er, let's try that again, shall we?
...In less shouty S&S07 news:
--Hattie Morahan was really good as Elinor;
--I really liked the last major scene between Elinor and Edward, especially the fact that Elinor ran out of the room and immediately started trying to work in order to calm her feelings. I never envy people doing Austen adaptations in having to dramatize those proposals and reconciliations that we never see in her novels, and though this one, oddly, began with a line taken whole-cloth from the Ang Lee film and which I *don't* think is in the novel, moved away from that fairly quickly, and Edward's speech was a good one, with its focus on being open--given that novel-Marianne was always used to call him reserved;
--Marianne seemed, to me, far too composed and rational in her key scenes, so the whole "wandering around in the rain" thing came out of nowhere, and only the flashbacks made it clear why she was even doing it;
--the Willoughby scene was just *screwy* (like, it's supposed to happen at night, and in the rain, because Willoughby rolls like a Romantic, and actually, Elinor is supposed to be partially won over by him, and Marianne isn't listening in, so why put it in but totally not do it right, Davies?);
--and I am Very Put Out because I *still* haven't seen the whole picturesque debate between Edward and Marianne--one of my favorite scenes in the book--on film.
I am mildly puzzled by Margaret's learning the kings and queens of England; I am suspecting Davies of an allusion to Austen's juvenilia, with a little detour into Catherine Morland territory ("the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all"), coupled as it was with Margaret's little "If I were a man" speech (I would eat his heart in the maketplace? Sorry, wrong text), but I cannot prove it.
Plus, I am really quite squicked out that they used Eliza-Cam from the beginning of the adaptation to film Marianne's illness. I suspect the intent was to show how Marianne was in danger, just as Eliza was, due to her encounters with Willoughby, but what actually happened was that they wound up sexualizing Marianne's illness. But at least Colonel Brandon, unlike P&P3's Bingley, knows to leave a room when a woman is or is about to be in her nightclothes!
And finally--dude, no one would ever know anyone was coming to Barton cottage if not for Margaret.
At some point I may watch it again, to try to take it in on its own merits as opposed to those of either the novel or the previous film, but so much of it was derivative of the Ang Lee version that it was especially hard to do so.
--Hattie Morahan was really good as Elinor;
--I really liked the last major scene between Elinor and Edward, especially the fact that Elinor ran out of the room and immediately started trying to work in order to calm her feelings. I never envy people doing Austen adaptations in having to dramatize those proposals and reconciliations that we never see in her novels, and though this one, oddly, began with a line taken whole-cloth from the Ang Lee film and which I *don't* think is in the novel, moved away from that fairly quickly, and Edward's speech was a good one, with its focus on being open--given that novel-Marianne was always used to call him reserved;
--Marianne seemed, to me, far too composed and rational in her key scenes, so the whole "wandering around in the rain" thing came out of nowhere, and only the flashbacks made it clear why she was even doing it;
--the Willoughby scene was just *screwy* (like, it's supposed to happen at night, and in the rain, because Willoughby rolls like a Romantic, and actually, Elinor is supposed to be partially won over by him, and Marianne isn't listening in, so why put it in but totally not do it right, Davies?);
--and I am Very Put Out because I *still* haven't seen the whole picturesque debate between Edward and Marianne--one of my favorite scenes in the book--on film.
I am mildly puzzled by Margaret's learning the kings and queens of England; I am suspecting Davies of an allusion to Austen's juvenilia, with a little detour into Catherine Morland territory ("the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all"), coupled as it was with Margaret's little "If I were a man" speech (I would eat his heart in the maketplace? Sorry, wrong text), but I cannot prove it.
Plus, I am really quite squicked out that they used Eliza-Cam from the beginning of the adaptation to film Marianne's illness. I suspect the intent was to show how Marianne was in danger, just as Eliza was, due to her encounters with Willoughby, but what actually happened was that they wound up sexualizing Marianne's illness. But at least Colonel Brandon, unlike P&P3's Bingley, knows to leave a room when a woman is or is about to be in her nightclothes!
And finally--dude, no one would ever know anyone was coming to Barton cottage if not for Margaret.
At some point I may watch it again, to try to take it in on its own merits as opposed to those of either the novel or the previous film, but so much of it was derivative of the Ang Lee version that it was especially hard to do so.