Masterpiece Theater

[asjr]

Did anyone else watch Jane Austen's Persuasion tonight? I have become so sick and tired of television in the last year or so I decided to watch something worthwhile. It was beautifully done and I totally enjoyed it. Something like that doesn't come along very often anymore.

[supernova]

1. Check out the next several weeks

of you're a Jane Austen fan. :D

Persuasion followed by Northanger Abbey.

I recorded Jane Eyre and am watching that right now though. I'm saving Persuasion for later. ;-)

I agree that more classic literature needs to be on TV.

edit: PBS is running the entire Jane Austen oeuvre over the next couple of months. :D

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/?campaign=pbshomefeatures_1_masterpiecetheatrebrthecompletejaneausten_2008-01-13

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Northanger Abbey? Is that just more liberal pro-abortion taxpayer funded propaganda

designed to make our children gay and vegetarian (that is, Communist)?

[supernova]

3. Nice post, Mr Darcy

:P

[CBHagman]

4. Yes, and read E.M. Forster too!

And you know how dangerous THAT is. ;-)

Anyway, behold the power of literary adaptations. Check out the Masterpiece Theatre classic series:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/schedule/index.html

There's Austen and much more.

The Complete Jane Austen website:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/austen/index.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Sorry to say, but Billie Piper just didn't make it in Mansfield Park

Not really that surprising, but she can't act that far out of character. So I'd advise no-one to get their hopes up about that one.

I recommend "My Boy Jack" - the true story of Rudyard Kipling's son in the First World War; and if you're a fan of British actresses (and, to a lesser extent, actors), then 'Cranford', on in May on that schedule, is heaven - practically the entire British roster is in there somewhere. It was very popular in the UK back in December.

[supernova]

9. No, she can't but she was tolerable

in The Ruby in the Smoke. But, she was playing a teen/young adult again, so...

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. And also playing "lively, confident, knows she's pretty" in that

all of which are quite wrong for Fanny Price. They just showed the 1999 film of Mansfield Park in the UK this weekend - much more convincing.

[Orsino]

7. At least they have the sense not to try to re-do P&P.

Why bother improving upon the perfection of the '95 version?

[supernova]

10. Heaven forfend!

x(

[Orsino]

6. It was really, really good, with fine acting all around...

...then they simply deleted most of the payoff, cutting Austen's most smokin'-hot lines to ribbons.

Anne is supposed to deliver the line about women loving longest "when all hope is gone" to Harville (not to Benwick, as this production had it, much earlier) in earshot of Wentworth, who leaves her a note no doubt singed around the edges from where the pen kept catching fire:

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."

Such a letter was not to be soon recovered from.

Anthony Head was marvelous as Sir Walter, and I give mad props to Hawkins and Penry-Jones in the leads. This production beat the hell out of the tedious 1971 version, and nearly matched the '95.

[bif]

8. Not only was it good...

It was followed by Bally Kissangel in our area. I'd never seen that show before. I thought it was very entertaining.

[bookworm65t]

12. God-awful version

This version had updated dialogue, plus famous lines from the book were said by characters other than the orginal character. A better version was the one made about ten years ago with Ciaran Hinds and Corin Redgrave as the snooty father. :mad:

And why remake Sense and Sensibilty anyway?

[CBHagman]

13. Because it's there.

As wonderful as Ang Lee's 1995 version of S&S was, I can understand the desire to create yet another interpretation of the novel. Few things are certain in this life but for death, taxes, and that someone will keep making new films of Bronte and Austen works.