Category: Movies

Jane Austen · Movies

Random Thoughts on Lost in Austen

Janeite Kelly3 Comments

A friend, Kate in Norfolk (England), has been telling about Lost in Austen. She is such a witty and charming letter writer! Kate now allows us to post her comments. A few small spoilers might get mentioned along the way, so be warned:

Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008
We have a new TV series here – Lost in Austen. Recorded the first part last night but haven’t seen it yet. The clips look lovely. It is something to do with a modern girl being transported back in time in a fictional way and living with the Bennets. I will report more in due course. Costumes etc. looked good.

Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008
You must tell them about our new TV series. I have seen the first episode now. It is quite fun as obviously the heroine is a 21st century girl and so there is the fish-out-of-water amusement. I am enjoying Mr Bennet played by Hugh Bonneville. He just seems mildly perplexed by all the women around him but largely ignores them. He also winds them up whenever possible! Mrs Bennet has been treated in a very interesting way. She is like a mad chicken. However, it becomes clear that the 21st century girl has caught Mr Bingley’s eye and she is incandescent with rage that her daughters have been bypassed. She takes the girl aside at one point and is really vicious, practically threatens her with violence if she doesn’t stand aside! The viewer would turn against her at this point I think, I was quite shocked at this display. However, this does open up some interesting considerations. Mr Bennet – does he care that once he is dead and gone his daughters will suffer financially etc. He seems determined to have a peaceful life and ignore what will happen after his death because then it won’t affect him….is he inherently selfish? Does he have his head in the sand? Does this mean that Mrs Bennet has had to take onto her shoulders all the worries about the future and her daughters’ happiness? So is she then a rather good mother doing her best for her family? She certainly seems driven by desperation, and events later in the book confirm this I think. What the TV show will do I can’t say! Elizabeth is stuck in the 21st century but we have seen nothing of her yet – maybe tonight’s episode…

Date: Sat 13 Sep 2008
I do agree that if you label anything with Jane Austen it will sell! That is why we have our strange time travelling Lost in Austen I guess. I have seen the second part now and we still don’t know how Elizabeth Bennet is managing in modern times. I am still undecided about the whole thing. Modern Heroine borrows clothes when she goes to balls but doesn’t put her hair up – there is no way she would have got away with that. There is a lot of suspension of belief necessary! Now Jane has married Mr Collins despite Modern Heroine having previously engaged herself to him in order to try and protect the Bennet girls. Modern heroine is extremely annoyed that the plot of P&P is not being adhered to and when she sees Bingley at the church looking on in horror as the wedding takes place she marches up to him and remonstrates with him for listening to Darcy’s reservations about the Bennets. She says:
“Badly done, Bingley, badly done”! So that amused me as I wondered how many viewers would recognise it!
Must stop telling you the plot in case you get to see it one day. Didn’t know it was based on a book – will have to investigate. I do have to say that Mr Darcy has smouldered in a very successful way!

Date: Mon 15 Sep 2008
Well, please feel free to use my Lost in Austen comments as you see fit! It is going down quite well over here. The acting is generally very good. I do like little Mary Bennet, they have made her almost a caricature with specs and a little plain face but she looks really sweet to me. Modern Heroine has already told Wickham that she knows all about him so he has spread gossip everywhere to the effect that her father is a fishmonger! People are rapidly backing away and making fishy comments! She keeps going back to the attic where there is a (firmly locked) “door” to her world, where Elizabeth is. She calls through to Elizabeth who fails to answer – “It’s all going tits up, Elizabeth” she yells. And she has kneed Mr Collins in the balls at a ball. It is almost as if you are reading the book and when you hate the very idea of Mr Collins, Modern Heroine assaults him for you! My mother is not yet convinced that the concept works.

Date: Thurs 18 Sep 2008
I have another Lost in Austen to watch and admit I am now hooked. The conversation is quite witty:
Modern Heroine upon sighting Wickham: “Oh No! You keep away from me Wickham, I know you”.
Wickham, perplexed: “But, Madam, I haven’t had the pleasure…”
Modern Heroine stomping off: “Get used to that”.
I think the series will bear a second watch because sometimes the conversation is fast and whilst chuckling at early chatter, later witticisms can be missed. I am now wondering whether they can do this for other novels! Imagine the Modern Heroine telling Marianne to buck up or advising Emma to stop interfering!

Date: Fri 19 Sep 2008
Yes, please do what you like with the Lost in Austen comments – I am quite happy for you put them on the blog. Apparently the viewing figures have fallen off possibly because the series doesn’t work if you don’t know P&P quite well. You need to know why Modern Heroine is unfriendly to Wickham and warns Lydia to stay away for instance. Best scene this episode is the meeting with Lady Catherine who instructs her daughter to sit next to Modern Heroine at dinner as it will do her good to learn to converse with those with whom she has nothing in common. Such strange plots twists now (Wickham didn’t seduce Darcy’s sister, twas the other way round!) that I can only assume it will all turn out to have been a dream in a shower a la Dallas. Which could make sense actually as the “time travel” occurred in Modern Heroine’s bathroom which is where we last saw Elizabeth. I am very happy with the casting of this series by the way. Jane could be a bit prettier but she is very delicate looking and has big frightened eyes (tho as she is now married to hideous Collins that is understandable; incidentally, he is on a celibacy kick (thank goodness) so she is as yet untouched so obviously there will be a plot device to send her into Bingley’s arms). Mr and Mrs B are great – Mr B very funny. Mary and Kitty moan that they are not in society like their Mother and Lydia and Mr B says that those two are quite enough for society has enough to cope with at the moment. Darcy, at first, seemed a bit odd, but have grown to like him (where have I heard that before!) – quite handsome. Mr Collins is foul so that works well! Miss Bingley is very snooty and conniving but in quite a witty and intelligent way. They all have such marvellous conversation and condescension.

More to come, as the series continues and concludes. Thanks, Kate!

BTW: here’s the Internet Movie Database link; ITV’s link; and author Emma Campbell Webster‘s page at Penguin.US and her own website.

Movies · News

Chatsworth and “The Duchess”

BookLady DebLeave a comment

A visit to Chatsworth will find you caught up in the excitement of the movie “The Duchess,” starring Keira Knightley, opening in the UK on September 5, and in the US on September 19.  The exhibit devoted to Georgiana Cavendish will be on display through October 31, and will include portraits [ one painted by Thomas Gainsborough ], family archives and costumes from the film, which was partially shot at the historic house.  At the Chatsworth website, you can also enter a contest and win a weekend at the House, complete with Tea and walking tours of the house and gardens….

Jane Austen · Movies

Jane Austen starring on YouTube

BookLady DebLeave a comment

Ok, here is a visual treat for this Saturday AM…I should be tending my gardens, but who can resist the likes of the following Austen-related YouTubes…

  • Austen’s heroines accompanied by “Maneater”  is very funny (and Mary Crawford just shines!)
  •  “Holding out for a Hero” applied to all those Austen men and a few other Regency men (but where oh where is DARCY??)
  • “Somewhere only We Know” to see all your Austen characters in their most tender moments together……
  • And “This Kiss” with all your favorite couples (oh! what would JANE say?!), and another “You and Me.”
  • And just in case you did not get enough of Darcy, this is a must see – a full THREE minutes of Colin Firth in “I’m Too Sexy”(no surprise there…); and if you tend toward Matthew MacFadyen’s Darcy (and who cannot!), no worries…because he is the prime star in “Every Breath you Take” (a full FOUR minutes), but also has his own “I’m Too Sexy”  ….

    • So this is enough for me…my gardens await.  I know that many of these videos have been out there for a few years, but I only discovered them this morning (did I have a life before this morning??) when I stumbled upon the post on the Rethinking Jane Austen blog…. have a look yourself on You Tube:  just search “Jane Austen” for a ton of entries (2210), or “Jane Austen tributes” for a more manageable lot (54), or even just search “Mr Darcy” (an absurd but delightful 1050), turn up your sound and enjoy the feast! (or perhaps this can wait for winter??)

Movies

Housewife, 49

Janeite Kelly5 Comments

Not really having anything to do with Jane Austen, I write today about Housewife, 49 – which I first heard about when actress and writer Victoria Wood won a BAFTA for her role as Nella Last just about this time last year. (The show also took the best drama award.)

Housewife, 49 tells the true story of Nella Last, a woman who sent in diary entries to the Mass Observation Archive, as part of a government effort to hear the voices of the average people on the homefront. This has truly moving performances by all the actors (especially Wood; David Threlfall as her taciturn husband; Christopher Harper as their younger son), and a nicely-observed script by Wood. There is a JA connection in that Sylvestra Le Touzel, who plays Nella’s rather ferocious Mrs Lynch, played Mrs Allen in the 2007 Northanger Abbey — which book, of course, is a focal point at JASNA-Vermont’s next meeting, on June 22nd.

If you love British drama, enjoy wartime stories, and are wanting to see something very uplifting in the transformation of dear Nella over the war years, then I heartily recommend Housewife, 49. Can’t wait for the book to be returned to the library…

 

Movies

Some thoughts on Cranford

Janeite Kelly2 Comments

The only thing I’ve ever read about Mrs Gaskell is the involving biography by Jenny Uglow. I’ve never read any of her work, and just wasn’t in the mood for Wives and Daughters when that aired last year. But Cranford won me over last night. Sure some of it is a bit beyond belief (could a cat REALLY swallow that amount of lace???), but the idea of a village with such a force of women – from gossipy to trendsetting – well, what female viewer wouldn’t consider the hours spent watching them hours well-spent indeed.

One reason I got involved in JASNA was that research into diaries (the earliest is 1814) of Mary Gosling brought up the fact that her brother-in-law was Jane’s nephew, James-Edward Austen-Leigh (he married Emma Smith, Mary’s sister-in-law, in 1828). But Mary lived until July 1842 — exactly the period of last night’s episode of Cranford (it began in June 1842 and ended in August 1842). Being able to picture a young Mary (she was born in 1800) in the fashions of Pride and Prejudice or Emma and later in the early-Victorian era fashions of Cranford really gets the brain juices flowing. 25 yards to make a dress! the different materials (and their differing prices…) for bonnets! the excessive darkness – yet still the needlewoman plies her needle! All of these items have to be thought of when one contemplates recreating the life of someone who lived 200 years ago.

Ms. Place IDs the gorgeous village used in filming: ‘the British Heritage village of Laycock’. I must say this village adds tremendously to the atmosphere of this production.

And the scenes really place you in the 1840s. In the Jenkyns household, the wide hearth of the era and the image of Mary reading by the light of the fire. The unrelenting darkness of interiors; the pools of light; the lonely lady of the manor; the lovelorn dutiful daughter/sister; the poor women who produced child after child; the servants who looked after the wealthier inhabitants; and you gotta love those poor (sedan) chairmen!

Mary Gosling lived in an era of change: from the horse-and-carriage to the age of steam trains; from war abroad to unrest at home. And Cranford well illustrates what life at such times of change could mean to people of a small village. I really feel for the still-in-the-18th-century patroness. Again, the strength of this program is in its wealth of women portrayed. And very hard not to think of Cassandra and Jane (had Jane lived to an older age) when watching the two Misses Jenkyns. When Miss Deborah died, my heart went out to Miss Matilda. I have no sister and cannot imagine what it must be like to live for one another, only to end up being the sister death left behind.

As an Austen-side note: nice to see Austen ‘veterans’ Greg Wise and Julia Sawalha. And it’s always a pleasure to see Julia MacKenzie and Barbara Flynn. Francesca Annis, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins (a well-deserved BAFTA win) have long been favorites.

Ms. Place – who has read the book! – says the script remains kind of close to the original. All I can say about the production is, notice what a leisurely pace will do for a storyline; ditto some excellent casting (is there even one weak link in this production?). High standards DO pay off. I will say, I wish the “background” music was a little less intrusive at times. Overall, though, a lovingly-crafted adaptation.

BTW: 1905 saw the publication of CRANFORD: A PLAY by Marguerite Marington; see books.google. And don’t forget to check out Deb’s post on Gaskell, below. I clicked on the Cranford (novel) link Deb provided and read the first chapter; interesting to now have images in the mind, thanks to the teleplay, of the lives of Miss Jenkyns, Miss Jessie Brown, Captain Brown, et al. Reading this one chapter really makes plain how a series of scenarios can be crafted into a well-rounded script with some fidelity to the original.

UPDATE: In part 2, scenes were filmed at TRING PARK (in Hertfordshire), which has an Austen connection: it was the bridal home of Edward and Emma Austen, and their first few children were born there. When Edward’s aunt died and he assumed the Austen-Leigh name, he moved his family into his aunt’s former home, Scarlets. BUT: before Scarlets, before Speen, they lived with Emma’s mother Mrs Smith at Tring, the former home of her uncle, Sir Drummond Smith, Bart. Therefore, where Judi Dench trod, so in the past did Mary Gosling (Lady Smith), Emma & Edward Austen, his mother Mrs James Austen, and his sister Caroline. Small world sometimes…

Movies · News

So much out there!

BookLady Deb1 Comment

Ok, I admit it!… I cannot keep up with it all!…but just in case others of you want to know what’s actually going on in cyberspace but don’t have the time to search it out each day…here is a sampling!… Jane is indeed, everywhere!

As “Miss Austen Regrets” recently aired in the U.K., there have been numerous postings about it all over again…here are a few:  Guardian online, several other links to articles in the U.K.,  and at Jane Austen’s World (where there are a few posts on the movie)  And I remind you to look again at the article on the JASNA site about the kernels of truth in the story…

And check out the Conversation Blog on the Jane Austen Addict site to learn about  The Jane Austen – MI-5 connection:  now I LOVE seeing this in writing…there are SO many connections to one of my favorite shows, MI-5 (Spooks in the U.K.) and the Austen adaptations that my head has been spinning for weeks!  Thank you Ms. Rigler for putting this all together so well! 

On the Becoming Jane Fansite, there is a post on Favorite movies and books…always fun to read someone else’s opinions… and also scroll down for a great interview with Andrew Davies done with Masterpiece Theatre  (and I too don’t agree with him about the P&P 1995 2nd proposal scene…this I think was perfectly done, exactly as Austen wrote it….not any words…and we were not privy to the passion….)

Ms. Place, as always, has penned a great article on Drinking tea, wine, and other spirits in Jane Austen’s Day.  And while you are there…look at her story from a few days ago about the Wedding Procession in the 1995 S&S.  And on her Jane Austen Today Blog, there is a great post on Fashionable Websites Jane Austen Would have liked to Visit!  THANK YOU Ms. Place for sharing your ever-interesting wealth of information!

On Austenblog there is a book giveaway contest…submit by May 2.

And Jane Odiwe  writes of Fanny Price’s room in Mansfield Park, with some lovely drawings.

And over on Austenprose Laurel Ann gives us 10 top (and very humorous) reasons to re-read Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (it is being released in paperback…)  [For a nice new review of Confessions go to the Historical Fiction site ]

and I am sure this is not the half of it…. yikes!

Book reviews · Movies · News

A Colin Firth sighting!

BookLady Deb6 Comments

Ok, so I am confused.  I heard that there was a great first book written by Elinor Lipman called Then She Found Me (1990).  It tells the story of a 36 year-old high school Latin teacher named April Epner, who was adopted as a baby by a couple who had survived the Holocaust.  She has never married, has a fairly distant but caring relationship with her younger brother (Freddie, also adopted)…..we are told he is a gorgoeus hunk who indescriminately beds any women within reaching distance…she has a few friends from work, but is otherwise fairly lonely and missing her parents who have recently passed on.  Out of the blue, her birth mother comes into her life….a fairly obnoxious and quite famous tv talk-show host….telling her that she is actually the illegitimate daughter of John F. Kennedy, the result of a few mad months of passion, after which he abandoned her upon learning of the impending child.  She takes all this information as cause to research her roots and finds the school librarian (Dwight) a great (and very interested!) ally.  He is portrayed as very tall, very geeky, quite unattracive and a source for ongoing humor among faculty and students.  And then, of course, her REAL birth father shows up, obviously not JFK, bringing a whole new dimension to April’s family dynamics.  So much for the story…I leave it to the reader to decide if they want to read any more.  I will say that I enjoyed the book…but after just having finished a close reading of both Emma and Northanger Abbey, this seemed a sorry substitute.  But forever willing to give the writer her/his just due, I plodded on because in the end I did really care enough about April to want to see what happens to her and her mother, and of course, the librarian!  And I should add that the real reason I picked up this book was because I knew that it was being made into a movie with Helen Hunt (both starring in but also directing her first feature film)….Bette Midler,  and Colin Firth…and therein lies the draw!  Who can resist a Colin Firth movie….??!

So fast foward….the movie is due out April 25th.  I was a bit mystified after finishing the book, as to who actually Colin would be playing…the gorgeous brother or the geeky librarian??  Not a good fit for either…we want our Colin as the romantic lead, do we not??  But being a librarian, I was all for him playing the geeky fellow who turns out to be a prince behind those glasses and shuushhing sounds!…

But alas! as Hollywood does so well, there is nothing of the book to be found in the movie….!  I have just watched the trailer and this is the basic plot synopsis:  April, whose adoptive mother is still alive, inexplicably decides to get married to a do-nothing, self-absorbed fellow (Matthew Broderick); her real mother (Bette Midler) shows up wanting to have a relationship and tells her that her father was Steve McQueen; April’s husband decides to leave her because he is bored; she meets the father (Frank, played by Colin) of one of her students, who expresses interest in getting to know her; she asks him out on a date, they click; her husband wants her back, she sleeps with him, she gets pregnant, and we do not know who the father is, but therein lies the story’s hook…..will she end up with Colin or Matthew? and all through this her new found mother brings great trouble as well as comfort into her life….I get all this from the trailer…it is called a dramady.  Colin is supposed to throw wild fits and therefore appear to be an unstable lover and thus perhaps not the best father of her child, etc, etc… So I ask you, if you read my first paragraph, is there anything in this movie that sounds like the book??? yikes!  Steve McQueen???  (but please note that there is this interesting bit of literary trivia in the movie:  Salman Rushdie plays the gynecologist!)

So I leave further discussion for after actually seeing the movie, for who in their right mind would miss Colin Firth in any sort of movie??, though I really was looking forward to seeing him as the geeky librarian….!  We Janeites can certainly see how easy it is for movies to NOT BE ANYTHING LIKE THE BOOK, and still get made! (not to bring Austen adaptations into the discussion, but there you have it!)  Comments welcome from anyone who has seen the movie and / or read the book, though I would love to know what Ms. Lipman thinks of all this!

Movies · News

PBS’s “Sense & Sensibility”

BookLady Deb1 Comment

Remember to watch the 2nd part of PBS’s Sense & Sensibility,  Sunday April 6, 2008 at 9pm.
You can check out the PBS blog at Remotely Connected  and the PBS Jane Austen Blog.

Here are a few links to other Austen blogs with lots of commentary on PBS’s new “Sense & Sensibility”… these are so worth sharing!

At Austenprose  Laurel Ann has several posts:

* Puzzling Legal Nonsense in Austen’s Sense and Sensibility
* Austen’s Willoughby: Truly a Byronic Hero, or Libertine? Part One
* Withstanding Sense, or Sensibility: Review of Episode One
* Sense and Sensibility: Cast Preview

At Jane Austen’s World see Ms. Place’s posts:

* S&S Soaked
* Footmen in JA’s Movie Adaptations
* S&S 2008 Makes Wonderful Sense, for the Most Part…