Hey! Leave Jane Austen Alone!

So, recently, in one of our rampant work-time IM sessions, Sam informed me that there was a new Pride and Prejudice movie coming out. This one starring Kiera Knightley. And some guy named Matthew MacFadyen in the role my beloved Colin Firth played so recently, in the prime of my formative teenage crush years (furthering Sam's theory that 1995 was the best of all years).

Now, in theory, I should be happy. I mean, Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors, perhaps the favorite. I've watched all the adaptations. Even the quintessentially BBC Northanger Abbey (1986) and the too-painful-for-words Francis O'Connor Mansfield Park (1999) which leached biographical details from Jane Austen's own life into the story to make Fanny Price a more palatable heroine. I've been to Jane Austen's house and I have Jane Austen collectibles. And actually, that's probably why.

I have nothing against Kiera Knightley. I enjoyed her in Pirates of the Caribbean. I didn't hate her in Love Actually, a movie so sappy it should come with diabetic warnings. I appreciated her not getting the guy in Bend It Like Beckham. Maybe it was amidst the 20 minutes of pointless violence in the King Arthur director's cut that she began to work a nerve. Regardless, the thought of her now portraying Elizabeth Bennet is repugnant to me. For one thing, she's far too skinny. (This is one of my least coherent arguments simply because Jane Austen never offers physical descriptions of her heroines.) Jennifer Ehle is at least a normal-sized person that I might believe lives on English food at a time when women wore dresses with no spandex parts. And Kiera Knightley is indeed so tiny that the snippets of her delivering Lizzie Bennet lines make her seem like a spoiled 10-year-old rather than a thinking woman caught in a marriage market. And that's a shame.

Also a shame? The fact that those snippets of dialogue have been altered. This is, I think, the bigger shame, however, because Austen's dialogue is just about as good as it gets. Sure, when you hear it, you might have to do a little deciphering, a little pretending you live in olden times, but the sense is there. Take this example: the 2005 movie preview shows Elizabeth and Darcy having the conversation they have at Rosings in front of Colonel Fitzwilliam (he being the buffer for them at this point in their relationship). In the trailer Darcy says "I do not have that talent for talking easily with people I have never met," and Elizabeth replies, "Perhaps you should practice." Compare this to the text:

"I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,'' said Darcy, ``of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.''
"My fingers,'' said Elizabeth, "do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault -- because I would not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution.''

My argument for the original dialogue is a little bit like the argument for poetry. Sure, the movie version is quicker and retains most of the sense of the original, but something more delicate is lost. In Austen's version Elizabeth does not directly tell Darcy he should practice and that makes her conversational skills actually seem superior to his. It is, after all, not all that polite to suggest improvement in another person. Elizabeth implies but does not say that Darcy should better himself. Sure, having her come out and say what she's thinking gives her more 21st century American spunk, but it also diminishes her intelligence a bit. And after all, Elizabeth Bennet may find the society around her quite a bit ridiculous, but she hasn't ceased to function within its confines.

Which brings me to the preview's next bit of nonsense, namely the idea of Elizabeth Bennet as a "modern" woman rebelling against her time. I am the first person who would say Jane Austen was revolutionary, but she was all about subtlety and slipping things by the unwary reader. There are definitely no proclamations of revolution from Elizabeth Bennet. She traipses through the dirt and declines to marry Mr. Collins, but she ends up marrying an even richer man. And it's not like Mr. Bennet was rallying for her to marry Mr. Collins, either, circumstances which might have made Elizabeth's refusal a little more dramatic in terms of will-power.

The trailer also shows one of the pivotal scenes in the book, Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth and her refusal of him. In the book and in every other adaptation I've ever seen, this happens in the drawing room at Mr. Collins's cottage at Rosings. In the trailer, Kiera Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen seem to be carrying the scene out soaking wet in a gazebo or something. There also seem to be a lot more amorous glances thrown in during the insult section of the scene than I've ever seen before. That, to me, is a pretty good definition of gratuitous.

Of course, all of these things are the hallmarks of trying to market the film to a younger audience and my railing against them makes me seem like the cranky old lady of "you kids get off my lawn!" fame. I'm not against change. I am against diluted mediocrity. I wouldn't suggest that every Pride and Prejudice adaptation be 6 hours long and word for word. But if you do change it, take a stand. I love Clueless just as much as Sam. I enjoyed Bride and Prejudice and eagerly await its DVD release. Even though I shudder at its role in launching chick-lit, I really did like Bridget Jones's Diary, not the least because the character of Mark Darcy was based on Colin Firth's portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice.

What all of these movies have in common is that they chose a side. The 1995 Pride and Prejudice chose to be a period film that stuck close to the book (for other good examples look at Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility or Roger Michell's Persuasion - both also released in 1995). The other three took Austen's story and transformed it into a modern-day plot. That's what you do when you want to write your own dialogue or attract a different kind of audience. I think Austen will always be relevant and interesting, but it's not everyone's pleasure to watch costume dramas or period pieces. Putting Kiera Knightley in an Empire waist gown isn't going to change that. So, if you're going to make the movie, make the movie. Make it good and market it to people who might actually go see it, like me.