Happy Birthday, dear Jane!

Jane Austen was born 230 years ago today. That seems to be a nice coincidence, because today I was going to post my review of the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice.

Yesterday, to celebrate the Almost Completion of The Semester (I finished it today with an online history test), the Equuschick & I went and watched P&P in the theatre. The below review has spoilers!

Overall they did a fantastic job of condensing the novel into a 2 hour 15 minute movie. Knightley did a good job as Lizzie. The actress for Jane (Rosamund Pike) was wonderful, although I would have welcomed more of her. The plot progressed mostly quite well. The music was good. The scenery was good. Most of the characters were true to Austen's ideal.
Complaints:
* The costumes were really weird. There were a couple that seemed historically accurate, but the others just seemed to be some hastily thrown together assortment of costume party pieces.
* There were a few jarring moments when the scriptwriters introduced totally weird ideas. Mr. Darcy seeing Lizzie in her nightgown, for one. Wickham loaning Lydia some cash...in front of Lizzie, for another. That totally would not have happened. Lady Catherine showing up after bedtime...that was just weird.
* There also a couple modern notes. Charlotte Lucas's speech to Lizzie: "Don't judge me. Don't you dare judge me!" was odd. Of course we're supposed to feel slightly sorry for Charlotte, but we can definitely make a values judgment over her decision.
* why do the filmmakers think we want to see a sculpture's bum?
* They skipped some of the nicest lines ("of all this I might have been mistress" and "fine eyes") and then put in junk like "Mrs. Darcy. Mrs. Darcy. Mrs. Darcy." bleh.
I'm quite glad I went. I wouldn't mind seeing this one again, either. There's no way it'll ever take the place of the A&E one, and it will get more dated as the years go by...but it still tried to be a decent adaption, and had some measure of success.
End of Spoilers

Certainly, the best adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is the version with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. Since this one is five hours long it has the time to develop the characters and motives of not just the main figures, but the secondary characters as well. Everything about this production is beautifully fleshed out and beautifully produced. Because of its length we don't get to watch it frequently, but each time is a treat. We're always looking for new victims who haven't seen it yet...we feel so sorry for them, see. We just don't think they can bear the depravation.

These movies can only be thoroughly appreciated if you've read the book they are based on. Just think about it for a moment... a story written by a clergyman's daughter roughly 200 years ago is still capable of making the top ten at the box office. Why is that? Because real wit is timeless, and Austen has real wit. A part of real wit is understanding the ironies of human nature and Jane Austen possessed that understanding. Human nature does not change.

Cultural mores *do* change, which is why some of the new adaptation will seem dated 50 years from now. It succumbs to our society's views in a few scenes, rather than trusting that Jane Austen knew what she was doing when she wrote her characters the way she did.