Jane Austen

The Judge said:
The 1940 one stars Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. She was far too old for the part, of course, but they were more interested in names than any attempt at accuracy, and she's certainly sparkling enough. As for period authenticity *hollow laugh*
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hitmouse said:
The King's Speech is acceptable for period accuracy
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It's terrible. His speech therapy started years earlier. That's a central part of the film that's nonsense.
Equipment shown is very much later too.
 
However, the 1940 Pride and Prejudice doesn't even take place during the same period as the book. And you can't really compare historical inaccuracies in a work of fiction that includes no actual historical figures with a movie about real people who actually lived. The inaccuracies are of a different sort. At least The King's Speech gave an accurate sense of the period, even if it did rearrange the facts for dramatic purposes. I wonder if it was true to the character of the individuals involved? That would be an interesting thing to discover. If it was not, I would find that a far greater fault than the wrong equipment, or telescoping the events to fit the length of the average movie.

With Pride and Prejudice there are no facts, except how people in general spoke and acted and thought in the period. First of all, the Garson/Olivier P & P changed the time period to a later part of the 19th century, but in many ways it was really more like a story set in the 1940s—except that all the women were running around wearing elaborate costumes. Whoever designed the costumes for that movie had a passion for crinolines!
 
My biggest gripe against the 1940's PP would be that the male characters (aside from Mr Bennet) felt like set-dressing.

I'd be terribly interested to know if anyone else felt the same way, and if that was common or uncommon for 1940's film making.
 
Kerrybuchanan said:
Is the 1940 film the one where Lady Catherine De Bourgh winks at Elizabeth at the end, just after she's given her a dressing - down for aspiring to marry her nephew? The wink throws a whole new light on her personality.
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That sounds more like something from fanfiction than from actual Lady C... Unless the film changed Lady C a lot much before that point, then I don't see how it fits.
 
We were shown it in school (a very long time ago!), to show how Lady C's whole personality could be changed by one small gesture. I only remember that the film was black and white (or I'm nearly sure it was, anyway), but they hadn't changed anything else about her as far as I can remember. The wink just came out of the blue and gave a different slant to all her actions before that. It was immediately after she had got back into her carriage to drive away from Longbourn, close to the end of the story.
 
Kerrybuchanan said:
We were shown it in school (a very long time ago!), to show how Lady C's whole personality could be changed by one small gesture. I only remember that the film was black and white (or I'm nearly sure it was, anyway), but they hadn't changed anything else about her as far as I can remember. The wink just came out of the blue and gave a different slant to all her actions before that. It was immediately after she had got back into her carriage to drive away from Longbourn, close to the end of the story.
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Perhaps had it been at any earlier point than that TBH. She was just too overbearing and too self-absorbed for that to really fit.
 
It is completely out of character for the person she is in the book.

As is the scene where Laurence Olivier hugs her and it becomes clear that her conversation with Elizabeth was set-up between the two of them. Which is, much more significantly, completely out of character for Darcy.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
It is completely out of character for the person she is in the book.

As is the scene where Laurence Olivier hugs her and it becomes clear that her conversation with Elizabeth was set-up between the two of them. Which is, much more significantly, completely out of character for Darcy.
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Darcy hugging Lady C? :|
 
Like many others, I think Persuasion is my favourite. The film and TV adaptations don't do her books justice though. They are so 'tea-table-ish', whereas the novels are filled with a real sense of angst and stress.
 
There is a lot of suffering in that book, suffering of the emotional variety, but it is all of it quiet and internal, and therefore difficult to communicate in a movie or television version.

Although I thought they did a decent job with the movie. Anne's unhappiness was very apparent. It could have been better, but it had some wonderful moments.
 
I just came back from viewing Love and Friendship. I don't know if it has been released in the UK yet; it just opened here on Friday. It's not based on Jane Austen's novel of almost the same name Love and Freindship, written when she was a teenager (with the famous scene of young ladies fainting alternately on a sofa). Instead, this is a very fine adaptation of Austen's Lady Susan. Excellent cast, witty dialogue, gorgeous costumes and locations. My husband and I both enjoyed it immensely.
 
We saw it on Sunday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had some reservations about Mrs Vernon, as I felt she was too welcoming and friendly when Lady Susan first arrives, as to my mind she should have been a good bit sharper and clearer of eye, just as she is in the novella. Sir James was wholly unlike I'd pictured him, but absolutely priceless, especially at the end when he reveals the situation. It was interesting to have Mrs Johnson played as an American, though I found her the weakest of the cast, perhaps because her somewhat understated acting style was so different from that of everyone else.

Being pernickity, there were some scenes which added little, and some characters who appear to have mostly ended on the cutting room floor making one wonder why they'd been included, and I'd have liked to have seen more of poor Miss Manwaring and her attempts on Sir James, especially when Austen tells us she is impoverished for two years after buying clothes to entrap him.

But the costumes were indeed fabulous, the interiors magnificent, and Kate Beckinsale superlative. I'd heartily recommend it.


I don't know if you saw, Teresa, but the director has also released a novel to accompany the film, written as if by a gentleman seeking to redress the horrid slurs cast against a charming and gracious young widow, scandalously maligned by, amongst others, a Spinster Authoress (a writer careless of both punctuation and truth): Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen’s Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated. It had a good review in our paper at the weekend, and looks to be quite entertaining.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice still top my list, but Emma is right behind them.
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Me too. It's interesting to see from this thread how many people love Persuasion - I always thought that it was fairly unpopular (less big movie/TV adaptations anyhow). There's something very deeply appealing about Anne's quiet resilience.

The Judge said:
We saw it on Sunday and thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Really looking forward to seeing Love and Friendship now - I actually really like the idea that it's an adaptation of such an obscure work (I've read it but can't remember much about it). With P&P for example I'm always grating my teeth about some way they've departed from the text or some character that doesn't match the image in my head.
 
Downloaded Love and Freindship [sic] from Gutenberg. I shall read it soon.
I prefer the books to any of the TV / Films for any Austin I've read/watched, though enjoyed most TV/Cinema versions I've seen.
 
aThenian said:
Really looking forward to seeing Love and Friendship now - I actually really like the idea that it's an adaptation of such an obscure work (I've read it but can't remember much about it). With P&P for example I'm always grating my teeth about some way they've departed from the text or some character that doesn't match the image in my head.
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I confess I re-read Lady Susan just before going since it was so long since I'd even glanced at it, so as to see how much they departed from the text. In the event, it was largely faithful to the main events, and certainly to the spirit of the novella, and even though the characters didn't match any of my mental images (not even Lady Susan herself) it didn't worry me. I hope you enjoy the film!
 
I've been watching some Lucy Worsley's programs, this is for Austen funs:

 
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