Emma. 1972. Available on DVD. IMDB details.A complete and accurate version, but slowly paced and without much humor. Not very exciting. Shot on video, mostly on a soundstage.
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Emma. 1996. Starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeremy Northam. Available on DVD. IMDB details.A very bright and pleasant production. Good cast. Gwyneth Paltrow seems born for costume roles. She has that long Audrey Hepburn neck and elegance of manners. Jeremy Northam is also good in these romantic leads. Good comic content throughout.
Beautiful Rachel Portman score. Judging by their estates, both Emma and Mr. Knightly are fabulously wealthy, far beyond what the author intended.
Something that always bothers me about the story is that Emma is, for a time, the villain, serving the same interfering role for Harriet and her farmer as Lady Russell does in Persuasion.
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Emma. 1997. Starring Kate Beckinsale. Available on DVD. IMDB details.A well-done production unfortunately overshadowed by the richer and more lively Gwyneth Paltrow version that came out at about the same time.
Minimal musical score. Perhaps overly dramatic in spots, but filmed with very pretty lighting and color. There are rather pointed scenes of the servants lugging the gentry's furniture around the countryside.
Although it is not in the text, I was pleased to see Emma shake Robert Martin's hand in the end; a nice gesture given how much effort she put into ruining his life earlier.
One of the reasons Jane Austen films so well is the dancing. Color, movement, music, and a reminder of the social importance of group dancing before waltzing came in.
Andrew Davies screenplay.
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Mansfield Park. 1983. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Made for TV, shot on video, a rather complete version at 261 minutes, and faithful to the book. Good settings and natural sound. Nicely cast and performed. The pace is slow and Fanny frustratingly reticent, but that is how the text reads also.
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Mansfield Park. 1999. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Strongly photographed and acted, this is an elaboration of the book with other Austen texts and incidents from her life mixed in. The notion of inserting Austen into Fanny's role is rather clever and makes the heroine much livelier than she is in the text.
On the down side, the director has stretched much too far in appealing to modern sensibilities, the most egregious example being the constant references to slavery. Lady Bertram affects a sort of invalidism in the book; here she is an opium addict. The idea of Crawford bedding Maria Bertram in her father's house while it is full of her family is ludicrous. The film presents much more physical passion than Austen would have wanted or allowed.
The excursion to Sotherton is dropped, as is the subplot with Fanny's brother William.
I had heard reports of Mary Crawford making some sort of lesbian advance to Fanny. The reports were much overblown.
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Northanger Abbey. 1986. Available on DVD. IMDB details.A modestly-budgeted production with contemporary score. The plot and dialogue roughly follow the text, and the production is fun despite lapses in tone. Catherine's fantasy life is luridly elaborated. Robert Hardy (General Tilney) is always a joy and is quite sinister here. I don't recall any mention of Henry being a parson. A subplot involving Eleanor's romance is greatly elaborated.
The mood of the production is overly dramatic and ominous. The story is supposed to be a comedy, an Austen self-satire. Comedy fades from the book when Catherine is ejected from the Tilney household, but recovers quickly for the big finish.
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Persuasion. 1971. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Buy at Amazon: · ·
Persuasion. 1995. Starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds. Available on DVD. This title does not appear in the IMDB database.A fine made-for-television filmed version with a more realistic look in hair, skin and costumes than is usual for Austen movies. The families also have a modest degree of wealth, closer to the author's intent than is usually presented. It is interesting that stories so often presented as fantasy romances respond to realistic treatment as well.
Great casting, especially of Sophie Thompson as self-pitying sister Mary.
The narration of the novel is skillfully converted into dialogue and action. True to the story, Anne seems plain and faded at the outset, but comes to life again as love returns. The screenplay merges details from an alternative chapter where Wentworth confronts Ann rather than leaving a letter for her.
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Pride and Prejudice. 1940. Starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. IMDB details.Much ammended text but fun film classic. A few Austen lines remain. The most shocking departure is turning Lady Catherine, in the end, into a sweetie.
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Pride and Prejudice. 1979. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Very nice shot-on-video mini-series, 226 minutes long. All the cast is good, but I especially like Elizabeth Garvie as Elizabeth. David Rintoul seems preternaturally stiff as D'Arcy.
I don't see any overlap in crew between this and the 1995 TV version, but there are many striking similarities, and I wonder if the later production used the earlier as a model?
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Pride and Prejudice. 1995. Starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth Available on DVD. IMDB details.A superior made-for-television mini-series, shot on film. Six episodes, 310 minutes. Great cast; special mention to Colin Firth whose brooding D'Arcy seems always ready to erupt, and to Benjamin Whitrow, whose Mr. Bennet is a sardonic and loveable but irresponsible father.
Jennifer Ehle is just right as Elizabeth. I will also note that Julia Sawalha (silly sister Lydia) is a remarkable talent; she seems an entirely different actress every time I see her.
I am sorry to report that the color and image quality on the DVD Special Edition are not as good as on the original. This is particularly unfortunate as the Special Edition is just slightly widescreen, a welcome feature.
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Pride and Prejudice. 2005. Starring Keira Knightley. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Fast paced condensed version, more realistic than rich, but colorful. The farm is shabby and has watery grounds. More shabby still is Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennett. I'm not sure why they have a scattering of Americans in the cast, although it does harken back to the 1930s and 40s, when Anglo-American cast mixtures were often used without any explanation or reconciliation of accents.
Keira Knightly as Lizzie is alternately waifish, Shakespearean, or imitating Jennifer Ehle. She has these odd feral teeth. Matthew MacFadyen is elevated to heart throb; it goes with the role.
Tom Hollander is an excellent Mr. Collins: a fool but not an idiot. As the snobbish Miss Bingley, Kelly Reilly looks like a high-bred animal or alien fashion model, which is just right. Mary Bennet is more interesting than usual.
The one out of place performance is by Judi Dench: she makes Lady Catherine much too serious. This is a comedy of manners and she puts no humor into the role.
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Sense and Sensibility. 1985. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Buy at Amazon: · ·
Sense and Sensibility. 1995. Starring Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Robert Hardy, Gemma Jones. Available on DVD. IMDB details.This appeared about the same time as another Hollywood Austen production: the Gwyneth Paltrow Emma. Of the two, I prefer this film. It is a larger story with better-developed characters. Fine cinematography and good (if brief) Patrick Doyle score.
Most of Austen's dialogue has been rewritten and some liberties taken with the plot. I wish they hadn't put in the Regency England tutorial material, explaining that daughters could not inherit and that women (of a certain class) did not work. Still, it is a worthy and exciting production. The scene where Willoughby appears when Marianne is sick is cut. Sir Middleton's wife is dropped and he is described as a widower.
The DVD includes audio commentary by Emma Thompson (who wrote the screenplay) and producer Lindsay Doran. This is pleasant and chatty but not very informative. There is another commentary track by the director and a co-producer, which (from my sampling) seems to be mainly silence.
After viewing this on a large screen, I begin to think it will become a classic. Not because it is Austen, but for its rich, gorgeous images, lush score, and vivid performances.
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Bride and Prejudice. 2004. Available on DVD. IMDB details.Colorful, exuberant Anglo-Indian-American musical interpretation of Pride and Prejudice. Silly sisters, embarassing mother, lots of group dancing: just like the Regency! A few lines are taken almost directly from the book.
The tunes unfortunately tend toward Girl's Music Disease.
I couldn't help noticing how light-skinned are all the middle-class Indians. Watch Mississippi Masala for more on this.
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