These several days past have been filled with buzzing excitement. My sisters and I, along with my dear mother, have been making preparations for the upcoming Christmas festivities. In my spare time I have been reading the delightful quiz of a novel, Northanger Abbey by "A Lady". Also, I stumbled across some moving picture adaptations of Emma, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion* that I had not yet seen. I must add that I thought they took rather preposterous liberties with that lady's manuscripts. That fact aside, they were delightful films in and of themselves.
All of these things were accomplished while, unknown to myself, fellow blogger Miss Dashwood challenged the world to do the very same things during the next fortnight in honour of Miss Austen's 236th birthday on the 16th of December.
In Christ,
Miss Wylie
* Emma (2009) Mansfield Park (2007) Persuasion (2007). My reflections are as follows.
Emma: Romola Garai, Jonny Lee Miller: All in all a faithful adaptation of the novel. I preferred Miller's portrayal of Mr.Knightley, it being slightly more sarcastic and less temperamental then Jeremy Northam and Mark Strong's portrayal of the same character. Also a point in favor of this adaptation Mr. Elton was less creepy, and just as annoying.
Mansfield Park: Billie Piper, Blake Ritson: Not my favorite version of this story, but it did have a few saving graces. For one, Sir Thomas' character was faithful to the novel. You truly see his affection toward Fanny in the end. I know that in the story, Lady Bertram is supposed to be a sort of sleepy individual, but I liked the way this one ended with her sharp eye and tongue helping the lovebirds along. I liked this Fanny equally as much as I liked the other film's Fanny. Everything else was better in the 1999 version. (Plus, Blake Ritson is much better suited to playing Mr. Elton in the above version of Emma, and I firmly believe he should leave Mr. Edmund Bertrum to Jonny Lee Miller)
Ta for now! and thanks for reading :)
I quite adore the 2009 version of Emma! The quotes and details could have been closer, but I thought it really captured the feeling of Emma and had excellent acting. (Except Jane Fairfax.) And I loved Jonny Lee Miller's Mr. Knightley! =D
ReplyDeleteI actually never finished watching that Mansfield Park...the only one I've seen is the older version, and it's the only one I'd approve of (I am quite against the 1999 version) because it's the only one faithful to the book, but it's too old of a BBC miniseries to be well-made. Such a pity. I think we really need a new one of that!
And I agree that we need another Persuasion! When I read the book I thought of so many things that could make a perfectly marvelous mini-series! I wrote about them in my Persuasion movies post. =)
Thank you so very much for reading my blog! I agree about "Miss Fairfax'" acting, though I loved the way her character was written.
ReplyDeleteI had never known there were so many adaptations of the novel "Mansfield Park" I am glad though, to learn that there is a faithful to the manuscript version! I'd quite given up on such a thing!