Pride and Prejudice on Film

Yesterday evening I discovered, to my great delight, that the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice is available on YouTube. I had watched it at least twice (legally) on Canadian television, but I very much wanted to see it again. It is the fifth adaptation of Jane Austen's book that I've seen, aside from an overwhelmingly perky musical that was put on in my high school. By now I don't know whether watching or reading Pride and Prejudice is more pleasant or painful, since I know it inside out, line by line, and word for word; I have the same jaded feeling, and the same lack of objective distance, that an orchestra may have toward Beethoven's Fifth Symphony after performing it one hundred and fifty-two times. It is one of my favourite books, but I would much prefer it if I'd read it once instead of a million times.

BBC adapted it as a television mini-series twice, one in 1980 and the other in 1995. The second one, with Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet and Colin Firth as Fitzwilliam Darcy, is the benchmark interpretation, and perhaps my favourite. It has period music, period furniture, period costumes, and period everything, presented with excellent taste; a broad and detailed coverage of the plot and dialogue of the book; and fine, memorable acting that does bring the characters to life. It is, in itself, also a masterpiece of harmonious detail. But it has a heavy air of seriousness and an even excessive visual perfection that can get on one's nerves.

The 1980 mini-series, with Elizabeth Garvie and David Rintoul, is more uneven but also more human, and similarly but not as obviously historically accurate. The lighting is terrible; the glare strongly calls to mind 1980s television sitcoms or, even worse, soap operas, except where, mercifully, it is exchanged for natural lighting. The acting is of an odd theatrical sort; the lines are beautifully enunciated, but there is little realness about it. Sometimes I had the sense that the actor for Mr. Bennet had wandered in from a Charles Dickens play. And Mr. Rintoul mistakes the rigidity and uninterestingness of a monolith for reserved grandeur. It is odd that actors can make such a long film without being more absorbed and at ease in their roles, but I imagine that it is the inevitable consequence of the lighting, and of working in television sets instead of in real rooms. But, aside from the humanness, there are two great recommendations in favour of this version. First, the book is presented nearly word for word, and some of the enigmatic dialogue and reactions are clarified. This isn't an unmixed blessing because it makes the whole film too slow-moving, but it's something. And, secondly, the characters like Mrs. Bennet and Caroline Bingley are not treated with the severe contempt which falls to their lot in the other films. The book is, quite frankly, snobby, but I don't think that this aspect need be reproduced.

Then there is the 2005 film with Keira Knightley and Matthew McFadyen. It exemplifies my idea of films, as books with one-third of their intellectual substance; it bears the same relation to the book that a picture postcard bears to a letter. But, as such, it is quite satisfactory. It differs from every other adaptation because it is clearly an early nineteenth-century, not late eighteenth-century, interpretation. It would have been more suitable if the film had taken this approach with later works like Persuasion, because Pride and Prejudice, as an earlier work, and one full of wit and ebulliency, fits far better in the Classical than in the Romantic movement. (I think that Jane Austen's works technically belong to the Augustan Age, which is a compromise.) But the Romantic aesthetics are beautifully presented, I think, with the palette of dark greens and greys and browns, and fine wild scenery, rather than the light colours and tamed scenery of the 1995 BBC adaptation. The passage of a mighty pig through the hallway beside the kitchen may be an over-literal manifestation of the Romantic preoccupation with simple country life, but the clotheslines full of billowing linen and the duck-pond and so on are not too intrusive. And, even if I disagree with many of the interpretations of the characters, I find the acting good, and like the easy camaraderie between the Bennet sisters.

The two major faults I find in the film, are both, I believe, owing to the filmmakers' intention to aim at the demographic of young girls. Firstly, though the screenwriter has updated the dialogue very well, at least from the 21st-century perspective, it consists of repartée rather than real wit, and the screenwriter and director(s) clearly did not know enough about the manners of the time. Elizabeth and Jane Bennet put their elbows on the table at dinner; Mr. Bennet offers tea to Lady Catherine de Bourgh even though it would have been Mrs. Bennet's role; and everyone listens to private conversations through the doors. And, what is more serious, Elizabeth says in front of Mrs. Bennet that Jane "may well perish with the shame of having such a mother"; I think that the strict code of respect to one's parents would have prevented her from saying that, even if her conscience and reason didn't. Secondly, the film is really concentrated on man-chasing. In it Jane goes to London not for a change of scene because she is tired and depressed, but in order to have a chance of meeting Mr. Bingley. And Elizabeth is as interested as anyone about the advent of Mr. Bingley, etc., in the neighbourhood. But in the book, Jane Austen essentially criticizes the silly preoccupation with potential husbands, and with their wealth, rank, appearance, and even manner. She emphasizes that Elizabeth and Jane have something else in their heads, whereas, for instance, their sisters Kitty and Lydia don't. Even if, practically speaking, it was often even necessary to be married in her time, she was (I think) arguing that women need not and should not go against their true feelings and conscience, or give up their self-respect, to that end.

Anyway, the fourth adaptation is a 2004 Bollywood version, Bride and Prejudice, with Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson. The film is also mostly targeted to young girls. So two thirds of the intellectual substance have been removed, too, but the screenwriter and director add a little again, mostly by discussing the identity of modern India and the (pernicious) creed and influence of American business. It's a good-hearted film, with colourful and infectiously cheerful dancing scenes. One scene that I particularly liked was where Chandra Lamba (Charlotte Lucas), who is engaged to Mr. Kohli (Mr. Collins), reprimands Lalita (Elizabeth) for her dislike of Mr. Kohli, who may be greedy and conceited and unattractive in his manners, but who is also kind-hearted -- this is a worthwhile thought, and a nicer interpretation than any other. Altogether the translation to the modern day, in Amritsar, Goa, London and Los Angeles, is admirable, even if it is a very loose one.

Finally, there is the 1940 black-and-white film with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. There are two major flaws: firstly, it verges on the superficial and frivolous much as the 2005 film does (though I think that it has less giggling); and secondly, there is nothing English and nothing early nineteenth-century (let alone late eighteenth-century) about it. The setting, costume, behaviour, and manner of speaking in the film are American of an indefinite period. The film is not a literal adaptation of Jane Austen, particularly since it is written based on a play that was based on the book, not based on the book itself. But, aside from this, it is an excellent comedy -- well-made, fresh, and very amusing. The character acting is splendid; I especially liked Melville Cooper as Mr. Collins, Edmund Gwenn as Mr. Bennet, Frieda Inescort as Caroline Bingley, and Edna May Oliver as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. I think that Greer Garson's Elizabeth Bennet has little in common with the original, but she is likeable -- so is Laurence Olivier, who portrays an unusually realistic and many-sided Mr. Darcy. And Bruce Lester as Mr. Bingley is, I think, perfect for the part; only Charlotte Lucas was miscast. The direction -- camera, acting, everything -- is done with a good eye for detail. At the Assembly Ball Elizabeth remarks of Mr. Darcy, "He certainly has an air about him," -- the camera cuts to a view down the middle of the dance floor; the line of ladies drops a curtsey to the right, and the line of gentlemen bows to the left, with the exception of one, who remains upright and merely inclines his head stiffly -- that is Mr. Darcy.

The music was nice if simple, using three motifs: a conventional one for the Bennets, a stately one for the party at Netherfield and at Rosings, and a droll and very English-sounding one with the clarinet for Mr. Collins; besides, there is the English folksong "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton." The dialogue was also good, some retained from Jane Austen, and much added. For instance, Caroline Bingley remarks condescendingly at a garden party that she has thrown, "Entertaining the rustics is not as difficult as I had feared. Any simple, childish game seems to amuse them excessively."

But in the film on YouTube the dialogue was even more amusing because someone had added error-filled English subtitles. Lines gained a surreal quality: Lady Catherine's inquiry, "Are the chickens still laying satisfactorily?" became, "Are the chicken seedlings satisfactory?" and when Mrs. Bennet felt faint, and her daughters wanted to revive her by holding a burnt feather to her nose, "No broth! Where are the bird feathers?" became, "No broth with bird feathers!" But best of all was "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton," which Robert Burns would not have recognized:

Flow gently/sweet aspen/among thy green vale,
Flow gently/I'll sing thee/your song in thy praise
The green prairie stare laughing/thy screaming forebear
I charge you/this sterling morn/my slumbering fair.

And that should be enough Pride and Prejudice to last me another year.