02.14.07

Emma Adaptations

Posted in Uncategorized at 9:20 am by janeaustenfilm

David Monaghan’s article “Emma and the art of Adaptation” examines the three most recent films based on Jane Austen’s Emma; the ITV/A&E version directed by Diarmuid Lawrence and written by Andrew Davies, Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, and the Miramax version directed by Douglas McGrath. Monaghan has singled out these film versions as the three post-1990 films that, unlike the pre-1990 BBC versions aren’t “unwilling to rethink Austen’s novels in visual terms,” but are works of art in their own right (197).

Monaghan first examines the ITV/A&E mini-series, released in 1996. Monaghan, while criticizing the BBC mini-series for its failure to render Austen’s ideas in a cleaver, unique visual manner, praises Lawrence and Davies for their ability to create visual images that “render the kind of philosophical abstraction – in this case a Burkeian view of the social contract” (200). While the mini-series stays true to many of Austen’s plot lines and period authenticity was a series concern for the filmmakers, Davies and Lawrence pin-point and highlight what they see as the Austen’s major themes. By portraying the connection between courtship and dancing in a visual way, Monaghan believes Davies and Lawrence are able to “persuade the viewer that…[Emma] has the intelligence and moral capacity to overcome her debilitating ‘blindness’ and achieve the kind of maturity that is claimed for her at the end of the film” (202). Even though they show “work-worn and discontented villagers,” Monaghan stipulates Lawrence and Davies still understand and aim to portray the way Austen was aligned with 19th century England’s gentry. Monaghan then moves into a discussion of the film’s opening four scenes, focusing on the opening chicken raid scene which features “a rapidly edited montage of shots taken from a range of distances and angles…and ends with a close up a sleepy and bemused looking Emma peering out of her bedroom window”(205). This emphasizes the Woodhouses lack of motion, and helps develop the film’s visual style communicates what Lawrence and Davies wish to point out as a major theme – “the moribund character of the gentry” (206). Monaghan points out the film’s use of color to set the mood in its mise-en-scene, coordinating the colors of the character’s clothes with the seasons. Monaghan briefly touches on the scene at Box Hill where the characters sit under a tree, seemingly under its shaded and protective branches. However, the characters are separated into two groups by the tree’s trunk; “the Eltons stand to the far left of the frame while Emma, Frank, Jane and Harriet are grouped together to the right…in what is actually a rather modest metaphor for the multiple conflicts that plague the visit to Box Hill” (210).

Monaghan then discusses Clueless, written and directed by Amy Heckerling. He first examines why Auten’s Emma ought to be considered as the film’s primary frame work, citing the character overlaps and many similar, yet updated, plot points. Monaghan says of the film, “not is Heckerling correct to label her film a comedy of manners but she shares Austen’s awareness of the possibilities inherent within the genre for a subtle but unobtrusive exploration of important social/cultural issues” (215). However, Monaghan also names the MTV music video and the high school movie as other genres Heckerling is particularly indebted to. While Monaghan praises Heckerling for the creative way she works with Austen’s Emma, he criticizes her for flaunting the polite codes portrayed in Austen’s novels. For example, performance, rather than being negative as it is in Austen’s Emma, is a part of daily life in Clueless. For Monaghan, the “self-aggrandizing cliques…are the only type of collectivity possible in a society dominated by considerations of personal style,” is in direct opposition to the idea of nuances of class in Austen (217). However, in both cases, the reason for class distinction is economic. Monaghan simply does believe in Cher’s capability to change by the end of the film, chalking up the idea that she inherited a “good soul” from her mother to “pure Hollywood fantasy” (219). And yet, with the inclusion of Cher’s intervention by the end of the film, it is clear to the view that this is merely a stage in her life, not its conclusion.

Next, Monaghan looks at Miramax’s Emma, which is praises for its visual style, but claims that “fidelity to even the surface of Emma is by no means always a priority with [director] McGrath” (220). In contrast to the carefully planned and scene changing of seasons in Emma and the ITV/A&E versions, seasons are almost entirely missing from this version. Monaghan criticizes McGrath, not for staying from Austen’s text, but for failing to actively engage with it as well as its insistence to remove Emma from the “claustrophobic enclosure that helps so much in Austen’s novel…to explain her irresponsible behavior” (222). Monaghan also criticizes McGrath for the inconsistency of his tone, often turning broadly comic, and for permeating the film with the feeling that what the view is watching is a fairy tale, not an example of reality. Monagahn posits that Clueless was, in addition to Austen’s novel, used heavily as a source text for the film.

Monaghan concludes his article by stating that there’s “ no single approach to the problem of adapting a written text for the visual medium of film” (225). He summarizes by saying that “if the ITV/A&E Emma is the kind of film Austen might have made during her actual lifetime, Clueless is, perhaps, the film she would have made has she been alive today” (225).

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02.05.07

A New S&S Mini-Series

Posted in Uncategorized at 7:46 pm by janeaustenfilm

Here’s what I was able to find on the possible new Sense and Sensibility mini-series. It’s not much, but its interesting.

Jane Austen Festival
Producing organizations: WGBH and various co-producers. Presented by Masterpiece Theatre. Distributor: WGBH. Episodes: 3 productions 1 x 90-120, 1 production 2 x 120. Status: production. Major funders: PBS, CPB. Executive producer: Rebecca Eaton. Contact: Andrea Flores, andrea_floresatwgbh.org; 617-300-2561.

Also, please note that it is scheduled “over the course of the 2007-2008 season,” which means that the films might not air one after the other–they might be scattered throughout the Masterpiece Theatre season. Or maybe not. But we should be prepared for that eventuality.

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Sense and Sensibility (1981)

Posted in Uncategorized at 7:20 pm by janeaustenfilm

I (Mary-Carolyn) recently created an ELS web-blog for my Film, Text and Culture class, and enjoyed it so much that I thought it was a necessity for my small-group independent study on Jane Austen in film. Leah agreed with me, thinking this would be a great place to share ideas, post article summaries, and talk about film clips or stills since all of these things are pretty easy to post using WordPress. We’ve been talking this week about Sense and Sensibility, and Leah and I recently watched the opening scene of the 1981 BBC mini-series. Because this is really our first foray into film studies and criticism, we watched this scene with no sound and tried to focus on what the camera was doing rather than on the dialogue and plot. We noticed a few things we thought were particularly interesting, especially the fact that we were able to identify characters without hearing their names. Mrs. Dashwood is, obviously, older than the other two girls, but we thought the pairing of Marianne and Mrs. Dashwood alluded the character’s shared personalities. We also were able to see Marianne’s passionate character based on her body movement (and kudos to the girl who plays Marianne, best acting in the whole movie). Elinor’s composed features and the fact that the light coming into the carriage framed her, clued us in. We also especially appreciated Marianne and Elinor balancing on a sea-saw during the opening credits, showing the attentive movie-goer what the novel cleverly hints at, that the girls, together, have a balanced character, but separately, they are two extremes.

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Austen in the Classroom

Posted in Uncategorized at 7:19 pm by janeaustenfilm

In her essay “Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility as a Gateway to Austen’s Novel,: M. Casey Diana recounts her experience with her Introduction to Fiction (English 103) course at the University of Illinois. In an effort to determine if “we are doing them [students] a disservice by allowing them access to film, especially before they have had a chance to experience the literary text” (140). Diana divided her class into two groups; one group would watch the movie and then read the novel, and the other would read the novel and then watch the movie. Afterwards, students “took a comprehension quiz, wrote a 250-word essay, and filled out a questionnaire designed to ascertain which medium…engaged them more” (140). Reviewing the results of the questionnaires, Diana determined that “students who viewed the film followed the plot far more closely, had a deeper involvement with and readily differentiated between characters, and remembered a great amount of detail than did the readers” (141). Diana goes on to discuss why the students who watched the film first “yearn[ed] to expand upon the delight the movie induced” (145). Diana determined there were three reasons for students enjoyment of a story 180 years old and what they would have enjoyed about the story had they lived in the time period: “strong identification with characters, a longing to return to a simpler era, and a desire for love and romance” (145). Diana concludes noting that she believes this adaptation of Sense and Sensibility “provides a gateway to a positive reading experience” (147) and hopes it will encourage more students to pursue a study of Austen.

While I found Diana’s essay interesting, I believe she neglected to note students previous exposure to Austen novels or novels of the same period. Also, as an introductory course in English, there were probably many students who did not desire to study literature in any form and would thus have preferred the film. While Diana placed students who had previously seen the film into the group that watched the film first, she didn’t factor in the number of times they had seen the film into how well the film group remembered setting and plot details. Other than that, I found Diana’s conclusions interesting, but not particularly pertinent to our study of film adaptations of Austen’s work.

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02.04.07

“Piracy Is Our Only Option”

Posted in Uncategorized at 7:39 pm by janeaustenfilm

Samuelian, Kristin Flieger. “‘Piracy Is Our Only Option’: Postfeminist Intervention in Sense and Sensibility.” pp. 148-58. Troost, Linda (ed. and introd.)Sayre Greenfield. Jane Austen in Hollywood. Lexington, KY: UP of Kentucky, 1998. 202.

 

            In her article, “Piracy Is Our Only Option: Postfeminist Intervention in Sense and Sensibility,” Kristen Flieger Samuelian argues that Emma Thompson’s film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility is untrue to Jane Austen’s novel of the same name.  This is because, as Samuelian writes, Thompson’s 1995 version “is more in line with postfeminism and effectively erases the implicit feminism of Austen’s novel” (Samuelian 148).  Instead of keeping with Austen’s infamous implicit wit and satire on her contemporary social conditions, Thompson decides to explicitly reference late twentieth-century postfeminist social concerns which stress that women can be both married and autonomous simultaneously.  The end result, according to Samuelian, is an artistic statement on women and their society entirely disparate from Austen’s. 

            Samuelian argues that Thompson explicitly references feminism in her adaptation by using dialogue; for example, Elinor tells Edward that she has no power in creating her future (Samuelian 148).  In doing so, Thompson destroys the subtleness with which Austen stresses the powerlessness of women through plot.  Samuelian writes that “Thompson injects what appears to be an explicit feminist rhetoric into the work of an author more often celebrated for the implicitness of her critiques of the customs and institutions that support patriarchy” (Samuelian 148). 

            Samuelian argues that Thompson does this overtly through Margaret’s character (who the 1981 BBC version omits) (Samuelian 149).  In her tree-house to protest Mr. and Mrs. John Dashwood coming to Norland, Margaret seems to innocently misunderstand social custom.  In an effort to clarify to Margaret why they must leave Norland, Elinor tells Margaret that it is the law that their brother and his wife must take the house.  However, according to Samuelian, Thompson is mistaken, as “custom is redefined as law” (Samuelian 156).  In her most pivotal example in her argument against Thompson’s adaptation, Samuelian writes that

Explicit protest is most thoroughly articulated in the film through the youngest Dashwood sister, Margaret.  Transformed by Thompson from a plot device to an integral character, Margaret serves both to voice reasonable dissent and to exhort unpalatable truths from the mouths of her more restrained and practical-minded elders…Elinor’s closing emphasis on “law” simplifies to the point of obliterating the complicated history of the disposition of the Norland estate given in the first two pages of Austen’s novel (Samuelian 149).

Furthermore, Thompson uses Margaret to make both Edward and Col. Brandon more attractive, as they easily play with the eleven-year-old. 

            Indeed, in his dialogue with Margaret in Thompson’s version, Edward ascertains that Margaret wishes to be a pirate, a vocation which both the modern audience and actors know is impossible.  Samuelian argues that Thompson’s reference to piracy in the dialogue between Edward and Elinor in her adaptation is a way to explain to modern audiences that Edward is sympathetic to Elinor’s plight (Samuelian 150).  Samuelian writes that “piracy—the appropriation and adaptation for profit of Austen’s courtship novel—is for Thompson a way of deflecting what is unanswerable in the eighteenth-century ideology the novel depicts” (Samuelian 150). 

            Instead, Samuelian explicitly interposes late 20^th century postfeminism in Austen’s story.  In Thompson’s version, Elinor marries a handsome Edward in a Pastoral setting.  Samuelian argues that Thompson imbues in both Edward and Brandon the very characteristics which Austen portrays as dangerous in
Willoughby (Samuelian 152).  In doing so, Thompson again destroys Austen’s implicit feminist critique of her contemporary society. 

            Because I read Samuelian’s article before I watched Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility for this project, I was very aware of the acute ways in which Thompson has appropriated Austen’s eighteenth-century narrative and transformed it into that of the twentieth-century.  I am not sure if this is indeed a bad thing, as I think Samuelian argues.  Thompson adapted Austen’s novel for a late twentieth-century audience—why is it so terrible that this adaptation should differ from the original eighteenth-century narrative?  However, I do think that because Austen’s novel still appeals to modern audiences, implicitness and all, Thompson should have been more aware of what has drawn readers to the story for centuries.  

            I might use this article for my paper, as I am interested in studying how Austen’s novels are transformed in the age of film, and how modern political concerns are imbued in these films. 

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