Pride and Prejudice
So every few years they make a new Pride and Prejudice. There's always something to look for: some take on the characters, some point about society or gender, some esthetic thing.
This year's model presented a parade of extremely shy boys. D'Arcy is clearly miserable and shy from the moment he walks in: Collins has Asperger's: even Wickham is sincerely tongue-tied and has to work up his courage when he's doing his con-man thing (the Wickham-Elizabeth relationship is truncated). Bingley is clearly one of the Weasley brothers. It was not the sexiest D'Arcy ever, but he was my absolute favorite. You know the speech "I love you against my better jedgement?" This is the first time I've ever seen it delivered -- except in "Bride and Prejudice" -- where I didn't want to kick D'Arcy's teeth in. He stumbles over it, rushing to get it out of the way, blundering and stuttering, and you can tell it's something he thought he was supposed to say in order to be honest, and his devastation is really sweet. He's not as surprised to be turned down as other D'Arcy's have been, but he's more shocked, since he hadn't really planned any farther than getting his little speech out.
Another thing in this year's model is a kind of robust pastoralism masquerading as realism. I liked it, but I like to sing songs like "Country Life" and "All the Little Chickens in the Garden" too, so I think I was being pandered to. Anyway, the dancing was the best dancing I've ever seen in a Pride and Prejudice: a bunch of country gentry really having a good time. And the Bennet's house is better than ever, too, because usually you can't tell by looking at the Bennets that they are quite poor, and in this one you can, though they always seem to have too much food on the table.
Alas, though they seem to have gone to some trouble to conjure up nineteenth-century minds for the actors to portray, pretty credibly I think, they still for some reason utterly neglected to get any nineteenth-century body language down except during the dance scenes. And the last scene, just before the credits, is inexcusable.
Kiera Knightley does the big eyes part right, but she always looks like she's about to drag those Empire gowns on to the soccer pitch. I understand she's supposed to be a little hoydenish, but she doesn't look like a tomboy: she looks like Kiera Knightley.
Donald Southerland's take on Mr. Bennet is that he's suffering from some deep-seated depression and hiding in his books and butterflies. I can't express what it is about this that is different from other Mr. Bennets. Oh, he seems to love Mrs. Bennet, and not just tolerate her with amused contempt like the other Mr. Bennets do. Mrs. Bennet is a little less stupid than in other productions, a little more clear-eyed about the danger her giorls are in, though she's still a goose.
And they still didn't get Mary -- in the book she's very accomplished on the piano, just overly academic and boring in her delivery, not actually grating.
But Charlotte Lucas takes the prize! And she makes getting Collins look like that's the prize!
Lucy-Bob says check it out. Goose fu and gratuitous naked marble sculpture.
This year's model presented a parade of extremely shy boys. D'Arcy is clearly miserable and shy from the moment he walks in: Collins has Asperger's: even Wickham is sincerely tongue-tied and has to work up his courage when he's doing his con-man thing (the Wickham-Elizabeth relationship is truncated). Bingley is clearly one of the Weasley brothers. It was not the sexiest D'Arcy ever, but he was my absolute favorite. You know the speech "I love you against my better jedgement?" This is the first time I've ever seen it delivered -- except in "Bride and Prejudice" -- where I didn't want to kick D'Arcy's teeth in. He stumbles over it, rushing to get it out of the way, blundering and stuttering, and you can tell it's something he thought he was supposed to say in order to be honest, and his devastation is really sweet. He's not as surprised to be turned down as other D'Arcy's have been, but he's more shocked, since he hadn't really planned any farther than getting his little speech out.
Another thing in this year's model is a kind of robust pastoralism masquerading as realism. I liked it, but I like to sing songs like "Country Life" and "All the Little Chickens in the Garden" too, so I think I was being pandered to. Anyway, the dancing was the best dancing I've ever seen in a Pride and Prejudice: a bunch of country gentry really having a good time. And the Bennet's house is better than ever, too, because usually you can't tell by looking at the Bennets that they are quite poor, and in this one you can, though they always seem to have too much food on the table.
Alas, though they seem to have gone to some trouble to conjure up nineteenth-century minds for the actors to portray, pretty credibly I think, they still for some reason utterly neglected to get any nineteenth-century body language down except during the dance scenes. And the last scene, just before the credits, is inexcusable.
Kiera Knightley does the big eyes part right, but she always looks like she's about to drag those Empire gowns on to the soccer pitch. I understand she's supposed to be a little hoydenish, but she doesn't look like a tomboy: she looks like Kiera Knightley.
Donald Southerland's take on Mr. Bennet is that he's suffering from some deep-seated depression and hiding in his books and butterflies. I can't express what it is about this that is different from other Mr. Bennets. Oh, he seems to love Mrs. Bennet, and not just tolerate her with amused contempt like the other Mr. Bennets do. Mrs. Bennet is a little less stupid than in other productions, a little more clear-eyed about the danger her giorls are in, though she's still a goose.
And they still didn't get Mary -- in the book she's very accomplished on the piano, just overly academic and boring in her delivery, not actually grating.
But Charlotte Lucas takes the prize! And she makes getting Collins look like that's the prize!
Lucy-Bob says check it out. Goose fu and gratuitous naked marble sculpture.