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It was interesting to read that Georgia Oakley, the director and Diana Reid the script writer have made the point that they have based their film on the 1811 first edition of Sense and Sensibility at the Bodleian Lbrary Oxford. That is probably to put everybody's mind at rest. They are serious about their adaptation. It had me immediately going to the various copies I have. My favourite, the Penguin Classics edition, the one I have read and studied the most, is based on that first 1811 edition. Earlier versions written in the epistolary style with the title Elinor and Marianne, no longer exist. Austen has been interpreted through various psychological and social theories. Why not? I saw a great version of Northangar Abbey on stage a couple of years ago that would have the purists choking on their dessert wine, Constantia. But it made you look and think about Austen in a different light altogether.
In the introduction to the Penguin Classic version they state,
“The editorial policy is one of minimum intervention: no attempt has been made to modernize spelling or punctuation, or to render spellings or punctuation, or to render spellings consistent so long as the variant spellings were acceptable in the period. Where any of these might cause difficulty to the modern reader the editor has offered help and explanation in a note.” (published in Penguin Classics 1995)
In 1795 Jane wrote Elinor and Marianne, a first version of Sense and Sensibility while she was still living in the rectory at Steventon, the place she had been born in . After she and her mother and sister, Cassandra, moved to Chawton from Southampton in 1809 after a sojourn in Bath and visiting various seaside places on the south coast, she rewrote her early novels . Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811. Presumably the story had been churning over in her mind for nearly sixteen years.
Daisy Edgar Jones with a Penguin Classic copy of Sense and Sensibiltiy.
I always think how can a film made in the 21st century tell a story about a world over two hundred years ago. A lot has changed. How has humanity changed? What can we learn from Sense and Sensibility?
Reviews are divided. There are those who loved Ang Lees 1995 version and those who love this recent version and never the twain may meet. I tried to go in with an open mind.
Jane Austen’s novels are concerned with the plight of young women, their marriage prospects and hence their future happiness. Sense and Sensibility is the epitome of this. Elinor is the sensible one who suffers her love for and apparent rejection by Edward Ferrers without letting people know, she keeps it very much to herself and we witness her internal struggle while trying hard to care for others and her sister. Marianne is the one , all sensibility, who lets her anguished feelings about the rejection she suffers from John Willoughby visible , shouting, yelling screaming and taking to her bed.
But what about the film? The plot of the film does not waver from the original text. It gets the story line absolutely right. The interpretting is done to take us close to the meaning of the novel. Keeping to the 1811 edition indeed.
One thing that I thought was inventive in this new film was the number of facial close ups. We see Elinors thoughts and emotions etched on her face, her eyes almost showing her inner thoughts. How difficult is it to act like that, just with your face. Daisy Edgar Jones, who is an excellent actress managed to purvey this quality. Us the viewers were taken into her inner life. We also see facial close ups of her two sisters Marianne and Margaret. Marianne is played by Esme Creed Miles who is excellent at being outwardly emotional. The film gets the emotional differences between the two elder sisters absolutely right.
Fiona Shaw.
Georgia Oakley takes a naturalistic approach. We feel that we could know these characters. Her appraoch makes the characters relateable. Is it possible to recreate the 18th century, portraying characters, how they might speak, behave and show or not show emotions? How were they socialised into feeling and believing and wanting? There is evidence through letters, novels and journals but we are left only tryng to imagine what it must be like. The best attempt at getting close to what being alive in the 18th century I think is Cheryl Butler’s, “First Impressions. Jane Austen’s Southampton Circle.” She delves into the journals and letters of 18th century women. We know our 21st century world and the feelings and emotions shaped by that. We cannot erase that from ourselves and become people from 200 years ago. We can only interpret the past through the present. Making it naturalistic gets us close to the meaning rather than keep us at a distance. Having said that , the dialogue is very Jane Austen. Phrases and words are lifted out of the novel.Perhaps as readers in the 21st century because of our passion for reading Austen we have relearned the sounds and rythms of Austen?
The clothing and hairstyles have been adapted to this naturalistic approach . The inner selves portrayed by the actors , showing spirit, a love of nature, their emotional sides, are better able to be portrayed by flowing hair and plain loose dresses.The sisters run wild in the fields around Barton Cottage and although I thought that the costumes the female actors wore were more akin to servants of the time,this created that more natural feel. They dressed more formally once they removed to London. The bonnets worn in London were elaborate creative adaptations. My wife, Marilyn liked them alot. No doubt they will be in the shops for Christmas.
I was a little taken aback by the dances, at first, the balls the Dashwoods attend in London. I have read that the choreographer, Holly Blakey, adapted 18th century dances in a modern expressive way attempting to portray emotion and developing the different relationships . There is a wildness, twirling, heads thrown back, necks twisting and arching ,a passionate erotic closeness which portrays their inner feelings in this film. Those balls at Bath in the 18th century were all about young men and women getting close and forming relationships and getting physical in a permitted , controlled situation. Many of us are used to attending the 18th century balls held at Bath each year , at Alton, during the Regency Festival Week and at various other venues around the world. Those dances are exact replicas or as near as possible, to dances danced in the 18th century. This is all very good and entertaining. However ,authentic copying of dances like that lose part of the original meaning. In the 18th century they would know the social and sexual interpretation. They would be aware of what they were doing on that social and personal level. This modern interpretation brings those social and personal interactions to the fore for us in the 21st century in a way that is obvious. The dances are emotive and compelling. They are brilliant.
This film exagerates not only emotions but also heightens the plight of women looking for marriage. It made me think of Jane Austen’s own predicament. She failed to get married and all that entailed for her life. In her novels there are bad marriages, there are failed marriages , there are marriages such as the marriage of Mr and Mrs Bennett that make you wonder , what a weird 18th century warped relationship that is, never mind how quirky and amusing.There are the happy marriages too. Not many women fail to be married by the end of an Austen novel. In Sense and Sensibility Elinor and Marriane both end up with happy satisfying mature relationships. The mature element being key to Marianne and Colonel Brandon. Why did Austen’s heroines all get married? Was it merely to create a satisfying ending for her readers? Perhaps her audience expected it.Or was it because she herself was not fulfilled and she so desperately wanted to be? Her novels perhaps were wish fulfilment. It makes us the 21st century reader wonder what would have happened if some of Austens main female characters were left unmarried. How would her novels have been received?
The cottage on Dartmoor used for Barton Cottage.
The scenery is fantastic in this film. Barton Cottage is set in the county of Devon and the lush countryside, Dartmoor’s expanse and the beach scene is the Devon I know. When I saw the London Street scenes, which are few, I thought , I know where that is. Horse Guard Parade in Whitehall is grand and magnificent, built in white Portland Stone. I am not sure Whitehall fits the London Street scenes though. Almost too grand. Using Lincoln Inn Fields is a better fit. The houses in Lincolns Inn Fields are mostly Georgian and the square has the correct character for the period. Sir John Soanes House was appropriately used as part of the films backdrop.In the novel the streets featured where key characters live include Bond Street, Pall Mall and Conduit Street. Those streets retain some Georgian buildings so it is not beyond the imagination that they could be used in filming. But these streets are full of traffic, high end shops and many businesses and offices. Setting them as a film location would have been impossible I think. The interior filming was obviously set in many a National Trust Property located around the country just like in most Austen film adaptations. The interiors were sumptuous as usual.
Many of the actors I did not at first recognise, apart from Daisy Edgar Jones and Fiona Shaw , who plays Mrs Jennings,. However after a GOOGLE search for them I realised that I have seen most of them in various plays, films and TV series before. Thurlough Convery who plays Sir John Middelton was the hypochondriac Arthur Parker in Sanditon. He is amazing playing Sir John, the sort of performance that takes you aback and makes you think, am I really seeing what I am seeing. You must see the film to understand. Fiona Shaw, well, she is hilarious. What a performance, and she does it with a Cornish accent or is that a slightly adapted Irish accent? She is Irish after all. The youngest sister Marageret played by Bodhi Brae Breathnach is now fifteen years old. She was Shakespeare’s daughter in Hamnet. All the cast were wonderful. They all managed to invest their portrayal of Austens characters with the spirit and humanity or lack of it Austen gave them in her novel.
Norland Park ( Kingston Russell House in West Dorset)
Austen’s novels are full of wit and dry humour. I think the wit and humour in Sense and Sensibility has been captured very well in this film. I have already mentioned Fiona Shaw’s portrayal of Mrs Jennings and Turlough Convery’s exquisite enactment of Sir John Middleton but there are more wonderful comedic performances. Fanny Dashwood and John Dashwood, the inheritor of the Dashwood house Norland Park played by Stacy Martin and Tom Brooke both portray to exaggerated levels a strategic selfishness and in the case of John Dashwood, the stupid and gormless adherence to his wife’s scheming greed.It is illustrated in a laughable way as the Dashwood mother and daughters are driven away in their carriage, John finally appears at the top of the steps leading up to the house with a final, reduced in size gift, a small vase which also is not given. He’s too late. The possible list of money and items ever decreasing in amount proferred to his step sisters never materialises. Cry and laugh at the same time comes to mind. Then there is Mrs Jennings daughter and son in law. If ever you need to have a quiet as a mouse,thoughtless, dim witted companion, the weather forecasting Mrs Palmer is the one, played brilliantly by Bethany Slater. Interestingly Mr Palmer is played by Eliot Sumner, the daughter of Sting and Trudy Styler. They, play the part as a morose irritated Mr Palmer more interested in hunting and his newspaper than human interaction. The Palmers play their parts with dark humour. The icily beautiful Ceara Coveney plays Lucy Steel with some steel in her heart. Mrs Dashwood played by Caitriona Balfe is wonderful as the Dashwood mother. Like all Austen mothers she is concerned about her daughters marriage prospects to a voracious degree.
Then there are two male leads. Herbert Nordrum is excellent as Colonel Brandon. His moody expressions portray a tender inner self. I am not often drawn to violence but I could have punched John Willoughby, played by Frank Dillane ,in the face on a number of occasions in the film. Dillane makes his Willoughby self satisfied, with a superior look that knows women are his to take. Of course in the end he falls from his great height. A very believable performance. I used to find it hard to choose between Willoughby and Wickham as to which was Austen’s most dastardly character. After thinking about, researching and writing about Wickham in the past, I can explain Wickham but not Willoughby. Willoughby wins out as the worst of men.
The ODEON theatre in Wimbledon on Friday,did it have had a happy buzz? Just behind us were a row of young ladies, in their early twenties. At the end of the film one uttered excitedly. “That was so good.” Her friends muttered agreement. I have never overheard that before in a film theatre. They were obviously emotionally satisfied by the film. I must admit I came out of the theatre a little like those twenty year olds sitting behind us, feeling I had gone through an emotional rollercoaster. I was buzzing too.
