the answer to my icon: well, sort of

[futuresoon]

TWO MOVIES! Two very, very different movies. Both quite good, though, for very different reasons.

Becoming Jane: both adorable and slightly bitter, as it should have been. I'll admit that I tend to prefer the filmed versions of Jane Austen's books to the books themselves--the Colin Firth miniseries of Pride & Prejudice and the Emma Thompson-helmed

Comments

[antinous_wild]

I'm actually a huge fan of the 2005 Keira Knightley Pride & Prejudice -- it's so pretty and so soft and, okay, not that true to the book, but I was never a big Pride & Prejudice person anyway. Sense & Sensibility is FANTASTIC, and I also love love love to bits and pieces Emma (the Paltrow version). Emma is actually my favorite Austen novel, and I think that adaptation is simply marvelous. ♥

[futuresoon]

I just really like everyone in the miniseries, especially Elizabeth and Darcy--Keira Knightley is, well, she's very charming, but my god you could snap that girl like a twig, and the miniseries' Elizabeth (I think) has a bit more gravitas to go along with the snark. And Darcy, well, it's just really difficult to be compared to Colin Firth no matter who you are. The man nails the initial proposal, plus the softening of the character in general. I'll admit that I simply don't remember much about the Darcy in the Keira Knightley version, which perhaps says something in and of itself.

[antinous_wild]

See, I love the Darcy in the Keira Knightley version (Matthew Macfayden) because he comes across as very vulnerable, more awkward and bad at conversation than he actually is an asshole. I just find them both very charming, and the whole film feels very warm and lovely. And is, you know, less than two hours long, which has a certain appeal.

Also: GORGEOUS. SRSLY. It's just SO pretty and I am SO shallow.

Which isn't to say I like it better than the miniseries (or WOULD like it better, in any case, since I actually have yet to see the miniseries because I fail at life and so forth), just that I like it tremendously.

[futuresoon]

Oh, if you're a Jane Austen fan, you've got to see the miniseries! It is, I'll admit, kind of six hours long, but you just fall right into it. And everyone is so fantastic in it, and, and, well, it's what got me through the book when my English class was reading it freshman year. :P But of course we all have our favorite versions, just as we all have our favorite Doctors. (Well. Most of us do, anyway.)

[selenak]

You underestimate movies in the 60s, especially the late 60s. Also, original playwright Anthony Shaffer (brother of Peter "Amadeus" Shaffer), though more interested in the detective stories satire and class issues, had no problem using subtext and text alike to add to it. Hey, he's British.

(For some reason, I now remember Evelyn Waugh writing to Nancy Mitford, in the late 40s, during a reading tour to the States: "Americans only just know discovered about homosexuality through a book named Kinsey Report (unreadable, and consequently the Broadway plays are full of queers committing suicide. The idea of a happy bugger is inconceivable to them.")

[futuresoon]

Ahhh, good to know that I am wrong! I love hearing about the history of gays in fiction; gay history in general, really, but of course I have a more particular interest in stories. And, hah, I think I've heard that Evelyn Waugh quote before, and damned if it still isn't unpleasantly true. *g*

[th_esaurus]

I feel like a terrible person for really adoring the Keira Knightley version of P&P, and the newer miniseries of S&S. EVERYONE'S LIKE OMG YOU BLASPHEMER.

[futuresoon]

The Keira Knightley version wasn't bad! I just prefer the miniseries, is all. And there's a new version of Sense & Sensibility? Really? I demand further knowledge.

[th_esaurus]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0847150/

Dominic Cooper and David Morrissey yesssssss.

[futuresoon]

I'm all down with the Morrissey, but I've never seen anything Dominic Cooper's in and I don't know who the ladies playing Marianne and Elinor are at all :( PERHAPS IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME. (Probably I should read the book at some point, too.)