Pride and Prejudice (2005)

After the phenomenal success of the iconic 1995 BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice, several modern versions of Jane Austen’s story emerged: Bridget Jones’s Diary in 2001, Pride and Prejudice the Latter-Day Comedy in 2003, and Bride and Prejudice in 2004. After ten years, studios decided it was about time for another straightforward adaptation. Actually, taking into account that most Pride and Prejudice adaptations have been serials or made-for-TV movies, it had been 65 years. The Pride and Prejudice film made in 2005 and its predecessor, the 1940 Laurence Olivier version, share the distinction as being the only two surviving, straightforward theatrical adaptations of the beloved novel.

Keira Knightley, in her Oscar-nominated performance, plays a softspoken, observant Elizabeth Bennett. Possibly taking a cue from Jennider Ehle of 1995 fame, her eyes follow everything that happens around her, trying to gauge other people’s thoughts and intentions. A running gag throughout the film involves the Bennett sisters and mother eavesdropping whenever something important or at least gossip-worthy is being said. But Elizabeth, not content to remain behind cracked doors, looks other people in the eye. She reads, but is secure enough in herself to not brag about it and label herself as an “accomplished” woman.

The camera itself seems to be an extension of Elizabeth Bennett’s personality. Characters are blocked and framed strategically from scene to scene, presented in different angles. And with the exquisite Oscar-nominated art direction and costume design, there is a lot for the camera to see.

With only 127 minutes to cram the content of a five-part book into a faithful adaptation, the 2005 Pride and Prejudice cannot focus on the supporting characters with the same intensity as the 1995 six-hour BBC miniseries. Jane Bennett (Rosamund Pike) is understated, nice and pretty but a little clueless, and a perfect match for the wholesome, cheerful Bingly (Simon Woods) whose hair looks like he is going to break out singing “Never Gonna Give You Up” at any point in the movie. His best friend and foil, Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyan), is unimpressed by society and alternately stuck up or socially awkward. His sister Caroline Bingley (Kelly Reilly) is not the overtly snobby primadonna from previous versions – she is the passive-aggressive “friend” who just might stab you in the back. And she does.

With little time to establish character through dialogue and interactions, Joe Wright and company do their best with quick but effective visual impressions. In one scene, the Bennett women line up on the couch with Mrs. Bennett, Kitty, and Lydia smiling in bright pastels in contrast to Mary, who wears gray and frowns and rolls her eyes. Interestingly, this is the only adaptation that touches on Kitty’s change at the end of the book. After Lydia is married and Kitty is effectively grounded, the latter sulks and pouts and begins to act more like Mary.

One of my favorite aspects of director Joe Wright and writer Deborah Moggach’s interpretation was Lizzie Bennett’s connection to nature. In the opening scene, she is walking by herself, reading a book. Most of her important scenes happen outdoors by the pond or at the tranquil tree trunk. Mr. Collins proposes to her inside the house, but Mr. Darcy proposes (twice) outdoors. This unspoken aspect of her character is very important to her motives regarding Pemberley – she does not want Mr. Darcy for his money, per se. She admires Mr. Darcy’s land and his taste in art; Pemberley is a personality match rather than a financial match. As they admit to each other toward the end, they both have faults; they are similar and stubborn. Their personalities and tastes have much in common.

As I was watching this film, I really wanted to like it. Wright and Moggach took on an ambitious project in adapting the five-part novel into a theatrical feature film – the only one besides the looser 1940 version. They did a great job of cramming all the major plot points and characters into the limited time. The actors were good, the production design was beautiful, and the cinematography was beautiful – by all counts a high production value. Something was missing though… and that something was humor. Aside from a bit of comic relief from Mrs. Bennett and the youngest sisters, this is a very serious and dramatic interpretation of Pride and Prejudice.

Lady Catherine de Bourg is a prime example of the noticeable change in tone. In the 1940 version, she is a loud, quirky spinster. In the 1995 miniseries, she is an angry and petty aristocrat who has no idea how pathetic she is. In the 2005 movie, Lady Catherine is flat out villainous. The unflattering lighting on the confrontation scene presents her as a real threat to Elizabeth, psychologically if not practically. Most famous for her role as “M” in the last several James Bond films, Judi Dench effectively brings her commanding presence (and a monster wig) to Lizzie’s antagonist.

Even Mr. Collins, who is typically played for over-the-top comedy, is serious in this film. He delivers his lines flatly, even “the violence of my affections.” He advertises his lack of originality not only by name-dropping Lady Catherine, but by reading hours of Fordyce’s Sermons instead of writing his own.

Unlike other adaptations, which satirize the lives of upper-middle-class country gentry who rely on marriage for money and make drama of their lives of leisure, the Bennetts are shown to actually work for a living. Longborne is a working farm as well as a house. The film also highlights the class differences between the dances. The first dance, held out in the country, has a rustic atmosphere where the participants part for Bingly, Caroline, and Darcy like the Red Sea. Another dance takes place in an ornate ballroom. The odds of Elizabeth getting together with the wealthy Mr. Darcy are visually staggering. The “rags to riches” narrative works well here, but it tends to overpower the primary satire.

The latest Pride and Prejudice is beautiful to watch. It is refreshing to see a literary adaptation that dares to experiment with different camera techniques and designs rather than being merely safe and educational, and it does a good job bringing out characters with so little screen time. Like so many adaptations, it is a good film by itself, but it fails to capture much of the feeling and essence of the source material.

Bride and Prejudice (2004)

“All mothers think a guy with big bucks must be shopping for a wife.” So says Lalita Bahksi, the Lizzie Bennett of a modernized Pride and Prejudice set in the age of text messages, online matchmaking sites, and international flights where the Bennetts are Indians, Bingly is British, and Darcy is an American.

Even though it is described as such, Bride and Prejudice is not technically a Bollywood film. Even though it takes place in India and had collaboration of Indian actors and crew, the director Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) is a British citizen, most of the movie was filmed in the United Kingdom for contractual reasons, the language is English, and distribution was picked up by the American company Miramax.

Chadha and her co-writer husband Paul Mayeda Berges, however, are no strangers to Indian film and culture, and the movie does have a Bollywood feel. While not a literal adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, it brings a unique joyful and colorful angle to the story with plenty of song, dance, and beautiful dresses – elements within Jane Austen’s original Pride and Prejudice as well.

The Bennett family are the Bakhsis of India – eldest Jaya (Namrata Shirodkar), skeptical Lalita (Aishwarya Rai), nerdy Maya (Meghna Kothari), and boy-crazy Lahki (Peeya Rai Chowdhary). It is easy to guess their equivalent Austen characters (there is no Kitty, however). Mrs. Bakhsi (Nadira Babbar) is eager to get her daughters married, but not out of impending financial circumstances like the novel.

Mr. Balraj (Naveen Andrews), the Mr. Bingly character, is a wealthy Englishman who immediately takes a liking to Jaya. His sister Kiran, on the other hand, is disdainful of India, and his best friend along for the ride – William Darcy, played by Martin Henderson – is the textbook definition of an Ugly American. At least Lalita thinks so. Judging from one or two ignorant offhand remarks, she has him pegged as a colonist who looks down on Indian women as “simple and traditional.”

Later, Lalita meets another Westerner named Johnny Wickham (Daniel Gillies), and they bond over their mutual disdain of Mr. Darcy. Lalita wants to believe he is a good guy, and he does appear to respect Indian culture. As it ultimately turns out, of course, Johnny Wickham is just superficially politically correct in order to get what he wants. He plays with Lalita’s heart, then stops emailing. He has a thing for teenaged girls, attempting to run away with the naïve Lahki after his past when he got Mark Darcy’s sixteen-year-old younger sister pregnant.

Meanwhile, Mr. Darcy – properly chided for his relatively harmless ignorance – turns out to be a good guy. “You’ve got me all wrong,” he says to Lahki, trying consistently to get her attention. He exchanges his first-class seat with Mrs. Bennett (who is thrilled for the opportunity to be among the VIPs), and he is open-minded after all. After having stereotyped him as narrow, Lalita is surprised when their first date in California is at a mariachi restaurant. He even helps Lalita chase Wickham and Lahki through London, culimating in a fistfight at a Bollywood movie theater. The biggest impediment to his getting together with Lahki is his mother, Catherine Darcy (Marsha Mason), a California hotel mogul who believes yoga and Deepak Chopra are all there is to appreciate about India.

Beyond the main Darcy and Elizabeth plot, the hilarious supporting characters steal the show in a couple of scenes. Mr. Kholi (Nitin Ganatra) is the most over-the-top Mr. Collins ever, as a flamoyant Indian-American businessman who has come to the subcontinent from California to find a wife. “Don’t say anything too intelligent,” Lahki’s mother tells her. Mr. Kholi dominates the dinner table with descriptions of his mansion and wealth in the United States – similar to Mr. Collins taking pride in his connection to Lady Catherine. Lahki avoids him like the plague, and she sees him wearing a red American Flag speedo in her dreams. Her best friend Chandra Lamba – Charlotte Lucas – doesn’t mind at all and marries him for his money.

Another scene-stealer is the otherwise reserved Maya. Instead of playing piano, she performs an awesomely bad “cobra dance” until her father tells her that is enough.

The comedy and closeness of Lahki’s family distinguishes Bride and Prejudice from the other modern adaptation, Bridget Jones’s Diary, which is even more loose. While Bridget stays alone in her apartment, occasionally hanging out with her parents, Lahki is always around her family, and the sisters are very close to each other. Mark Darcy notices this, commenting to Lahki that India has close families, unlike America. While setting Pride and Prejudice in a non-Western backdrop may seem like a novelty, it actually works better in some ways because of the importance and closeness of the large family to the story.

The conflict between the Indian characters and the Western or Westernized characters also reflects the conflict between the rural and urban characters in Austen’s world. Like Lahki in the movie, Elizabeth Bennett would have been highly skeptical of city people like Mr. Darcy possibly trying to impose their wealth, culture, fashion, and attitude of superiority on the country people, who were often unfairly regarded as backward.

Like the 1940 Pride and Prejudice, this is a light-hearted adaptation where nothing bad happens and where obvious moralizing replaces wit and satire. And like the Beatles musical tribute Across the Universe, the film is worth seeing for the glamorous visuals and the dance numbers, along with some hilarious moments, if one can forgive its often painfully on-the-nose dialogue. The plot is fairly straightforward, so there are no surprises for people who have read the book and/or seen any other Pride and Prejudice movies. This is a movie definitely driven by its lavish production design and choreography, straightforward fun for popcorn rather than for analysis.

Sparkhouse (2002)

Women want money and men want sex, claims conventional wisdom. In Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Catherine spurns Heathcliff to marry Edgar for his money. In the BBC miniseries Sparkhouse, Robin Shepperd and Sally Wainwright’s loose modern adaptation of Wuthering Heights, the “Heathcliff” is a girl and the “Catherine” is a guy. So, you can see where this is going.

Sparkhouse is not as bad as it may sound, and is probably the best of the three contemporary Wuthering Heights-inspired soap operas made within this decade. The other two, MTV’s Wuthering Heights, CA and The Promise, were about hip fashionistas persecuting each other from one sunny beach party to the next – which may work for the satire of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, but not as much for the dark atmosphere of Wuthering Heights. Sparkhouse actually retains the northern English moors (specifically, West Yorkshire) of the original setting and a sense of real hardship.

In the original novel, Catherine and Heathcliff have a primarily psychological connection, so film and television adaptations have traditionally made the point to not show the protagonists having sex – if they do, it is off screen and up to interpretation (e.g. the 1970 version). Sparkhouse nods to this tradition quite noticeably; at the beginning, it is clear that Carol Bolton (Sarah Smart), the female Heathcliff, and Andrew Lawton (Joe McFadden), the male Catherine, are saving themselves for marriage to each other. They are neither socially awkward nor particularly religious, as the stereotype goes. Their own unique connection is what drives this commitment.

Carol is the feisty girl from the dysfunctional family at Sparkhouse Farm. Her father is an abusive alcoholic, her mother loses her job and runs off with a random guy with a BMW and James Bond soundtrack, and her little sister Lisa is the one who gives her a reason to stay. Traditional to the Heathcliff role, she wears dark colors. Andrew is the middle-class, college-bound guy who looks like he belongs in a boy band. His family is less dramatic, but troubled in their own way. His bitter, domineering mother is somewhat of a mirror image with Carol’s creepy father. He wears white and lighter colors, traditional to the Catherine role, with a modern business-casual look. Carol and Andrew are neither blood-related nor adoptive siblings here, so the miniseries effectively takes that little complication out of their relationship. They love to run around the moors and read passages from Wuthering Heights in their favorite spot.

Andrew’s parents try to coerce him to break up with the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Money and class do not sway him. He and Carol go to the courthouse to get their marriage license, to the chagrin of his parents. Frustrated, he says he has done everything else to please them: “I’m good, I’m polite, I’m nice,” mirroring Catherine’s “I’m an angel” quip in the original novel. Andrew tells them that without Carol, he would become like them – that is, shallow and unloving. “I’m nothing without her… She is me. You can’t change that. Nobody can.” (An interesting aside: Sarah Smart played Catherine Linton in a straight adaptation of Wuthering Heights in 1998. So, Heathcliff and Catherine are literally the same person.)

But they can and they do – when Andrew’s father digs up the medical records showing that rather than being a virgin, Carol gave birth at age twelve. Andrew confronts Carol, who tells him the obvious – her father raped her, her sister is also her daughter, and she didn’t want either Andrew or Lisa to know. When the time comes for the church wedding ceremony, Andrew’s revulsion runs ahead of his love for her, and he fails to show up.

Carol goes ax crazy on the Lawtons’ car and hangs their dog offscreen. But once she gets that disturbing behavior out of her system, she is a very tame and sympathetic Heathcliff who is more sinned against than sinning. The exception is when she plays with the heart of the handsome but socially awkward farmhand John Standring (Richard Armitage), who seems to be a conglomeration of Isabella and Hareton. On the other hand, the self-described “nice guy” Andrew wreaks the most havoc and ends up losing any kind of sympathy from the audience.

When Carol returns to the country seemingly well off, Andrew is married to his nice, conventional college girlfriend Becky – which doesn’t stop him and Carol from meeting and making out on the moors. Meanwhile, Carol proposes to John. Andrew is not bothered by the fact that she is marrying him for money (an arrangement which John enters with eyes wide open), but that they will – obviously – have sex. While Carol reluctantly chooses to move on, Andrew insists on having it both ways and engages in some nasty, violent, stalkerish behaviors. He becomes as whiny as Hayden Christiansen’s Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels. Meanwhile, John – while having some obvious self-esteem problems – seems to know a bit more about real love. “Never think you can’t tell me things [from your past],” he tells Carol, contrasting with Andrew’s volatile and conditional affections.

The final resolution of the love triangle puts a different spin on Wuthering Heights than most other film adaptations. While Carol/Heathcliff and Andrew/Catherine had a real and passionate love going on, they made some irreversible choices and needed to move on. While not going into the second half of the book for content (as usual), Sparkhouse ends with its spirit and resolution. The John/Carol/Andrew love triangle has many parallels to the Hareton/Catherine II/Linton love triangle, and the bittersweet ending draws similar conclusions.

This film has its share of flaws – the obsessive animosity of Andrew’s parents toward Carol from her childhood is never explained or explored. It is simply there to make the story work. Andrew, as mentioned before, starts as a believable boyfriend who derails into an obsessive stalker and an emo cliché without much to prompt such a drastic change. Yet this novel adaptation goes into territory that other adaptations have shied away from – and for the ladies, Richard Armitage may be reason enough to check it out.

Sources:

British Broadcasting Corporation (www.bbc.co.uk/drama/sparkhouse/)

Internet Movie Database

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

Like Rebecca, the romantic comedy Bridget Jones’s Diary is an adaptation of an adaptation. Specifically, this film directed by Sharon Maguire is based on Helen Fielding’s “chick lit” novel of the same name. Fielding has always been open about her inspiration from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Even further, Fielding admitted inspiration specifically from the 1995 BBC miniseries with its ironic Mr. Darcy played by Colin Firth. Like Joan Fontaine in both Rebecca and Jane Eyre, Colin Firth’s casting in Bridget Jones’s Diary emphasizes the similarities between the modern adaptation and the original novel. Fielding herself wrote the film’s screenplay with help from Richard Curtis and also Andrew Davies, the award-winning scribe from the BBC miniseries itself.

The story’s plot focuses on the Darcy/Lizzie/Wickham love triangle. Renee Zellweger in her Oscar-nominated leading role is the loose equivalent of Elizabeth Bennett, but she feels less like the specific character and more like a modern Everywoman who frets about her weight, listens to sappy pop music during certain moods, and dreads becoming a spinster – unlike Lizzie, who is less concerned about what others think and who initially says she will never marry. It is interesting to note that female protagonists in modern re-imaginings of literature tend to be less strong and confident than the originals. It is counterintuitive, but generally true: Elizabeth is a much stronger character than Bridget Jones, Jane Eyre is more confident than the second Mrs. DeWinter in Rebecca, and Elizabeth is again much more active than Bella Swan in Twilight.

One thing she does have in common with Elizabeth, however, is her verbal wit and tendency to make unfounded assumptions about people – good or bad. Set up by their parents at a New Year’s gathering, Bridget and the lawyer Mark Darcy reluctantly meet. Bridget immediately judges Mark Darcy by his ugly reindeer sweater. While Mr. Darcy does not call the protagonist “tolerable” this time around, he does call her “a verbally incontinent spinster who smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and dresses like her mother.” His character is considerably different from the other Mr. Darcy, however. Instead of the easily handsome original, his character takes on the role of the less obviously attractive “nice guy” who does not have the same way with women as his rival.

Bridget further lowers her opinion of Mr. Darcy upon hearing Daniel Cleaver’s story about their past friendship, without hearing Darcy’s side which is, of course, the true side. She knows theoretically that he is everything that can go wrong in a relationship, but she falls for him anyway. Pride and Prejudice adaptations have tended to cast Mr. Wickham as an afterthought; Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingly seem to get the most attention with Wickham as a side plot. Here, however, Hugh Grant brings out all this character’s charisma and seductive personality. Like Colin Firth, he contributes a familiarity to Austen material: he played Samuel Faulker in the 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.

With emphasis on these three characters, Bridget/Lizzie’s siblings are noticeably missing. Family relationships are important in the original Pride and Prejudice, but Bridget Jones’s Diary reflects more modern times where families are smaller and more separated. Bridget is an only child who lives alone. She has several close friends, but it is not the same, and at times she finds herself belting along with the radio about being “all by myself.”

However, in many ways, Bridget’s mum (Gemma Jones) takes on the roles of Mrs. Bennett and Lydia Bennett. Besides trying to set up her daughter with suitors, she herself runs off with a lover – an infomercial salesman – and causes a scandal for her poor taste if not for her obvious betrayal of marital vows. This conglomeration is not simply an expedient way to touch on two different characters, but a method of interpretation connecting the novel’s Mrs. Bennett and Lydia Bennett. In Austen’s book, the mother is just as ditzy as the daughter. Mrs. Bennett was probably like Lydia as a child, and Lydia will probably grow up to be like Mrs. Bennett. When Bridget’s mum comes home, her husband admits he should have been more attentive to her – highlighting Mr. Bennett’s similar weakness from the novel.

A few other supporting characters touch on loose similarities with the characters. Mary Bennett is reflected in one of Bridget’s friends, a gay ‘80s one-hit wonder pop singer who thinks he is more famous than he really is. Bridget has a creepy coworker Mr. Fitzbergert who flirts and makes passes at her, somewhat like Elizabeth Bennett’s repulsive cousin Mr. Collins.

In terms of tone and atmosphere, Bridget Jones’s Diary picks up on some of Jane Austen’s sarcastic style with the voiceovers. While having lots of narration is usually a very basic screenwriting no-no, Bridget’s thoughts add wit and personality to the BAFTA-nominated script. They also serve to satirize the social rules.

The 21^st Century does not have the same repressive mores lampooned in Jane Austen’s time period, but it does have “The Rules,” contemporary conventional wisdom and double standards for women’s dating behavior. Rather than breaking them from the outset, as Lizzie Bennett would, Bridget Jones initially plays by these rules. She worries about her weight, even though she is not fat. She lures Daniel Cleaver by pretending she to ignore him, trying not to come across as “too available.” She pretends she wants to go home in order to get sex with him. She agonizes over which underwear to put on. Meanwhile, Mr. Darcy finds himself falling for Bridget’s supposed awkwardness; like Elizabeth Bennett, Bridget has a playful disposition which is much more interesting and fun than that of his boring professional girlfriend Natasha.

Needless to say, The Rules do not work for Bridget – Daniel still does not stay with her. From then on, Bridget tries to be more confident. She throws away a book called What Men Want and replaces it with another self-help book, How To Get What You Want. Of course, the self-help books and increased exercise are still part of the film’s gentle satire of therapeutic, self-improvement society. Bridget ultimately gets beyond these things as well and learns to accept herself. Instead of ignoring Mr. Darcy, she unabashedly runs outside in her underwear – finally able to let go and embrace a sort of autonomy that is not so easily embarrassed.

Bridget Jones’s Diary is primarily a loose Chick Lit adaptation instead of an educational film to be analyzed. It is all good fun – but familiarity with its inspiration, the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, is needed to fully appreciate this movie’s context and humor.

Sources:

Internet Movie Database

PopMatters.com

Jane Eyre (1996)

Italian director Franco Zeffirelli is famous for specializing in adaptations of classic literature, especially Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Hamlet, and The Taming of the Shrew. Also a devout Christian, he directed the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth and Brother Sun, Sister Moon, a biopic of St. Francis. As a director of adaptations, he is definitely familiar with other interpretations of the same source material – like the famous 1944 Orson Welles version of Jane Eyre. Watching this film, it is obvious that Zeffirelli, as the director and co-writer with Hugh Whitemore, is not only adapting and interpreting Charlotte Brontë’s novel, but creating points and counterpoints to the older film. While the 1944 version focused on the gothic and grotesque elements, his 1996 version focuses on the beauty and elegance of the story.

            In a nod to the 1944 version, Helen and the girl in trouble for curly hair are one and the same character. Confronted with the absurdity of punishing a child for a natural trait, Mr. Brocklehurst retorts with a similar line: “I am here to correct nature.”

Zeffirelli takes the scene further. “Why should you punish her for the way God made her hair?” challenges Jane. Ordered to fetch the scissors, she reluctantly obeys, but lets her own hair down next to Helen. The next scene shows them both with short hair. While this content is not in the book, it visually shows their bond in a way that reflects the spirit of the novel.

            Unlike the 1944 version, where the school is defined by the sinister Brocklehurst, Zeffirelli’s Lowood has more true Christian influence. Grown up, Jane (Charlotte Gainsbourg, I’m Not There) fondly says goodbye to Miss Templeton before going off to see new horizons. When she arrives at Thornfield, it is a beautiful and lush place, and Mrs. Fairfax is a cheerful hostess. A hollow wind accompanies the line, “If there was a ghost at Thornfield Hall, that would be its haunt.” Otherwise, the atmosphere is pretty and colorful – not gothic at all. Even Mr. Rochester (William Hurt, Kiss of the Spider Woman) is actually pretty friendly in the scene where he falls off his horse and meets Jane for the first time. In other scenes, he tries to talk tough, but it is obvious from the start that he is a teddy bear. This sensitive 1996 Rochester is a very different interpretation from the more hardcore Orson Welles version. Charlotte Gainsbourg herself delivers an OK performance as a compassionate and softspoken if somewhat bland Jane – neither bad nor outstandingly good. However, the two leads have great chemistry when they are together. “You have me entirely,” says Rochester when he catches her sketching him.

            It is not as though Zeffirelli is incapable of doing an unpleasant scene. The opening shots of young Jane in the red room are actually quite scary, helped by some jarring editing. Later on, however, the prominent color red is used in much more benign situations, like the color of Rochester’s coat, the color of Rochester’s chess pieces, and the color of the flowers at Thornfield. Red is an unsettling color, but also the color associated with love and passion – so Jane must take all of life. She cannot have passionate love without risk of danger.

            The most notable difference between this adaptation and the early one is the treatment of Bertha’s character. While the 1944 film plays it up for horror, Zeffirelli humanizes Rochester’s first wife. Instead of laughing like the Wicked Witch of the West, Bertha’s voice is more realistic. Zeffirelli’s film is also is the only version I have seen so far to have a black Mr. Mason – highlighting the novel’s possibly racist subtext which has been a source of controversy for modern critics. When Rochester finally must tell the truth to Jane about his wife, he reveals a Bertha who is more sympathetic than the 1944 monster and – to be fair – the source novel itself. She is shy with dark curly hair and white dress – she clearly used to be pretty, and now is just tired and unkempt. No one mentions her having a wild, sinful past.

Mrs. Reed is another threatening character who is downplayed in this film. In the opening is well-dressed and smug but underwhelming. When she summons Jane to come to her deathbed, she admits she was wrong – a blatant contradiction of the novel where she was self-righteous to the bitter end in a very purposeful subversion of the sentimental deathbed scenes in fiction of the time.

Saint John Rivers, on the other hand, does not disappoint in spite of having only a couple of glossed-over short scenes. Actor Samuel West makes the best of his little time on film. His screen presence alone captures the basic essence of the character: blonde and handsome and ambitious and good, but also somewhat cold and uptight – a bad match for Jane in what he himself admits would be a loveless marriage.

Browsing comments on YouTube and IMDB message boards, it seems like this is one of the less popular versions of Jane Eyre. I suppose I am in the minority for actually liking it a lot. This movie is neither played for horror nor self-consciously educational. The cinematography was gorgeous, the score was hauntingly beautiful, and love story was sweet and believable with a lot of compassion for the supporting characters. The director’s devout Christian faith shows through in the imagery and dialogue. While the 1944 version took a dark angle on it, the 1996 film has a more uplifting and humanistic angle – the equally important other side of the coin, emphasizing the “romance” part of “gothic romance.” 

However, I can see where criticism of this film comes from. Early in the film, showing Adele how to draw, Jane tells her, “The shadows are as important as the light.” Franco Zeffirelli’s version seems to overlook the shadows that are very necessary for a balanced interpretation of Jane Eyre. Religious hypocrites hardly do significant damage in this film. Mr. Brocklehurst fades out of sight, and Mrs. Reed repents like the easy sentimental stories that Charlotte Brontë was specifically trying to avoid. In short, no one is really allowed to be bad. While Franco Zeffirelli brings much sensitivity, beauty, humanism, and some much-needed production value to the conversation of Jane Eyre adaptations, the film needs a stronger sense of evil to be more compelling – and to stay true to the basic spirit of the book. 

Pride and Prejudice (1995)

When this BBC miniseries was first released in the mid-90s with strongly positive word of mouth, I was in elementary school and didn’t understand why my mom and her five sisters loved this long, long movie about people walking around wearing bonnets and speaking politely. Years later, when we got the DVD set to give to my mom for her birthday and we all watched it together, I understood. I was a high school junior who didn’t care what the cliques or the fashion magazines thought of me, so I connected with Elizabeth’s subtly defiant underdog moxie and fell in love with the sexy, brooding Mr. Darcy. I hadn’t read the book yet, so, to me, this was Pride and Prejudice. Judging from a variety of online message boards, even people who did read the book first consider this to be the definitive Pride and Prejudice adaptation to the detriment of all others. In fact, these fights – not to mention the viral videos of Mr. Darcy clips – can be so downright silly that Jane Austen must be laughing in her grave.

             Adapted by Andrew Davies (who won the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for the series), directed by Simon Langton, and produced by Sue Birtwistle, this adaptation is widely praised for both its faithfulness to the book and for bringing a fresh interpretation. On one hand, its accuracy is easy to explain – a six-hour miniseries is able to stuff more content than a two-hour film. Pride and Prejudice does more than cover the plot points, however – it captures the novel’s satirical tone, conveys the subtlety of the characters, and nods to the feminist themes.

            All of this is accomplished without high production value. The cinematography, while featuring some gorgeous scenery, is the made-for-TV, point-and-shoot variety. In some ways, this works in the story’s favor to highlight the pettiness and superficiality of characters who make a huge deal out of normal circumstances. The climactic confrontation between Lizzie and Lady Catherine happens not with dramatic lighting or overwhelming music, but with sunny skies and chirping birds. Some of the special effects are on the cheesy side – like Lizzie seeing Darcy in her head, blue-screened onto mirrors or carriage windows. But Dinah Collins’ costume design and Caroline Noble’s makeup and hair received BAFTA nominations and praise for historical accuracy. While period pieces have the tendency to reflect contemporary styles – like Lizzie’s 1940s-style hair in the earlier Pride and Prejudice adaptation and Edward Linton’s David Frost look in the 1970 Wuthering Heights – this particular adaptation is less obviously a product of the 1990s.

            Besides historical accuracy, the production design aids in interpretation itself. While Caroline Bingley and the stuck up society girls wear bright colors and fashions, the Bennetts all wear the white and pastels highlighting their easily maligned bourgeois status. Even the house is a painted a bland shade of cream. Part of the humor of the series is that no one seems really poor (except a couple of London street kids who give Mr. Darcy a “pet the puppy” moment in one scene). The Bennetts are in trouble, of course, but this is not visually emphasized. They talk about their financial woes, but we see a two-story house and servants – they are upper middle class people persecuted by only slightly richer people.

            The series is carried mainly by the strength of its actors. Jennifer Ehle, who won the BAFTA TV Award for her performance, plays Elizabeth Bennett as a happy, free spirit and a fiercely independent rebel in an age where it really doesn’t take a whole lot to be one. The “queen bee” Caroline, who looks down on Lizzie while also being intimidated by her, criticizes the protagonist’s “conceited independence” – when all she did was take a walk alone through in the countryside. She does not fit the mold of the “accomplished woman.” When Lady Catherine confronts her, Lizzie retorts that she is not entitled to her concerns, and she will make her decisions “without reference to you or any other person so wholly unconnected with me.” Declaring herself to be an autonomous individual, she goes against the grain of her time period when women had limited options and were expected to define themselves by their connections.

Lizzie’s flaw, which she overcomes through her interaction with the woefully misunderstood Mr. Darcy, is that she needs to allow others the same kind of autonomy and complexity that she cherishes within herself. This is in her expressions rather than stated directly. She keenly observes people at the dance, but grows visibly uncomfortable when she herself is observed. After nearly losing Mr. Darcy and learning her lesson, she earns the right once again to assert herself without hypocrisy – which she does in the aforementioned verbal battle with Lady Catherine.

            A strong cast of supporting characters maintains the satire. Mr. Collins (David Bamber) is also well-acted as “the stupidest man in all of England” whose hilarious lack of self-awareness clashes with Elizabeth’s strong identity. Davies seems to give him the double entendres (“Such a variety of social intercourse!”) to highlight his role as the awkward “id” character who merrily shocks everybody with his quirks and obnoxious social climbing. Mrs. Bennett (Alison Steadman) wails and rails desperately through the dilemma of living through her daughters.

            Colin Firth’s lead performance as Mr. Darcy made him a sex symbol and basically launched his career. He snubs Elizabeth once, and it haunts him for the rest of the movie. Water is a recurring visual symbol of his surprising new feelings for Elizabeth and the atmosphere of boiling sexual tension. The puppy-eyed aristocrat rises from the bathtub to look at Jane out the window, and later takes off his jacket in frustration and dives into the pond for one of the most erotic scenes in television history.

            These scenes, which purists may point out are not written in the original book, add to it without contradicting it. Jane Austen, not to be mistaken for her more sentimental contemporaries, does not dictate the visual atmosphere of her novel with descriptive, fluffy prose. Her writing style is sharp, satirical, and understated – the literary equivalent of a Don Hertzfelt stick figures cartoon. Thus, in many ways, she leaves the visualization of her story up to imagination.

Any adaptation can get the text – the witty banter and sarcasm – but a visual work like film must try to interpret the subtext. The BBC crew have delightfully constructed a hilarious but also emotionally compelling drama that not only appeals to females of all ages all over the world, but ranks as one of the most successful literary adaptations in television history. 

Wuthering Heights (1970)

Between the earliest adaptations and the more contemporary innovations, I realized my list didn’t include any films between the 1950s and 1980s. I also realized I needed one more Wuthering Heights adaptation to complete my list. So, I confess I picked this one, directed by Robert Fuest and adapted by Patrick Tilley, as an afterthought; the token representative of four whole decades of cinema. To be fair to myself, though, the most well-known adaptations are either really old or fairly recent and thus easy to find. I wanted to see Abismos de Pasion (1954) and Arashi Ga Oka (1988), but they weren’t on Netflix… not even on Hulu or YouTube.

But even though I picked this one as an afterthought, I really liked it. Among the five Wuthering Heights movies, this is one of the two that I would watch again… if nothing else, because I love the “hippie” look. On every other scene, my brain was screaming, “I want that outfit!!!” The costume design in period pieces is never far removed from the time the movie is actually made – so Heathcliff wears a leather vest like he is on his way to Woodstock or something, Catherine has a flower in her hair and the most adorable peasant blouses, and Edgar (in one of his more sympathetic portrayals) totally looks like David Frost from the recent Watergate movie Frost/Nixon. And I loved Michael Legrand’s Golden Globe-nominated score – from the 60’s-style flute riffs to the complete lack of music in some of the most intense scenes, a la Bonnie and Clyde.

Another pleasant surprise was the cinematography. After watching the effective use of black and white in the 1939 version compared to the flat lighting in the too-bright 2009 version, I wondered if it was even possible to capture the feeling of Wuthering Heights in color. I loved this film’s emphasis on Catherine and Heathcliff’s connection to nature – or maybe, again, I’m just a sucker for the back-to-the-land hippie aesthetic. One scene completely devoid of dialogue has Catherine meeting Heathcliff in the country. He does not know how to react, but they end up rolling in the greenery like flower children. The camera turns up-side down with them, and the framing behind long grasses and low leaves is actually quite beautiful.

Following the example of the 1939 version and most other adaptations, this Wuthering Heights ends halfway through the book. This appears to be a common practice in cinema adaptations – not only because a movie has two hours (give or take) to adapt a lot of material, but because killing one of the two main characters halfway through the script would go against the general rules of plot structure that audiences expect.

The movie actually begins with Catherine’s death; almost all the rest is told in flashback. The opening funeral scene, where the lone Heathcliff looks down in the distance to the other characters lowering the coffin, is no spoiler for anyone who is even remotely familiar with the original story. However, it does serve to set the tone that Heathcliff and Cathy’s romance is doomed from the start.

A huge aspect of this ill-fated romance is the fairly explicit interpretation that Catherine and Heathcliff are half-siblings. This is the subtext of Emily Brontë’s novel; many readers choose to believe that Mr. Earnshaw just happened to make frequent trips to Liverpool and just happened to pick up a random orphan there. The character of Mrs. Earnshaw herself derides this notion; she knows what is going on behind her back. She tells the young Hindley (who looks and acts like a stoner here) that he is “the son of this house.” Nelly’s voiceover explains Hindley was lonely after his mother died, taking her resentment on himself. It is the basis of Hindley and Heathcliff’s rivalry but never mentioned again. Yet the fact that Catherine and Heathcliff even grew up together, calling the same man “Father,” should make their relationship at least as strange and incestuous as the adopted siblings in The Royal Tenenbaums.

An interesting note about this film is its overlap with the 1983 BBC miniseries adaptation of Jane Eyre. They share two actors; Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff and Rochester, respectively, and Judy Cornwell as Nelly and Mrs. Reed.

Fuest and Tilley’s Wuthering Heights succeeds in what other film adaptations don’t: presenting Nelly as a distinct personality with her own goals and being the hero of her own story, rather than as a background fixture or a plot device. Judy Cornwell’s Nelly is young and beautiful and passionate in her own right; she only lacks social opportunities and class standing. An unspoken subplot has Nelly in unrequited love for Hindley (who clearly does not deserve her anyway), which perhaps gives her a special sympathy for Heathcliff’s situation. This is an example of a film adapting a book well even while technically contradicting it: while there was no such subplot in Emily Brontë’s novel, it presents Nelly as she is in the book: snarky and colorful and anything but nondescript.

Timothy Dalton makes a great Heathcliff with his piercing eyes and sullen, uncultivated demeanor. When he returns with his rich velvet makeover and superficially cultured demeanor, he is less impressive than slightly awkward and visibly uncomfortable in his own skin. While he starred in a variety of period pieces, Dalton is best known as one of the James Bond actors. Even though he did not accept that role until the late 1980s, EON Productions approached him as early as 1968 to replace Sean Connery. Watching the film, it is easy to see why they sought after him: he is the cold-blooded lover, rough on the women – but they like him for it. The film’s beautiful and spoiled Isabella slaps him when he tries to get her to bed, but like a typical Bond girl, she does not resist for long. Edgar runs around with a gun, and one scene where Heathcliff is thrown out of the house in a musical flourish seems prophetic of exploitation films. Silliness aside, Dalton’s green eyes make the character, and an extreme close-up on his face leads to an ending that shoots down the possibility of the disturbing second half of the book from happening after the movie is over.

I have yet to see a Wuthering Heights adaptation that comes anywhere close to visually capturing the raw insanity, wildness, and random pathology – not just the passion and romance – of the original novel. Robert Fuest’s Wuthering Heights has its share of flaws, but its striking camera angles, dynamic score, and mentally unbalanced Heathcliff create an interesting cinematic interpretation.