Masterpiece Theatre is doing all the completed Austen novels. Four new adaptations, the BBC Pride and Prejudice over three nights (the one with a wet Colin Firth) and the Emma with Kate Beckingsdale. Plus some sort of bio piece.
Persuasion was last night. Anyone see it?
It was very well done, with the exception of the last few minutes - and the problem of it only being 90 minutes long (and extra 30 minutes would have made a big difference in the ability to see the characters). Anthony Stewart Head (Buffy) played Sir Walter Elliot and had me saying “who IS that actor?” for the whole show. He, the actress playing Lady Russell and the actress playing Mary I thought did a particularly good job with their characters (of course, they had the broadest characters to play). Anne came off as a little too frumpy and a little too doormat and not enough inner strength, leaving me to wonder why she had two men chasing her.
I missed it! I’ve been watching so little TV these days, I didn’t know it was going to be on. But to see a wet Colin Firth again is too much temptation! Going to fire up the VCR for the next episode…thanks for bringing this to my attention.
I saw Persuasion last night. Yes, the ending was abrupt and badly done. Why do adapters of Persuasion think the romance between Anne and Captain Wentworth has to culminate with kissing in the street? (At least there wasn’t a circus parade going by in this version.) Seeing the invalid Harriet Smith chasing Anne down the street at a run stretched credibility. And, I needed something of the “in your face, Mr. William Elliott, you scoundrel” that just wasn’t there. In the 1995 version, the last shot of Anne and Captain Wentworth was on board his ship. In this version, it was on the lawn of Kellynch, which he had bought (or leased?) for her as a wedding present. The ‘95 version made some statement about their marriage following the happy pattern of the Crofts’. I don’t know what to think of this ending, except that they ran out of time and didn’t have a boat handy.
The strange thing was that I was watching the Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility yesterday - with the Emma Thompson/Lindsay Doran commentary. And they were talking about the cut kissing scene between Elinor and Edward - and how it didn’t work, wasn’t needed, and wouldn’t have happened. So Anne and Wentworth kissing in the street seemed even more jarring.
I liked the shot of Anne on the ship as an ending.
The purchase of Kellynch made no sense. Wentworth now has independence, but in Austen he is only worth 25,000 pounds. And in order to purchase it, Sir Walter has to end up in even worse circumstances - certainly not a happy ending for Anne.
I liked it, although I agree about the kissing in the street part and Anne seemed to do an awful lot of running. There were some familiar faces - Anthony Head (he does pompous well, doesn’t he?), Alice Krige, and Tobias Menzies (Brutus from Rome). I did miss Sophie Thompson as Mary, but everyone was good.
I thought the camera work was very effective in portraying how out-of-control Anne felt, particularly the scene where she’s riding on the back of the carriage.
Wasn’t Gillian Anderson a terrible host? I usually like her but she looked totally unnatural, like she was trying to channel Diana Rigg.
I have wet Colin Firth on DVD, but I’m looking forward to the others in the upcoming weeks.
Watched it, and agree with much of what has been said.
Haven’t read the book in years - felt they did a poor job of setting up that Giles’ wife was an older daughter. The 4 of us all assumed she was an evil stepmom.
At some point my wife said with all her heavy breathing Ann could have a job as an obscene phone caller.
All that running was especially ridiculous.
I didn’t realize it was a one-parter until things really started to whip along in the last 10 minutes. Given that they only had 90 minutes, I think they could have done with - say - a little less household inventory at the very start.
Eager to hear the verdict from my Jane Austen-obsessed daughter at college.
I forgot about it until it was halfway over and my TiVo doesn’t quite get me enough yet to have taped it for me. (It taped a Nature on dogs right before Persuasion - but Persuasion? nooooooo)
So I won’t see it until next week.
I’ve told it explicitly to tape all the others (except P&P. That I have).
Does anyone know why they changed the name from the well-loved “Masterpiece Theatre” to just “Masterpiece”? I think after this many years they should’ve left it alone.
I’ve recorded Presuasion and I hope to watch it tonight. I have wet Colin Firth. I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the shows.
According to the website they’re introducing “Masterpiece Classic”, “Masterpiece Mystery!” and “Masterpiece Contemporary”, and referring to the collective as Masterpiece.
The word “masterpiece” starts to look funny after you type it a few times.
The second Bridget Jones movie isn’t very good, but on the DVD extras there’s a mock interview with Colin Firth where he’s trying to talk about his newest movie but Bridget keeps turning the conversation back around to the wet shirt scene from P&P.
The weird thing is that the only times the BBC “wet Colin Firth” version deviates from the book in any way really at all is when they decide to dunk Colin Firth. There’s one in the bathtub and the infamous lake scene.
I was really disappointed with it. I didn’t really understand what was so compelling about Anne that she had two men chasing after her, even if one was under false pretenses. They would have done better to shorten the stuff that happened before arriving in Bath, since there’s so much there that’s more important than what was shown.
I vastly prefer the 1995 version. I found Ciaran Hinds a much better Captain Wentworth, and Amanda Root can do no wrong. The delivery of the letter at the end was done much more effectively in that one, as well.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that the decision to toss him in the lake, which is more of a glorified pond, was pretty spur of the moment. They saw the lake, said, “Hey, why not?” and one of the most famous scenes in all costume drama was born.
I have referred to this, and the proposal-in-rain scene from the more recent version of P&P as “Dripping Wet Darcy!”
I haven’t seen any of the new adaptations yet, but I noticed they were all already available on DVD in the latest PBS catalog; as collector of various versions of Austen’s work, I’ll have to see if I can rent them and check them out before I decide which if any are keepers.
Well, that explains the proposal in the rain scene. See I think “wet Colin Firth” is funny - but I don’t get the Darcy obsession or the Colin Firth obsession many women have. And while it wasn’t in the book, it didn’t seem that unreasonable that Darcy, after a long ride from town, on his own property, not expecting to run into anyone but his own staff, might do something as impulsive as jump in the pond - a little odd, but really, we don’t know the private Darcy. And it did make for a much more awkward and ridiculous scene between Darcy and Elizabeth. But it seemed very odd to me that Darcy would propose to anyone standing in the rain dripping wet. Far too Byronic for Darcy. However, the director realized that the wet Colin Firth version had set precedence, and now female viewers demand “Dripping Wet Darcy” in every future adaptation of P&P.
I think when I do mine, I’m going to have him in a wet t-shirt contest. Maybe have someone dump some Gatorade over his head.
And it suddenly occurs to me that in Bride and Prejudice you have that whole nonsense about running through the fountain…so even the Bollywood version has “Dripping Wet Darcy.”
I also enjoyed the added, brief fencing lesson scene, wherein we see that Darcy is struggling mightily with his feelings for Elizabeth. He’s trying, by going to the Georgian equivalent of the gym, to forget all about her (in vain).
It’s my guess that, aside from the sex appeal, having the rigidly proper Darcy caught by Elizabeth in such a state was meant to help rattle him a little, to bring his pride down a notch, and to make his side of their subsequent conversation more confused.
I know it’s a cheaply done production, but David Rintoul’s Darcy in the 1980s version was closest to the way I’ve pictured the gentleman in my mind–and he isn’t wet at all. (Mr. Collins, however, seems in danger of falling into a pond at one point.)
Maybe an ice-bucket? Lydia could sneak up on him at the Netherfield ball, to the further disgrace of the Bennet family…
The second Bridget Jones movie isn’t very good, but on the DVD extras there’s a mock interview with Colin Firth where he’s trying to talk about his newest movie but Bridget keeps turning the conversation back around to the wet shirt scene from P&P.