![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
What is a pelisse anyway?
So, as some of you may be dismayed to hear, I have watched several period films since Jane Eyre, and, as you may have suspected, I intend now to unfold my feelings on all of them here since I no longer inhabit a scholarly community where I can just have my opinions out. Brace yourselves.
The 2007 Persuasion, though possessing things which would lead me to have a fondness for it (not the least of which being Rupert Giles and the Borg Queen), lacked all luster. It did little but disappoint (with the exception of Anthony Head as Sir Walter). Sally Hawkins was no more Ann Elliot to me than Tina Fey, and Rupert Penry-Jones proved no more like Captain Wentworth than his counterpart.
This version sped through events a little jarringly, rather like the endless use of not-so steady cam on moving shots, of which there were far more than I should like to see. I have a bone to pick with Adrian Shergold, the director, because he (she?) has used two of my least favorite conventions. The first, having already been mentioned, is the excessive use of steady cam as a device to convey frenetic energy, franticness. Whether this is more the fault of Shergold or the writer, Simon Burke, is up for grabs, because Burke has Ann running around bath like a heathen, looking everywhere for Captain Wentworth, and this circumstance would have been unpardonable already without the extra offence of the rampant steady cam. The other convention which I loathe is having a character who does not have a relationship with the audience staring right into its face through the fourth wall. Anyone who has seen my immediate reaction to being looked at (or, really, to the camera being looked at) by a character can testify that I have an instant violent reaction. It’s awkward, amateurish, and uncomfortable, and unless you want your scene to feel that, NEVER do it (I do not use caps lightly). I’m not sure which I hate more – feeling like I’m being tossed about on the shoulder of a cameraman, or having an actor look right through the lens and out of her character at me. And both were liberally applied in this version.
Aside from style choices, most of the meat of the book makes it into screenplay, and it has a few facts that didn’t make it into the (far superior) older version with Amanda Root and Ciarian Hinds (1995, I think). Even so, this version has a quality of hurriedness which is not present in the older version, despite the fact that they have just about the same running time. Overall, just not as good a version as the older one, might have better not have been made (excepting, of course, the performances of Anthony Head and Alice Kirge – aside from them, I think casting was my third biggest problem with this – Ann was uninspiring and nowhere near Wentworth for physical attractiveness, which was really the least of their many problems).
I did find this version of Sense and Sensibility rather charming, though I was hard for me to get past the fact that Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman were not in it. The Lee/Thompson version was just so gorgeous that it was almost difficult to judge this version for what it was. But I will say that it was charming. I liked Margaret and the choices they made for her. I think, with Sense and Sensibility adaptations, Margaret is sort of an indicator species. If something not weird but interesting is done with that particular piece of Austen’s clay then the adaptation should be fairly decent.
Anyway, the girls didn’t really look related. It’s as if they cast the three girls simultaneously in three separate rooms. But I can get past that. The actors were generally fairly good. The men left something to be desired. Edward Ferrars was quite the best looking of the three, with Willoughby at a distant (slightly strange looking) second and poor Colonel Brandon (in sharp contrast with Alan Rickman) inspired nothing at all and could almost be mistaken for a servant or background character he was so unremarkable.
The script was quite decent, though it didn’t quite have the spirit of Thompson’s screenplay. There were parts that felt a little rushed where, with more than thirty minutes less of screen time, Thompson’s never really does that.
One thing I noticed which has nothing to do with the script, really, was Edward’s horse. A gorgeous Friesian, totally stole the show with all that wavy black hair and heavy pretty fetlocks. And every time Edward rides up somewhere, it’s on that horse (despite the fact that he says he just borrowed some horse to ride in to Norland – he quite stole the show, in my opinion) and that is how we know him from the other men in our girls’ lives.
I have very little to complain of, and find this version very nice, and, while perhaps more accurate to the text (though that is debatable and I would have to watch both in succession with the volume to really be sure) it lacks the spirit of the Thompson/Lee. The screenplay was done by Andrew Davies, though, if I’m not mistaken, and that should speak for itself. I am afraid that, in my mind at least, I can never really appreciate this version because I have loved the Thompson/Lee so well long before this one appeared.
Emma, played by Kate Beckinsale in this version, is quite the perfect cute little brat the book makes her out to be. Another Andrew Davies effort, so as true to the book as a movie should reasonable assumed to be (unlike the cursed Paltrow Emma, which was further from textual accuracy to Emma than Clueless was). I have nothing to complain of this version, except that Samantha Morton is in it as Harriet Smith. Now, I have no problem with Samantha Morton herself, but I have never once set out to watch a movie with Samantha Morton in it, and yet I’ve seen like five of them and am sure to see more. There is something weird about her that goes beyond period films. But anyway, I have no problem with her, though in my opinion she did look a bit out of place in this film (not like the A&E Jane Eyre, where she fit in like weird shaped cog in the gears of that slightly misshapen version).
I also wasn’t in love with the actor who played Knightly, and, as he generally is the best part of the Emma story, Kate Beckinsale was forced to use her charm to make up for the deficiency. She really was the perfect Emma, and I have no complaints of her. This version has the spirit, the Austen spirit which, when missing, ruins adaptations (as seen above with the maudlin, self-pitying Ann Elliot of the wan and lackluster Persuasion most recently committed to film). I will admit that I fell asleep during a few minutes in the middle, but mostly because it was like 3 am and not because it wasn’t a good version.
That's all the incoherence I'll submit you to at this time. Coming soon, to an lj near you - reviews of the new Mansfield Park, the 90's (but not MTV Wuthering Heights, and the digi Beowulf.
I really need someone I can talk about literature with, or I'm just gonna go nuts.
The 2007 Persuasion, though possessing things which would lead me to have a fondness for it (not the least of which being Rupert Giles and the Borg Queen), lacked all luster. It did little but disappoint (with the exception of Anthony Head as Sir Walter). Sally Hawkins was no more Ann Elliot to me than Tina Fey, and Rupert Penry-Jones proved no more like Captain Wentworth than his counterpart.
This version sped through events a little jarringly, rather like the endless use of not-so steady cam on moving shots, of which there were far more than I should like to see. I have a bone to pick with Adrian Shergold, the director, because he (she?) has used two of my least favorite conventions. The first, having already been mentioned, is the excessive use of steady cam as a device to convey frenetic energy, franticness. Whether this is more the fault of Shergold or the writer, Simon Burke, is up for grabs, because Burke has Ann running around bath like a heathen, looking everywhere for Captain Wentworth, and this circumstance would have been unpardonable already without the extra offence of the rampant steady cam. The other convention which I loathe is having a character who does not have a relationship with the audience staring right into its face through the fourth wall. Anyone who has seen my immediate reaction to being looked at (or, really, to the camera being looked at) by a character can testify that I have an instant violent reaction. It’s awkward, amateurish, and uncomfortable, and unless you want your scene to feel that, NEVER do it (I do not use caps lightly). I’m not sure which I hate more – feeling like I’m being tossed about on the shoulder of a cameraman, or having an actor look right through the lens and out of her character at me. And both were liberally applied in this version.
Aside from style choices, most of the meat of the book makes it into screenplay, and it has a few facts that didn’t make it into the (far superior) older version with Amanda Root and Ciarian Hinds (1995, I think). Even so, this version has a quality of hurriedness which is not present in the older version, despite the fact that they have just about the same running time. Overall, just not as good a version as the older one, might have better not have been made (excepting, of course, the performances of Anthony Head and Alice Kirge – aside from them, I think casting was my third biggest problem with this – Ann was uninspiring and nowhere near Wentworth for physical attractiveness, which was really the least of their many problems).
I did find this version of Sense and Sensibility rather charming, though I was hard for me to get past the fact that Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman were not in it. The Lee/Thompson version was just so gorgeous that it was almost difficult to judge this version for what it was. But I will say that it was charming. I liked Margaret and the choices they made for her. I think, with Sense and Sensibility adaptations, Margaret is sort of an indicator species. If something not weird but interesting is done with that particular piece of Austen’s clay then the adaptation should be fairly decent.
Anyway, the girls didn’t really look related. It’s as if they cast the three girls simultaneously in three separate rooms. But I can get past that. The actors were generally fairly good. The men left something to be desired. Edward Ferrars was quite the best looking of the three, with Willoughby at a distant (slightly strange looking) second and poor Colonel Brandon (in sharp contrast with Alan Rickman) inspired nothing at all and could almost be mistaken for a servant or background character he was so unremarkable.
The script was quite decent, though it didn’t quite have the spirit of Thompson’s screenplay. There were parts that felt a little rushed where, with more than thirty minutes less of screen time, Thompson’s never really does that.
One thing I noticed which has nothing to do with the script, really, was Edward’s horse. A gorgeous Friesian, totally stole the show with all that wavy black hair and heavy pretty fetlocks. And every time Edward rides up somewhere, it’s on that horse (despite the fact that he says he just borrowed some horse to ride in to Norland – he quite stole the show, in my opinion) and that is how we know him from the other men in our girls’ lives.
I have very little to complain of, and find this version very nice, and, while perhaps more accurate to the text (though that is debatable and I would have to watch both in succession with the volume to really be sure) it lacks the spirit of the Thompson/Lee. The screenplay was done by Andrew Davies, though, if I’m not mistaken, and that should speak for itself. I am afraid that, in my mind at least, I can never really appreciate this version because I have loved the Thompson/Lee so well long before this one appeared.
Emma, played by Kate Beckinsale in this version, is quite the perfect cute little brat the book makes her out to be. Another Andrew Davies effort, so as true to the book as a movie should reasonable assumed to be (unlike the cursed Paltrow Emma, which was further from textual accuracy to Emma than Clueless was). I have nothing to complain of this version, except that Samantha Morton is in it as Harriet Smith. Now, I have no problem with Samantha Morton herself, but I have never once set out to watch a movie with Samantha Morton in it, and yet I’ve seen like five of them and am sure to see more. There is something weird about her that goes beyond period films. But anyway, I have no problem with her, though in my opinion she did look a bit out of place in this film (not like the A&E Jane Eyre, where she fit in like weird shaped cog in the gears of that slightly misshapen version).
I also wasn’t in love with the actor who played Knightly, and, as he generally is the best part of the Emma story, Kate Beckinsale was forced to use her charm to make up for the deficiency. She really was the perfect Emma, and I have no complaints of her. This version has the spirit, the Austen spirit which, when missing, ruins adaptations (as seen above with the maudlin, self-pitying Ann Elliot of the wan and lackluster Persuasion most recently committed to film). I will admit that I fell asleep during a few minutes in the middle, but mostly because it was like 3 am and not because it wasn’t a good version.
That's all the incoherence I'll submit you to at this time. Coming soon, to an lj near you - reviews of the new Mansfield Park, the 90's (but not MTV Wuthering Heights, and the digi Beowulf.
I really need someone I can talk about literature with, or I'm just gonna go nuts.
no subject
I get like that about Education, too. If I can't discuss things with my peers, I go a little nuts, because most people just smile and nod when I talk about NCLB. Or, sometimes worse, they have big opinions about things they've never researched before. . .boof. Hope you find a literature nut to talk to soon!