We are two part-time academics. Ellen teaches in the English department and Jim in the IT program at George Mason University.

"The fever of an infectious film" · 27 February 07

Dear Harriet,

Reading an introductory excellent essay by Robert Mayer in his volume of film-to-novel studies in Eighteenth-Century on Screen today, and remembering Christine Brooke-Rose’s idea in her essay (in Suleiman and Crosman’s The Reader in the Text) that the great or high status texts in art are often underdetermined (they allow a variety of readings), I ask myself if what we seek when we evalate a film adaptation of a book is if after reading it, our view of the book is forever enrichened, nay changed.

Is it that we value in a particular film? We can say a particular film is the result of a variety of previous "texts," which include earlier film adaptations of the particular book, film adaptations of other books of the same genre using the same archetypes, and critical texts reading the book, not to omit ideas in the film-makers and artists which grow out of the particular moment in history they are living and the necessity of making a commercially sellable product.

There are films and imitations that seem to be made from different books even if the book is the same.

Following Jauss’s Towards a Theory of Reception (says Mayer), we may ask or see whether a particular film not only responds to earlier works, but recasts the original and others in a new light, and yet functions in its own era to address the interests of the audience.

Bloom’s model is one of conflict and replacement, but for women intertextuality often takes the form of assimilation and interaction: as in Atwood’s poem cycle, The Journals of Susanna Moodie and her novel, Alias Grace which restate and assimilate and transform and only for some replace Susanna Moodie’s books and poems.

I want to be scrupulously honest and ask myself which film adaptations of Austen’s novels have done this for me?

The first that comes up is the 1995 Miramax S&S which forever changed my picture of Colonel Brandon, Edward Ferrars and confirmed my previously imagined picture of Elinor Dashwod. In each case it was the scene and acts and words the actor was given to embody, but also the actual physical presence and clothing of the actor him or herself. I should say that the 1986 BBC S&S now functions for me to reinforce once again this same picture of Elinor as I feel Irene Richards ;looked like my imagined image of Elinor too and enacted the character in precisely the same way as Emma Thompson insofar as her script allowed.

J. Dudley Andrew (Film in the Aura of Art) talks about the "fever of an infectious film." For me the 1995 S&S was such a film; the 1995 BBC Persuasion came near it, but didn’t quite do it (too many flaws, too short). (The flaws are in the representations of the characters.) For many the 1995 BBC/A&E P&P was an infectious text; together these three films created the short-lived Austen mania of the era. I suggest that together these three films created the short-lived Austen mania of the era. They were responsible for the membership of JASNA to grow by leaps and bounds and the startling ubiquitous presence of Janeite sites on the Net

These films allow us to relish, cherish, revel in public what we enjoy in secret, and take over the values and experiences we had dreamed as we read the eponymous texts.
In other cases, I have to say this or that element or elements forever enriched or changed my perception an Austen novel. They did some of the above, and for me through landscape and other elements too.

They challenge reality with their own intensities. The 1995 P&P is immeasurably more intense than the 1979 P&P, partly the result of technologies, but also stances in acting, close-ups, mesmerizing moods and photos.

Mostly these intensities inhered in the love couples (the particular actors who seemed "just right"), and in S&S we had two, while in the 1995 BBC P&P we had one pair at length (Firth and Ehle), lavishly, evoking this hallucination which arouses our bodies and minds. Her acting was better than people allow. They challenged reality with their own intensities. Mostly these intensities inhered in the love couples, and in S&S we had two, while in the 1995 BBC P&P we had one pair at length, lavishly, evoking this hallucination which arouses our bodies and minds.

Andrews’s essay reminds me of Tyler Parker’s (The Hollywood Hallucination, Magic and Myth of the Movies):

"wild shifts in pictorial scale and angle are buckled within an overarching structure, a localizable time and place, and most important, a clear rhetorical schema of motifs and symbols [filmic codes and archetypes]. Primarily these structures provide a dramatic base for brilliant moments of acting, or picturing, but they have an undeniable power all their own …" (p. 62)

I think this is the difference between the earlier (1970s and early ‘80s) films and the 1990s films. The 1990s films are daring and innovative in their cinematography. I think this is the difference between the earlier (1970s and early ‘80s) films and the 1990s films. The 1990s films are daring and innovative in their cinematography is the dull way of putting it. The BBC Emma didn’t have actors who embodied what readers had dreamed and Kate Beckinsale is not sexy while Mark Strong plays torturer types so it didn’t work; the commercial Miramax Emma (Paltrow, Notham) was just a shopping window romance with the characters given Austen’s names.

In other cases (the other films of Austen’s novels), I have to say this or that element or elements forever enriched or changed my perception an Austen novel. They did some of the above, and for me through landscape and other elements too.

Is Raven’s film adaptation of the Pallisers altering my experience of Trollope’s novels—even though it’s 1970s vintage and not daring at all (including not daring to use voice-over)? In the new slow way I’m watching them, yes.

I would like for Jim to help me "take off" stills from the DVDs or video cassettes I have of the older films where such pictures are not available nowadays because these would help me develop such enrichment in my imagination. I came across a site of Austen stills an amateur film lover and Austen fan took off some of the older and new films and long to be able to do the same for the BBC 1971 Persuasion, 1972 Emma, 1974 Pallisers, and 1979 P&P. Do you know anyone who knows how to do such a thing? I would be very grateful for any instructions or citation of a place I could go to find out how to do this sort of thing.

More thoughts: it’s easier to achieve an enactment of a book correspondent to many readers’ imagined characters if the film is made close in time to the writing of the book. Thus Gone with the Wind film and book seem precisely correspondence in many ways. So too Random Harvest. Last Orders. A Month in the Country. Constant Gardener, English Patient &c&c. Well, there can be arguments if the codes in the books are actually controversial, e.g., the film Possession infuriated some women, was ridiculed by the popular media, but for readers like me becomes a beloved film. It didn’t change or deepen my understanding of the text though—as a film adaptation of an older book can.

Sylvia

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Posted by: Ellen

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Comment

  1. On Austen-l I added to the above:

    "The commercial Miramax Emma (Paltrow, Notham) was just a shopping window romance with the characters given Austen’s names."

    Edith Lank replied:

    "Indeed. So many scenes so tastefully framed in frosted windowpane, wreath of roses and the like—I couldn’t decide if the overall theme was more candybox or Christmas card.

    —Edith"
    — Elinor    Mar 2, 5:38am    #
  2. I also added on Austen-l: "I thought I would here add a few thoughts I had last night after viewing Bridget Jones Diary, which can be seen as an ode to the BBC/A&E P&P made in 1995 with Colin Firth as Fitzwilliam Darcy ...

    I think this is the difference between the earlier (1970s and early '80s) films and the 1990s films. The 1990s films are daring and innovative in their cinematography is the dull way of putting it. The BBC Emma didn't have actors who embodied what readers had dreamed and Kate Beckinsale is not sexy while Mark Strong plays torturer types so it didn't work; the commercial Miramax Emma (Paltrow, Notham) was just a shopping window romance with the characters given Austen's names.

    Infectious movies-from-beloved books become sociological events. It was so in 1939 with Gone With the Wind, and Wuthering Heights."

    From Marilyn Marshall on Austen-l in response:

    "Thank you, Ellen, for sharing your thoughts on this subject. It helps me
    understand why I like some films and why I don’t like some others.

    Marilyn"
    — Elinor    Mar 4, 12:35am    #

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