What is it about dramatisations of Jane Austen that annoy me so much?
She is without doubt the wittiest author ever, and I suppose I've read and re-read 2 or 3 of her novels every year for the last 30 years.
I know there have been some shabby movies, TV shows and plays, but even those that are well executed make me feel, well, just wrong. Emma Thompson's Sense & Sensibility screenplay is readable in its own right, and in recent movies, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman and Kate Winslett performed their ickle socks off. Dammit, even Hugh Grant was credible. How did that happen?
I'm probably a purist where Austen's concerned; in the same way that Terry Pratchett and Charles Di
Ckens' puns need the spelling quirks of the english language to have their full impact, I need to read the words on the page.
Even the best reworkings feel as wrong as would "Star Wars - The Opera" or "Full Metal Jacket - a Ballet in 3 acts".
Having said all that, I still watch them in the knowledge that even when my teeth grind as the action skips over delicious social observations and word-games, the guile of her plots and characterisations will somehow shine through.
Oh, and not forgetting Jennifer Ehle's supreme Miss Bennett
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