Gentle reader, this Guardian UK.Com article discusses the first episode of Emma 2009. Click here to read it. (See snippet below)
Each character's choice of cranial accessory came with a helpful clue as to the nature of her/his personality. Hence Emma's hats were floppy, hugely brimmed jobs either loosely knotted or bedecked with dangly, daringly untied ribbons (thus reflecting her free spirit and a certain laxness in the attention-to-common-sense department). Elsewhere: Miss Bates's bonce bore a succession of unyielding Regency coal scuttles (creature of habit + sod all imagination), Harriet's green silk bonnet was so saggy, it appeared her brains had tried to escape from the back of her skull during a particularly tricky thought about buns or something (idiocy), while Knightley's vast stovepipe/top hat contraption succeeded in dominating his every scene (implication: he has an erection. Hopefully).
The initial critiques from viewers are not overwhelmingly positive. And what were they thinking giving Emma a modern hairdo? (See below). Click on Jane Austen's World Poll and Austenblog for comments.
Posted by Vic, Jane Austen's World
Posted by Vic, Jane Austen's World
6 comments:
Interesting. I can't wait to see it, but what is this fascination with modern hairdos. I could make that style myself. I don't go to a period costume movie to see it. Maybe things on Hartfield aren't going that well after all, and she had to fire her hairdresser.
Oh, the torture of not being able to see and discuss this newest "Emma" miniseries !
I think that the shorter hair style was meant to be when Emma was younger - maybe 15/16. Once she is older, her hair is up and less modern...
Agreed, anon. She was younger in this scene, for her sister Isabella was spartling with her future husband John Knightley on the lawn below. The costumer could have been more faithful to the period, adding a thin ribbon Grecian style, or taking the hair back in a less modern fashion, making a regency silhouette of the shape with pins, or having her wear a simple, girlish muslin cap with the long hair flowing loose underneath. I tried to find a painting of a young woman of the era with a similar hairstyle as "Emma young" and couldn't. Which doesn't mean that such an image does not exist.
I did find portraits of women with loose flowing hair (usually allegorical), but the tendrils are not gathered at the back of the head in this modern way. The hair is left wild and free, like Billy Piper's in Mansfield Park, and we now how viewers felt about THAT look.
I can't wait to see this miniseries...thankfully PBS will be bringing it to the States relatively quickly in 2010!
I just watched the first episode and I have mixed feelings. I love the actor who plays Knightley, but I'm not sure I like the way in which Emma is portrayed. I always imagined her more elegant, in the series shes quite immature. anyone agree?
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