![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Austeniana
Jun. 6th, 2025 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qianI enjoyed watching bits and bobs of this 1980s BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, dramatised by Fay Weldon (!) -- I saw it recommended on my network though I can't remember by whom. As might be expected of a novelist's adaptation, it makes good use of Jane Austen's own perfect sentences (the screenplay for the 2020 Emma, written by Eleanor Catton, did this too), and it dramatises some scenes you don't get to see in the famous more recent adaptations.
Despite my unswerving affection for Jennifer Ehle's Elizabeth Bennet, I think this is genuinely the best Lizzy Bennet I've seen -- at first I thought she was too pretty, but she absolutely has the sweetness and archness "which made it difficult for her to affront anybody". Jane is not prettier, which she should be, but she is at least as pretty (though her eyebrows strike me as distractingly modern). But I find the Darcy a let-down: a friend recently remarked that Colin Firth is not good-looking and that is why she doesn't like the 1995 series, but actually this Darcy, who is better-looking, is a reminder of why Firth works in the role. Colin Firth manages to convey the sense that he is fundamentally a decent guy underneath it all and that's why he works; there's a vulnerability to him which makes his Darcy very sweet and human. The 1980s Darcy too kayu lah.
Are there any (relatively) obscure Austen adaptations you'd recommend? In my top tier are the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries, the 1995 Persuasion film, the 2020 Emma and Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility. I don't like the Keira Knightley P&P film. And I thought the Romola Garai Emma was, like, fine, though that's mostly because I find Johnny Flynn's Mr Knightley more fanciable than Jonny Lee Miller (though fair dues to both of them for making him fanciable at all -- one of the least sexy heroes Austen ever wrote, only slightly less sexless than Edmund Bertram). I would love to watch a really good Mansfield Park adaptation some day ...
Despite my unswerving affection for Jennifer Ehle's Elizabeth Bennet, I think this is genuinely the best Lizzy Bennet I've seen -- at first I thought she was too pretty, but she absolutely has the sweetness and archness "which made it difficult for her to affront anybody". Jane is not prettier, which she should be, but she is at least as pretty (though her eyebrows strike me as distractingly modern). But I find the Darcy a let-down: a friend recently remarked that Colin Firth is not good-looking and that is why she doesn't like the 1995 series, but actually this Darcy, who is better-looking, is a reminder of why Firth works in the role. Colin Firth manages to convey the sense that he is fundamentally a decent guy underneath it all and that's why he works; there's a vulnerability to him which makes his Darcy very sweet and human. The 1980s Darcy too kayu lah.
Are there any (relatively) obscure Austen adaptations you'd recommend? In my top tier are the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries, the 1995 Persuasion film, the 2020 Emma and Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility. I don't like the Keira Knightley P&P film. And I thought the Romola Garai Emma was, like, fine, though that's mostly because I find Johnny Flynn's Mr Knightley more fanciable than Jonny Lee Miller (though fair dues to both of them for making him fanciable at all -- one of the least sexy heroes Austen ever wrote, only slightly less sexless than Edmund Bertram). I would love to watch a really good Mansfield Park adaptation some day ...
