strange and random happenstance

Persuasion by Jane Austen
Published by: Max Press
Publication Date: 1818
Format: Hardcover, 255 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Anne Elliot is to be pitied. It's not just that her father and eldest sister are vain foolish creatures who care only for rank and money it's that these traits led them to convince Anne to break her engagement to Commander Frederick Wentworth, thinking he would amount to nothing. Seven years later there is finally peace, though not in Anne's heart. She still loves Frederick Wentworth, now a Captain and a wealthy man. Yet she knows she will never be lucky enough to get a second chance to be his wife. Instead she is to move with her family to Bath. They have been forced to give up their ancestral seat of Kellynch Hall due to their straitened circumstances. And in a twist of fate their home is to be let to Captain Wentworth's sister and brother-in-law. What's more Anne is to spend some time with her younger sister Mary at Uppercross, a mere three miles from Kellynch Hall, delaying the painful separation from home and yet seeing it in the hands of strangers who might have become Anne's family! Mary married Charles Musgrove, whom initially paid court to Anne, whom Charles's two sisters, Henrietta and Louisa, would have rather their brother had married. It's Henrietta and Louisa who become the center of the social life around Uppercross as Captain Wentworth visits his sister and decides that one of these two fine ladies will become his wife. Not only has Anne lost the love of her life but she must now watch him court another, her own bloom faded. Though the course of love is never smooth, Louisa meets with a tragic accident which tears at the soul of Captain Wentworth while Anne meets her father's heir, her cousin Mr. Elliot, who sets his sights on Anne's heart, a heart that is receptive to his advances at first. Can Anne find love again after so many years being thwarted? And who will win her heart? The old flame or the new?

For certain reasons Persuasion is the one book by Austen I'm least likely to turn to when needing an Austen fix. This has nothing to do with the book itself and everything to do with the 1995 adaptation. While for most adaptations I'm able to appreciate them to varying extents and then leave them behind, I just can't with Persuasion. To me the adaptation and the book are one. I find this ridiculous. I really don't know where this came from. When I re-read Pride and Prejudice I don't always see Colin Firth! He might be the best Mr. Darcy but depending on my mood Mr. Darcy could be any number of very good Darcys out there. Yet Captain Wentworth is Ciarán Hinds and Anne Elliot is Amanda Root and Mr. Elliot is Samuel West. And here's the thing; I HATE them all in this adaptation. It's not that they're wrong for the roles per se, it's just that my mind actually revolts at this casting, or maybe it's the directing, I just can't. Amanda Root with that emotionless placidity and those horribly high collared dresses, Samuel West with his smarm, and Ciarán Hinds? Just all the no. Now this isn't like my seething hatred of the 1999 adaptation of Mansfield Park, because nothing will ever match that, this is just the actors entering my subconscious and making the book less than. Because the book is brilliant and if I could just somehow succeed at untangling the two it seriously would better my literary life and I would be ever so grateful for purifying my love of Austen. Perhaps intense therapy by watching the 2007 version over and over again might help? Yet the irony of it all is that unlike Frances O'Connor I actually really like the three leads. In other things obviously. In fact I quite admire Ciarán Hinds, just never as a romantic lead. As for Samuel West? He really has grown on me over the years, plus if I ever get annoyed with him I can just watch him getting killed in Howards End and we're all good. As for Amanda Root she redeemed herself with The Forsyte Saga. Now if only I could have the book be the book and the movie be the movie!

I will say I succeeded far better this time around at trying to make this separation a reality. "Forcing" myself to think of Rupert Penry-Jones was very helpful. But more than that it's how having re-read Austen's entire oeuvre in such quick succession I was struck by how mature her writing had become and all other issues faded away. This makes it all the more heartbreaking that she died so young seeing what her writing could have evolved into. Her six books are all classics, but with Persuasion we see Austen at the top of her game. She's a more confident writer, willing to take narrative risks and in the end creating what I think is her most approachable book for modern readers. Where this really shines is in the almost stream of conscious panicked flow of her thoughts when she encounters Captain Wentworth again for the first time. Even if Andrew Davies in his introduction hadn't pointed this observation out to me I know I would have latched onto it and other moments like it. There's something about these sections that pulse with life. It captures to an extent not just how you think when under pressure but it's almost as if Austen has perfectly captured what it's like to be in the midst of a panic attack. The whooshing of time and thoughts, the way time expands and contracts, the rushed half composed thoughts just pushing against you: [A] thousand feelings rushed on Anne, of which this was the most consoling, that it would soon be over. And it was soon over. In two minutes after Charles's preparation, the others appeared; they were in the drawing-room. Her eye half met Captain Wentworth's, a bow, a curtsey passed; she heard his voice; he talked to Mary, said all that was right, said something to the Miss Musgroves, enough to mark an easy footing; the room seemed full, full of persons and voices, but a few minutes ended it. Charles shewed himself at the window, all was ready, their visitor had bowed and was gone, the Miss Musgroves were gone too, suddenly resolving to walk to the end of the village with the sportsmen: the room was cleared, and Anne might finish her breakfast as she could.

Who couldn't feel for Anne in that moment? The crush and press of all those people in the room and knowing that "the one" was among them. Much like Mansfield Park we, as readers, are in an interesting position having not been there for the courtship of our hero and heroine. "The One" has already been found and the love is already there. But here it's more unique in that it was lost. Anne is a different kind of heroine to any of Austen's previous heroines. She found love at a young age but was dissuaded and therefore lost the love of her life. Unlike Darcy who is rejected by Elizabeth their love wasn't cemented so a similarity of situations doesn't exist. All Austen's heroines have at some time thought they have lost the love of their lives but unlike Anne they haven't had to wait almost a decade for a happily ever after. If you start to lose hope after a few months, imagine the pain bearing this weight year after year? She lost everything to care for her family, to tend to the duty due to the Elliot name and yet by some miracle she is given a second chance. She is past her prime, as can not be said enough by Austen as she tells of the faded bloom that Anne once possessed, and yet there is hope from the ashes. She regains her beauty as she regains the belief that Captain Wentworth hasn't forsaken her. Their love is just as strong if not stronger. It has endured. And while I begrudge the 1995 adaptation I do agree with it's tagline as "A Fairy Tale for Adults." This isn't about finding perfect happiness as a young teenager, this is about love enduring, how even when you're at the age when society has written you off as being hopeless with regards to finding a mate it can still happen. Seeing as I'm not the teenager I was when I first picked up Persuasion being told that it can still happen is a magical message indeed. I will of course ignore the fact that they met while teenagers and that Anne's older sister named Elizabeth is probably on the shelf forever. See, I can delude myself in some regards!

With Austen's more mature authorial voice she's also willing to tackle more "real world" problems. She began this in Mansfield Park by actually deigning to talk about the war and here she continues that and compounds it with depictions of licentiousness, poverty, and illness. So while she might still rush her endings she is braver in depicting the larger world around her through the filter of the drawing room instead of having anything untoward happen off book and open to interpretation. Which brings me to the Musgroves. While one could make fun of the Musgroves as being a family that tends to fall and injure themselves, a lot, I see this as just a vehicle in which Austen is showing the precarious nature of health in that day and age. At this time in her life Jane was probably thinking quite a lot on life and death as she was slowly dying herself. Unlike in other books where deaths are just backstory here they're more present, more real. Death is the end of any story, happy or otherwise. Maybe it's just the fact that health care is constantly in the news that this aspect of Persuasion struck me so forcibly, but life was precarious. Life is still precarious. Yes, we have had amazing advancements in medical care but there is still suffering, there is still lack of access, there are still people like Anne's friend Mrs. Smith! Poor and in pain and trying to reclaim some of their lives. And Mrs. Smith is herself an interesting character. How exactly are we meant to deal with her? She was Anne's equal now fallen on hard times. Therefore she deserves our pity. And yet... This and yet is because she withholds key information from Anne and only decides to tell her when she thinks it will bring herself gain. This is all water under the bridge and Mrs. Smith is congratulated as helping reunite the happy couple and she gets the help she needed. But she got it in such a scheming way that I still don't know what to make of her. And here is the power of Austen. Complex characters that make us think. I might in the end not like Mrs. Smith, but I pity her and admire her balls.

The characters though I can never admire on any level are Anne's father and her eldest sister Elizabeth. Sir Walter and Elizabeth are perhaps the most self-centered vainglorious characters Austen has ever written. And the thing is, I don't think she wrote them as comedic relief, no matter how hard you laughed when hearing how many mirrors Sir Walter had in his dressing room or how he will only observe people under natural light. I believe that she wrote them to be a social commentary on Bath. If you've read anything about Austen's life you know she lived in Bath for a time and that she hated every moment of it. In Northanger Abbey we get a taste of Bath life but all the characters are passing through. They've only made Bath their temporary destination. They are tourists, nothing more, and it's not these people that Austen seeks to lambaste. It's those who have chosen Bath as their permanent residence. Whether she's commenting on the town because of the type of people it draws or on the people themselves, one thing is certain, as Austen has written Anne's family they are true denizens of Bath. When Kellynch has to be given up Bath is the obvious choice, for personality type more than for financial straits. Here Sir Walter and Elizabeth can glory at all the people who want to be near them and they in turn can fawn over their Dalrymple cousins. It's a symbiotic relationship of people who are leeches in a town that leeches your will to life. It's no wonder Anne hates the town so much, who wants to be around a swarm of self-centered assess who long to be trendsetters whom everyone follows? No thank you. As for the whole "Anne losing her bloom" perhaps it was a combination of Bath coupled with the lose of Captain Wentworth. Bath sucked Austen's will to write and it was her fallow period, therefore it's no wonder when reclaiming her voice she decided to shout to the rooftops her hatred of the Roman town.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Andrew Davies, Anne Elliot, Bath, Bicentenary Ball, Captain Wentworth, Colin Firth, Frances O'Connor, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Maturity, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice

Persuasion by Jane Austen
Published by: Max Press
Publication Date: 1818
Format: Hardcover, 255 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Anne Elliot is to be pitied. It's not just that her father and eldest sister are vain foolish creatures who care only for rank and money it's that these traits led them to convince Anne to break her engagement to Commander Frederick Wentworth, thinking he would amount to nothing. Seven years later there is finally peace, though not in Anne's heart. She still loves Frederick Wentworth, now a Captain and a wealthy man. Yet she knows she will never be lucky enough to get a second chance to be his wife. Instead she is to move with her family to Bath. They have been forced to give up their ancestral seat of Kellynch Hall due to their straitened circumstances. And in a twist of fate their home is to be let to Captain Wentworth's sister and brother-in-law. What's more Anne is to spend some time with her younger sister Mary at Uppercross, a mere three miles from Kellynch Hall, delaying the painful separation from home and yet seeing it in the hands of strangers who might have become Anne's family! Mary married Charles Musgrove, whom initially paid court to Anne, whom Charles's two sisters, Henrietta and Louisa, would have rather their brother had married. It's Henrietta and Louisa who become the center of the social life around Uppercross as Captain Wentworth visits his sister and decides that one of these two fine ladies will become his wife. Not only has Anne lost the love of her life but she must now watch him court another, her own bloom faded. Though the course of love is never smooth, Louisa meets with a tragic accident which tears at the soul of Captain Wentworth while Anne meets her father's heir, her cousin Mr. Elliot, who sets his sights on Anne's heart, a heart that is receptive to his advances at first. Can Anne find love again after so many years being thwarted? And who will win her heart? The old flame or the new?

For certain reasons Persuasion is the one book by Austen I'm least likely to turn to when needing an Austen fix. This has nothing to do with the book itself and everything to do with the 1995 adaptation. While for most adaptations I'm able to appreciate them to varying extents and then leave them behind, I just can't with Persuasion. To me the adaptation and the book are one. I find this ridiculous. I really don't know where this came from. When I re-read Pride and Prejudice I don't always see Colin Firth! He might be the best Mr. Darcy but depending on my mood Mr. Darcy could be any number of very good Darcys out there. Yet Captain Wentworth is Ciarán Hinds and Anne Elliot is Amanda Root and Mr. Elliot is Samuel West. And here's the thing; I HATE them all in this adaptation. It's not that they're wrong for the roles per se, it's just that my mind actually revolts at this casting, or maybe it's the directing, I just can't. Amanda Root with that emotionless placidity and those horribly high collared dresses, Samuel West with his smarm, and Ciarán Hinds? Just all the no. Now this isn't like my seething hatred of the 1999 adaptation of Mansfield Park, because nothing will ever match that, this is just the actors entering my subconscious and making the book less than. Because the book is brilliant and if I could just somehow succeed at untangling the two it seriously would better my literary life and I would be ever so grateful for purifying my love of Austen. Perhaps intense therapy by watching the 2007 version over and over again might help? Yet the irony of it all is that unlike Frances O'Connor I actually really like the three leads. In other things obviously. In fact I quite admire Ciarán Hinds, just never as a romantic lead. As for Samuel West? He really has grown on me over the years, plus if I ever get annoyed with him I can just watch him getting killed in Howards End and we're all good. As for Amanda Root she redeemed herself with The Forsyte Saga. Now if only I could have the book be the book and the movie be the movie!

I will say I succeeded far better this time around at trying to make this separation a reality. "Forcing" myself to think of Rupert Penry-Jones was very helpful. But more than that it's how having re-read Austen's entire oeuvre in such quick succession I was struck by how mature her writing had become and all other issues faded away. This makes it all the more heartbreaking that she died so young seeing what her writing could have evolved into. Her six books are all classics, but with Persuasion we see Austen at the top of her game. She's a more confident writer, willing to take narrative risks and in the end creating what I think is her most approachable book for modern readers. Where this really shines is in the almost stream of conscious panicked flow of her thoughts when she encounters Captain Wentworth again for the first time. Even if Andrew Davies in his introduction hadn't pointed this observation out to me I know I would have latched onto it and other moments like it. There's something about these sections that pulse with life. It captures to an extent not just how you think when under pressure but it's almost as if Austen has perfectly captured what it's like to be in the midst of a panic attack. The whooshing of time and thoughts, the way time expands and contracts, the rushed half composed thoughts just pushing against you: [A] thousand feelings rushed on Anne, of which this was the most consoling, that it would soon be over. And it was soon over. In two minutes after Charles's preparation, the others appeared; they were in the drawing-room. Her eye half met Captain Wentworth's, a bow, a curtsey passed; she heard his voice; he talked to Mary, said all that was right, said something to the Miss Musgroves, enough to mark an easy footing; the room seemed full, full of persons and voices, but a few minutes ended it. Charles shewed himself at the window, all was ready, their visitor had bowed and was gone, the Miss Musgroves were gone too, suddenly resolving to walk to the end of the village with the sportsmen: the room was cleared, and Anne might finish her breakfast as she could.

Who couldn't feel for Anne in that moment? The crush and press of all those people in the room and knowing that "the one" was among them. Much like Mansfield Park we, as readers, are in an interesting position having not been there for the courtship of our hero and heroine. "The One" has already been found and the love is already there. But here it's more unique in that it was lost. Anne is a different kind of heroine to any of Austen's previous heroines. She found love at a young age but was dissuaded and therefore lost the love of her life. Unlike Darcy who is rejected by Elizabeth their love wasn't cemented so a similarity of situations doesn't exist. All Austen's heroines have at some time thought they have lost the love of their lives but unlike Anne they haven't had to wait almost a decade for a happily ever after. If you start to lose hope after a few months, imagine the pain bearing this weight year after year? She lost everything to care for her family, to tend to the duty due to the Elliot name and yet by some miracle she is given a second chance. She is past her prime, as can not be said enough by Austen as she tells of the faded bloom that Anne once possessed, and yet there is hope from the ashes. She regains her beauty as she regains the belief that Captain Wentworth hasn't forsaken her. Their love is just as strong if not stronger. It has endured. And while I begrudge the 1995 adaptation I do agree with it's tagline as "A Fairy Tale for Adults." This isn't about finding perfect happiness as a young teenager, this is about love enduring, how even when you're at the age when society has written you off as being hopeless with regards to finding a mate it can still happen. Seeing as I'm not the teenager I was when I first picked up Persuasion being told that it can still happen is a magical message indeed. I will of course ignore the fact that they met while teenagers and that Anne's older sister named Elizabeth is probably on the shelf forever. See, I can delude myself in some regards!

With Austen's more mature authorial voice she's also willing to tackle more "real world" problems. She began this in Mansfield Park by actually deigning to talk about the war and here she continues that and compounds it with depictions of licentiousness, poverty, and illness. So while she might still rush her endings she is braver in depicting the larger world around her through the filter of the drawing room instead of having anything untoward happen off book and open to interpretation. Which brings me to the Musgroves. While one could make fun of the Musgroves as being a family that tends to fall and injure themselves, a lot, I see this as just a vehicle in which Austen is showing the precarious nature of health in that day and age. At this time in her life Jane was probably thinking quite a lot on life and death as she was slowly dying herself. Unlike in other books where deaths are just backstory here they're more present, more real. Death is the end of any story, happy or otherwise. Maybe it's just the fact that health care is constantly in the news that this aspect of Persuasion struck me so forcibly, but life was precarious. Life is still precarious. Yes, we have had amazing advancements in medical care but there is still suffering, there is still lack of access, there are still people like Anne's friend Mrs. Smith! Poor and in pain and trying to reclaim some of their lives. And Mrs. Smith is herself an interesting character. How exactly are we meant to deal with her? She was Anne's equal now fallen on hard times. Therefore she deserves our pity. And yet... This and yet is because she withholds key information from Anne and only decides to tell her when she thinks it will bring herself gain. This is all water under the bridge and Mrs. Smith is congratulated as helping reunite the happy couple and she gets the help she needed. But she got it in such a scheming way that I still don't know what to make of her. And here is the power of Austen. Complex characters that make us think. I might in the end not like Mrs. Smith, but I pity her and admire her balls.

The characters though I can never admire on any level are Anne's father and her eldest sister Elizabeth. Sir Walter and Elizabeth are perhaps the most self-centered vainglorious characters Austen has ever written. And the thing is, I don't think she wrote them as comedic relief, no matter how hard you laughed when hearing how many mirrors Sir Walter had in his dressing room or how he will only observe people under natural light. I believe that she wrote them to be a social commentary on Bath. If you've read anything about Austen's life you know she lived in Bath for a time and that she hated every moment of it. In Northanger Abbey we get a taste of Bath life but all the characters are passing through. They've only made Bath their temporary destination. They are tourists, nothing more, and it's not these people that Austen seeks to lambaste. It's those who have chosen Bath as their permanent residence. Whether she's commenting on the town because of the type of people it draws or on the people themselves, one thing is certain, as Austen has written Anne's family they are true denizens of Bath. When Kellynch has to be given up Bath is the obvious choice, for personality type more than for financial straits. Here Sir Walter and Elizabeth can glory at all the people who want to be near them and they in turn can fawn over their Dalrymple cousins. It's a symbiotic relationship of people who are leeches in a town that leeches your will to life. It's no wonder Anne hates the town so much, who wants to be around a swarm of self-centered assess who long to be trendsetters whom everyone follows? No thank you. As for the whole "Anne losing her bloom" perhaps it was a combination of Bath coupled with the lose of Captain Wentworth. Bath sucked Austen's will to write and it was her fallow period, therefore it's no wonder when reclaiming her voice she decided to shout to the rooftops her hatred of the Roman town.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Andrew Davies, Anne Elliot, Bath, Bicentenary Ball, Captain Wentworth, Colin Firth, Frances O'Connor, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Maturity, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice

Mansfield Park
Based on the book by Jane Austen
Release Date: March 18th, 2007
Starring: Douglas Hodge, Jemma Redgrave, Maggie O'Neill, Julia Joyce, Zachary Elliott-Hatton, Greg Sheffield, Tara Berwin, Lucy Hurst, Billie Piper, James D'Arcy, Blake Ritson, Michelle Ryan, Rory Kinnear, Catherine Steadman, Joseph Morgan, Hayley Atwell, Joseph Beattie, and Dexter Fletcher
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Fanny Price has been sent away from home to live with wealthy relatives because her mother can no longer afford to keep her. She is scared and intimidated and only her cousin Edmund takes the time to make her feel safe and loved. As she grows up that love becomes stronger which is fortunate as it's about to be tested. Her uncle leaves to attend business in Antigua and the young people take over the house. Fanny's cousin Tom has had his fun spoiled and decides to mount a play at Mansfield Park. His sisters, Maria and Julia will obviously perform, as will Maria's fiance Mr. Rushworth. The party is greater increased by two new neighbors, the siblings Henry and Mary Crawford. Yet Edmund and Fanny will not perform. It's not seemly for a variety of reasons but especially given that the play is rather risque. Though Edmund's growing attraction for Mary makes him foolish and he eventually agrees to perform under duress. Julia soon bows out on seeing that her engaged sister is flirting with Henry. And Fanny is roped into the production to replace Julia which is brought to a crashing halt by the return of her uncle. With Sir Thomas Bertram returned the hope is life will return to normal at Mansfield Park, but little do they know that isn't the case. The arrival of the Crawfords has changed everything. When Maria still goes through with her marriage to Mr. Rushworth Henry Crawford sets his sights on Fanny. He wants to make a little hole in her heart. Yet her heart is protected at least from Henry because it already belongs to Edmund, but the pain she feels on seeing Edmund fall for Mary is excruciating. Will Fanny lose the love of her life or will tragedy lead to a happy ending?

While this adaptation is a hectic haphazard headlong rush at translating Mansfield Park for the small screen the number one thing in it's favor is that it is nothing like the horror show that was the 1999 Frances O'Connor version. I still shudder thinking of that adaptation. In this version instead of augmenting Fanny with her creator, Jane Austen, the production went in a different direction and decided that instead of letting Fanny stand on her own they'd fix all supposed defects by making her more of a Lizzy Bennet and less of a Fanny Price. But the thing is I love Fanny for being Fanny and I love Lizzy for being Lizzy. They are characters that are both loved for being themselves. The Fanny embodied by Billie Piper feels like she's spent a little too much time around The Doctor. All she does is run. Everywhere. Fanny is playing shuttle cocks with Edmund. Fanny is playing hide and seek at Maria's wedding with some unknown child. Fanny is chasing Pug through the halls of Mansfield Park, which I'm sure her Aunt Bertram wouldn't approve of. All the while she's laughing and giggling. This isn't right. Fanny is a slight sickly girl who is retiring. She can't physically take much exercise except by horse. When I first saw this adaptation I would have said it was because Billie Piper perhaps had a more limited acting range, but seriously, have you seen Penny Dreadful? Because this is all on the writer and director and not on Billie. Plus by having Mary use Fanny's horse it doesn't have the betrayal and weight that it has in the book. Fanny was just put-out, it wasn't like her horse was her only form of exercise and this slight was the first sign of Edmund's infatuation with Mary which would pain Fanny so deeply. 

But enough can not be said for the relief I feel in how this adaptation purposefully stepped away from the 1999 adaptation. This can be clearly seen when Henry and Edmund try to discuss the atrocities happening in Antigua and Edmund's mother just waves away any discussion of slavery with an oblivious line about the heat in the West Indies. To those not familiar with the earlier adaptation, which reveled in horrors and viewers had to endure Harold Pinter as Sir Thomas Betram raping his slaves, this line of Aunt Bertram might be a throwaway, but to those who know, it's a time to take a great sigh of relief. This is going to be Austen, not some social commentary on race, but social commentary on a confined society in a country house. And while I feel that of all Austen's novels Mansfield Park is the most confined to location and characters this adaptation takes it further. This is television, this is low budget, this is a small cast. They really weren't taking any risks with this adaptation. And while yes, I do think things could have been done differently, you can see why they did it this way. Mansfield Park is a tricky book to adapt and going for a smaller more intimate scale, while in keeping with the book, also made for an Austen adaptation that someone who didn't love the book could enjoy. The costumes might have felt a little dated and the fact that they never left the property might be perplexing to those who expect their period dramas to have multiple locations and lush sets, but I say so what? Smaller definitely worked better than bigger. Yes, it wasn't perfect, but Andrew Davies has yet to adapt Mansfield Park...

Yet I can not give this adaptation two thumbs up because of my love of Austen's book. The problem here is that while it still feels like Austen, which the 1999 version didn't achieve, there is still a diminishment of the story. It has been made smaller, lesser than. As I've previously stated, Fanny wasn't Fanny, but the greater truth is that none of the characters feel right. They are all slightly wrong. It's like when I tried to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the author had the gall to not use Austen's own words, which thankfully the movie adaptation rectified. Therefore having the lines be not quite Austen's here made me feel the same bafflement when I tried to read that atrociously written parody. As Andrew Davies has said, Austen is perfect, just cut and paste. Take liberties when Austen purposefully steps back. She never goes into great details about the proposals or the happily ever afters, so here you can have free reign, and in fact in those moments of this adaptation, that's when I felt it. That deep pain in my veins that this is true love, that these emotions on screen have triggered a physical response in me. Have taken me away to a place where tears of happiness aren't far behind. While in other parts I actually found myself cheering when an actual line from the book remained intact. And let's face it, while all Austen's lines are memorable, Mansfield Park has a large share of them. So why weren't more used? Also why was Fanny in the play? There is NO way she would have been in the play. IF you have to change things to make it work in the time and format allotted why can't you at least keep the little details intact, like the theatre curtains being green not red? Because the more little things you change the more acceptable you think it to change the words of one of the greatest authors who ever lived.    

I'm not naive, I know that a lot of the culling, a lot of the diminishment of character is for the speed of the storytelling because even as a lover of Mansfield Park I can say that it's languid pace is almost stultifying, therefore it makes a good read to calm down before bed. But the downside to this dovetailing is that there is a diminishment of character in an attempt to make them better suited to the allotted time. In particular with regard to Edmund. Blake Ritson's lines have been almost completely excised because no one wants a preachy hero and Edmund really is full of himself. This means that all Blake is left with is languid gazes and pained expressions with a really horrid haircut. Mansfield Park is the first thing I remember seeing Blake in and I instantly formed an entirely erroneous opinion of him as an actor. I basically had him down as a pretty boy with no acting chops. This is so far from the truth that I urge you to seek out his other work to see his range. He's just so amazingly talented and here he's just wasted. I think he excels in bad boy roles personally, but if you're interested in sticking with Austen adaptations watch his Mr. Elton in the 2009 adaptation of Emma, which almost makes you completely forget the genius of Alan Cumming in the 1996 version. Dueling Mr. Es! My personal favorite though is his portrayal of the Duke of Kent in the reboot of Upstairs Downstairs, even if the conflicted baddie Riario in Da Vinci's Demons is melodramatic fun at it's most camp. But Blake isn't alone in this category of wonderful actors underutilized, this could be said for much of this perfectly cast adaptation. This also shows that a perfect cast can not cure defects in directing and adapting. 

But oddly enough the thing that annoyed me the most was Mr. Rushworth. If you don't know I kind of hate Rory Kinnear. This is a problematic hatred because he's literally in everything. Every once in awhile he surprises me into liking him, Penny Dreadful, The Imitation Game were good roles for him, but then along comes Women in Love and Vexed and I hate him all over again. So you'd think my hatred of Rory Kinnear would be why I was annoyed with Mr. Rushworth, yet oddly it's not. What annoys me about Mr. Rushworth is the changing of his timeline with the family. Because the changing of the timeline would have inevitably changed the outcome of events. It's freaking butterfly chaos theory time people and this wasn't taken into consideration at all in this adaptation. In the book Mrs. Norris makes the connection between Mr. Rushworth and Maria while Sir Thomas is in Antigua. It's a feather in her hat and all that. Here when Sir Thomas announces he must leave for Antigua Mr. Rushworth is already of the family party and is instructed to hold the wedding til his return from his amazingly fast and I think actually geographically impossible trip to Antigua in the time allotted. Um no. That's about it. No. Let's look at the reasons for all this "no" coming from me. The whole point of Rushworth is to show the detrimental interference of Mrs. Norris but also to show Sir Thomas's lack of fatherly concern because he quickly realized the defects in Rushworth and KNEW it wasn't going to work for Maria and even implored her to change her mind if she so wanted. But if Sir Thomas had been there since the couple did get coupled he would have stopped it before it had ever started. Then Maria would have met Henry Crawford in time and they could have gotten married and then that would have been the end of that. People sometimes just don't think that what might be one little change for expediency actual has ramifications that destroy the plot going forward. I think Austen knew what she was doing and should never be second guessed.    

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alan Cumming, Andrew Davies, Bicentenary Ball, Billie Piper, Blake Ritson, Elizabeth Bennet, Emma, Fanny Price, Frances O'Connor, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Penny Dreadful, Rory Kinnear, Upstairs Downstairs

Timeline
Based on the book by Michael Crichton
Starring: Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, Anna Friel, Billy Connolly, David Thewlis, Neal McDonough, Matt Craven, Ethan Embry, Michael Sheen, Lambert Wilsone, Marton Csokasr, Rossif Sutherland, Patrick Sabongui, and Steve Kahan
Release Date: November 26th, 2003
Rating: ★
To Buy

Professor Edward Johnston is teaching at Castlegard in France while excavating the site. The tech company ITC is funding the excavation and this has Johnston wary. ITC keeps suggesting places to dig and they are a little too spot on. Suspicious of their involvement and accuracy he decides to head to New Mexico and confront Robert Doniger, ITC's president, leaving the site in the capable hands of his assistants, André Marek, Kate Ericson, and Josh Stern. A few days after the professor's departure there is a cave in at the monastery site which leads to the discovering of a note from the Professor saying that he is in 1357 and needs help. The carbon dating proves the legitimacy of the note and Johnston's son Chris calls ITC and confronts them about the disappearance of his father. They promise a full explanation if they come to their headquarters in New Mexico.

Arriving in New Mexico the team is told that ITC's interest in their work and in Castlegard is because while trying to figure out how to transport three dimensional objects ITC discovered a wormhole to Castlegard in 1357. The Professor went back to 1357 and is now trapped there. ITC plans to send his team to bring him back because they are the most knowledgeable about the time and place and have a higher chance of success then they do. Of course ITC doesn't bother to warn them of the dangers of the time period they are entering or even the dangers of the technology used to get there. ITC has one goal, protect their ass and assets. If that means stranding people in 1357, so be it. But the Professor and his rag tag crew have more heart and determination then ITC gives them credit for and they're not going down without a fight.

Despite my continual disappointment with Michael Crichton adaptations I was willing to give the Timeline movie a shot. I mean, I didn't really like the book to begin with so how could they make it worse? Oh how naive I was. I should have realized that a mediocre book made into a movie with one of my most hated actresses ever, hello Frances O'Connor, would be nothing but a failed attempt at a blockbuster. Riddled with cliches, hello new character François, you shall be playing our Redshirt today, the movie actually dumbs down a fairly dumbed down book. The plot was streamlined, the women were sidelined, if it wasn't for the the pure visual appeal of trebuchets in action there is nothing worth remembering in this movie. The only joy I got out of re-watching Timeline all these years later was realizing that the despot Lord Oliver was played by a then unknown Michael Sheen, who obviously got that he was in the movie equivalent of Medieval Times and camped it up accordingly.

What shocked me most about this adaptation was the dumbing down, the softening of everything across the board, from plot to characters to hearts to women. Taking each aspect in turn, the plot was striped bare of anything redeemable. Instead of having ITC actually creating this interesting technology, it's just something they stumbled upon. There's a wormhole, we don't know how we found it, we don't know why it works, we don't know what we'll use it for, we don't know if there's a purpose to it, and we won't give you an answer after two hours, just go with it OK? So you have taken the sole interesting aspect of the book, technology that as time goes on looks actually plausible with the research being done at CERN and made it a MacGuffin. Thanks a lot. That's sarcasm. I'm sure the people behind this movie surely aren't able to grasp this, hence me spelling it out. Wormholes creating love stories and two hour battles and chances since 2003!

If dumbing down the plot wasn't enough, all the characters were made into idiots! They are literally stupider, as if their minds have been softened into jelly. Firstly, Paul Walker as Chris isn't even an archaeologist, just Professor Johnston's drifter son trying to get into Kate's pants. As for Kate, she's just a general archaeologist, who doesn't have an eidetic memory for architecture and a passion for climbing. Marek isn't the Medieval scholar who has mastered all past languages, that's what we now need Redshirt François for, instead André can wield a sword and shoot an arrow and rescue fair maidens. And the newly renamed Josh as played by Ethan Embry? He's just there for his frosted tips, his 90s goatee, and to try to get his friends home gosh darnit! Plus, by having Doniger stumble on the wormhole our one guaranteed smart person has been replaced by a bumbling David Thewlis, the go-to bumbler.

As their minds all melted into no existence apparently their hearts took on new properties, much like a certain character from Seuss, "Well, in Whoville they say – that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day." Because the characters don't have the mental capacity anymore to understand the harsh realities of France during the Hundred Years' War, well obviously they're going to cry at every freaking death. In the book they personally lay waste to a lot of French and English troops, because it was a fact of life, a fact that scholars would understand, especially Marek. Instead all the characters are weepy. Understandably they'd get upset over the loss of their friends, but to go into full convulsive shock on killing someone? If it's you or them, I think survival instinct should be kicking in, not the instinct to cry. They seriously have red rimmed eyes for the whole movie! And then they even soften the heart of De Kere. Instead of being a complete and total psychopath who loves to kill, here he's totally not evil or a danger at all really, he'll even kindly tell you his tale of being misused by ITC instead of killing everything in sight like an enraged kitten.

But nothing pissed me off more then the softening of the women. I know a lot people go on and on about how books and movies don't give us strong female role models, and while I'm aware of this fact, well, I've never been that bothered by it. If it doesn't have something for me, obviously I won't read or watch it so it's not like I'm supporting this trope. Re-watching Timeline so close upon re-reading the book I was struck by how they had stripped out the female empowerment and made it almost painful to watch if you are in any way a feminist. The objectification was extreme, they were literally objects for the manly men to protect! Firstly two of the strong female roles, that of Gomez and Kramer, well, they became guys! While I had my issues with Kate in the book, she at least wasn't a helpless woman and a weepy mess. But the true kicker is Claire. Lady Claire isn't a pawn in the book, someone for Marek to rescue, she would be insulted. In fact Marek loves her in the book because she is playing every single angle, she's scheming, manipulative, and always looking out for herself! She's not a banner flown from the highest tower as a rallying point! She's looking out for herself any way she can!

Though this softening of females and hearts is a two edged sword because the result of this mushiness is that instead of being pragmatic the film is able to add a little romantic love, a little chivalry. But chivalry as we see and as was depicted by the Pre-Raphaelites, not chivalry as it existed then, which was about honor and protection, not giving your life for true love. And this romanticism of the past leads to the only redeeming feature of the entire movie, and that is Gerard Butler. He brings so much passion to the role of Marek that the romance of living and dying in another time for true love just makes the tear ducts a little moist. Earlier in the movie when he is describing the unique love depicted in a sarcophagus they found on the site and later when he realizes it's himself, you see the one true thing in this film, the everlasting quality of true love. It might not have been what Crichton wanted, but it raised the film out of the trope-tastic mire it had bogged itself down in for a minute and made me watch a few too many Gerard Butler films... hint, avoid Shooters, even with Ioan Gruffudd it's unbearably bad, and check out Dracula 2000 instead.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: CERN, Chivalry, Dr. Suess, Dracula 2000, France, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, Grinch, Ioan Gruffudd, Medieval, Michael Crichton, Michael Sheen, Objectification, Pre-Raphaelite, Shooters, Timeline, Wormholes