Episode 4:
”I never speak of it as I said to my sister Phillips the other day” LOL
Hey, this is odd, dad asking Lizzy’s opinion
Lydia foreshadowing, hmmmm...
Rude, Mrs Bennet.
Oh more internal monologuery...
I really do need to look at the filming locations for this.
That almost looks like the same Mrs Reynolds at first glance. Although she sounds almost Scottish, or Northern at least. Even further North than Derbyshire.
Oh god more internal monologousness. I know these are lifted pretty much straight from the book, but I’m not convinced by them as a cinematic device.
Hello dog? Hello Mr Darcy!
Monobloodylogue. Where is he? He’s behind you! He’s on the bridge! Following you!
No! Without Jane she is Miss Bennet, not Miss Eliza, that’s so improper!
Miss Darcy, the last of the major characters to be introduced! But we don’t get to see much of her.
Why is Lizzy wearing her outdoor clothes at Pemberley? That makes no sense at all.
I’ll need to go find the book to see if this was in it. Otherwise I call plagiarism on P&P2. (Checked, it was. P&P2 is absolved).
Here the letter is changed and I quite like the fact we’re seeing Mr Bennet here, although not convinced about the lines.
She ran all the way to Pemberley? FIVE MILES?
No, not placemats. Dreadful, get a proper tablecloth like, yesterday.
I’m not convinced by the stairs.
Episode 5:
Of course you couldn’t get a letter from Mr Darcy.... You are not engaged, it would be improper to correspond.
Mrs Hill sounds very Northern for Hertfordshire. I mean I know it’s outside the M25 but it’s not exactly Yorkshire is it...
Interesting to see the argument about Lydia and Wickham visiting Longbourn. Why is Mrs Bennet involved in making beds? Silly woman indeed.
Oh Mary gets Lizzy’s line about events looked forward to.
I like Wickham’s tassled Hessian boots.
Mrs Bennet is not as pointedly horrible to Mr Darcy when they visit again.
Wait, we appear to have strayed into Persuasion here with this unnamed other woman. Not convinced by Jane’s extremely twirly ribbons in her hair.
Less of the awkward Lady Catherine conversation, that’s good.
A character ‘celebrated for it’s frankness’ = someone so incredibly blunt and arseybut too powerful to ignore. Ca plus ca change...
I want Lady Catherine’s velvet spencer. Excellent upper class accent, saying ‘gel’ for ‘girl’. No “shades of Pemberley being thus polluted” though.
Wow, mother, not so close. You’re in my *face*.
A letter? How odd. Ah, it’s a note to come outside. And we’re skipping the wedding, that’s a shame.
In conclusion:
As I said somewhere in this, the overall feeling is like listening to a different version of a favourite song. It is very very similar to my beloved 1995/P&P2. There’s some subtle differences, but the wording is very similar. And they’re a fairly similar length, so I think a direct comparison is not unfair.
What they did well: costuming, I believe is well done in this version. Mrs Bennet seems a bit younger, and gets a few more lines. I liked some of the cinematography. Characters were introduced well at the start. I agree that Mr Collins in this seems better cast than in 1995.
What I didn’t like: Oh the monologues! Either the monologues with someone else in the room, where the other person may as well be a rubber duck, or the close-up view of a face with voiceover. I appreciate the narrator is important in the book, but this I think is definitely a case of show-not-tell. I missed the wedding scene, replaying that in my head got me through an incredibly dull wedding recently. I wasn’t entirely sure about some of the dancing, but I’m not a dance historian, merely a Scottish Country dancer. The music grated after a while (time spent in menus did not help, I muted it while making dinner in the end). Some clumsy scene transitions perhaps.
I can see how Andrew Davies’ version definitely owes a lot to this one, as well as the book. They clearly chose to add a bit more carriage rattling and other drama in the 1995 version.
The 1995 version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle will always be “my” version, as it was what first brought me to Jane Austen, probably not very long after it came out. I watched it with my mother on terrestrial television, that long ago. I then went to the library to get the books, possibly in translation before braving the English section of our library and subsequently devouring that. That brought me to Terry Pratchett, so I owe a lot to P&P2!
I will try and gather courage to rent the 1940 and 2005 versions to stream. As they are both a shorter ‘feature film’ length, they might fare better in a like to like comparison than comparing to a 5 or 6 hour miniseries, which gives much more time for character development. I’ve seen the 2005 version before and I have Opinions on it... but watching 1940 first may give me a better appreciation for the limitations of length.
No comments:
Post a Comment