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Emma (2009)
This must be one of the worst adaptations in costume drama history.
Well, what to say about it? Is it actually worth the name adaptation? It depends what standards one has.
Granted, the costumes are great and colourful, the sets are equally splendid, the opening credits very nice, the music beautiful and the BBC might get a few prizes for that like for their Jane Eyre-adaptation in 2006, but for the rest there is little adaptation discernible.
All the wordy Austen-language has been taken out along with it all its subtle playfulness, which is the greatest thing about Austen. Her two main characters tend to 'play' with each other in speech, like Lizzy and Darcy did in Pride and Prefudice 1995 and Emma and Knightley (Kate Beckinsale and Mark Strong) did in 1996 despite their severe lack of time. Here though, there is no subtlety going on at all. Characters scream and shout at each other and run after one another without seeming restraint. It is as if watching a modern drama in older costumes.
Characters furthermore speak in too modern vocabulary, are dropping their Ts, speak in an accent not remotely similar to an upper class accent, wave at each other in the street, do not bow or courtesy, open their own doors, toss their own logs on the fire, let the children fight in the street, ask for the salt to fellow table guests, let the children eat dinner with them in the dining room and more of that adamant nonsense.
As if that was not enough, Emma seems to have been toned down to a light story of two people who are right for each other but do not seem to get it yet. In fact, the original does not do that, so the adaptation has even less business to put that in.
The only remotely well played and well written character must be Miss Bates (Tamsin Greig) and she is a character that is only a small part of the whole Highbury-world. She is at least as good as Prunella Scales in the role (1996) and the Miramax-take on the character. On the other hand the rest of the original characters is either badly drawn or too much exaggerated: Emma (Romola Garai) looks too immature and too unreserved to be Emma, mistress of Hartfield and rich single lady; Mr Knightley (Johnny Lee Miller) looks too young to be Emma's 18-year senior and tends to be too much of a 'man' instead of a 'father' like his original - The Independent said about him that he was in danger of becoming Emma's subject rather than being overlooked – indeed, he has no authority to the viewer either; Mr Woodhouse (Michael Gambon) does his best, but is saddled with a very repetitive, sad and small script - Constanduros (1972) and Davies (1996) made much more of him -; Mr Elton is slimy, but up to the point of impertinence and rudeness; the Knightley-children are behaving as badly as children nowadays; Harriet Smith (Louise Dylan) does not know how to eat soup; Jane Fairfax (Laura Pyper), Frank Churchill (Rupert Evans) and Emma herself have been bound together in a mysterious way - what the mysterious way is, is probably that they were born at about the same time
At any rate, the mysterious way is never explained.
The very important subplot of Churchill and Jane Fairfax is nearly wiped out apart from its conclusion and Sandy Welch managed to turn Austen's lovely and charming Churchill into the least desirable man in England. After Box Hill, one wonders how Jane actually still wants him.
Emma and Knightley are also an enigma. As Emma is so immature, one is at a loss what Knightley sees in her. At some point he professes that 'until Mrs Knightley is in existence, he will manage household-matters by himself'. That can be true, but with an immature wife he will end up doing them for eternity.
The BBC claimed that they 'took Jane Austen off the literary shelf and made her part of our lives again'
They have certainly taken her off the literary shelf, that is a fact. I do not know what they meant by 'making her part of our lives again'. I guess neither the writer (Sandy Welch), nor the controller of BBC Drama, nor the director, nor the producer have ever seen the literary shelf which might account for the stupid comment Emma makes about Mitlon: 'I've managed two pages of Milton.' Austen is not stuffy, it is fun and it can be poetic too. Only not, of course, if one does not know how.
A lot has been said about miscasts in Romola Garai and Johnny Lee Miller. Austen is not about looks, it is about writing alone. She never describes her characters and as such, miscasts in Austen do not exist. This drama was a shambles because Sandy Welch misunderstood Frank Churchill (he that gets the readers to know the people in Highbury), Regency society and Austen's set-up to a great extent. Sugary drama without foundation, that even extended to Mr Woodhouse (the most hilarious character of the work) was the result. Despite the beautiful scenery, the sparkling charm of this work was lost in the mists of desperate modernisation.
Emma (1972)
A very loving and literate adaptation; how Austen would have liked it.
The appealing nature of this adaptation is its length and its fun. Characterisaton comes close to the work Davies did in 1996 for A&E, although it differs somewhat. That might be down to the literary criticism of the day, though, and particularly in the judgment upon Harriet as a dull, stupid cow. Davies was a little more nuanced in his judgment upon all characters, but nonetheless, the work Denis Constanduros produced was very true to the spirit of the novel and made use of the comedy elements in the original text. Particularly in costume and the one character of Mr Woodhouse Constanduros produced classic comedy that was about words rather than one-liners and ridiculous situations.
Also the age-difference between Emma and her Mr Knightley is very much apparent. Knightley is not as vigorous as Mark Strong in the role, but this Mr Knightley has not the task of radiating sex-appeal, but rather radiating stability and wisdom through experience, like Austen's version.
Despite the lack of technology to make shots and filming on location truly possible, they did well. There is also no music which made it necessary for the actors and director to truly act and film the characters' feelings so the viewer could comprehend them. It is surprising how they managed to still convey the same emotional tension (or even more of it than they do now) through mainly just close-ups. That, though, might slightly bother the modern viewer. However, through it, viewers are compelled to use their own brain more than with modern adaptations of the novel.
Most of the contents is not toned down, only maybe the complicated business with Churchill and Jane when things are going wrong in the end. The main point of Emma and Knightley's blindness to each other stays upward better than in the Miramax version of 1996. And that without all that Miramx had to their disposal.
It is the only adaptation of the work as well, that uses the wordiness of Austen. It is important as a viewer that one listens more than that one watches. We could easily just make the adaptation in a hear-play, it would make little difference. The language is so expressive and the comedy is so much embedded in it that the physical acting matters less. And that is what Austen is about: it is no slapstick, but pure wordy wit. We have come a long way since the 1970s in comedy.
All in all, a satisfactory adaptation without sex-appeal, but with sweetness. I daresay, how Austen would have liked it.
Jane Eyre (2006)
Why waste your money on it
I can't get my mind round it. Here is this fantastic work of 150 years old, written by a very well read woman and the BBC and Sandy Welch reduce it to this! It is beyond my comprehension. In my view Rochester might be too good-looking (although, are there any bad looking actors?). However, this does not really matter. The main thing is: he is far from a Byronic Hero. He is moody, yes, but rude too and that Rochester never was. Jane is too world-wise and does not look like a 19-year-old who has just come out of school. More so, she is not self-confident enough to counter Rochester like in the original. The great word-play in the beginning by which she earns Rochester's respect is not there. And then... The tale was reduced to a lot of heartache. Although this book is very deep and carries a lot of allusions within literature (Shakespeare as the most important, but also Milton and a whole lot of philosophy, fairy tales and folklore ), it is not totally impossible to do a good impression of the novel. The 1997 adaptation did a much better stab at it in a much shorter time.
Furthermore, it is a shame that they did not carry the deeper theme of fairy tales a lot further. There was some Beauty and the Beast-connotation at the start but it did not carry it on beyond the spooky scary castle.
And what was with the red scarf?
-SPOILER ALERT-
It is beyond me what they tried with the flashback. It gave a totally wrong impression. Lying on a bed and kissing is not something for a costume drama. By doing, one of the most powerful scenes in the whole novel is reduced to cheap passion on the screen.
They totally disregarded the importance of the gypsy as Rochester in the original. Most adaptations leave it out (with the exception of Timothy Dalton), but this one toned it down to a gaff of Rochester. That scene contains a lot of symbolism and it should not have been toned down like that. It is a capital mistake. If they did not know what to do with it (which is clearly the case) they should have left it out altogether.
-SPOILER ALERT OVER-
After two years of research in the matter the 1997 adaptation with Ciaran Hinds and Samantha Morton as Rochester and Jane wins hands down.
This was a huge waste of money and I, like others, cannot believe how many people actually find it a good adaptation.