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Earliest Version & Glorious
Version
The
earliest adaptation I could find was a British production done in 1938,
starring Curigwen Lewis as Elizabeth Bennet and Andrew Osburn as
Darcy. Not surprising considering the cast, there's
not a lot of information available on it.
But two years later came a glorious
Hollywood version directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Greer
Garson and Laurence Olivier, two huge stars of the time. It's
on the New York Times List of Top 1000 films, won
an Academy Award for Best Set Design, and is beloved by many.
The screenplay was written by Aldous Huxley (with Jane Murfin), author
of Brave New World and Crome Yellow.
He captured the fun of Austen's novel, but in the taste of the time (it
was, of course, the period of World War II in England), he removed
Austen's biting
wit.
There
are some "flaws" in the film when viewed with our contemporary
standards. Most noticeable upon viewing is that the costuming
was all wrong--women were in lovely almost Victorian gowns, but for the
most part costuming was generic "Hollywood old". And then
Greer Garson, a wonderfully talented actor who went on to win the 1942
Academy Award for her title performance in Mrs. Miniver and
was nominated for an Academy Award seven times, was 36 when she played
the 20-year-old Elizabeth Bennet. There's a difference
between a woman of 36 and a girl of 20, and it shows in her
performance. She seems wiser and more knowing than the
Elizabeth of the book.
But
overall, this is a lovely adaptation of the novel. It's the
light romantic fun side of the novel, and the performances are
top-notch all around. Laurence Olivier is a perfect Darcy,
age notwithstanding Greer Garson is a sparkling Elizabeth, and Mary
Boland is a perfectly dizzy Mrs. Bennet. Edna May Oliver,
playing on type, makes a wonderful Lady Catherine De Bourgh.
When I have used it in class, students have almost universally enjoyed
it. And for good reason. Although there were later
adaptations of the novel, this one was the standard until the BBC
version in 1995.
BBC Mini-Series
The
BBC mini-series, directed by Simon Langton, has been called "the best
BBC mini-series," high praise indeed for a company famous for its
quality work. Starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, it has
gone on to be part of an "in-joke" in Helen Fielding's novel Bridget
Jones's Diary. That novel, of course, is a
reworking of Pride and Prejudice with Bridget
Jones being the Elizabeth Bennet character and Mark Darcy being the
Darcy character. In the Fielding novel, Bridget is enamored
of Colin Firth and his role as Darcy. She reruns the tape
over the scene of him emerging from a lake in a wet shirt over and over
again. When it came time to cast the Bridget Jones film, who
else could play Mark Darcy but Colin Firth?
In-joke
aside, this is an excellent adaptation, but because it was originally a
television mini-series, it runs to 5 ½ hours, so there is much more
time to include materials. The 1940 film version is only 118
minutes long. That's a huge difference!
Producer
Sue Birtwistle had read Pride and Prejudice "at least one hundred and
fifty times" from the age of fifteen when she decided to pursue a film
adaptation: "I am still finding things in [the novel]. I admire Austen
so much more now that I see there is not a word wasted [in her
novels]." ("Behind the Scenes")
There
is also considerable attention to period detail. The costumes
and settings are quite authentic, so that gives the film considerable
value in a classroom when one is trying to show students what things
would have looked like in Austen's time.
"One
of the principal locations for "Pride and Prejudice" was Lacock, in
Wiltshire, England. In order to transform the town into a Regency
period village, set designers paid special attention to detail and had
to ask residents and storeowners for permission to change the paint,
doors, windows, and doorknobs of their homes and shops.
"On
her first Regency film, costume designer Dinah Collin sought to create
dresses that were authentic. With a camera and sketchbook in hand,
Collin searched costume shops and museums from Bath to Bradford, from
Winchester to Worthing, and from Manchester to Rome in pursuit of
Regency style examples. Collin also read everything she could about the
period." ("Behind the Scenes")
The
acting was well done as well. Jennifer Ehle (pronounced
EE-le) won a BAFTA for her performance (the British Academy of Film and
Television Arts), and she does an excellent job of bringing Elizabeth
Bennet to life. (An interesting trivia bit, Ehle is the
daughter of English actress Rosemary Harris, known to young film-goers
as Peter Parker's Aunt Mae in the two recent Spiderman films.)
As
I've mentioned above, Colin Firth's performance has become iconic, but
wet shirt aside, he, too, does a fine job and really shows the struggle
between Darcy's inclinations and his pride. He was nominated for a
BAFTA for his performance.
Another
standout in the cast is Julia Sawalha as Lydia Bennet. Though
her volume and pitch are annoying and grating after five hours of
viewing, her performance shows us Lydia's shallowness and ignorance
quite well.
Other
versions include a 1952 mini-series, a 1967 TV version, a very popular
1980 miniseries (with a script by Fay Weldon, another English writer of
biting satire), and Andrew Black's little-seen modern update 2003
feature film in which Elizabeth Bennet is a hard-working college
student!
Bollywood Version
In
2004 we also got the Bollywood version, Bride and Prejudice directed
by Bend it Like Beckham's Gurinda
Chadha. In this version there's an Elizabeth Bennet
character, Lalita Bakshi, who falls in love with Will Darcy.
The mixed-marriage here isn't based on social class but on Indian vs
English. The film got mixed reviews, but it was a clever way
of updating the material and it played with the current English
cinema's interest in Bollywood (this is the name for the Indian film
industry, a huge, but until recently, domestic venture.
Bollywood productions are famous for their chastity--India is a largely
religious country--music, dance, color and high drama and romance).
Finally,
as I write this, another production of Pride and Prejudice is
in post-production. The cast sounds wonderful.
Here's something I found in The San Francisco Bay Guardian's
article on Pride and Prejudice adaptations:
'Pride
and Prejudice' (due fall 2005)
Interpretation:
faithful to Austen
Key
players: Keira Knightley (Elizabeth Bennet), Dame Judy Dench (Lady
Catherine De Bourgh), Brenda Blethyn (Mrs. Bennet), Donald Sutherland
(Mr. Bennet)
Darcy:
Matthew MacFadyen, a Brit known to U.S. audiences for appearing on the
A&E series MI-5.
Are
we excessively diverted? Sight unseen, there's no telling. The casting
of the older generation is airtight, but the unproven Knightley misses (King
Arthur) as often as she scores (Bend It Like
Beckham)."
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