Pride & Prejudice

Another example of "love at first hate", which I hadn't dealt with when I wrote that blog.  Here is its own blog....

Book.  Written by “Stone Cold” Jane Austen in 1813.  I was going accuse her of ripping off Dickens, but since David Copperfield came out much later than P&P, the “Steerforth steals Emily” part was probably ripped off from “Wickham steals Lydia”, not the other way around.  However, the plot is very much ripped off from Shakespeake’s Much Ado About Nothing.  Normally I tend to “read the book”, but the BBC adaptation was so long, I can hardly imagine anything they left out.  Ideally an annotated version would be best, which would explain the subtleties behind the scenes (like why earning 5,000 pounds a year was a big deal in early nineteenth century England, or why a daughter’s elopement would ruin an entire family).

Plot:  I’ll keep to the bare essentials, as there are some subplots and characters (mostly Collins and Lady Catherine) which really don’t bear on the main story.

The Bennett family, somewhere in England in the early nineteenth century, has a gang of daughters it wants to marry off to rich husbands.  Mrs. Bennett is kind of a twit, egregiously aggressive at trying to “catch” husbands for her daughters, whereas Mr. Bennett is laid back, comically so – he really doesn’t give a shit, but he’s helpful in his own way (probably so Mrs. Bennett will SHUTUP).  For some reason the parents refer to each other as Mr. & Mrs. Bennett and not by their names or terms of affection.  The eldest two are Jane and Elizabeth.  Jane falls in love at first sight with a “Mr. Bingley”, a handsome doofus who moved into the spacious estate next door.  His dour, arrogant, taciturn friend Darcy, however, will have nothing to do with any of the Bennett girls, and in particular he refers to Elizabeth as “not handsome enough to tempt me”. (Funny how no one suggested that his wholesale rejection of women might indicate some other type of preference....)

            Jane and Bingley hit it off immediately, truly love at first sight.  As with Benedick and Beatrice in MAAN, Elizabeth and Darcy spar off in witty exchanges, with mutual contempt, throughout most (!) of the rest of the story.  Elizabeth grows fond of a “Mr Wickham”, an officer who claims that Darcy cheated him out of a fortune.  Much to the Bennetts’ horror and dismay, Bingley moves back to London, apparently indefinitely. To make matters worse, Darcy admits to Elizabeth that he was behind persuading Bingley to move to London, breaking up the romance between Jane and Bingley.  So he’s arrogant, petulant, and a scoundrel. For his part, Darcy warms to Elizabeth, realizing that she is attractive and has a brain – and is as strong-willed as he is.  However, he proposes to her in a pompous, arrogant, and spectacularly poorly worded fashion, prompting her to respond that he’d be the last man she’d ever consider marrying (aside from Mr. Collins, of course). 

            Although never specifically rejected by Elizabeth, Wickham runs off with Lydia, the youngest Bennett, causing a huge scandal.  Darcy kills two birds with one stone by (A) revealing to Elizabeth the truth behind his prior dealings with Wickham, and (B) by “buying” off Wickham, so he marries Lydia and the Bennetts’ honor is maintained.  While he won’t apologize for having broken up Jane & Bingley, he insists that he did not see that Jane’s feelings for Bingley were sincere and could only see Mrs. Bennett’s shameless antics.  Elizabeth also visits Darcy’s estate and all the people there hold him high esteem, describing a man of immense generosity, character and warmth (not to mention super rich) completely at odds with the cold, arrogant asshole he appeared to be at first.

            Later on, however, after Elizabeth has learned all these good things about him and fallen in love with him, Darcy renews his proposal, and this time she accepts, a dramatic turn of events similar to Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing.  Just in time for Jane & Bingley to sort out their earlier misunderstanding and renew their love – just as Hero (actually a girl) and Claudio do in Much Ado About Nothing.  It stuns me that P&P should be considered such a classic in its own right when so much of the essential plot is lifted verbatim from Shakespeare.  Anyhow.

            There are a few major differences, however.  P&P lacks the humor and double entendres of Shakespeare.  It also lacks the scheming, behind the scenes, of the other characters who actively conspire to bring Benedick and Beatrice together, by cleverly manipulating the pair into a romance, “despite themselves”.  Pride & Prejudice is somewhat more straightforward and less imaginative than Much Ado About Nothing.    

       

1995 BBC/A&E Miniseries.  This lasts something like 5 (five or six) hours, but it has Colin Firth as Darcy.  The production values are somewhat BBC-ish, as we could expect.  In fact, it looks just as shiny and new as “Fawlty Towers”, “Benny Hill” or “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”.  The Elizabeth character is played by Jennifer Ehle.  Actually, I think she did a better job than Keira Knightly, who plays the character in the 2005 film; the problem with Knightly is that she is so stunning, it’s hard to imagine any man writing her off as “not handsome enough to tempt me.”  You really need an actress who, while not being dull, ugly, average, or homely, is a 7 or 8 compared to Knightly’s 9 or 10; in other words, Jennifer Ehle.  Of course, Colin Firth knocks this out of the ballpark.  It was his performance alone which kept my attention for that time.

2005 Movie.  Very well done, and much higher production values, yet it still looked like nineteenth century England.  Donald Sutherland does a remarkable Mr Bennett, with the same easy charm he used as Hawkeye Pierce in the film version of “M*A*S*H” or Professor Jennings in “Animal House” – which also features Karen Allen, a few years before “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.  I mentioned Knightly’s issue above: I can’t fault her acting one bit, it’s just that she’s too pretty for the character.  Benjamin Whitrow (1995) gives Sutherland a good run for his money as Mr Bennett.  I preferred Adrian Lukis as Wickham in the ’95 version, though, over Rupert Friend from the ’05 version; Lukis injects a roguish quality which Friend lacked.  Since both versions were so well done, about the only major advantages of the ’05 film version are the length (less than half the time) and Keira Knightly, who is always dynamite eye candy in any film.

Bridget Jones’s Diary.  An honorable mention needs to go to this film.  Helen Fielding expressly admits that she completely ripped off P&P for this, not merely the plot but also the name Darcy.  And they were so impressed with Colin Firth from the BBC P&P that they knew right away who they wanted to play Mark Darcy; sure enough he plays the pompous, arrogant stuck up civil rights barrister just as he did Darcy in P&P.  Hugh Grant is the Wickham character (Daniel Cleaver), though here the relationship turns sexual instead of being dancing and flirting in P&P, and Cleaver doesn’t run away with Bridget Jones’ younger sister (she doesn’t have any).  The Bennetts never split up in P&P, and Bridget has a much different personality than Elizabeth Bennett: not intelligent and proud, but more like very real, down to earth, saying whatever pops into her head without any thought as to the consequences (verbally incontinent, as Darcy puts it, verbal diarrhea as she puts it).  Still lovable, though, so we can see why Darcy falls in love with her.  “BJD” is a far more original adaptation of P&P than P&P is of MAAN.

Fever Pitch.  Ok, while I’m at it, I might as well get this Colin Firth rubbish out of my system once and for all. It’s based on a book by Nick Hornby, the author of “High Fidelity” (which became the movie with John Cusack and Jack Black).  Never mind the stupid Red Soxx, Jimmy Fallon, or Drew Barrymore, THIS was the original, done in 1997.   Colin Firth plays Paul Ashworth, the school teacher obsessed with Arsenal, the top tier Premier League team from north London who haven’t won the “league cup” since 1971.  The movie takes place in 1989, when they finally follow up their 1971 victory.  Some stuck up blond English chick (Ruth Gemmell, in her most important role ever!) plays the fellow school teacher, his girlfriend, who has to endure his obsession.   After some resistance, she finds herself even watching the games or checking the scores in his absence (her roommate claims, “it’s a virus!!”).  Of course they fall in love and have a normal relationship despite his mania for everything associated with Arsenal, including (but not limited to) moving into an apartment next to Highbury, the stadium.  Although he’s not arrogant and stuck up in this film – no longer a Darcy type of character -  he’s still moody and negative, convinced that Arsenal will go all the way to the finals, get his hopes up, and then choke at the last moment, which in this case is the second leg of the aggregate, so they have to beat Liverpool by two goals... IN Liverpool.  I originally rented it simply for the Arsenal connection, but liked the movie so much I bought it.  Oh, and Mark Strong, who's been playing plenty of villains lately, is here as Paul's BFF Steve.  Quality.