sense and sensibility and other recent austen adaps

[cimorene]

Potential babysitting today was going to be a drag when I had to look into bus connections to find the every-second-hour bus that runs from downtown to Brother Windows's on Saturday, and BW's dad-in-law as baby-dinner help (the dude's nice, but he never talks - he's like a grizzled little mime and it's just kind of unnerving, okay?). But! It turns out Brother Linux and his pregnant wife Lady Linux are coming from out of town to help me instead, and they're going to give me a ride out there! \o/

Okay, so, Sense & Sensibility is my least favourite Austen novel. In fact, I almost never read it because I get so annoyed. It's not poorly written although it's less mature than her later work, certainly: it's just a too-accurate portrayal of Marianne, and we probably all know someone like that, and I just get incensed and crazily frustrated that no matter how many times I read it, everyone keeps on not smacking the hell out of her. Figuratively, I mean. I always feel that she doesn't deserve Brandon when I read it. The Kate Winslet version is, at least, a) much, much shorter than the interminably long book, and b) kind of shiny, but the casting doesn't work for me and it drives me crazy the way they're wearing makeup, and although I like Emma Thompson personally, I kind of hate her in the role.

But I watched the newest miniseries version starring Hattie Morahan, Charity Wakefield, Janet McTeer, Dominic Cooper, Dan Stevens, and David Morrissey... uh... a while ago, anyway. And I really loved it. Charity Wakefield's Marianne is still a spoiled asshole, but she keeps Marianne's youth and idiocy and her family's indulgence at the fore, which makes it somehow less obnoxious. Hattie Morahan is the best Elinor I've ever seen, and the artistic direction, locations and costumes are as delicious and delightful as those in the recent ITV Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, which were both aces I think.

Sadly the Mansfield Park starring Billie Piper sucked an incredible amount, because while, as isilya would say, the Fanny of my heart is Frances O'Connor, liberties so huge as to be laughable were taken in everything from gratuitous lesbianism to gratuitous sex to gratuitous implications of rape and possibly pedophilia or incest or something like that. Anyway, it was about time for a decent version, and that... was not what we got last year. And I've seen and disliked the 1983 miniseries before (in stark contrast to the pre-Colin P&P from 1980, an excellent adaptation) (I've never seen the Laurence Olivier version, sadly).

Comments

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

I adored Katharine Schlesinger in the 80's Northanger Abbey and the Laurence Olivier P&P takes one godawful liberty with the text but is otherwise wonderful.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, the 80's NA was hugely entertaining!

[duckypoison.livejournal.com]

*woho pops in to see Jane Austen actual*

Frances O'Connor Mansfield Park ver. is a good movie, but not at all the Fanny from the books, I'd say.

I'd recommend Northanger Abbey version; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844794/ , because it manages to keep an upbeat tempo, and maintain the irony, which I find most pronounced in this book, of all her works.

[/fangirl]

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the ITV adaptation from last year that I mentioned.