what are your thoughts on the 1995 vs. 2005 adaptations on p&p? I've never actually watched the 1995 version opps haha :)
I think the 2005 P&P is well-acted, sweet, romantic and funny; the score is evocative and stirring; the cinematography is breathtaking. I also think it is not a very good adaptation of Austen’s novel.
Pride and Prejudice can be a deceptively simple story. A lot of people think of it as the mother of the modern romantic comedy movie, which leads them to conceive of it in very simplistic terms: girl hates boy BUT PLOT TWIST SHE FALLS IN LOVE WITH BOY??? plus related shenanigans. And I mean, that is Pride and Prejudice, sort of. But it’s a very superficial reading of it.
The problem with the 2005 adaptation, at least for me, is that it seems to think that hitting the major plot points of the novel= sufficiently adapting the novel. But there’s a lot more to P&P than the plot. There’s literary context and incisive wit and social commentary and sharp, crisp characterization.
Characterization especially is so, so important in Austen, and I think the 2005 version does a poor job of it. e.g. I can think of three instances off the top of my head where the movie’s characters say what other characters said in the novel– Mary says Elizabeth’s line of “What are men compared to rocks and mountains?”; Mary says Caroline’s line about how “[balls] would be better if conversation, not dancing, were the order of the day”; and Caroline gets Bingley’s response of “Much more rational, but rather less like a ball”.
Why does it matter? Well for example, when Caroline talks about balls and dancing being Terrible in the novel, she’s saying it to impress Darcy, not because she necessarily actually feels that way herself. And it’s part of this whole hilarious sequence that deftly characterizes her, Darcy, and their whole dynamic (and shows us how she doesn’t understand him- Darcy’s unimpressed by obsequiousness and respects authentic opinions even if he disagrees with them- which is why they’d never work as a couple). Bingley’s rejoinder likewise shows his easy wit and comparative lack of pretension.
In the movie, though? This same sequence tells us: Mary= dull and Caroline= mean (she’s sneering this at a stranger, not teasing a sibling, as Bingley did). Bingley’s example of wit is taken away and he’s mostly treated as a bumbling, inarticulate idiot in the film. Okay, I’m being a bit harsh, and most of those things are not out and out incorrect characterizations, but the movie goes for such broad strokes and it drives me nuts.
And maybe you’re like, wow, this is really nitpicking, Ren, lighten up, but the thing is there’s no discernible purpose for the line swapping. It’s just reflective of the movie’s seemingly blasé attitude towards characterization (’well, someone said these book lines! that’s the same, right?’). And you just can’t be blasé about characterization and make a strong Austen adaptation (psst, hey Pemberley Digital. Hey.) There are books where the characters are drawn broadly and this wouldn’t matter, e.g., Agatha Christie novels, but it simply isn’t true for Austen.I’m pretty sure Matthew Macfadyen describes Darcy as “shy” in one of the BTS interviews on my DVD of this movie too, and like??? No. Nooo.
The other thing is–I praised the cinematography above, and this is such a beautifully shot film, it’s just. I’m not sure why you’d choose to shoot an Austen movie like she’s a freaking Brontë. Austen is irreverent. She doesn’t do dramatic, sensual scenes featuring near-kisses with handsome rain-soaked men. (Okay, she kinda did in Sense and Sensibility, but the OTT romanticism is the point. So that she can rip it to pieces later.) She makes fun of people who do those! So the movie’s aesthetic, while gorgeous, is just… jarring, at times. It doesn’t fit. Austen would probably laugh, a lot, if she saw the movie’s sweepingly romantic take on her story. Especially that damn proposal scene.
I also just feel like the 2005 adaptation talks down to its audience. There’s not a lot of subtlety. I don’t need the Bennets to have pigs wandering around their house (which, they totally wouldn’t have) to appreciate the class differences between them and the Bingleys/Darcys. I don’t need Mary to literally sob “I hate balls!” to understand that she’s the odd one out from her sisters. I don’t need Lady Catherine to burst into the Bennet home in the middle of the night while they’re all half-dressed (which, she totally wouldn’t have) to understand her rudeness and presumption in visiting them on such an errand. Etc.
Again, most of the choices the movie makes aren’t flat-out wrong, but they lack nuance. It’s like those dessert flavored yogurts. It’s not bad yogurt, it even kind of reminds you vaguely of the dessert it claims to taste like, but at the end of the day it is still just… yogurt. Austen does so many subtle things in her writing that you miss out on if you skip over.
The 1995 adaptation has a better handle on those nuances. And honestly, a lot of the reason why is that it has the time to delve deeper. Now, of course, a nice long adaptation means nothing if the adaptation fundamentally misunderstands its source material (exhibit A, Emma Approved) and a short adaptation can be very good so long as it grasps the heart of the story + characters (exhibit B, Clueless). Fortunately, the 1995 P&P does have a good grasp of Austen.
One of my favorite examples of this is one of the movie’s first lines. P&P’s first line (not spoken by any character in the book) is, as we know, meant to be tongue-in-cheek. The 1995 version of P&P demonstrates this beautifully: Elizabeth sarcastically says the line, and Mrs. Bennet agrees with it. They use Lizzy’s first line to encapsulate the tone and subject of the movie, the same way Austen’s dryly humorous first line does for the novel.
I think overall the 1995 P&P is less…sexy (Colin Firth soaking wet aside), but it feels more authentic primarily because of characterization. Austen includes a lot of just talking in the novel, because she uses dialogue to show us who these characters are: not just what they say, but how they say it, and to who, and why, are important pieces of information. A plot focused film will skip a lof of the substance of those conversations because they don’t add to the story itself. A character focused film- that, again, has the luxury of time- will include them because those seemingly dull conversations are where all the actual good stuff happens.
There are layers upon layers in Austen. Mrs. Bennet is a silly, silly woman; but she’s also clear-sighted about her daughters’ desperate future, perhaps more so than anyone else in the family; but her own nature nearly irrevocably undermines their ability to avoid that future in a way that’s…not humorous at all. The Bennets aren’t one big happy family trading cheerful jibes while they listen at doors. The parents’ marriage is kind of a sham. Most of the sisters don’t understand or respect each other.There’s a sobering misery that lurks under Mr. Bennet’s isolation.
The length + insight of the 1995 adaptation allows it to hit these multiple points. It balances, e.g., Darcy’s cold arrogance with his fundamental integrity, or Mr. Collins’ awkward nature with his sliminess. It uses simple, subtle costuming choices (compare Caroline and Louisa’s gowns to the Bennet sisters’–the material, the trimmings) to highlight the financial disparity between their families while providing the context for why they would still socialize with each other. The full length and depth of the confrontation between Lizzy and Catherine is also critical to understanding the nature of social class at this time and Austen’s views on social mobility.
I don’t think the 1995 adaptation is perfect. It sometimes lacks subtlety too: really, soaking wet Darcy? SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME THE CINEMATIC AFFINITY FOR SOAKING WET DARCYS. The script, being so closely tied to the novel, occasionally drags–it’s one thing to read about a bunch of people sitting around and talking; it’s another thing to watch it. I also- unpopularly- think Keira Knightley would have made a better Elizabeth than Jennifer Ehle if she’d just had a stronger script to work with.
But the 1995 version does hit a lot of the nuances that the 2005 version missed. It’s not that the 2005 adaptation is a bad film or straight up wrong on everything (except the pigs. The pigs are wrong). It just feels like a run of the mill romcom inspired by someone who didn’t really delve deeper into Austen, rather than the bona fide thing.
