Showing posts with label Sense and Sensibility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sense and Sensibility. Show all posts

22/02/2010

LITTLE AUSTEN WOMEN : CATHERINE AND MARIANNE


Do Catherine Morland, the protagonist of NORTHANGER ABBEY, and Marianne , one of the Dashwood sisters in SENSE AND SENSIBILITYshare any trait of their personality? What they certainly share is their young age, they are both 17. But is there more?

Which of the two heroines do you like better?

 READ MY POST ON MY JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB

30/01/2010

MY JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB - THE FIRST MEETING

Today it has been  the big day! First meeting of My Jane Austen Book Club! At 5 p.m, in my hometown public library,  SENSE AND SENSIBILITY scheduled.
Cake and tea, too!

24/10/2009

EVERYTHING SENSE AND SENSIBILITY




One of my tasks for the Everything Austen Challenge, has been rewatching Sense & Sensibility in the two adaptations I have in my DVD collection. I compared the two versions and found them different but equally beautiful, accurate and effective. The 1995 film starring Emma Thomson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Greg Wise and Alan Rickman was the first I saw and is the one I know best – I’ve seen it so many times! The more recent BBC 2008 three-part series has just renewed my appreciation of this great story with new awesome locations and very good actors: Hattie Morahan, Charity Wakefield, David Morrissey, Dominic Cooper, Dan Stevens, Mark Williams, Janet McTeer , Mark Gatiss.





My ideal cast
 



 I want to make it clear first, that I consider the actors I’m not going to mention - just for fun – all very good, I'm only trying to imagine what it would be like if I could have the ones I liked best from the two different casts:




I'd love to see Kate Winslet and Greg Wise as Elinor and Edward, as they would be too mature as Marianne and Willoughby now ; then Charity Wakefield and Dan Stevens as Marianne & Willoughby and, finally, David Morissey as Colonel Brandon . Just a game. Try to do the same. What would your ideal S&S cast be? You could put in new names , if you wish.

As I told you, it is not that I don’t like Hugh Grant ( I loved him in About a boy, Bridget Jones films, Notting Hill, etc.) but simply I didn’t like his Edward Ferrars. Too stiff and clumsy. As for Emma Thomson, she is such a talented actress! Only, maybe, she was … too old an Elinor? She didn’t just fit my ideal Elinor Dashwood? I don’t exactly know why, but I preferred Hattie Morahan as Elinor while re-watching them in these days. Ok. It’s just a game. Thomson’s , Rickman’s & Grant’s fans, please, don’t feel offended because I really “think highly” of them, I do appreciate their talent!


Some reflections on S&S

These are the notes I took while re-watching the two S&S and while leafing , once more, through my favourite parts of the book.

Comedy or tragedy?
- It is meant to be “comedy” with its irony and love stories but it opens rather tragically on the descent to poverty of the Dashwood sisters. Though narrated through JA ‘s light touch, what Elinor, Marianne, Margaret and their mother live, is a real shocking tragedy: Mr Dashwood, their father/husband is dying and he knows his patrimony is due to be inherited by his only son from a previous marriage, John. He knows life will be very hard for his second family, daughters and wife, if John doesn’t help them.

Due to John’s wife’s influence, he won’t help them as much as he could or had to. The girls lose their father and their welfare all at once. They have to live their home and move far in the countryside.

Conformist or rebellious?
 


Jane Austen is usually consider quite a conformist writer: she agrees with the code of good manners and propriety, she accepts social roles and respects rank . But I’m sure she, instead, couldn’t bear so many things of the society she belonged to and she would have protested, if she could, much more openly against all that. What do I mean? For instance, the laws regulating inheritance, which were terribly discriminating toward women. Daughters and wives were victims of social/economic discrimination, they had no rights. Estates were entailed on male heirs, patrimonies were inherited by sons; if a woman, anyhow, owned a patrimony her husband took it over once they got married. Women were forbidden to get a living from a profession: working was considered dishonourable if they were of a good family. I’m sure Jane didn’t easily accept such unequal rules. Can’t you feel her rage beyond her bitter irony?
Romance or social criticism?
 
While we live Elinor’s and Marianne’s tormented romances, while we sigh at Elinor’s silent sorrow at watching Edward keep his promise to Lucy Steele , while we deeply feel for Marianne’s sorrowful disappointment at being turned down by her beloved Willoughby, we learn a lot about the restrictive social conventions which certainly made Jane Austen angry and willing to satirize the country gentry and their stiff clichés and good manners.

Willoughby, Brandon or Edward ?




 I love, really love… Willoughby. I had always imagined him just like Wickham in P&P 2005: long blond haired with blue eyes. But I went on loving him also when he got to have Greg Wise’s handsome face and wavy black hair in 1995 or Dominic Cooper’s fresh, saucy look in S&S 2008. Edward Ferrars and Colonel Brandon, though morally impeccable, are a bit … grey and flat characters if compared to John Willoughby’s vivacity, complexity and roundness. Are you sure JA meant to draw the stereotype of the unscrupulous libertine with him? I’m not that sure. I especially love the final scene in the book – included in 2008 TV series but not in 1995 film – in which Willoughby visits Elinor and tries to apologize, to make his reasons clear, to make her and her sister hate him less. I, just like Elinor, can’t avoid feeling sorry for him. I go on imagining him on his horse, watching down to Marianne’s life from a solitary hill, sad face, sad look, just like handsome Greg Wise at the end of 2005 movie. I know, most of you won’t agree with me but … you know, it’s fatal attraction, you must forgive me .


Marianne or Elinor?

 
As for the two sisters, they represent two completely attitudes to life, the two completely different outlooks on life at Jane’s time: classicism (Elinor) and romanticism (Marianne). Though Austen wants us to take Elinor as our model - sensible, reasonable, generous, self-controlled, balanced, great strength and unaltered will-power through hardship – I love, really love, Marianne. Mind you, I’ve never been like her. I’ve always been more like her elder sister , only… I strongly admire this 17-year-old girl’s temper. Austen’s message is an open condemnation of romantic ideals, Marianne is almost killed by her strong disillusionment. Despite all that, I’ve always envied her the beautiful romance she lives with Willoughby – I’m sure she’ll never forget him and will always think of him while devoutly looking after old Colonel Brandon . I’ve always thought Marianne as one of the best heroines I’ve ever met in novels: so full of impetuses , ideals and poetry and, at the same time, so contemptuous of those who can’t abandon themselves totally - like her- to their own feelings and emotions, so excessive both in her love and in her sorrow, so fragile and lively at the same time,

 


S&S greatest fan


To close in the right mood for a wonderful Saturday Night and an even more wonderful Sunday, I need a bit of fun and a bit of RA. You can find both in this hilarious clip.
Geraldine Granger, better known as the Vicar of Dibley, is one of S&S greatest fans! She's there just  re-watching the movie , when someone incredibly charming and very kind knocks at her door ...






22/04/2009

JANE AUSTEN'S WORLD

MY AUSTEN ARCHIVE ON LINE
As I've always loved reading Jane Austen's novels since I was a teenager, now I especially love teaching about her, her world and her achievements to my students. This is my on line archive, that is to say, all the posts I've dedicated to her and her production as well as to the several film/drama adaptations from her works I've seen.
If you are among the thousands of Austenettes all over the world and are interested in having a look, here are the links to my professional blog, LEARNONLINE. CLICK ON THE 6 TITLES AND ... FLY HIGH!

1. MISS AUSTEN REGRETS


Based on the life and letters of Jane Austen, Miss Austen Regrets tells the story of the novelist's final years, examining why, despite setting the standard for romantic fiction she died having never married or met her own Mr. Darcy.

2. BECOMING JANE





Becoming Jane is a 2007 historical film directed by Julian Jarrold. It is inspired by Jane Austen’s (American actress Anne Hathaway) early life, and her posited relationship with Thomas Langlois Lefroy (Scottish actor James McAvoy). Although the film assumes an otherwise unproven relationship between Austen and Lefroy, the original screenplay was inspired by real events, which were chronicled in the book Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence, who was the historical consultant on the film. In fact, prior to Spence’s book, biographers Radovici (1995) and Tomalin (2000) have also acknowledged a relationship between Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy.

3. NORTHANGER ABBEY
& THE JANE AUSTEN'S BOOK CLUB







Northanger Abbey was written in 1798, although it was not published until after her death when it was compiled with her final novel, Persuasion. It is notable for being a fierce parody of the late 18th century Gothic style's fainting heroines, 'terror' (giving hints of something fantastic but dreadful, only to quash it later with mundane truth) and haunted medieval buildings. Austen targets with particular venom Ann Radcliffe's extremely popular The Mysteries of Udolpho and has her characters reading and mimicking it whilst the author undermines it at every opportunity. Austen's comparatively thin novel as good as destroyed Radcliffe's reputation for almost two centuries and the exciting gothic writ large of Udolpho is only now being reassessed. Northanger Abbey itself concerns a typical Austen heroine, the young Catherine Morland who is taken to the fashionable resort of Bath with the her friends the Allens. From there she travels to the eponymous medieval abbey, the seat of the Tilneys. As an impressionable girl, Catherine becomes obsessed with the possible atrocities going on at Northanger Abbey, inspired by Radcliffe's novel. As ever, Austen cannot resist injecting a little romance into proceedings and she puts Captain Tilney under the spell of the unpleasant, scheming Isabella Thorpe. The novel's central theme, common to Emma and Sense and Sensibility is the peril of confusion.


The Jane Austen Book Club is 2007 American romantic drama film written and directed by Robin Swicord. The screenplay, adapted from the 2004 novel of the same name by Karen Joy Fowler, focuses on a book club formed specifically to discuss the six novels written by Jane Austen. As they delve into Austen's literature, the club members find themselves dealing with life experiences that parallel the themes of the books they're reading.


4. SENSE & SENSIBILITY

The most popular adaptation of Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 British drama film directed by Ang Lee. The screenplay by Emma Thompson is based on the 1811 novel of the same name by Jane Austen. There is also a good BBC 3-part-adaptation of the same novel (2008) .



Pride & Prejudice is a 2005 film based on the popular Jane Austen novel of the same name. This second major motion-picture, Academy Award-nominated version was produced by Working Title Films, directed by Joe Wright and based on a screenplay by Deborah Moggach. It was released on September 16, 2005 in the UK and on November 11, 2005 in the US.

Lost in Austen is a four-part 2008 British television series for the ITV network, written by Guy Andrews and loosely based on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Produced by Mammoth Screen, the first episode was shown on ITV at 9 pm on 3 September 2008, gaining 4.2 million viewers. The remaining episodes were broadcast on a weekly basis. Lost in Austen was released in the UK on DVD on 28 September 2008.

6.PRIDE & PREJUDICE 1995 + POWER POINT PRESENTATION "JANE AUSTEN AND THE NOVEL OF MANNERS"

Critically acclaimed and a popular success, Pride and Prejudice was honoured with several awards, including a BAFTA Television Award for Jennifer Ehle for "Best Actress" and an Emmy for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Costume Design for a Miniseries or a Special". The role of Mr Darcy elevated Colin Firth to stardom. A scene showing Firth in a wet shirt was recognised as "one of the most unforgettable moments in British TV history". The serial inspired author Helen Fielding to write the popular Bridget Jones novels, whose screen adaptations starred Firth as Bridget's love interest Mark Darcy.