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By MELINA GEORGIS
The "Jane Austen Collection"
is undoubtedly a necessity of all dedicated fans
of author. With 6 DVDs covering Austen's major
works -- "Sense & Sensibility," "Emma,"
"Persuasion," "Mansfield Park," "Pride &
Prejudice" and "Northanger Abbey" -- who can
resist?
Well, one should not resist -- and one cannot
resist. However, this BBC collection is, I'm
afraid, not the definitive cinematic adaptation of
Austen's masterpieces of 18th century manners and
mores.
The films are basically six BBC miniseries, filmed
from 1971 to 1987. Some actors will be familiar
from other BBC series of the period, and some
appear in more than one of the films as different
characters -- Irene Richards is both Elinor in
"Sense & Sensibility," and Charlotte Lucas in
"Pride & Prejudice."
They are mostly literate adaptations -- although a
jarring exception is "Northanger Abbey" which
takes great liberties with the text, inventing
fantasy sequences that I do not remember from the
novel; and I do wish this were the only problem
with this particular entry. But unfortunately the
film is also terribly miscast, with Katharine
Schlesinger as Catherine Moreland looking nothing
like an 18th century English woman. My
disappointment here is intense, since, unlike the
other films, this is, I believe the only film
version of "Northanger Abbey."
Casting is indeed a general problem with most of
these films. There are no stars, so comparing this
version of "Sense & Sensibility" to Ang Lee's 1995
version with Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson and Hugh
Grant may seem unfair. However, we do like actors
to be better looking than ordinary folks and while
these BBC thespians are generally competent,
they're invariably not as, well, beautiful as the
casts in other Austen versions. For instance,
while this version of "Pride & Prejudice" (perhaps
Austen's best work, and certainly my favorite) is
well done and quite enjoyable, it is not as
sensual, not as charged as the A&E version with
Colin Firth and the astonishing Jennifer Ehle (and
I'm not just talking about Firth's emergence from
a lake in a wet shirt that has reportedly set many
female hearts aflutter). The A&E version simply
did everything almost perfectly, and the casting
was a big part of its appeal. Neither Firth nor
Ehle were stars when they starred in the 1995 A&E
version, so their allure is not due to their fame.
They are just better looking than the actors of
this 1980 BBC version, closer to what I imagined
the protagonists as looking while reading the
book; and they're better actors too. David Rintoul
as Darcy comes across as dyspeptic rather than
proud. Firth strikes the perfect balance between
reserve and haughtiness.
Even when the actors are not better looking in a
different version because they're not supposed to
be in the novel -- as with "Persuasion" -- other
versions are superior. In fact, while this
"Persuasion," from 1971, is quite good, it is
stagy, betraying its pedigree as essentially
filmed theater (even the sound sounds hollow, as
if it's bouncing off props and the high, open
ceilings of a soundstage, instead of the heavy
curtains of an estate drawing room). Conversely,
the 1995 Sony Pictures Classics version is a
masterpiece, easily the best film of 1995 (what's
with 1995 and Jane Austen adaptations?). Neither
Amanda Root nor Ciarán Hinds are unusually
good-looking actors (and the novel requires that
they should not be) but the chemistry between
them, their evident performing skills, the precise
direction by Roger Michell, the handsome sets and
the delicate art direction have created the
definitive version of this novel.
Yet another problem is the poor image quality. I'm
certain that's not just a problem with the
transfer -- although I've heard that on PBS some
of these films looked better than they do on DVD.
But most BBC programs from the '70s and '80s look
washed out, and out of focus, and all of these do
too, especially the older ones.
Still, even if my praise is faint -- make that
very faint -- for Austen fans it's hard to pass up
this collection. No, it's hardly the last word on
any of the novels and other, better versions of
some do exist. However, the beauty of the language
is still intact, and the breadth of the collection
itself is impressive. For Austen completists, like
me, it is an obligation. |
