The Three Northanger Abbey Films

The author of our fourth guest post for The Complete Jane Austen, Professor Ellen Moody, needs almost no introduction. If you haven't come across her timelines of Jane Austen's novels, I highly recommend that you visit her website. For our blog, Ellen chose to write a comparative piece on the Northanger Abbey. After reading one of Ellen's posts, you will never quite view a Jane Austen movie adaptation or read a Jane Austen novel in the same way again.

Gentle Austen readers,

The other day a friend told me that many people do not know there is a third Northanger Abbey movie. All who have been faithfully watching the Jane Austen movie festival on PBS this year know at least something of the most recent: the 2007 WBGH/Granada Northanger Abbey (directed by Jon Jones, written by Andrew Davies). Many may have heard of the 1987 BBC Northanger Abbey (directed by Giles Foster, written by Maggie Wadey). But it seems that a free adaptation, the 1993 independent Ruby in Paradise (directed and written by Victor Nunez), has been effaced from Public Memory[note 1]. Rumor (who Virgil told us long ago is not to be trusted) has committed yet further mischief. She has spread abroad a notion the 87 Northanger is completely bad. She also went on and on about how the PBS people cut the 07 Northanger so crudely (constantly clipping as they went and omitting a nude and playful episodes), that she had not time to divulge why it is so cheering and unbearably touching when at the film's close hero and heroine fall over one another in their eagerness to kiss and hug tight at last.

So when asked to write about the recent Austen movies for Jane Austen Today, I decided to write about how all three Northanger Abbeys films enriched our experience of Austen's novel. Beguiled by Austen's parody of Ann Radcliffe's 1790s gothic romances and allusion to the imprisoned dying bleeding nun of Matthew Lewis's 1796 horror gothic, The Monk, all three gothicize Austen's book. The beauty of the 87 and 07 Northanger films lie in their visual recreation of female gothic dreams. The 87 film is beautifully picturesque, and filled with thoughtful conversations taken from Austen's book. Very like Amy Heckerling's Clueless (the 1995 free adaptation of Emma, starring and narrated by Alice Silverstone as Cher Horowitz), Ruby in Paradise is an updated "young lady's entrance into world:" Ruby dramatizes a teenage heroine's struggle to discover what is and to make a good place for herself in world that can put her at serious risk. The core of the appeal of the 07 film is the capital way the two principals, Felicity Jones and J. J. Feild, jell as a pair of characters whose mutual kindness, intelligence, and integrity of heart emerges gradually as very precious indeed against the film's "crimes of heart."

We begin with Austen's ungothic gothic. The gothic section of Austen's Northanger Abbey begins in Vol II, Chapter 3: the book is all Bath up to there. The "visions of romance" (as our narrator tells us) are over by Vol II, Chapter 10, after which we take a trip to Woodston, return to Bath by way of letters, and experience a real crisis and bereftment whose sources are greed, gossip, and resentment. We experience a lot before we get to the felicitious close. There is little gothicism in Austen's book.

Some contrasts: the way to Bath in Austen's novel is wholly uneventful. Nothing happens. Both the 87 and 07 Northanger films open with a nightmare visions as Catherine (Katharine Schlesinger and Felicity Jones respectively) lies in a tree and reads Radcliffe: Wadey's nightmare is straight out of the 1968 horror gothic, Rosemary's Baby; Davies' comes from modern female ghost-gothics. During the trip both films dramatize nightmares: in the 87 film, an archetypal sexually-motivated abduction scene (which closely recalls one in the 1980 Jane Austen in Manhattan, a free adaptation of Austen's Sir Charles Grandison); in the 07 film violent duelling, which includes Mr Allen (Desmond Barrit) dealing blows with his crutches, surrounds our fainting two heroines. Mrs Allen (Sylvestre Le Tousel) faints too. Both films contain six dreams or nightmare sequences nowhere in Austen's book. When Austen's Catherine at long last fulfills her desire to see a real historical building and drives into the grounds of the abbey, she is surprized because she barely notices the quick appearance of a low building, whose appearance she just about entirely misses because "a scud of rain" hits her in the face. Austen's Catherine's room is modern, well-lit, with a good fire, and near her friend, Eleanor Tilney's. General Tilney boasts of his progressive modernization of his house; Mrs Tilney's ex-room is neat, clean, spruce, not a shroud in sight. And so it goes.

The case is drastically altered in both films. I defy anyone to miss the abbey in Davies' film:

In Wadey's the film comes out of a mist across a lake, and when come close is looms overhead as a scary ancient military fortress:

I think viewers want to revel in gothic dreams. The catch is Austen allows us to glimpse these alluring visions through parody, and filmic visual romance resists ironizing. I was intensely delighted when in the 07 film, Catherine reached her room (a long way up the stairs, and not near Eleanor) and we are treated to this mastershot:

It was perfect (as Felicity Jones's face shows), though not in Austen. The film-makers have given us what Austen's Catherine longed for. The 87 film has the advantage of having been filmed in Bath, but nowhere on their walk in Austen's book do Henry (Peter Finch), Catherine (Katherine Schlesinger), and Eleanor (Ingrid Lacey) come upon anything as perfectly picturesque as Wadey's trio does continually, e.g,

I turn to the 87 Northanger Abbey. As Wadey's Henry, Eleanor and Catherine walk and talk so companionably in front of Radcliffean waterfalls, amid green forests, and drifting along in a boat on an oneiric lake, the 87 film offers us a reproduction and extension of the conversation Austen meant her Volume I to culminate in. I quote Wadey's Henry teasing Catherine: "Art is as different from reality as water is from air, and if you mistake water for air, you drown. Of course if you are a fish, then the danger lies in the air." The scene is psychologically believable; intimacy and trust between the friends has been established, and they talk, repeating a slightly simplified and yet expanded version of Austen comic meditation on history, the picturesque, and art. Like Austen's, Wadey's Henry slights women, discusses politics (there are added real references to the troubled 1790s scattered throughout the film), and is put down by Wadey's Eleanor. The music provides another dimension of harmony.

Throughout Wadey's film includes far more of Austen's original language, conversations, and literary and artistic themes than Davies' 07 Northanger film, and in so doing, includes, adds to and comments on Austen's general outlook and her appreciation of Radcliffe's female gothic. At moments Wadey's Catherine's brand of proto-feminism reminded me of Austen's Fanny Price when Fanny tells Austen's hero, Edmund Bertram, she does not think all women should be expected to jump at any man who proposes and then tells Austen's other heroine, Mary Crawford, that she cannot like a man who can enjoy hurting women's hearts even if it might be in this instance that the woman's heart was not hurt (but Fanny thinks Maria Bertram's was, and it turns out she is right). In the playful conversation while dancing where Wadey's Henry makes his analogy between a dance and marriage, Wadey's Catherine (an addition) emphatically brings in the woman's right of refusal as not nothing, as important; this assertion is brought back late in the film ironically as we find the right of choosing is the more effective: it's Henry's role to come to Catherine.

Yes, some of the horror nightmares in this film are ghastly: not all, two of the six are lovely, visionary as in the sequence following a late afternoon of delicate opera-like eroticism in a baroque aria sung by Henry. The historically-accurate bathing scenes have been made much of; I like also how memories of Mrs Tilney's suffering are given visual symbolic representation in statues found in the garden and Catherine's window, the dramatization of Henry's defiance of his father (played by Robert Hardy) and the father's scorn for Henry's loyalty; and the use of witch imagery in the costumes of characters who manifest a sublime indifference to other people (e.g., Googie Withers as Mrs Allen, Elaine Ives-Cameron as the Marchioness whose husband has been guillotined).

In the still, Catherine grows nervous as she sees herself in her mirror wearing Mrs Tilney's riding outfit and decides not to ride in it; we see a statue we've seen before now presiding over Catherine:

Paradoxically, it's in the free adaptation, Ruby in Paradise, that Austen's insistence on the prosaic realities of life are clung to. Ruby Gissing (Ashley Judd) is our Catherine Morland character. As the movie begins, Ruby is leaving a young man (boyfriend, partner? it's not clear) and driving herself to Florida because her few good memories of her time with her family come from when they went to Florida on vacation. Ruby has to integrate herself into the community by getting a job; she is hired by Mildred Chambers (Dorothy Lyman) who eventually tells Ruby she hired her because saw herself in Ruby:

The older woman becomes the younger one's mentor and friend, eventually herself partly dependent on Ruby. Mrs Chambers runs a tourist souvenir and clothing store whose downscale nature does not deter people from buying sprees.

Ruby is also befriended by an African-American teenage girl who works in the store, Rochelle Bridges (Allison Dean): Rochelle is also taking a business course in a local college and looks forward to marriage. They eat together, go dancing, walk on the beach, share past memories, dreams and hopes.

Rochelle functions like Eleanor Tilney in a number of the conversations, including one where she gives Ruby money when Ruby desperately needs it. A memorable moment occurs when they speak of "how to survive with your soul intact." One of Davies' dialogues for his Catherine and Eleanor take up this subject too.

Mrs Chambers' sexy show-off lying boorish son, Ricky (Bentley Mitchum), combines characteristics of John Thorpe and Captain Tilney. He persuades Ruby to ignore his mother's prohibition against the staff going out with her rich son. When late in the film, Ruby has far superior boyfriend and does not want to continue this forbidden hollow relationship, Ricky attempts to rape her; enraged at Ruby's resistance, he fires her, insinuating he will tell her mother about their relationship. Many readers have suggested Austen had Richardson's much earlier (1740s) realistic epistolary novel, Pamela, in mind: there a servant refuses to have sex with her boss, and he rewards her virtue by marrying her. Here we see the realistic results of such refusal. More realistic yet (and Austen-like) is the lack of irretrievable crisis. Yes we have a series of anxiety-producing hard scenes where Ruby is continuously refused jobs, sinking lower and lower, even considering topless dancing, and finally working as a laundress, but when Rochelle explains to Mrs Chambers what happened, and Mrs Chamber also remembers how good an employee, Ruby, has been, she is rehired. The film ends with Ruby opening the shop as its assistant manager.

As is common in many of these free adaptations (e.g., Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, a Mansfield Park, Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail, Helen Fielding and Andrew Davies' Bridget Jones Diary, both in part replays of Pride and Prejudice), the Northanger Abbey framework of the tale is signalled strongly for us when in Ruby's boyfriend, Mike McCaslin's (played by Todd Field) considerable library, Ruby stumbles upon and reads Austen's Northanger Abbey. Ruby reads aloud from the book and pronounces it a story like her own: she too is a heroine "against the odds."

She reads it on the sly at work to finish it; Ricky appears to recognizes it and pronounces that he "never got around to it." The book's use for him is to lord it over Ruby: "Don't let Mom catch you." Mike recalls Henry Tilney in his strong intellectualism, idealism (he's an environmentalist Josh played by Paul Rudd, the Mr Knightley character in Clueless), supportive love and trust; he does not pressure Ruby for sex; the parallel of teacher and pupil is strikingly close, down to a discussion of local history and landscape. However, at the movie's close Ruby does not take the easy way out of marriage with Mike as they clash in some important ways. Their way of discussing Austen epitomizes these:

Mike: "Take it. Then you can join my fools reading society, meetings nightly after lovemaking."
Ruby. "Lot of good it's done you." Mike: "Saved me from evil. Restored my soul. Brought peace to my troubled mind. Joy to my broken heart ... [and in another later scene he adds] Isn't it wonderful the way Austen seems to dwell on the superficial and comic yet all the while revealing the contradictions and value system of an entire society. I don't think there's been anyone so subtle and elusive. What do you think?" Ruby. "It was a neat story."

There are other counterparts to characters and predicaments in Northanger Abbey, and (as across Austen), we get a continuum of young women who make different choices in life [Note 2]. I'd like to emphasize the many scenes where Ruby writes in her diary and we get Judd's musing voice-over where she thinks about parts of her story and we watch striking montage. This too is a part of an Austen film: they are unusual for the frequency in which we find ourselves with female narrators guiding us through the story. Some write letters, some read them, and some keep diaries, Ruby is repeatedly pictured writing in a journal; it sustains her.

In my view in the past year we have had four new superb Austen films: this past fall, Robin Swicord's The Jane Austen Book Club; and this spring on the PBS Festival, the extraordinarily powerful and brilliant film-making of Snodin, Shergold, and Burke's Persuasion; Davies' latest, a dark and romantic Sense and Sensibility, and his Northanger Abbey [Note 3] As with Ruby in Paradise, the human dimension of Austen's story is made intensely appealing; as in his Sense and Sensibility, Davies has rewritten Austen's key dialogues to bring home to us the cost of coldness, material aggrandizement, and ego-centered behavior. Our villains include Liam Cunningham as General Tilney, a frightening Dracula figure whose brand of "vampirism" we are told "drained the life out of" Mrs Tilney; John Thorpe (William Beck) is let off more lightly than Captain Tilney (Mark Dymond) and Isabella Thorpe (Carey Mulligan) who actually deserve one another, partly because he appears briefly and is allowed to justify his lies. It is not uncommon for Davies to show sympathy for amoral and unadmirable characters. Where he hits a new note is consonant with J.J. Feild's strength as Henry Tilney: he projects a sensitive intelligence and emotional vulnerability.

As one of the older BBC mini-series, the 1972 BBC Emma transformed Austen's novel to dwell on a slow and subtle presentation of the relationship between the hero, Mr Knightley (John Carson) and heroine, Emma (Doran Goodwin); so Davies has chosen to develop those scenes and parts of scenes where Henry and Catherine are in deep communication; he adds to this a more emphatic presentation of Eleanor (Catherine Walker) as equally bereft of life's joys because of her father's meanness (in every way) and the death of their mother. The letter scenes late in the film take lines given to Henry Tilney in the book and give them to Eleanor. With her quiet self-control, feeling of staying in the background, and sadness Catherine Walker is as superb as Eleanor Tilney as Emma Thompson and Hattie Morahan as the Elinor Dashwoods of the 1995 and 2007 Sense and Sensibility.

In one of the many delightful scenes Davies adds to Austen's script to develop the triangular relationship at the heart of his film (one alas cut from the American version), when the general leaves the Abbey, the young people go into the garden. We see Henry get a ladder, climb a tree, and to the accompaniment of the bouncy cheerful music that accompanies the normative time-passing prosaic sequences of the scene, Henry rains apples on the girls, and they run about to catch them in their skirts:



The imagery denies there is any sin here; it's a sunlit moment in a paradise of congenial supportive companionship.

There is a painful moment which betrays Austen's art and book in two of the movies: Wadey and after her Davies have their heroines burn Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho. It was to Radcliffe and other contemporary female novelists Austen tells us she went to learn her art. I also find troubling Nunez's Ruby's sudden thrust at her Henry (Mike), "Stop looking down" on people. Mike has not looked down on anyone in the film; like Austen's Henry he respects those "games of life" whose rules are clear, fair, and understandable.

So gentle reader, read Austen's book again, watch all three films, and then reread. And then recall Isabel's words in Austen's Love and Freindship (which I here play upon): "Beware, my Laura, of the unmeaning Nonsense of Rumor and dangerous treacheries of Memory; Above all, Avoid the fetish Goddess, Literalism."

Note 1: I am using some common terms for the three major types of film adaptation. The 2007 Northanger Abbey is an apparently faithful film (sometimes called "transposition"). Davies tries to match the original story, and to reproduce most of the characters, dramatic turning-points, and famous lines, with some allowance for modernizing interpretations and advantageous alterations provided by film. The 1987 Northanger Abbey is an intermediate adaptation (sometimes called "commentaries"): Wadey is far closer to Austen's language and includes most of Austen's central incidents, but she departs with the intention of commenting on, critiquing, and updating Austen's text. The 1993 Ruby in Paradise is a free adaptation (these are called "analogies"). Nunez abandons historical costume drama, but reproduces enough recognizable incidents, type characters, character functions, and themes to make his film also function as an adaptation; in addition, his heroine reads and she and the hero discuss Northanger Abbey and Jane Austen.

Note 2. Ruby in Paradise took top honors in the 1993 Sundance Film Festival and got rave reviews. There's a published review which goes over the parallels to Northanger Abbey: see Zelda Bronstein, review of Ruby in Paradise, Film Quarterly, 50:3 (1997):46-51.

Note 3. I would call The Jane Austen Book Club is a free adaptation of all the Austen novels! This is clearer in Karen Joy Fowler's witty novel. The 2007 Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility are like the 1987 Northanger, intermediate adaptations or commentaries. I should mention that The Jane Austen Book Club was produced by Julie Lynn; the 2007 Sense and Sensibility produced by Vanessa de Sousa and Anne Pivcevic, and directed by John Alexander. It starred Hattie Morahan as Eleanor and Charity Wakefield as Marianne Dashwood; David Morrissey (now the central character) plays Colonel Brandon.

Note 4. Although clearly of the faithful type, the 1972 BBC Emma, like the best Austen films, recreates a work in its own right. It was directed by John Glenister, written by Denis Constanduros. In my view Fiona Walker is the best Mrs Elton we've seen.

Biography: Ellen Moody, a Lecturer in English at George Mason University has a blog of her own where she frequently discusess Austen and her films, _Ellen and Jim have a blog, too_. She devotes part of her website to "Jane Austen and Time", where she offers timelines for each of Austen's six novels and three fragments, a chronology of her writing life, as well as reviews of books, essays, films, and records of readings and discussions of Austen's novels conducted on Austen-l and Janeites a few years since. She is now working on a book, The Austen Movies.

Robin Swicord: An Interview With The Screenwriter and Director of The Jane Austen Book Club, Part 2

Elegant Readers,

On Wednesday I posted Part One of my interview with Robin Swicord, the director of The Jane Austen Book Club, which was released in theaters this week. So far the reviews are good, and I cannot wait to see the movie. Here is the conclusion of my interview:

Ms. Place: Maria Bello, Emily Blunt, Amy Brenneman, Kathy Baker, Maggie Grace, Hugh Dancy, Lynne Redgrave, and Jimmy Smits! What was it like directing such a sterling cast? Does any story about working with this group stand out?

Robin: Working with this cast was sheer pleasure. We kept an attitude of play throughout both rehearsal and the production, which began with our own lame attempt at a book club meeting (only Maggie Grace actually did the reading), and paid off especially in the eight large group scenes, when we had three cameras capturing performances in scenes (sometimes eight or ten minutes long) that were allowed to run from beginning to end without interruption. I chose actors who had theatre training as well as experience in television (a medium in which actors must work fast, with few takes) and in low-budget film – and I tried to get out of their way as much as possible. With such strong actors in every role, once we had established our understanding of the characters and the intention of every scene, all I had to do was be present near the camera, and occasionally step in to whisper a reminder. When I saw that we had captured what we were all working for, we moved on – usually after only two or sometimes three takes.

Filming with three cameras simultaneously gave us wonderful flexibility -- we could cover a take three different ways, or cover three different people, so performances tended to stay fresh. Occasionally I would begin a scene by sending away the crew, to allow the actors to play through the scene in private -- rehearsing or just doing a walk-through of the lines, or trying out business with props. I called this impromptu play-time “getting our feet under us”. It made our First Assistant Director (who had to keep us on task) extremely anxious to see me “waste” shooting time with an on-set rehearsal. But I saw that it really paid off not only in the pace of shooting, but in the pace of the scene. Plus it was fun to send the “grown-ups” away and take over the set for a little playtime.

On our budget --under $6 million – and with our schedule – only 30 days – we had little margin for error, and with a first time director, of course errors occurred! In our first week of shooting, Emily Blunt and Kevin Zegers filmed the scene in Prudie’s car, in which Prudie confides her secrets in Trey and Trey begins to kiss her. For speed we lit the scene for close-ups first, then changed the lighting for the wider two-shots. Because this scene had been both auditioned and rehearsed, I didn’t object to starting with the close-ups. I knew I could trust the actors, and we had a very ambitious day of shooting ahead of us. We shot the talking and kissing close-ups simultaneously to capture both performances at the same time. I saw that we had good performances in the first three takes, and we moved on to the two-shots. However, as we were filming the wider shots I realized that Emily and Kevin were just beginning to find the best of the scene. Their performances were becoming more nuanced, more real. In dismay I watched as Emily and Kevin just got better and better, their timing more poignant, the kiss more unexpected. I had a strong sense of how the scene would be cut together, and I knew that very little of this scene was likely to play in two-shot once we were editing the movie.

When we finished the two-shots and prepared to move to a separate part of the scene, I told our D.P. John Toon that we had to re-do the close-ups. I think he and the First A.D. (who kept us on schedule) were appalled. “We don’t go backward”, Toony said, but I quietly insisted, and without further objection John Toon and his team quickly relit the car. As they worked, I got into the car with Emily and Kevin and asked them to please “stay in the scene” and not leave the car for a break. Instead of being annoyed at having to re-do the close-ups, both actors were grateful, because they had felt the difference too, and they were eager to do better. A few minutes later, we filmed the close-ups again. When I saw the actors’ performances in the editing room, I was so happy that we had gone back for more; and grateful for Toony’s tolerance of a newbie director; and especially grateful to Emily Blunt and Kevin Zegers for their commitment to giving the strongest performance.
Clip from the movie when Maria Bello as Jocelyn meets Hugh Dancy as Grigg, the lone male in the Jane Austen Book Club

Ms. Place: Did Karen Joy Fowler have a hand in writing the script? Or choosing the actors? Did you consult her at any time before or during the movie’s production?

Robin: Karen wrote the novel; and several years later I wrote and directed the film. We didn’t talk before I began working on the adaptation. I loved delving into Karen’s novel. It’s actually comprised of six free-standing short stories, each with a character sketch of a member of the book club. In each short story Fowler tells the “back story” of a character – what had happened to each one in childhood, mostly – as well as describing the character’s unspoken thoughts during the book club meetings. These six stories are linked by a slender narrative thread. In adapting Karen’s truly enjoyable book, I made that narrative thread stronger, and slightly expanded upon Prudie and Grigg’s characters especially. Because our film is set very much in the maddening here and now (and not at all in the past), I couldn’t use much of the back stories Karen Joy Fowler wrote for Prudie and Grigg and Jocelyn – although between rehearsals the actors pored over the novel for clues to their characters! Soon after I finished my first draft of the screenplay, I went to Sacramento and Karen gave me a tour of the locations she had imagined when she was working on her novel. I photographed all around Sacramento and its outskirts, and referred to some of these images when we searched for Sacramento-like locations in Los Angeles County, where for budget reasons the film had to be shot. During pre-production I occasionally gave Karen updates on casting, but she didn’t really have a hand in any aspect of our filmmaking, except to give us a great tour of the Sacramento area, and write a novel that gave us a multitude of riches from which to work.

Ms. Place: Concluding our short talk, what would you suggest for my readers? See the movie first, then read the book? Or vice versa?

Robin: I don’t think it really matters whether you know the book first or even know Austen’s books beforehand – the film is obviously an adaptation of Karen’s terrific novel, but each stands alone as something to be enjoyed.

Thank you so much for answering my questions. I wish you much success with this new film. If it is half as good as the novel, I will love it. I adore your choice of cast, and I look forward to watching them play these characters.


Below are more thoughts from Robin Swicord (from the Sony Press Kit)

When John Calley asked me to read Karen Joy Fowler’s novel, The Jane Austen Book Club, I was at work on an original screenplay about a dysfunctional family of Jane Austen scholars, which I planned to direct for Sony Pictures. I had spent years immersed in Austenalia, not only reading Austen’s novels repeatedly, but also absorbing her letters and juvenilia, and making my way through various academic treatises which explored Austen’s life and work from every imaginable angle. I joked to my Sony executive that I was on the way to making the only light Hollywood comedy ever to need a bibliography appended to the credits. However, in reading The Jane Austen Book Club, I found myself no longer in the company of sparring intellectuals. Here were ordinary people more like me; readers, seeking shelter and companionship in books. That contemporary readers have found refuge in Jane Austen’s well-ordered novels isn’t surprising, given what we’re seeking shelter from—congested traffic, ringing cell phones, squealing security wands, waiting rooms with blaring televisions. Recently I noticed that four of Austen’s six novels were for sale at the newsstand at the Seattle airport. Spend a couple of hours trapped in a terminal waiting for a flight that’s been delayed, and you’ll be only too happy to withdraw into a semi-rural English village, two centuries in the past. When you begin to love Austen, her world doesn’t seem that antiquated. Her characters worry about money, deal with embarrassing family members, cringe at social slights, and spend more time than they should hoping to fall in love, even when the local prospects don’t seem that promising. In short, her people are just like us—but without the commute and the twelve-to-fourteen hour workday.

Swicord sums up the satisfying experience of directing her first feature with a quote from Jane Austen, the muse who was never far from the production’s heart: “In a letter to her niece, Austen speaks of her writing as “The little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much labour.” Making a movie is a world away from Jane metaphorically carving a piece of scrimshaw, but we’re really after the same thing: telling stories that reveal our lives and how we feel about love and friendship.”

Scroll down to the next post to read part two of this interview.

Robin Swicord: An Interview With The Screenwriter and Director of The Jane Austen Book Club, Part 1

Elegant Readers,

I've had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Robin Swicord, the director and screenwriter of the upcoming movie, The Jane Austen Book Club. Here, then, are her answers to my questions:

Ms. Place: Jane Austen is probably more popular today than ever before. Did directing the movie (and writing the script) change your perception of her? How and why?

Robin: For about ten years I had been immersed in all things Austen, in preparation for writing a comedy about a family of Jane Austen scholars – so I had already given a lot of thought to Jane Austen’s novels. So writing and directing TJABC didn’t change my perception so much as give me an opportunity to share with others my affection for her work and her wonderful characters.

Ms. Place: What are some of the more obvious parallels between the plot of this movie and the novels Jane Austen wrote?

Robin: Jocelyn is a matchmaker like Emma. Allegra is impulsive and unwise in love, like Marianne in Sense & Sensibility. Sylvia is the quiet foundation of her family, waiting and loving and trying not to hope – like Fanny Price in Mansfield Park. Like Anne Elliot in Persuasion, Prudie alienates the man she loves, and then is given a second chance to repair the relationship. Bernadette, like Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, finds humor in the foibles of others, and like Elizabeth, she worries about other people’s happiness. The lone man in the group, Grigg, embodies all of Austen’s worthy men in this very modern aspect – at first meeting, Grigg is misunderstood by the women of the club, and as in all of Austen’s novels, it takes a while for the woman he wants to see his good qualities and his readiness to love.


Ms. Place: If by some miracle Jane Austen could advise the members of the Jane Austen Book Club, what do you think she would tell them? In particular Jocelyn and Sylvia?
Robin: I can’t presume to speak in Austen’s voice (nor am I clever enough) but I’d imagine that Miss Austen might write Sylvia an email to spare her the embarrassment of receiving what might be unwelcome advice. Miss Austen would suggest that Jocelyn fix her own life before she tries to fix Sylvia’s. Austen would point out to Sylvia that it is a truth universally acknowledged that when your husband dumps your for a woman at the office, family and friends become even more important. And Miss Austen would say nothing at all to Prudie regarding her infatuation with Trey -- but instead she’d write to her sister Cassandra that a newly married young woman of her acquaintance is rumored to have behaved shockingly in a parked car with a young man who is not her husband.

I will post Part II of this interview over the weekend! To learn more about Robin, read her bio at Expert Spotlight :

While in New York, she wrote "Last Days at the Dixie Girl Cafe," for some fellow graduates of her alma mater who were setting up a theatre company. The play received good notices and eventually moved to off-Broadway. Swicord wrote the scripts for "Shag", which starred Bridget Fonda, and "You Ruined My Life", which was shown as a movie-of-the-week on CBS. She wrote and directed the recent film version of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" starring Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon. Swicord and her husband, Nicholas Kazan, wrote the screenplay for "Matilda" based on the novel by Roald Dahl. Other screen credits include screenwriter and producer of "Practical Magic" and "The Perez Family" and director and screenwriter of "Red Coat".

The only bit of trivia I'd like to add to this sterling resume is that Robin's father-in-law is the late Elia Kazan, director of On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire. Click here for Part Two of the interview. Click on the following links to learn more about the movie and Robin.

• About Robin Swicord

• Apple Trailers: Jane Austen Book Club

• For clips, book reviews, and first impressions about the movie, click on Austen blog.
  

More on Becoming Jane: Quotes From The Reviews

Once you admit that the Jane Austen depicted onscreen bears scant relation to any person named Jane Austen, living or dead, the film fulfills its purpose. I had never before considered her as a cricketer, for instance, and I am fairly sure that she never sought to elope, but I enjoyed both inventions—the one bucolic and triumphant, the other sodden and frustrated, and presumably meant as a precursor to Lydia’s running away with Wickham in “Pride and Prejudice.”

Lover Beware, Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, August 13, 2007

Becoming Jane is based on a chapter in Jon Spence's 2003 critical biography, Becoming Jane Austen. In the book, Spence does identify Tom Lefroy as the love of Austen's life and her relationship with him as the origin of her genius. But he never suggests that there was an aborted elopement (much less subsequent reading sessions with any of Lefroy's children). And he is careful, as the filmmakers are not, to clarify that in speculating about Austen's romantic experience he is reading between the lines of the family records and of the three rather opaque Austen letters that are his principal sources.

Deidre Lynch, See Jane Elope

I am listing only those reviews that reflect my take on the movie:

• Jane Isn't Quite Austen, But It is Quite Becoming

• See Jane Elope

Illustration by Lara Tomlin, New Yorker

Becoming Jane

I'm still digesting the movie and reading Jon Spence's Becoming Jane Austen. Of the four of us who saw Becoming Jane, the one who knew almost nothing about Jane Austen enjoyed the movie the most. Her reaction was curiosity. She wanted to go home and reread Jane's novels and to learn more about her personal life. She was also the only one of us who cried towards the end when Jane met Tom's daughter. To me the scene seemed contrived to provide a neat, pat ending to a rather trite tale.

After the lights turned on in the theater, my fellow Janeite, Lady Anne, and I exclaimed (almost simultaneously), "Nice movie, terrible biography." Two women in the row in front of us turned around, smiled, and agreed. We then briefly discussed "Amadeus," which was also a good film, but which portrayed Mozart's and Salieri's relationship inaccurately.

Click here for my other post about Becoming Jane, and to access other sites about the film. I'll write a more detailed critique about the film later, after finishing Spence's biography.

Becoming Jane

This weekend I am going to see Becoming Jane, which has finally come to our city. In my small Janeite group people are skeptical about the film. "What are the chances that Hollywood's take on her life will be accurate?" asked one. "I don't see how they can make an entire movie about a minor youthful romance," said another. "I didn't like that last (2005) interpretation of Pride and Prejudice," remarked a third, "so I don't hold out much hope that this movie will be any better."

"Anne Hathaway?"" I asked, my artist's sensibilities slightly ruffled and offended at this mismatch of visual cues. Seeing Anne's dramatic, gorgeous features disguised as Jane Austen, and watching her romp about the country side like a frisky young filly and making moon eyes at the actor playing Tom Lefroy in previews, well, it all seems anachronistic to me. In fact, to my eyes, watching Anne as Jane is like watching a parrot disguising itself as a thrush. Both birds are beautiful in entirely different ways.

I like my Jane Austen just as she is, thank you, no more and no less. In fact, I rather like the quiet, mysterious side of her and I don't need to see her life glammed up by Hollywood types whose main mission in creating a film is the bottom line. So I will see this movie with some trepidation.

Nevertheless, I'll try to see Becoming Jane with open eyes, since so many people are reporting that they like it and because it has garnered a number of good reviews, but something deep inside tells me to remember as I watch, "It's only a movie." As for my review of Becoming Jane, don't expect to see it soon. I intend to see the film twice and will take my time digesting what I have seen before writing my opinion.


Links to Becoming Jane

Did you intend to jump onto the Becoming Jane bandwagon, only to have stumbled across my quiet site? Here are some important links:

• Austen Blog: My touchstone Jane Austen site. Find a compilation of information about Jane Austen and Becoming Jane, and links to the other juggernaut Jane Austen sites.

• Becoming Jane Fansite: An unabashed fan site of the film that contains an enormous amount of information about the movie and actors, and speculations about Jane's romance with Tom.

• Following Austen: A site maintained by Lori Smith, author of A Walk With Jane Austen. Lori posted her take on Jane and Tom Lefroy's romance, The Truth About Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy, which was written well before the movie made its debut.

• Becoming Jane Austen icons: for those who just can't get enough images of the movie.

• My first post on Becoming Jane

Becoming Jane Has Arrived

But not in Richmond. We'll just have to make do with multiple photos of Anne Hathaway arriving for the New York City premiere. Click here to see them.


And here for an interview with Anne in the San Francisco Chronicle.


You can catch Anne on Live With Regis and Kelly on Wednesday, August 1.


Here's a trailer of the movie on Yahoo.

Masterpiece Theatre Presents the Complete Jane Austen

Click here to enter the PBS site and see a preview of the shows coming in 2008.

My Take On Regency Fashion in Film...

These days it is not uncommon to see prominent cleavage shown in films set during the Regency era, most recently in ITV's Mansfield Park, where the actress Billie Piper in the role of Fannie Price is dressed to show off her two best assets. Aside from her loose and riotous hair, with which I also find exception, this particular Fanny Price fails to exhibit in her daytime attire the modesty of character for which she is famously known. I understand the producers deliberately chose a livelier actress to play this rather stiff and morally upright heroine, but in my opinion they went overboard in "undressing" her.

In The Mirror of Graces a Lady of Distinction writes: "Indeed, in all cases, a modest reserve is essential to the perfection of feminine attraction." The author goes on to caution young women to "throw a shadow over her yet-unimpaired charms, than to hold them in the light..." In other words, modesty was the key for daytime attire. Bosoms were to be entirely covered, and if the dresses were designed with a low scoop neckline, they were "filled in with a chemisette (a dickey made of thin material) or fichu (a thin scarf tucked into a low neckline). Unlike today, cleavage was NOT a daytime accessory." Rakehell

In the image above, Catherine Morland (Felicity Jones) is shown in proper modest attire; her friend Isabella Thorpe (Carey Mulligan) is not. One imagines that the director and costume designer hoped to demonstrate the difference between the young ladies' temperaments through visual cues, but I found this inaccuracy to historical detail distracting.

Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility clung to a much more accurate picture of the modesty women displayed in those times.



A woman's assets could be revealed during the evening, however. Evening gowns allowed even a girl on the marriage mart to bare her bosom and arms, but she was also required to wear long evening gloves that came up high or over the elbow. In fact, James Gillray famously poked fun at the evening fashions of the day, depicting a slut dressed in evening attire without gloves. Shameless!

Despite Gillray's satiric viewpoint, a young lady of quality would only dare to go so far and then would step no further, as shown in the rather chaste evening gown from Vintage Textiles below and in the fronticepiece of The Mirror of Graces.

Neoclassic silk evening gown with metallic trim, 1800

Evening Gowns, Fronticepiece of The Mirror of Graces

Read more about Regency Fashion on this Jane Austen Centre site: A Tour of Regency Fashion: Day and Evening Dress

In addition, click on the Regency Fashion tag below in order to read all the posts in this blog on the topic.