Elizabeth Gaskell Bicentenary Blog Tour: North and South (2004) – Movie Review

Welcome to the 6th stop of Gaskell blog tour honoring her birth. 29th September 2010 marks the 200th anniversary. This celebration was launched by Laurel Ann at Austenprose and involves several bloggers you find listed at the end of this post. Each blogger is going to review  Gaskell's beloved works or their adaptations. Join us on this celebration! Remember that each of us is going to post at midnight in her own timezone so you'll find new posts all day long! Living in Italy I'm one of the first. One lucky commenter will also win a copy of an unabridged edition of North and South by Naxos AudioBooks read by Clare Willie. That’s 18 hours of Margaret Hale and John Thornton sparring and sparking Gaskell’s most acclaimed work.   You can visit all the blogs involved in any order and all comments during the contest will count toward your chance to win. Good luck !

Deadline to leave a comment midnight Pacific time on October 7. Winners drawn from names from all the post in the tour on Oct 8. CD Shipment to US and Canada, international download.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MRS GASKELL!!!

NORTH AND SOUTH - TV MINISERIES  (MY REVIEW)

This  task couldn't be more welcome. Laurel Ann asked me to review BBC North and South (2004),  one of the best adaptations of a classic  novel ever and one of my best favourites.  I'm proud and excited, because this period drama is so unique to me!

Can a TV series touch your heart and change your life? No? You haven't seen this one. I would have answered no myself before watching  it , by chance, a couple of years ago. Unbelievable but true, this is what this miniseries did to thousands of viewers all over the world. If I had only suspected what a turning point   BBC NORTH AND SOUTH, would be in my life... I would have watched it earlier! Instead, I saw it only in the summer 2008 and it , incredibly, actually changed my life. Exaggerating? Not a bit. I know the same happened to so many! Which other costume series had such an extraordinary response? Pride and Prejudice 1995, of course. But not many others.

Entusiastic fans, hundreds of them, overwhelmed the BBC Drama message boards with messages about the drama and in particular, its hero. Soon the BBC had to set up a separate message board for the discussions. The phenomenon of so many women taking to an Internet message board for the first time because of their love for this programme became the subject of an article by Anne Ashworth in The Times. She wrote:
The BBC Drama website contains the outpourings of hundreds of thirty and fortysomething women for this year’s romantic hero. He is John Thornton, the northern millowner in Mrs Gaskell’s North & South, recently serialised on BBC One. Thornton was played smoulderingly by the previously little-known Richard Armitage as a blue-eyed, dark-haired stunner, the Darcy de nos jours. On the messageboard, character and actor merge into one object of desire: RA/JT (from http://www.richardarmitageonline.com/) 

First of all, being Italian, I'd like to say that it has introduced many Italian people loving costume series to Elizabeth Gaskell's work,  which is remarkable , both deep and delightful , but so little known. We don't even have an Italian translation of her North and South yet. It seems it is coming out soon, in 2011. It was definitely time!
But let's go on with my task.

As The Times wrote at the time of its broadcasting, North and South is "an intelligent, moving, thought -provoking and visually striking adaptation" of Elizabeth Gaskell 1855 novel. A passionate tale of love across the social divide with an unforgettable soundtrack by Martin Phipps. The story has been often compared to Pride and Prejudice, it has been defined "P&P with a social conscience".
Richard Armitage, who brilliantly played brooding but charming mill owner John Thornton, said in his interview for The Story of Costume Drama (ITV) : "The landscape of N&S is incredibly grey and bleak and deliberately so. And then , in the middle of it , you've got this really beautiful blossoming romance ..." In fact, the dramatic drive of the story hangs on the chemistry between the central couple - privileged  southerner, Margaret Hale, and northern practical-minded John Thornton. So casting was crucial.

Margaret and Henry Lennox (John Light)

By the end of a lengthy auditioning process, no match had been made! To find the two protagonists was not easy at all for the production. But , in the end, the choice of Richard Armitage as John and Daniela Denby-Ashe as Margaret was actually perfect.

Nicholas Higgins (Brendan Coyle) and Mr Thornton

Margaret and John at Marlborough Mills

Daniela Denby-Ashe had not originally auditioned for the role of Margaret Hale but for that of Fanny Thornton, and was not sure she would be participating on the project, but the producers had been looking for the right Margaret for a long time and Denby-Ashe's "directness, energy and charm" as well as the chemistry she had with would-be co-star Richard Armitage proved decisive. Armitage himself had been the first actor to read for the role of John Thornton and even though his performance had impressed producer Kate Bartlett and casting director Jill Trevellick, they still had to see many other possible Thorntons. Three weeks after casting had begun, Trevellick decided to recapitulate the first auditions, realising that Armitage was "perfect". To recreate the Victorian era, Edinburgh was chosen as fictional town Milton. Filming also took place in Selkirk, Keighley and weaving shed at Queen Street Mill Museum in Burnley, home to 300 deafening Lancashire looms.
The story contrasts the values, customs and traditions of the rural south and booming industrial north. It also explores the relentless search for profit and the suffering of mill work. The north is characterized by a grey smoky atmosphere while Helstone in the South is full of colours and light.

Milton is grey and bleak

Helstone is colourful and full of light

It was adapted for television by brilliant Sandy Welch and directed by Brian Percival. Despite their initially low expectations, the BBC was surprised with the positive audience reception, which compelled them to release the series on DVD on 11 April 2005.

Mr Hale (Tim Pigott-Smith)

Mrs Hale (Leslie Manville)

The plot ( from BBC DVD cover)

As the daughter of a middle-class parson, Margaret Hale, has enjoyed a privileged upbringing in rural southern England. But when her fatheruproots the family, she's forcedto adapt to a new lifein Milton - a northern mill town in the throes of the industrial revolution.
Margaret is shocked by her new surroundings - the dirt, noise and gruffness of the people of Milton. However, she saves her greatest contempt for the mill-owners. When John Thornton, charismaticproprietor of Marlborough Mills, becomes a "pupil" of her father, she makes her distaste for this vulgar and uneducated new class abundantly clear.
Over time, Margaret's attitude towards the mill workers begins to changeand she joins their workplace struggles against poverty and disease. But will she ever change her view of their employers, in particular Mr Thornton who has become her admirer?

Mrs Thornton, John's mother (Sinead Cusack)

Fanny Thornton, John's sister (Jo Joyner)

Some differences between the novel and the TV adaptation

- Margaret never enters Mr Thornton's mill in the book and Mr Thornton doesn't hit any of his workers. The two events are instead in the first scenes after the Hales' arrival in Milton in the movie.

- Sandy Welch's story, for example, begins and ends with the main character Margaret Hale travelling by train, which are not the starting and ending point of the novel (although Gaskell describes the Hales travelling from the South to the North by train)

- some  the main characters visit the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the series (not in the book)
- after Mr Hale's death Margaret leaves Milton. In the novel Thornton suffers in silence and Margaret doesn't speak any special words to him nor give him any of her father's books (she gives his Bible to Higgins in the book)

- Mr Bell's in the book is a different presence respect to the TV series: he doesn't take part in the Thorntons' annual dinner, he  takes Margaret on a trip to Helstone but not to propose to her, he helps her  to understand her feelings for Mr Thornton. In the book he dies suddenly , leaving Margaret unexpectedly wealthy but doesn't announce his going to Argentina, nor his being fatally ill as in the series. In the book Mr Bell reveals John Thornton the existence of a brother in the  Hale family, Frederick, whose secret presence in town when Mrs Hale had been seriously ill had created troubles  and misunderstanding in the relationship between Margaret and Thornton.

-The final unforgettable scene (see montage above on the left) at the station in the TV series, a symbolical place half-way between Helstone and Milton, the South and the North, actually takes place in a more proper Victorian setting in the book: Margaret makes her business proposition to John Thornton in her cousin's house in London. Henry Lennox , who in the series finale watch the two lovers enviously from the train, in the book is the maker of Margaret and John meeting. He suggests to her  to meet Mr Thornton for a business proposition but then disappears from the house leaving them alone ...



Mr Thornton's mesmerizing look

If you have seen it like me more than... once, I'm sure you will be able to understand my foolish passion completely! If you haven't seen it yet, I must warn you, you've missed the best emotions you can ever experience in front of a screen.
Now to win a copy of North and South audiobook  you  should leave your comment and e-mail  address : you may tell us either why this adaptation is special to you or, if you haven't seen it yet , if this post has helped you to make up your mind.  ( for more details abot the giveaway see  the introduction to my review) .

Good Luck!!!

Frederick Hale, Margaret's brother (Rupert Evans)

Bessie Higgins, Margaret's friend (Anna Maxwell Martin)

      Now follow this link to the next blog on the 

Elizabeth Gaskell bicentenary blog tour 

    by Stiletto Storytime

 TOUR SCHEDULE

Biography

• 1.) Elizabeth Gaskell’s life and times: Vic – Jane Austen’s World

Novels/Biography

• 2.) Mary Barton (1848) Book: Kelly – Jane Austen Sequel Examiner
• 3.) Cranford (2007) Movie: Laura – The Calico Critic
• 4.) Ruth (1853) Book: Joanna – Regency Romantic
• 5.) North and South (1854–5) Book: Laurel Ann – Austenprose
• 6.) North and South (2004) Movie: Maria – Fly High
• 7.) Sylvia’s Lovers (1863) Book: Courtney – Stiletto Storytime
• 8.) Wives and Daughters (1865) Book: Katherine – November’s Autumn
• 9.) Wives and Daughters (1999) Movie: Elaine – Random Jottings
• 10.) The Life of Charlotte Bronte (1857) Book & (1973) Movie, The Brontes of Haworth: JaneGS – Reading, Writing, Working, Playing

Novellas

• 11. Mr. Harrison’s Confessions (1851) Book: Alexandra – The Sleepless Reader
• 12. My Lady Ludlow (1859) Book: Alexandra – The Sleepless Reader
• 13. Cousin Phillis (1864) Book: Alexandra – The Sleepless Reader

Resources

• 14.) Your Gaskell Library – Links to MP3′s, ebooks, audio books, other downloads and reading resources available online: Janite Deb - Jane Austen in Vermont
• 15) Plymouth Grove - A Visit to Elizabeth Gaskell’s home in Manchester: Tony Grant – London Calling

“Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.” Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters