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kitewithfishInspired by jerakeen , I thought I would give the 2005 Pride and Prejudice a rewatch, as part of discussion of whether Austen can really be adapted in the space of a conventional film, or if miniseries are always going to be the way to go. Since I re-watched the 1995 miniseries less than a month ago when I was home sick, this felt like a fair comparison.
Short Version: Oh, god, miniseries all the way.
Long Version: The 2005 film does have some great things to recommend it - Keira Knightly is awesome and certainly nothing to sneeze at. Judy Dench as Lady Catherine De Bourgh is finally an imposing figure, instead of just a self indulgent rich lady pissing and moaning about how people do things she doesn't like.
But the 2005 film simply doesn't have enough time to actually get into who Lizzie is - things happen at a breakneck pace, compared to the novel. There's almost no space for the characters to do the kind of careful, Austenish reflection on the people around them and the social implications of people's actions. The B plot of Jane and Bingley seems pretty shallow.
For example - the scene where Lizzie gets the letter from Jane that Lydia has run off with Wickham - shortened immensely. Instead of having a private moment with Darcy where they can both feel privately and deeply the impact of their mutual choice not to expose Wickham suddenly turning horribly against them, as in the novel and the 1995 miniseries, the 2005 adaptation merges that scene with Lizzie telling her aunt and uncle. So Lizzie and Darcy don't get their private moment together, where Lizzie imagines that Darcy is going to give up on a relationship with her forever with this news, and Darcy leaves to immediately go find Lydia and save the Bennets without telling Lizzie what he's going to do. That moment of horrible emotion and guilt and regret that they share is just sort of made weird and stilted because it's not private anymore - the Gardners are there watching the whole thing. It feels less like shared grief and more like just a recitation of "This is where the plot goes next, folks!"
In general, I feel like the film does a good job getting the stuffed into the film, so if you are familiar with the book, you can fill in the blanks without too much trouble. But it's not doing the book any favors, and it makes for a more trite and less interesting story. By the end of the film, I just kind of missed Lizzie Bennet.
jerakeen , I thought I would give the 2005 Pride and Prejudice a rewatch, as part of discussion of whether Austen can really be adapted in the space of a conventional film, or if miniseries are always going to be the way to go. Since I re-watched the 1995 miniseries less than a month ago when I was home sick, this felt like a fair comparison.Short Version: Oh, god, miniseries all the way.
Long Version: The 2005 film does have some great things to recommend it - Keira Knightly is awesome and certainly nothing to sneeze at. Judy Dench as Lady Catherine De Bourgh is finally an imposing figure, instead of just a self indulgent rich lady pissing and moaning about how people do things she doesn't like.
But the 2005 film simply doesn't have enough time to actually get into who Lizzie is - things happen at a breakneck pace, compared to the novel. There's almost no space for the characters to do the kind of careful, Austenish reflection on the people around them and the social implications of people's actions. The B plot of Jane and Bingley seems pretty shallow.
For example - the scene where Lizzie gets the letter from Jane that Lydia has run off with Wickham - shortened immensely. Instead of having a private moment with Darcy where they can both feel privately and deeply the impact of their mutual choice not to expose Wickham suddenly turning horribly against them, as in the novel and the 1995 miniseries, the 2005 adaptation merges that scene with Lizzie telling her aunt and uncle. So Lizzie and Darcy don't get their private moment together, where Lizzie imagines that Darcy is going to give up on a relationship with her forever with this news, and Darcy leaves to immediately go find Lydia and save the Bennets without telling Lizzie what he's going to do. That moment of horrible emotion and guilt and regret that they share is just sort of made weird and stilted because it's not private anymore - the Gardners are there watching the whole thing. It feels less like shared grief and more like just a recitation of "This is where the plot goes next, folks!"
In general, I feel like the film does a good job getting the stuffed into the film, so if you are familiar with the book, you can fill in the blanks without too much trouble. But it's not doing the book any favors, and it makes for a more trite and less interesting story. By the end of the film, I just kind of missed Lizzie Bennet.
