Lost In Austen: Annihilating Artwork

About a year and a half ago I discovered the movie Lost In Austen. In theory it sounded like the a movie I would love; getting pulled into your favorite novel and interacting with the characters that you love seems like such a fun idea.  I excitedly sat down one afternoon to devour what I was sure would be a few hours of watching a new heroin help Darcy and Elizabeth along.  I was so, very wrong.  It seems the creators of Lost In Austen set out to completely undermine every character in Pride and Prejudice.

The movie starts out all right the main character Amanda Price goes on and on about how much she loves Pride and Prejudice.  She seems to do little but work, put up with a dull boyfriend, and read Pride and Prejudice over and over again.  There’s nothing wrong with reading a superb novel multiple times but to have it become your life?  No wonder Jemima Rooper’s Amanda makes for a rather obnoxious leading lady.  By the time I was 15 minutes into this film I was shocked by the vulgar and tasteless humor present in it.  Austen certainly had her fair share of suggestive humor within her novels but part of what makes it so funny is that it is not spelled out.  A comment about “girl on girl action” in Austen is like nails on a chalkboard. 

Austen’s works are satirical looks at the different kinds of people she observed.  She exaggerated attributes to create rather comedic and thought provoking situations.  In Lost In Austen those characters are exaggerated even more making them more ridiculous than ever.  Mrs. Bennet’s wailing fills the whole home and Darcy does little but glare.  Who would not despise him?  Amanda herself seems to be the creator’s idea of an exaggerated modern woman.  It is as though they wish to show the differences that have developed over a couple hundred years by making Amanda stick out as much as possible.  She chews with her mouth open, says her clothes are for otter hunting, gets drunk at the first ball, and seems to be unable to stop talking about the plot line of the book she has found herself in.  If that is what people truly think the average woman today is like then I think society is doomed.

All the characters seem to have had a change in personality in this mixed up version.  Kitty is the first that I noticed.  She is not as silly as she is in the books.  Kitty seems friendly and fun and is oddly with Marry more than Lydia throughout the movie.  Bingley is besotted with Amanda at first not Jane.  Which is shocking since she is drunk the second time he sees her.  Darcy seems to be flirting with Amanda before being his typical rude self at the assembly ball.  Caroline Bingley flirts with Amanda later on as well.  As a viewer who is finding Amanda rather irritating this is hard to believe. The changes keep coming, as Georgiana Darcy is the attempted seducer rather than Wickham.  Additionally, Mr. Bennet is an even more complacent father than he is in the books; it takes Amanda’s anger for him to go look for the missing Lydia.  The one of the most shocking changes is Jane ending up married to the most disturbing Collins I have ever seen before a convenient annulment is arranged by Lady Catherine.  Lady Catherine doing something to harm Collins?  This just does not seem to fit.  

Perhaps the most irritating character change is in the main character herself.  Elizabeth has abandoned her family, which is so strikingly against the character of Elizabeth Bennet that I find in infuriating.  Elizabeth values her family greatly; she would not just leave them for an adventure.  Elizabeth briefly returns to her family but it takes the near death of her father for Amanda to convince her.  By the end of the novel she chooses to stay in the future and never see her family again.  While Elizabeth returns to the future, Amanda heads for Pemberly where she will end up with Darcy.  Considering Amanda herself has been going on and on about Elizabeth and Darcy being the greatest love story of all time the ending misses the mark. Amanda completely replaces Elizabeth in both Darcy and Jane’s lives.  The writers should have chosen not to pursue a relationship between Amanda and Darcy and aloud Elizabeth to be herself; Lost In Austen would have been more appealing.

In conclusion, Lost In Austen loses all the power of the original by replacing one female lead with another.  Amanda Price is no Elizabeth Bennet and therefore the story unfolding around her is lacking greatly.  Nearly every beloved or detested character in Austen’s novel is twisted into something unrecognizable.  Georgiana and Bingley become perverse, Wickham becomes heroic, and Elizabeth becomes self-serving.  The created character of Amanda is not nearly as engaging or endearing as the original Elizabeth, which cuts the heart right out of the story.  Darcy and Elizabeth become nothing without each other and the rest of the story fails with them.  After a very trying second viewing of this movie, in order to write this critique, all I can really say is that in this case it is truly best to stick with the original.    

Engaging Emma

I have decided to start with one of my foremost loves in literature: Jane Austen.  Exactly one year ago I took a month long class called Austen and Film with a fantastic teacher at CU.  I have always found it interesting to see how a beloved book is translated to film, however; I am very rarely satisfied.  The book is nearly always far, far superior to the film.  My love of Austen started when I saw the 1996 Emma as a young girl.  I then read Pride and Prejudice, which has earned the distinction of being my favorite book.  Over the years I have devoured Austen's works and every film based on them that I could get my hands on, both the very good and the horrifically bad.  Therefore, I was understandably thrilled at the prospect of an entire class devoted to Austen and the movies she inspired.

 

We covered three of Austen's novels in my class: Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Pride and Prejudice.  These are without a doubt my three favorites, which added to my excitement.  I had spent quite a bit of time invested in both Sense and Sensibility [S&S] and Pride and Prejudice [P&P].  I had not, however; read Emma more than once and had not really delved into the material.  This lead to surprised delight when I realized that Emma has more to discover and engage that I could have ever imagined.  

Emma differs from the heroines in S&S and P&P in that she is a single woman of fortune.  The Bennet sisters and the Dashwood sisters are in real danger because of their financial situation, they need to marry men with money in order to survive.  After publishing several novels where she is commenting on the danger of being a poor woman Emma is quite the contrast.  Emma says she does not wish to marry.  She runs her father's household and spends time with her friends.  There is no need for Emma to take a husband, and her father does not wish to part with her, so Emma spends her time playing matchmaker for those in her small community.  Austen’s writings are very satirical.  Throughout Emma our heroin’s prejudices and misconceived notions are used to show the audience what Austen thinks of different aspects of society.  In one instance Emma tells her friend Harriet, “I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable, old maid! the proper sport of boys and girls; but a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else (55-56).  In this declaration Emma is telling Harriet what is the obvious truth to her.  To the reader this sounds horrible when one knows the difficult situation that Miss Bates lives in. 

Austen uses different narrators in all of her novels, they are omniscient narrators who know all, however; her narrators always have an opinion.  Depending on the novel Austen will give this opinion in different ways.  In S&S for instance the narrator prefers Elinor to Marianne and the reader must keep that in mind when deciding his or her own opinion.  In Emma the narrator often gives the reader Emma’s opinion on matters and it is only through ironic choices in the words that the reader is able to get the narrator’s true opinion of the events taking place.  For instance, by subtle choices in the first sentence of the novel Austen is able to imply much; “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her” (1).  The narrator never says that Emma is actually happy with her life; she is handsome, clever, rich, has a happy disposition, and has very little to distress her or vex her.  While all of these things are nice they are not happiness in ones life.  Additionally, the comment that Emma has had little to distress her or vex her must foreshadow that she will eventually have plenty to distress and vex her throughout the novel.

While there is an abundance of material to absorb from what is considered Austen’s most complex novel, one thing that stood out the most to me is the relationship between Emma and her neighbor Mr. Knightly.  When I saw the 1996 Emma I loved the romance that develops between Emma and Knightly, while I still enjoy it I believe that Austen hints at some strange interaction between the two.  My favorite film version of Emma is the new BBC mini series that came out in 2009.  In this version the director chose to have the actor who plays Knightly also act as the narrator in the form of voice over.  While I love this version and think it captures the spirit of Emma much better than the 1996 film, I found the choice of narrator very strange.  This curiosity about Knightly and Emma lead to me spending a great deal of my time reading the novel analyzing the interaction between the heroin and her eventual husband.  Emma is born when Knightly is 16 years old.  Even for Austen’s time this is a surprising age gap.  This leads of Knightly having a position of power over Emma, they cannot be equals because she is a child and her is a grown man.  At the beginning of the novel we meet a 21-year-old Emma who is now a grown woman but who has lived a very sheltered life, which has not prepared her for the eventuality of marriage and leaving her father’s home.  Knightly scolds Emma and disapproves of her choices throughout most of the novel.  This is not the typically way an audience would expect to see the central couple of a love story interact; however, Emma and Knightly do not have any other way of interacting.  He is a friend of her father’s and has been in a position more paternal than equal for all of her life.  The more of their interactions I analyze the more troubling I find this relationship.  In his declaration of love Knightly tells Emma, “I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it” (282).  Emma has taken Knightly’s criticisms better than any other woman because he has molded her to do so.  Emma has very few men in her acquaintance and most of them are questionable at best, of course Knightly, who she knows well and has taught her so much, seems vastly superior.  I suggest that Knightly, unconsciously or not, has raised his perfect partner in Emma Woodhouse. 

In Emma Austen puts forth a great deal of information for the reader to absorb and interoperate.  I am fairly certain that I could read Emma over and over and always find something new to absorb.  Emma is one of the most thought provoking and engaging novels I have had the enjoyment of reading.  I take a great deal of joy in analyzing Austen’s work and comparing the many different films that have been based on her works.

Austen, Jane. Emma. New York: Norton, 2000. Print.

Literary Fixation

I am starting this blog as a creative outlet.  One of the only things I truly miss from being in school is writing long papers where I analyze a piece of writing.  I miss having a reason to compare and contrast.  In an effort to save my fiancé and friends from my random vocal analysis of the written word, and subsequent film adaptations, I think it is best I get my thoughts out onto metaphorical paper.  I am sure there will be no regular time that I write, which is one of the upsides of not writing for others, but I just want to write again.