There has been much tut-tutting, apoplexy and inter-state phone calling among the Cruickshank clan after the disappointment that was last night's showing of Persuasion on the ABC. If you haven't seen it, imagine what Reader's Digest would do with the story. I can understand the need to cut down the dialogue and plot for reasons of time, but removing almost all of the extended dialogue and replacing it with pointless and unlikely 'action' scenes.... no, no! All those wonderful, character-revealing conversations gone! As a consequence, we lose most of the satisfying subtlety of Austen's characters - from Anne Elliot herself to a minor but fascinating character like Lady Russell or Captain Benwick.
And replacing all this dialogue with action is equally unhelpful. The whole strength of Austen's world is the depiction of characters - particularly women - within incredibly frustrating limitations. Anne Elliot is meant to be profoundly constrained - by her society, by her family, by her personality. She is not meant to be sobbing hysterically all the time and running around Bath. She does not pash her husband in public.
I fear this bodes ill for the rest of the movies in the ABC Austen series. And I was really looking forward to Northanger Abbey!
5 comments:
JO!!!
We meet again, and knowing that you have a blog has ABSOLUTELY made my day. Now I can pick your thoughts whenever I like, and make my blog much more readable by quoting you endlessly. Hooray!
Glad to know there were others out there feeling my pain. That adaptation was just profoundly wrong, wasn't it: Anne Elliot does not run, for starters; and you would never know, say, that she spoke three languages (and was generally the brains of the outfit) from the way she was portrayed. And we lost the proposal-by-overheard-conversation-and-letter scene in the Musgroves' apartment; and we never got the sense of the unaffectedness and sheer practicality of the naval characters; and and and ...
It was just too painful.
How did you like the 1995 version?
Oh, I loved the 1995 version - I thought it was almost exactly right! Anne might have been slightly too suppressed, but otherwise I thought it captured many of the nuances of Austen's writing really well. In fact, of the plethora of Austen adaptations that came out in the early 90s, it was my favorite (though I liked most of them).
Interesting to hear that. I have personal reasons for liking the 1995 Persuasion: I'd half-"done" the novel at school and not got the point of it at all, but when (a good few years later) my then-girlfriend dragged me to the cinema to see the movie, I fell in love with it, and with Austen generally. (Quite unfeigned, although it did win me some points at the time!) So both the novel and the book have become sentimental favourites.
The one adaptation I didn't like from that period was Patricia Rozema's 1999 take on Mansfield Park, which I thought so unforgiveable that I wrote a sledging review of it on my website, back before we all had blogs. This new Persuasion wasn't quite in that league, I thought, but still very frustrating.
Hi Jo,
I found out about your blog through our charming old flatmate Mel - who also reads Simone's blog and my blog. I take it that is you in the gorgeous picture in your header... and what a cool blog name (do you know I only "got" it yesterday?! No Brain, some of them).
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