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mayoraaseiI hate myself for the curiosity that induced me to watch the Keira Knightley edition of Pride & Prejudice, thinking that since it's been years since I last saw her face (in Pirates of the Caribbean) perhaps I can get over her permanently Botoxed pout that reminds me so much of a certain Anoshito.
To start off the travesty, everyone speaks as though they've got a gun rammed up their asses and needs to get out their lines at twice the speed of comprehensibility so that they don't get shot. Can you understand, in those circumstances, how frightfully curt and pained they must sound?
The script runs like some high school kid's attempt at appropriating the great novel for an assignment and then ran out of time and copied&pasted the rest of the novel in. It is entirely not a coincidence then that the best lines are the novel's original. The rest of it is full of anachronistic and childish sentiments. "Don't you dare judge me, Lizzie." REALLY. Jane Austen can kill you with a pen.
Whoever wrote it had clearly not read the original. Neither, clearly, had the main actors. If Mr Bennet thought he had three of the silliest girls in the country in the novel, he has five of the stupidest, most ignorant and giggly girls in the country. Even sensible, kind Jane spent half her time giggling like an ill-cultured schoolgirl. Even Mr Bennet giggled in the end. UGH. And everyone in the bloody film appears to be in dire need of propriety. What does she mean to lope about in the countryside half dressed and alone before the crack of dawn??
And don't think you can distract me from the ludicrousness of the entire exercise by misty sunrises and twinkling piano music. If you can spend so much time filming landscape you could perhaps tell your actors to give situations their appropriate gravity. What does he mean by shooting out his confession (perhaps the most well-known confession of love in English literature) like he can't wait to get out of there and have a stiff drink???
I really liked Mr Bennet in the book. Oh, he's a terrible father, whose idea of education had been to allow his sillier daughters to expose themselves as much as possible in the hopes they could be burned by the exercise. He is a terrible husband, who trifles with Mrs Bennet for his own amusement. His sardonic good humour is what's been able to bear him through his life with such silly women, but it is also what brought about the predictable tragedy of Lydia's elopement, which served as a great lesson to him. None of this was present in the film.
Jane was supposed to be a sweet and gentle creature, possibly the ideal gentlewoman of her time. The film showed none of her kindness, her wish to forgive others for every fault, that set her apart from her sisters and made her union with Mr Bingley such a perfect fairytale. Mary spent all her time in front of the piano, without showing that it was motivated by an inferiority complex. Georgiana was again far too giggly and forward, she had none of the shyness that was mistaken for arrogance. Miss de Bourgh looked far too pretty and healthy.
And Lizzie is just a bitch. She is mean-spirited even in the book - not quite as vulgar as Lydia nor Kitty, but hardly as well-meaning as Jane - but she is NEVER outright rude unless someone has clearly overstepped decency to provoke her.
Darcy and Bingley might as well have been cast as trees for as much as I remember of them.
I am now going to rewatch the BBC version to wash my mind of this thing.
To start off the travesty, everyone speaks as though they've got a gun rammed up their asses and needs to get out their lines at twice the speed of comprehensibility so that they don't get shot. Can you understand, in those circumstances, how frightfully curt and pained they must sound?
The script runs like some high school kid's attempt at appropriating the great novel for an assignment and then ran out of time and copied&pasted the rest of the novel in. It is entirely not a coincidence then that the best lines are the novel's original. The rest of it is full of anachronistic and childish sentiments. "Don't you dare judge me, Lizzie." REALLY. Jane Austen can kill you with a pen.
Whoever wrote it had clearly not read the original. Neither, clearly, had the main actors. If Mr Bennet thought he had three of the silliest girls in the country in the novel, he has five of the stupidest, most ignorant and giggly girls in the country. Even sensible, kind Jane spent half her time giggling like an ill-cultured schoolgirl. Even Mr Bennet giggled in the end. UGH. And everyone in the bloody film appears to be in dire need of propriety. What does she mean to lope about in the countryside half dressed and alone before the crack of dawn??
And don't think you can distract me from the ludicrousness of the entire exercise by misty sunrises and twinkling piano music. If you can spend so much time filming landscape you could perhaps tell your actors to give situations their appropriate gravity. What does he mean by shooting out his confession (perhaps the most well-known confession of love in English literature) like he can't wait to get out of there and have a stiff drink???
I really liked Mr Bennet in the book. Oh, he's a terrible father, whose idea of education had been to allow his sillier daughters to expose themselves as much as possible in the hopes they could be burned by the exercise. He is a terrible husband, who trifles with Mrs Bennet for his own amusement. His sardonic good humour is what's been able to bear him through his life with such silly women, but it is also what brought about the predictable tragedy of Lydia's elopement, which served as a great lesson to him. None of this was present in the film.
Jane was supposed to be a sweet and gentle creature, possibly the ideal gentlewoman of her time. The film showed none of her kindness, her wish to forgive others for every fault, that set her apart from her sisters and made her union with Mr Bingley such a perfect fairytale. Mary spent all her time in front of the piano, without showing that it was motivated by an inferiority complex. Georgiana was again far too giggly and forward, she had none of the shyness that was mistaken for arrogance. Miss de Bourgh looked far too pretty and healthy.
And Lizzie is just a bitch. She is mean-spirited even in the book - not quite as vulgar as Lydia nor Kitty, but hardly as well-meaning as Jane - but she is NEVER outright rude unless someone has clearly overstepped decency to provoke her.
Darcy and Bingley might as well have been cast as trees for as much as I remember of them.
I am now going to rewatch the BBC version to wash my mind of this thing.
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 10:33 am (UTC)What does she mean to lope about in the countryside half dressed and alone before the crack of dawn??
omgilu
I actually haven't seen ALL of this movie, just a few parts, but the parts I saw were dreadful. Like Lizzie showing up at Netherfield looking stunning and gorgeous, glowing in the improbable light of the room, despite her muddy petticoats and haystack hair. Also, Keira Knightly always seems to spin off her lines like that; I imagine it makes her feel clever. Mr. Bingley was dull as a rock, from what I remember, which is very little. And I like how they conveniently cut out Mrs. Hurst.
I agree about the shitty lines, about pretty much everything, from what little I did see of the movie (but I wouldn't call Lizzie mean-spirited, although the BBC Lizzie is a little too virtuous). Can I watch the BBC version with you? Everyone's adorable in that.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 01:37 pm (UTC)I suppose mean-spirited is a bit stronger than what I'm thinking of. Lizzie can be mean though, when she is partial. The novel hinted she thought quite badly of Miss King (the girl whom Wickham flirted briefly with) and she also snarked when she first saw sickly Miss de Bourgh that she'd be perfect for Darcy...which I thought was a pretty mean thing to say about a girl she knew nothing of and whom she's clearly only judging by appearance.
Yeah, my only complaint about the BBC version is Lizzie is a bit too sweet. She's still mischievous and sharp, but she seemed a little too demure to be "lively" even for young women of those days, surely? But in a way I also loved the way she delivered her lines with such grace and took the meanness out of the phrasing and made it merely playful, and that quality could convince me about her attracting Darcy's attention and admiration.
I don't think we even got to see Knightly's muddy petticoat, but surely women of her day wouldn't have walked around with their hair lusciously loose? And people were saying that it's completely ridiculous that they were all walking around with their hair uncovered because Regency women wore at least a bonnet during the day.
Mr Bingley was terrible. I loved him in the book and he was so cute in the BBC version, terribly embarrassed by his sisters and sympathetic with Jane for her embarrassing relations, but always so earnestly nice he'd try to patch up any animosity. He looked like a Twitlight Cullen in the movie =___=
On the topic of bad makeup, I kept getting distracted by blonde Jane/Rosamund Pike's lush black lashes. I love how in the BBC making Alison Steadman (Mrs Bennet) said they weren't even allowed to wear mascara because it wouldn't have been authentic for the time.
So anyway, I watched the ending of the BBC version again, and the kiss on the carriage is so much better =3=
no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 10:15 pm (UTC)*SNORT* I can never unsee that image.
I haven't read the book or watched the movie, but I absolutely HATE when screenwriters completely miss the whole spirit of a character (or the whole plot in some cases.) *RAGE*