Volume 43, Number 2 · February 1, 1996
What Jane Austen Doesn't Tell Us
By Louis Menand
Sense and Sensibility
a film directed by Ang Lee, screenplay by Emma Thompson
Persuasion
a film directed by Roger Michell, screenplay by Nick Dear
Clueless
a film directed by Amy Heckerling, screenplay by Amy Heckerling
Pride and Prejudice 1996
directed by Simon Langton, screenplay by Andrew Davies. produced by BBC Television Arts and Entertainment, January 14—16,
The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film
by Emma Thompson
Newmarket Press, 287 pp., $23.95
The Making of 'Pride and Prejudice'
by Sue Birtwistle, by Susie Conklin
Penguin/BBC, 120 pp., £9.99
The six-hour Pride and Prejudice now showing on the Arts and Entertainment network is the fourth screen adaptation of a Jane Austen novel to appear since August, though it is by no means the best. This Pride and Prejudice is a BBC production; the script is by Andrew Davies, who did the BBC Middlemarch shown here on Masterpiece Theatre two years ago. Like the Middlemarch, it is a generally dutiful rendition with not the shadow of an idea in sight except the idea that Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy are two uncommonly good-looking people who have simply got to get past all these ridiculous social hang-ups so they can be where they ought to be, which is together.
Review, 4801 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |