Austen on Film

Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion will be dramatised by British TV station ITV1. This isn't the first time films/TV series based on the three books have been made. I've seen my share of really dismal adaptations, including a television version of Mansfield Park in which Fanny Price seemed decidedly "backward" and a film version where she was this bright, lively, witty thing!

Northanger Abbey, which is the Austen novel that makes me laugh the most will be adapted by Andrew Davies who was responsible for that brilliant TV version of George Eliot's Middlemarch - bodes well for NA.

Anyway, read the Guardian article about the films here. I hope we get to see them, sooner or later, on telly or DVD.

Which Fanny is the "real" Fanny?

a) Beautiful, vivacious, headstrong?

b) Slow, dull, spineless?

Here are (from left) Anne, Fanny and Catherine from Persuasion, Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey respectively. These are paperdolls from my favourite paperdoll site!

Comments

[neri]

i would love to see northanger abbey in action! i thought it was wickedly funny too! :)
it's unfashionable to like austen? really? oh well. i was never 'hip' anyways. hehe.

[Quella]

I prefer the latter Fanny - that 1980's production was far superior to the film. Fanny is not dull or slow or spineless - she is humble and sincere and has quiet depth; she shows moral tenacity when it is most needed, and because she doesn't sparkle with wit, is deemed an inferior being/heroine. She shows remarkable strength of character - simply of a different type to the 'characters' we are all used to in Austen. As one Amazon reviewer put it "love, respect and integrity" are at the heart of the book...she knew what she was writing, and she knew that life just doesn't turn out to be "Pride and Prejudice" for everyone". I concur. I hope the new production doesn't completely alter her character like the awful film did.

I have better hopes for Northanger Abbey (even though Peter Firth was rather nice in the last version).

I wish the BBC were doing it as well - they are far more restrained in their adaptations and *slightly* less about capturing the viewers with over-modern versions.

[Jane Sunshine]

It is so unfashionable to be an Austen fan these days but I loooveee all of them. Fanny Price is not the vivacious Emma or headstrong Elizabeth. But she has a quite charm and rare kind of dignity that shines on every page.

[Lee]

Oooh, not sure how to take this news. Although ITV has been a byword for 'button 3' for decades, it is now the giant that swallowed up Granada and Carlton (regional TV networks) in a merger. This sounds good you might think: Granada has, over the years, produced splendid adaptations of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie stories amongst others. But alas! Advertising revenues have been low since the merger (when ITV also had to relinquish many assets) so ITV doesn't have much money. So as much as I'd LOVE to see an adaptation of Northanger in particular, I think I'd rather the BBC did it. And at least we Brits don't have to suffer adverts that way!