog, a whipped old hound that has been beaten into such submission that it walks around with its tail tucked forever between its legs!!!

Grrrrr! So why -whywhywhy - do I continue to watch it?? I have no idea! :D:D:D:D It gives me an understanding of some of my LOTR friends who watched the films, enjoyed them as films, but lamented some of the changes that were made, etc. I was not able to "get it" before but I can now. I'll probably watch the infuriating thing again. :D:D:D:D:D

I can't even imagine why though. It makes me want to spit nails!
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

two more things:
Elizabeth would NEVER shout at her family to "for once in your life, leave me alone..." and Colin Firth IS Mr Darcy until I am dead! After that, you can elect a new one if you like. :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

oh - forgot this one too.....what the heck is up with that Georgianna??? She comes flipping up to Elizabeth like she was just bursting to meet her! Where is the painfully shy young sister who nearly eloped and lost her place in her music when Miss Bingley inadvertently brings it up??? What is with this energetic and out going young woman???? Not even the same creature. ACK!!!!

Chocolate...that's what I need! :D:D:D:D

[vison]

Wildwood, dear friend: there must have been some kind of hypnotic drug in the DVD you have. Throw it away!!!!!!

This movie is dreadful. There are good bits (as in PJ's LOTR) but they are few and far between. Donald Sutherland ought to lose his Canadian citizenship for that atrocity . . . .

It's all of a piece. But bad as it is, and it IS bad, it cannot compare in ghastliness to the version of Mansfield Park inflicted on teh viewing public not long ago.

Words fail me.

[Wildwood]

Vison!!! :D:D:D You and I, we are two of a kind, I think! :D:D:D

I saw the trailer - just the trailer - for Mansfield Park,and decided to never ever watch it! :D:D:D I got one gander of what they'd done with Fanny, and just abandoned all hope of anything like a proper adaptation.
:D:D:D:D

I can't see any possible way that Mansfiled Park's story could work in today's world anyhow. How could it possibly? Things have changed too much. And as a result, filming a faithful version of the story would alienate and confuse anyone who had not read the book, and the non-readers out number us readers by a fair few! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

So I was lucky wiht LOTR and Mansfield Park. Avoided 'em both!!! But this one - I got brave and decided to test myself with it. I actually went to see it in the theater when it was first released. It was the weirdest movie going experience ever, because I was sitting there enjoying looking at teh film, while at the same time, hating what I was seeing develop before my eyes, story-wise. :D:D:D:D:D:D:D

And I have now watched it two more times, quite inexplicably!! :D:D:D I refuse to buy it, though, so once it out of reach via cable tv, I will not be troubled by it again! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Step 1 in my twelve step program???? :D:D:D:D:D

[Impenitent]

I haven't seen it; I was slightly tempted to do so by the various reviews I've read here, but in the end...I was too cowardly to do it. Yasee, I can't imagine how it could measure up to the "real" version (you know the one I mean ) and I was afraid of the disappointment.

So I didn't see it. And I won't. No point now that I've got the "real one" on DVD and can watch it any time my heart desires.

And I can feel it coming on. I can. The desire is growing.

I may give in to it tonight.

[baby tuckoo]

Step one, my precious Wildwood, might be to stop smiling so much, though a beautiful smile it is. It just might begin to annoy a person, a person like, say, me, after a good long while, beautiful though it is.


Perhaps that is no reason to stop. So be it. If so, I'll bend to accept the Salmon.

[Primula Baggins]

Wildwood is Wildwood and has long been Wildwood. For lo these many years. Just as she is the purest purist, so she smiles.

One of the first, if not the first, of the smileys we added here at HoF was , because we hoped that Wildwood would be coming here and we didn't want her to be at a loss!

[baby tuckoo]

I see.

[Alatar]

I watched it recently and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Its a remarkably Puristy adaptation considering the time constraints and is well acted and cast. I prefer Firth as Darcy, but I found Keira Knightly to be absolutely delightful as Elisabeth. She had the spirit that I found in the book but that Jennifer Ehle lacked (for me). Broadbent and Sutherland boith did a nice job of Mr. Bennet and despite different interpretations of the role they were equally strong. There is a vast difference between interpreting a role and merely reproducing it, in the same way as there's a difference between real adaptation and the sort of slideshow effect we got from HP and the Philosophers Stone.

Things I particularly preferred in the 2005 movie were Charlotte and Miss Bingley. Far stronger casting and in both cases the "look" was much better. Its also easier to believe someone considering Jane the beauty of the family, because although Keira is very beautiful, its in an unconventional way, while Janes beauty is much more the traditionally accepted beauty. In the BBC production, Janes beauty is more austere and fine, while Ehle's is more earthy. Keira simply had the zest for life bubbling through the constraints of her society.

Of course, I'll be the first to admit, I watch a movie wanting to enjoy it and I only don't if its really bad (see Eragon). I feel sometimes that purists go in wanting to be disappointed so they can point and say "See I know it and love it sooo much better than everyone else"

I could be wrong though!


Baby, some might find constant use of oooh, say, the third person equally annoying.

[Pearly Di]

I watched it recently and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Its a remarkably Puristy adaptation considering the time constraints and is well acted and cast.

I realise that everybody's mileage on the Purist Factor varies, Al, but there is no way that film is a 'puristy adaptation'.

I am not a Janeite so have no purist axe to grind here! Neither do I hate the film. But moving Lizzy and Darcy from A to B to Z, or even Lydia and Wickham to A to B to Z, doth not a puristy movie make.

Reason being: this film gives P&P the Charlotte Brontë treatment, not the Jane Austen treatment. Now, I love the Brontës, and I certainly adored the spiffing new Jane Eyre which screened last autumn, but this movie is all wuthering this and wuthering that and totally gone is any sense of Austen's delicious delicate irony, which the BBC preserved, albeit with a rather knowing air.

Also, the characterisations in this film are all over the place. Although Kelly Reilly clearly had a ball as Caroline Bingley. And Rosamund Pike was impressive as Jane. And very pretty, as Jane should be. Rosamund would have fitted very nicely into the BBC P&P. The girl who played Charlotte in the film was also very good.

But that's a comment on their acting, not on the screenplay, which was off-kilter.

Yes, the BBC really sexed up P&P for their 1995 adaptation, and that's fine and dandy, cuz the female population of Britain got to see Darcy in a wet shirt but the BBC P&P is faithful to the spirit of Austen in a way the movie just is not.

Of course, even a much loved production has its detractors. A friend of mine prefers Knightley's Lizzy to Ehle's because Keira is more the right age whereas she thinks Jennifer was too mature-looking.

But for me, Jennifer really channels the spirit of Lizzy. She's wonderful.

[Alatar]

I obvioulsy missed the location changes. Where and when did they happen? Like I said, I'm not an Austen afficianado. I have to say that what I saw was pretty much the book I read on screen with the story and characters intact. If there were changes, they were so minor as to annoy only a serious purist. As for "tone", well thats something I found to be close enough for my liking though of course, others mileage may vary.

[truehobbit]

Yes, the BBC really sexed up P&P for their 1995 adaptation, and that's fine and dandy, cuz the female population of Britain got to see Darcy in a wet shirt but the BBC P&P is faithful to the spirit of Austen in a way the movie just is not.

Well, for me, this "sexing up" is as much a departure from Austen as what you consider Bronte-ish aspects of the new movie. Just because it makes so many women swoon, doesn't mean it can be reconciled to the book.

So, both versions had their moments of faithfulness to the book and their moments of being completely off, I think.

[Pearly Di]

Al, I wasn't talking about geographical locations.

[Primula Baggins]

hobby, the swimming scene was a bit over the top, I'll grant you (though I enjoyed it as scenery).

But I think the overall subtext of which this was the strongest expression—Darcy's intractable passion for Elizabeth—does fit the book as written. It is not expressed there, but it is the best explanation for the way Darcy behaves. Jane Austen would never attempt to show us such a feeling, but really, if Darcy wasn't smoldering with love that he couldn't overcome, why his awkward behavior? Why the sudden astonishing proposal? Why, when refused so bluntly, did he resolve to become a better man and try again, if he could? If it was all a very mild and ordinary romantic urge, it ought to have been choked off after two or three instances of Elizabeth's raillery. Darcy would have owed it to his own self-respect.

But instead he puts his own dignity on the line, repeatedly. I think if the BBC adaptation had not shown us so clearly that his attachment to Elizabeth was strong and passionate, his behavior would not have made sense dramatically. As it doesn't in the book, if the reader doesn't fill in the missing information.

The problem is that something has to be shown in a film—much more than in a book, where Austen can simply not tell us things and leave them to our imagination. In a film, we see Darcy in scene after scene. We have to see something going on behind his eyes, or he might as well be a mannequin.

[Cerin]

Oh, I wish I remembered more of the recent version with all these interesting comments.

Re Donald Sutherland's Mr. Bennet, I didn't find him henpecked, but I didn't care for the casting; I couldn't forget it was Donald Sutherland. IIRC, the thing I thought most off with him was that there was none of the familial angst of suffering under a foolish wife/mother. Sutherland looked altogether too pleased with life, rather than like someone who has adjusted his habits and expectations to the disappointments of a poor choice of spouse.

And everyone looked rather dirty and disheveled at the balls!

[vison]

hobby, the swimming scene was a bit over the top, I'll grant you (though I enjoyed it as scenery).

But I think the overall subtext of which this was the strongest expression—Darcy's intractable passion for Elizabeth—does fit the book as written. It is not expressed there, but it is the best explanation for the way Darcy behaves. Jane Austen would never attempt to show us such a feeling, but really, if Darcy wasn't smoldering with love that he couldn't overcome, why his awkward behavior? Why the sudden astonishing proposal? Why, when refused so bluntly, did he resolve to become a better man and try again, if he could? If it was all a very mild and ordinary romantic urge, it ought to have been choked off after two or three instances of Elizabeth's raillery. Darcy would have owed it to his own self-respect.

But instead he puts his own dignity on the line, repeatedly. I think if the BBC adaptation had not shown us so clearly that his attachment to Elizabeth was strong and passionate, his behavior would not have made sense dramatically. As it doesn't in the book, if the reader doesn't fill in the missing information.

The problem is that something has to be shown in a film—much more than in a book, where Austen can simply not tell us things and leave them to our imagination. In a film, we see Darcy in scene after scene. We have to see something going on behind his eyes, or he might as well be a mannequin.

Je swoon pour Primula.

The new movie ignored Jane Austen, indeed, and made the story into a commonplace and silly period romance. What separates Jane Austen's books from the potboilers that writers churned out even in those days (anyone here ever read "The Mysteries of Udolpho"?) was Austen's acute ear and perceptive eye, and her sharp wit, all of which created both great literature and much-loved "best sellers".

Donald Sutherland? Who knows? He needed to be reined in by the director. Hell's bells, the whole movie needed to be reined in. A boar's testicles my SFA.

[Wildwood]

I can't escape the impression of complete defeat in Sutherland's Mr Bennet. Even in the scene where he tells Lizzie that she must, from that moment, be estranged to one of her parents, etc&etc, he seems to almost dread saying it his wife's face.

I really detested that scene, let me tell you! :D:D:D:D In the book, Mr Bennet seems almost to be prolonging the scene, at the expense of both his wife and beloved daughter, simply so he can get a bigger kick out of Mrs Bennet's indignation and Elizabeth's relief!!

Elizabeth is a *very* dutiful daughter, and she trusts her father and his love for her, but she is - for a very few minutes - on pins and needles while he makes *his* wishes clear to her and the Mrs. :D:D:D:D It is a scene that perfectly demonstrates what is endearing and also infuriating about the character.

But Sutherland, when he acts it, seems almost afraid to tell Mrs Bennet his opinion, and then suddenly screws himself up to it, and then just blurts it out to her.

And while I'm on the subject, in the book, very often Mrs. Bennet seems to me to be more like one more female child - albeit a very much older one - in the house than a mature adult. She knows her own business, and what she wants, etc, but she is daffy. No doubt about it. She's a silly creature, and she is raising some other silly creatures, excepting Jane - who is still kinda silly in her stubborn insistence on the goodness of EVERYBODY - and Elizabeth.

This new Mrs Bennet is way to practical by far for my liking. Less over the top than the other one, yep. But just too grounded and sensible. She has the proper motivations and ambitions for her daughters, but the daffiness is not there. And I miss it!!

It's hard to explain, but I just don't liek her matter of fact understanding and competent control of herself and everything around her, and especially not at the expense of Mr Bennet, a character which I love but also disapprove of at many points in the book!! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D

But you know what? vison - you've made me understand why I sit through it. It's the romanticism of it! :D:D:D:D I am a girl, after all, and I love a good period romance! But oh how I wish they'd have gotten the tone right! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

An enjoyable failure. That is what I'd have to call it! :D:D:D:D:D:D

Oh - and how about the ridiculous way that Lydia fawns all over Mr. Wickham, who's perfidiousness was not made nearly enough of?? Lydia was a forward young woman with no true sense of propriety, for sure, but even *she* would not have fawned all over him like that. At least - not in front of Jane and Elizabeth - who - by the by - didn't seem to have a problem with it. But I did! I think I chewed a hole in my straw! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[Pearly Di]

An enjoyable failure, Wildy?

Yeah, I'll go along with that.

The guy who made the P&P movie just didn't understand the social nuances of the period - or else didn't care to convey them - in the way that Andrew Davies (a fantastic screenplay writer who has adapted many novels for the BBC) did.

But I quite liked Brenda Blethyn's decent-hearted Mrs Bennet. I've always had mixed feelings about Alison Steadman's over-the-top Mrs Bennet. Mrs B. is a very stupid woman, but is she quite as nasty, even unintentionally so, as Steadman's interpretation sometimes makes her out to be?

Oh - and how about the ridiculous way that Lydia fawns all over Mr. Wickham, who's perfidiousness was not made nearly enough of?? Lydia was a forward young woman with no true sense of propriety, for sure, but even *she* would not have fawned all over him like that. At least - not in front of Jane and Elizabeth - who - by the by - didn't seem to have a problem with it. But I did! I think I chewed a hole in my straw! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D

I can't remember that scene, to be honest, even though I watched the film twice. (Only to enjoy Matthew McFadyen in a Byron-type shirt with the top buttons undone. ) But BBC Lydia was pretty much over the top, wasn't she? Although believable, I thought.

I disliked the way that Keira's Lizzy turns on her mother, yelling at her to leave her alone, like some teenager in a sitcom. Per-lease, Lizzy has far more class than to do something like that! ... and again, it just feels all wrong. It's too contemporary.

Firth remains my Definitive Darcy. No question. Yes, the sexiness was certainly an added bonus, but he really does nail Darcy's character beautifully ...

And Jennifer remains my Definitive Lizzy.

I like this thread, it makes me feel a brief twinge of nostalgia for all those purist/revisionist ding-dongs.

Just a brief twinge.

[Wildwood]

I agree totally!! Firth adn Ehle defined the roles for me, from now on. I was pleased with Keira's portrayal, but I think she got some serious misdirection in some key places. As you said....no way is she gonna yell at her mother like that!! :D:D:D:D

I figure they had to make Lydia over the top, in either version, in order to demonstrate things that Austen indicated to us through Lizzie, actually. So I don't mind that she was somehwat over the top, but to fawn on Wickham like that?? It was teh equivalent of saying "isn't he dreamy?" right in front of him, and demanding that the sisters agree with her, etc.

And Jane and Elizabeth just let it sail on by, whereas in the book, they fuss at her when she behaves improperly. So that part bugs me. In the BBC version, I felt like they wanted her to represent impetuosity and sort of "the animal in humans". She was always tired, or hungry, or thirsty or whatever. Very into self gratification, etc. I wasn't entirely satisfied with their Lydia either, but I liked her a good deal better than this one! :D:D:D:D:D

What was your opinion of the newly acted Georgianna??? And how did you feel about them skipping the meeting with Miss Bingley at Pemberly?? I think Firth captured Darcy's "...it is now many months since i thought her the handsomest woman...." speech, and shut that mean Miss Bingley right up!!

I have always loved Austen's observation that Miss Bingley is left to enjoy the triumph of having made him say what gave nobody but herself any pain! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Yep. Enjoyable disasgter. I wonder if they can take away my title for this??? :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D