One word: TRAVESTY.
The only nice thing about this movie is its deepening my appreciation of the book.
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the two sleepy mommies
One word: TRAVESTY.
The only nice thing about this movie is its deepening my appreciation of the book.
Comments are closed.
Is this the one that suggests that Mary Crawford had an inverted attraction to Fanny? I skipped it, after reading the reviews. The BBC version (1980, I believe) with Nicholas Farrell as Edmund was really very good; if the library doesn’t have it then probably a Blockbuster could track it down for you.
**Spoilers alert: Mansfield Park
Yes, that’s the one, though I did not see any evidence of an “inverted attraction.” I think the scene they’re referring to was one in which Fanny gets caught in the rain on her way to the parsonage, and Mary helps her change into dry things. It’s an intimate and intense scene — plenty of whispers and petticoats and stays — but since Mary is either pumping Fanny for information on Edmund or sounding her out as a rival, I think that says more about the critics than anything else.
UPDATE: I have since read sensible discussions of the film that do see such evidence. Perhaps I didn’t see it because I’m sheltered, prudish, or just wasn’t paying enough attention to the movie (at the moment I think I might have been calling bedtime instructions up the stairs.) Perhaps my conscious mind refused to “see” it because it was such a ridiculous insertion.
I had heard that they had “sexed up” the story, so I was prepared for that, but I was not prepared for the transformation of Fanny from a shy, awkward, but steadfast and virtuous young lady to a Smart ‘n’ Sassy Modern Woman, telling off Sir Thomas, riding her white mare in the rainy night and writing hilarious stories and bitingly witty letters up in the cold schoolroom (Jane Austen’s juvenilia is presented as Fanny’s writing).
Sir Thomas becomes a cartoon Evil Patriarch (complete with slaves in Antigua — a great deal about slavery in this movie) and poor Tom is dissolute because He Just Wants His Daddy’s Love — it’s a cry for help! Lady Bertram becomes an opium addict. Henry Crawford’s flirtatiousness is seriously downplayed. Mary’s forwardness is completely over the top (in one scene she is shown smoking cigars and playing at billiards with the gentlemen.) At least Edmund is still destined for the clergy (and the movie does not mock his ambition), but William Price? Completely gone. Also gone: the scenes at Sotherton.
Even the costumes and sets are all wrong. The exterior shots of Mansfield Park are lovely, but the interior shots are strangely devoid of little things like furnishings — apparently the Bertrams own no rugs, no paintings, and very little furniture. The gentlemen are well costumed, particularly Edmund, but half the time Fanny is wearing this weird jumper with a white blouse that looks as if it were purchased off the rack in 1999.
What a train wreck of a movie! It’s one thing to completely miss the point of a novel, but quite another to reject the point, substitute one’s own directly opposite vision, and still call it an adaptation. If the director (who also wrote the screenplay) wanted to write an anachronistic feminist screed with Regency dresses, she should have just come up with her own characters instead of plagiarizing Miss Austen’s.
+JMJ+
The BBC’s “Persuasion” is also awful.
Cristina, are you referring to the 1995 production starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds? Why don’t you care for it?
I think Cristina was referring to a very dated BBC version from the 70’s. I didn’t like it either. I thought the characters were pretty dry and the whole look of it was way too 70’s and it got distracting after a while. I just couldn’t transport myself back to the regency period, yk? I haven’t seen the Amanda Root version yet. Will have to borrow that one. This version was sort of like an older BBC version of Emma that I didn’t care for either.
try Gosford Park. it’s pretty good — for adults only!
+JMJ+
Uh, I _was_ referring to that 1995 production. I hope I don’t offend anyone who liked it, but I found it really, really boring. I had just read the novel and found it very nice, so maybe the movie couldn’t help being a disappointment. Also, I didn’t like Amanda Root’s portrayal of Anne Elliot; she seemed so flat and colorless and deflated.
I watched it with two friends and they also found it boring as well hard to follow. I had to admit that those who haven’t read the book will have trouble getting all the characters and their relationships straight.
Cristina —
no, no offense! I was trying to figure out a polite way to say, “Please tell us more about why you didn’t care for the movie” — I apologize if I sounded harsh.
I would be telling a lie if I didn’t say that I really, really love Persuasion — it’s one of my favorite movies period, and I think it’s the best of the recent Austen adaptations.
That being said, I can see why people unfamiliar with the book might find themselves a little at sea — the movie does launch right into the story, and since it’s only a two hour movie it doesn’t devote much time to spelling out the relationships between the characters. The sound is a little muddy, too, and that doesn’t help.
I do like the quiet, autumnal tone of the movie — I think that’s one of it’s loveliest qualities — and I love the way they show Anne perking up as the story progresses.
But no film adaptation, no matter how masterful, can ever match the book….
I know what each of you means about the Amanda Root/Ciaran Hinds Persuasion. The trouble with making a movie of it is that so much of it happens in Anne’s mind and memory. Inevitably some things have to be altered or have dialogue written for them: take, for instance, the scene in which Capt. W. lifts the child off Anne’s back. It’s very powerful in the book, but the feeling of the scene would be hard to convey visually. I thought she was very good, if just a trifle dowdy; and although I greatly admire Ciaran Hinds (I don’t find rosy-cheeked pretty-boy types at all attractive), he played the part a little less suavely than I’ve always pictured Captain Wentworth.
Oh, I do love that version of Persuasion! I’m surprised you have all seen it actually – I assumed it was just shown over here. I like it because it was less “pretty” than other adaptations of Austen’s books, and the characters had a lot of maturity.
Rachel, please remind us where “here” is for you?
I believe Persuasion was a joint production between the BBC and the U.S.A. show “Masterpiece Theatre”. It was released in the winter of 1995 in movie theatres before it was brought to television. Part of the reason I am so fond of it is that I saw it for the first time just a few weeks before I started dating a certain young gentleman, saw it for the second time on one of our first dates, bought it on video while I was bringing him to meet the family, and watched it dozens of times while I was doing the hand sewing on my wedding dress….