(no subject)

[nineveh_uk]

Watching Emma, I wonder if perhaps it isn't a good thing that the Wimsey books have not been televised for twenty years. It might be possible for less of Austen's dialogue to have been included, but it would have been hard work.

And why is no-one wearing a cap or hat?

Oh! Finally Mrs Weston has stopped being wet and has put on a cap.

Oh God! Jonny Lee Miller appears to be acting entirely by waving his forefingers.

And Robert Martin isn't supposed to be a clodhopper - Emma merely convinces herself that she is.

Urgh. And all the waving. Emma might be enthusiastic and eager for exciting, but she is supposed to have a good deal of dignity.

Aargh! And it could be a good cast, of only the script weren't so bloody awful.

The men are waving, too. Stop it! Stop it!

In short, Lost in Austen, which I was re-watching on DVD the other night, has ten times more subtlety, appreciation of period, and better dialogue than this supposedly "straight" adaptation.

I feel a letter to the BBC coming on.

Comments

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I think Lost in Austen sets out basically to be good entertainment, and that - if one enjoys what it is trying to do - achieves it. What I hate is something that bills itself as a straight adaptation that is simply doing bonnets-by-numbers with no genuine interest in the original other than as a name to put on the screen to grab the punters.

Names are important.
But it makes them all seem so stuffy and old fashioned!

[azdak.livejournal.com]

I think Lost in Austen sets out basically to be good entertainment, and that - if one enjoys what it is trying to do - achieves it

I am willing to agree to disagree, but I'm not willing to agree to anything else! I thought it sucked rocks.

What I hate is something that bills itself as a straight adaptation that is simply doing bonnets-by-numbers

I hate that, too. They ought to be a law that people are no allowed to adapt Jane Austen unless they're Emma Thompson, and even then everything better than S&S is Hands Off.