Three Persuasions
Jul. 25th, 2022 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunnyskywalkerI tried watching the new adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion on Netflix and gave up after about 20 minutes. I’m not a purist; if they’d taken the basic idea and gone in another direction that was fun and interesting, I’d have been fine with it. But making Anne embarrass herself by getting caught mocking Captain Wentworth with jam on her face and blurting out awkward retorts at dinner was sadly just boring. Going through her box of memorabilia and referring to a collection of sheet music as the “playlist” Wentworth had made for her was a joke that almost landed, but didn’t. And if anyone knows whether there’s a point to Anne carrying a rabbit around, do let me know. I almost felt embarrassed for the movie, the way you do when a person is trying way too hard to prove how hip and witty they are when they’re, well, not. It’s a shame, because the sets and costuming and everything sure look pretty.
Jumping back in time, I also recently watched the 2007 Persuasion with the always-delightful Anthony Head as Sir Walter. It was fun and I enjoyed it well enough. They decided to make Wentworth rich enough to buy Kellynch Hall at the end as a wedding present for Anne, but whatever. It was a sweet moment, and like I said, I’m not a purist.
But jumping back another decade was the best decision. The 1995 Persuasion with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root is hands-down my favorite of the three. They got the skilled writers to adapt this one! It’s only 14 minutes longer than the 2007 version (which was a svelte 1 hour and 33 minutes), but it felt like it had twice as much content, while also not feeling rushed. That’s impressive! In fact, I think having more of those tiny connecting bits within and between scenes made it feel less rushed, or at least less choppy, while adding a lot in themselves. It had more of the darkly funny bits from the book, like a montage of poor Anne being subjected to a series of confidences from various Musgroves—those confidences mainly consisting of complaints about each other.
Interestingly, it wasn’t a contrast between the 1995 movie being talkier and the 2007 relying more on cinematic techniques like scenery and the actors' expressions. The 1995 version seemed to have both more dialogue and to make better use of cinematic techniques. Where the 2007 version opens with Anne helping pack up the house and then telling Lady Russell about her father’s debts and the move to Bath, the 1995 version opens with the family solicitor driving past a gardener at Kellynch Hall laboriously mowing the grass with a scythe while sheep do their bit by grazing. He then fights his way through a horde of creditors at the door demanding to know when they’re going to be paid, and joins the conversation where Lady Russell tries to persuade Sir Walter and Elizabeth to retrench while Elizabeth eats a box of chocolates. By the time they’ve convinced him to rent out the house, everyone’s eating sorbet. You see exactly how expensive their lifestyle must be in a couple of well-designed minutes. (Not to mention, dramatizing the decision is more interesting than just hearing about it after the fact, and it seems better story-wise to see such an important decision which kickstarts the plot.) We also get a deeper sense of the Crofts as a couple, and see the Admiral play with the little Musgrove boys like a doting grandfather. We see more of the Harvilles’ flimsy, cramped home and the Musgroves’ polite attempts not to show their shock that omg, people live like this? We see what a loving, welcoming home it is despite its size and condition.
Which brings up another point: the 1995 version is by far the best at showing that the story is just as much about Anne finding her place in the community of naval officers and their wives as it is about rekindling her romance with Captain Wentworth. (Okay, I didn’t watch enough of the 2022 version to say for sure, but it didn’t seem to be doing much of anything well, and I doubt it suddenly improved halfway through.) We see the lack of both love and intellectual stimulation in the Elliott home, the loving but unintellectual Musgrove home, and finally the naval characters with their unaffected kindness, adventurous lives, and interest in poetry and the life of the mind.
Oh, and if, like my dad, you look at the lighting in every historical movie, the night scenes in the 2007 version look like someone tried to split the difference between flat studio lighting and shadowy period lighting but didn’t manage it. (The 1996 Pride and Prejudice miniseries might be unrealistically lit but at least it looks “light and bright and sparkling,” not weirdly harsh. Where are the blue-white spotlights in this Persuasion meant to come from?) The 1995 version, on the other hand, looks appropriately candlelit.
Unless I find another great version, the 1995 Persuasion is my definitive movie adaptation.
Jumping back in time, I also recently watched the 2007 Persuasion with the always-delightful Anthony Head as Sir Walter. It was fun and I enjoyed it well enough. They decided to make Wentworth rich enough to buy Kellynch Hall at the end as a wedding present for Anne, but whatever. It was a sweet moment, and like I said, I’m not a purist.
But jumping back another decade was the best decision. The 1995 Persuasion with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root is hands-down my favorite of the three. They got the skilled writers to adapt this one! It’s only 14 minutes longer than the 2007 version (which was a svelte 1 hour and 33 minutes), but it felt like it had twice as much content, while also not feeling rushed. That’s impressive! In fact, I think having more of those tiny connecting bits within and between scenes made it feel less rushed, or at least less choppy, while adding a lot in themselves. It had more of the darkly funny bits from the book, like a montage of poor Anne being subjected to a series of confidences from various Musgroves—those confidences mainly consisting of complaints about each other.
Interestingly, it wasn’t a contrast between the 1995 movie being talkier and the 2007 relying more on cinematic techniques like scenery and the actors' expressions. The 1995 version seemed to have both more dialogue and to make better use of cinematic techniques. Where the 2007 version opens with Anne helping pack up the house and then telling Lady Russell about her father’s debts and the move to Bath, the 1995 version opens with the family solicitor driving past a gardener at Kellynch Hall laboriously mowing the grass with a scythe while sheep do their bit by grazing. He then fights his way through a horde of creditors at the door demanding to know when they’re going to be paid, and joins the conversation where Lady Russell tries to persuade Sir Walter and Elizabeth to retrench while Elizabeth eats a box of chocolates. By the time they’ve convinced him to rent out the house, everyone’s eating sorbet. You see exactly how expensive their lifestyle must be in a couple of well-designed minutes. (Not to mention, dramatizing the decision is more interesting than just hearing about it after the fact, and it seems better story-wise to see such an important decision which kickstarts the plot.) We also get a deeper sense of the Crofts as a couple, and see the Admiral play with the little Musgrove boys like a doting grandfather. We see more of the Harvilles’ flimsy, cramped home and the Musgroves’ polite attempts not to show their shock that omg, people live like this? We see what a loving, welcoming home it is despite its size and condition.
Which brings up another point: the 1995 version is by far the best at showing that the story is just as much about Anne finding her place in the community of naval officers and their wives as it is about rekindling her romance with Captain Wentworth. (Okay, I didn’t watch enough of the 2022 version to say for sure, but it didn’t seem to be doing much of anything well, and I doubt it suddenly improved halfway through.) We see the lack of both love and intellectual stimulation in the Elliott home, the loving but unintellectual Musgrove home, and finally the naval characters with their unaffected kindness, adventurous lives, and interest in poetry and the life of the mind.
Oh, and if, like my dad, you look at the lighting in every historical movie, the night scenes in the 2007 version look like someone tried to split the difference between flat studio lighting and shadowy period lighting but didn’t manage it. (The 1996 Pride and Prejudice miniseries might be unrealistically lit but at least it looks “light and bright and sparkling,” not weirdly harsh. Where are the blue-white spotlights in this Persuasion meant to come from?) The 1995 version, on the other hand, looks appropriately candlelit.
Unless I find another great version, the 1995 Persuasion is my definitive movie adaptation.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-26 02:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-27 12:47 am (UTC)One of the most baffling things to me in the 2007 version was when they changed the conversation about whether women love longest to the middle of the movie and make it basically a talking heads scene. They kept doing things like that, but that one really stood out. It made everything feel so much more static. The 1995 (I've just double checked and I got the date wrong!) version kept that conversation in its original spot near the end, and cut between showing Anne's and Harville's faces while they talk and Wentworth at the writing desk with them in the background, so we can see his reaction. It's an action scene! The conversation instigates a major decision! I'm so glad at least one version showed it so well.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-27 11:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-28 01:39 am (UTC)I really need to watch both this one and the 2007 version again back-to-back to try to figure out how camera angles and things like that affect them. I have a feeling that the 2007 version has a lot more "talking heads" shots. That plus some of the weird scripting decisions, like turning that conversation from part of a pivotal climactic decision into a random talking heads scene in the middle, make the 2007 version feel a lot more static than it seems it ought to. The actors are great! Everything looks great! It should have been as good as the earlier version, but those little things make such a difference.
But that will be a definite project...