Since The Zombie Wakes, I’d like to bring up my personal favorite version of Pride And Prejudice.
The duel between Elizabeth and Darcy is the highlight, IMHO. That and she and her sisters are all ninja hotties.
I know I am “supposed” to like the BBC version best but instead I LOVE the version with Keira Knighley and recommend it highly
There is also Lost in Austen.
Ditto. I date the beginning of my long crush on Keira K. to seeing her in that movie.
The 1995 version is hands down the best. It is also a miniseries that really encompasses the whole book-- most of the dialogue is directly from the book. But the casting is exactly brilliant. Julia Sawalha (Saffy, on Absolutely Fabulous) plays Lydia, and Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle play the leads.
As a long-time, almost life-time fan of P&P, I have to say, I also loved P&P& Zombies. It is the kind of subtle humor you rarely get anymore, such as straight-up dialogue from the book delivered over a ninja-fight. You could tell who in the audience had read the book by who was laughing where.
The Greer Garson movie will bug die-hard fans, because the costumes are Victorian. I think the (male) producers didn’t think people read the book much anymore. It was kind of standard in the forties to costume anything from after about 1700 as Victorian. Just like things that were medieval got costumed like the Renaissance. It was actually a step back from silent films that researched these things pretty carefully. It just had to do with aesthetics. Victorian was more ornate (and wasp-waisted), and that was thought to appeal more to late 30s-40s audiences.
I agree with RivkahChaya. The BBC/A&E miniseries with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth is the standard by which I judge all others. The mini series format allowed adequate time for the story to develop over time, as it’s written in the book. By keeping much of the dialogue and important scenes, it stays much truer to the feel of the book. And it doesn’t repeat the same mistake that many other productions make, and that is mistaking Elizabeth’s natural dignity for impertinence, or worse, shrill feminism. This is the 1790’s not the 1970s.
The costumes and sets and scenery all add authenticity and richness to the production. And the casting was exquisite as well, from the leads to the supporting cast. Mr. Darcy was the perfect blend of arrogance and vulnerability, Elizabeth was proud and witty, but quite capable of feeling shame. Then we have the lovely but bland Jane, the affected, simpering Mr. Collins, the judgmental and insipid Mary, the vivacious and immature Lydia, the aloof and offensive Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the long-suffering but emotionally distant father…
My only wee complaint is that I thought that the actress who played the mother overacted. I could see how Mr. Darcy wanted to keep his distance from her.
In our family, we’re fond of Bride and Prejudice, the Bollywood musical version with Aishwarya Rai.
Indeed
That’s a hoot, but even less accurate than the Greer Garson version.
Also, I agree with the person who said the 1970s BBC version with Elizabeth Garvie is worth mentioning. IMHO, though, it never quite catches the brass ring. I think the problem is that it’s just too short. So much was edited out. I got the impression it was intended to be a feature film that couldn’t get the budget, and ended up being a very mini mini-series instead.
I think you just can’t make a movie of this book. It has to be a mini-series, and someone has to be brave enough to do a big-budget mini-series, which is what happened in 1995 when the BBC and A&E collaborated.
But am I the only person to notice that all his clothes are miraculously dried and ironed by the time he’s walked up from the lake to embarrass Lizzie in front of her aunt and uncle?
I love that version. I also like the BBC version - which is about as close to the book as you can get - although some things (Ehle’s makeup - wet Darcy getting dry too quickly) drive me bonkers. I have made it through the Kiera Knightly version once, tried a second time, and just can’t. Lizzie is too forward, Mrs. Bennett is not silly enough, Mr. Bennett is not sarcastic enough - P&P is a RomCom - not a drama (Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre are dramas).
Though I loved the BBC series, this is still my favorite of the bunch. I agree that it didn’t have the visual sophistication of either the 1995 version or the film (which I didn’t like at all), the acting is first rate. Elizabeth Garvie is a truly appealing Lizzie and Rintoul’s Darcy should be the gold standard of chilly perfection.
Well, I’ll cast my vote for the 2005 version. Keira Knightley is simply luminous as Lizzie, Darcy smolders, the whole supporting cast is excellent (esp. Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennet and Judi Dench as Lady Catherine), the screenplay never drags like the BBC version and has a great mix of drama and humor, the cinematography is stunning, and the classical score was rightly Oscar-nominated.
I agree. Two hours (or thereabouts) is not enough to do real justice to P&P.
Recently, scholars have pointed out that the Darcy Jane Austen would have been picturing wouldn’t look much like the Darcys in any of the adaptations mentioned:
Apparently modern audiences would recoil at the sight of the ‘real’ Darcy emerging dripping from a lake…
A pox on you! That screenplay never drags! it’s almost word-for-word from the book! If you think the screenplay drags, you must think the book drags, and I personally think the book is almost as snappy as PG Wodehouse or Dorothy Parker, and Austen gets tremendous credit for practically inventing the comedy of manners-- without which, we probably wouldn’t have the screwball comedy, or the RomCom.
No cite, but I remember reading that the 1940 P&P mostly reused costumes from the then-recent Gone With the Wind. This was much cheaper for the studio than having a bunch of new Regency style costumes made.
No doubt, but one must do what one must do to gain an audience. I doubt a “real” Poldark would have had loose, dreamy curls, and turtle shell abs, either. But I’m not complaining!
P.S. I always thought that Leslie Howard was too feminine to play Ashley Wilkes, the object of Scarlett Ohara’s desire. But he was much closer to what a gentleman would look and act like in that period than the hunky dude I’d imagined in my head.
Good point about Leslie Howard–and that shows that the change to a preference for heavily-muscled, broad-shouldered heroes hadn’t yet taken place 80 years ago, given that Howard was consistently cast as the romantic lead in his movies. (Jane would probably have approved him as a reasonably facsimile of her Darcy.)
(Clark Gable was closer to the broad shoulders, but look at him in his famous no-undershirt scene in 1934’s It Happened One Night: a body like that would never get him a lead role, today. He’d have to hit the gym a lot harder and longer to meet the standard.)
I must defend Elendil’s Heir here, as one of the Dope’s notable Janeites (or perhaps Austenites, if preferred). :mad: