« atmospheric cover art | Main | the thing about names »
bits and pieces
Alison sent this link to a review of the new Pride & Prejudice movie. It's not good. I'm sad, though not surprised -- and I'll still be first in line. I can't resist.
It may be true that nobody will ever surpass the BBC miniseries version, but they'll keep trying, and that's okay by me. The only improvement I can think of is if they redo that exact script, all eight hours, with my casting. Three crucial parts:
Elizabeth: Francis O'Connor (who did such a splendid job in the 1999 version of Mansfield Park)
Darcy: Colin Firth, of course. Ten years ago I would have said Daniel Day-Lewis. He might still be able to pull it off.
Lady Catherine De Bourgh: Dame Judi Dench. I'm absolutely sure she's going to be the saving grace of the new film version.
Time to stop fantasizing about that, I think.
Also, I had an email from Màili at McVane, bringing up the topic of languages spoken in Scotland, historical linguistics, and the writing of fiction. Apparently I missed this post of hers the first time around. To which I can only respond: aw, shucks.
It's an interesting topic -- or at least Màili and I find it interesting. Maybe we should initiate some prize for the best/worst representation of language use/distribution in a novel.
And filed under absolutely of no importance at all, but distinctly weird: I had a long dream last night in which I found myself riding around town in a huge old convertible with Oliver Platt. I don't think I've ever dreamed about him before. I can't figure out why I did last night, except that I was thinking yesterday about the Showtime drama Huff, and wondering when in the heck it would come back for the second season.
EMAIL ALERT
If you've emailed me at one of the pobox.com addresses and had your email bounced back, I apologize. The settings were apparently slightly off kilter. If you try again, things will most probably go well this time. I hope.
I only learned about this because I got a very nice letter from a reader in England who finally wrote the old fashioned way after giving up on the bouncing email problem.
Back to work.
September 16, 2005 12:33 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.tiedtothetracks.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/533
Comments
I'm with you. I'll be there, but I'm sure I'll be dashing home afterward to cleanse my mind with first an all-nighter on the couch with the BBC series (for quickness' sake) and then of course with the novel.
You know, I was surprised how much I liked Rozema's "Mansfield Park". The prettiness more than compensated for the jaw-dropping alterations to the story.
Posted by: Rachel at September 16, 2005 07:43 PM
Rachel --
Rozema's interpretation of Mansfield Park was based in part on Fay Weldon's writings about the novel, which you can read in "Letters to my Niece on First Reading Jane Austen." She suggests that Jane wrote Mansfield Park when she was terribly conflicted about her father, angry at him for removing the family to Bath and uneasy about her own anger. Fanny is the good girl she thought she should be, the perfectly submissive young woman who puts her trust in men and God (in that order). I want to pull my hair out and shout at Fanny when I re-read Mansfield Park. She's the most insipid of all Jane's female characters.
I liked the way Rozema dug into the underbelly of the novel and interwove it with bits of Jane's other written work to explore the issues. The whole thing just came together for me in a magical way.
Posted by: sara at September 16, 2005 11:10 PM