SENSE & SENSIBILITY BICENTENARY CELEBRATION - Sense and Sensibility on film by Alexa Adams + Giveaway!

 After Jennifer Becton's Men, Marriage and Money in Sense and Sensibility, here's our second monthly issue for The Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary Celebration on My Jane Austen Book Club. February  is for Alexa Adams, author of the highly delightful, First Impressions. A Tale of Less Pride and Prejudice and blogger at First Impressions  . She has chosen to write about Sense and Sensibility in Film .  Join  Alexa Adams in the discussion of the several different adaptations. 

GIVEAWAY!!!

Leave your comment and e-mail address to get the chance to win a region 1 DVD  (USA, Canada, Bermuda , U.S territories) of Sense & Sensibility 1995 starring Emma Thomson, Hugh Grant,  Kate Winslet , Greg Wise and Alan Rickman in the main roles. The name of the winner will be announced on 28 February. Open to readers from the areas mentioned in brackets above.Good luck!

I consider Sense and Sensibility to be one of Austen's novels best suited for film adaptation, an opinion premised largely in the fact that all four of the cinematic versions of it succeed in both entertaining and sticking to the story. This book doesn't seem to be a candidate for the kind of misinterpretation that Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey have been subjected to, the heroine of the former frequently being massively altered, while film makers cannot seem to resist the lure of the Gothic the latter inherently mocks. I have pondered what makes Sense and Sensibility so appropriate for the visual medium and have landed upon two notions: the balance of having two heroines that embody opposite personalities traits which, conveniently, also convey the story's theme, and the variety of settings the novel provides, each projecting a distinct emotional experience for our characters. 

These facets of the tale make it easy for film makers to translate it to the screen while staying true to form, be it in the matter of our earliest adaptations, the two mini-series produced by the BBC in 1971 and 1981, which only slightly deviate from the novel, or in that of the later versions, Hollywood's 1995 production and the BBC's 2008 mini-series, which embrace what Austen scholar Daniel R. Mangiavellano calls “adaptation as elaboration” in his 2008 essay, “A Thoroughly Elinor Sort of Way: Elinor's Sensibility in Masterpiece’s Sense and Sensibility” (Persuasions V. 29, No. 1). This means that these newer films not only include details just hinted at in the novel, but also create entirely new scenes premised in the film makers' individual interpretations of the story. For purists, this posses problems (Mangiavellano points to the opening scene of the 2008 film, in which Willoughby's seduction of Eliza is dramatized, as an example), but for those who find the slow, methodical pace of the BBC adaptations made in the 70's and 80's tedious, it is a strength: though a degree of accuracy is sacrificed, the result is a richer cinematic experience.

We all have our biases regarding these films (mine fully rest with the 1995 version), and I could use this opportunity to debate their relative merits, but I think it more in keeping with the nature of this bicentenary celebration to dwell on what all do well, like the vitally important aspect of properly casting our heroines. The earliest Elinors (Joanna David in 1971 and Irene Richard in1981) do such a good job of capturing the character's pragmatism that they were chosen to play two equally practical Austen creations, Mrs. Gardiner (1995 Pride and Prejudice) and Charlotte Lucas (1980 Pride and Prejudice). Their respective counterparts, Ciaran Madden and Tracey Childs, both capture Marianne's destructively passionate nature, the former putting more emphasis on her melodramatic tendencies while the latter focuses on her disdain for the lack of sensibility in others. 

Arguments abound about Emma Thompson's age appropriateness for the role of Eleanor in 1995, but most can agree that she performs it magnificently, as did Hattie Morahan in 2008. Both actresses display the passion Elinor buries within her, revealing that her sensibilities are equal to Marianne's, only kept in check. Kate Winslet (1995) and Charity Wakefield (2008) provide similar interpretations of Marianne, emphasizing her similarities to the modern teenager – unrestrained, determined, and self-centered – without sacrificing those qualities that make her so sympathetic to audiences. All four films play Elinor and Marianne against each other, just as Austen does, in order to strike that essential balance between the title characteristics, creating, by the end of the story, perfected heroines; Elinor is freed to indulge her sensibilities, while Marianne has learned to weigh hers with sense. 

Barton Cottage ( 2008 )

Norland (1995)

While the earlier films are both financially and technologically hampered, they still manage, like their successors, to tie the developing emotional status of our heroines to their changing locations. In the book, Norland Park symbolizes the security the Dashwood ladies loose upon their father's death. It is therefore presented on film as a solid, imposing edifice, conveying a sense of the wealth and stability that defined their lives up to this point. In comparison, Barton Cottage is very humble, but it is also picturesque, appropriately representing their fluctuating emotions and social status. In regards to the 1995 film, Austen scholar Sue Parrill, in her 1999 essay “What Meets the Eye: Landscape in the Films Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility” (Persuasions, No. 21), points to a deliberate “contrast between Norland and Barton Cottage, and scenery that would suggest the melancholy feelings of the Dashwoods, who have lost father, husband, lover, and home.” In both this film and the 2008 version, this effect is increased by making Barton Cottage far less 
comfortable than Austen portrayed it, for whom intimate knowledge with William Gilpin's theories regarding of the picturesque were sufficient to create this atmosphere without subjected the Dashwoods to actual physical discomfort. The 2008 film takes the element of environment even further, transplanting the cottage to the coast in order to take advantage of crashing waves and rocky promontories as a means of increase the emotional tension. 

We next find Elinor and Marianne transplanted to Mrs. Jennings' home in London in which, while commanding all the modern comforts, they are distinctly guests, corresponding to their alienation while in the capital, as enforced by their treatment in the hands of Mrs. Ferrars, John and Fanny Dashwood, and Lucy Steele. Appropriately, Mrs. Jennings home is always portrayed rather starkly. Despite its luxury, formality defines the space. Finally at Cleveland, where they are literally trapped influx, somewhere between London and home, the house and grounds are portrayed as combining the qualities of town, Barton, and Norland. This is where all our oscillating emotions begin to come full circle. The style of house invokes Norland, improvements such as a Grecian temple resembles the atmosphere of London, but the more wild landscape, where Marianne takes her walks, invokes Barton. This is best captured in the later films, as their budgets allowed, and the turmoil of the moment is further enhanced in both by rain, which not only adds to the sense of climax but also helps to rationalize Marianne's subsequent illness. It is Austen's masterful use of scenery that paves the way for the film makers' elaborations, and no matter how much each movie differs, all are grounded in the framework her locations create, making it nearly impossible to stray far from the novel's intentions.

Marianne and Elinor (2008)

I would love to write at length about all of Sense and Sensibility's attributes, particularly the novel's other characters, that have been brought to life on film. We have had so many marvelous Edwards, Brandons and Willoughbys. Similarly, the more minor players that provide so much texture to this tale (like Fanny Dashwood, Robert Ferrars, Mrs. Jennings, and Charlotte Palmer) have been phenomenally captured by magnificent actors, and I could analyze their different interpretations endlessly. 

Instead, I will point the interested to the reviews I have posted on my blog of all four films (links are below), as well as to my Sense and Sensibility Mashup, in which I composed my ideal cast, comprised of performers from each adaptation. I cannot emphasize enough how well-worth watching all the versions are, each invoking the Janeite's passion for the story, adding to its dimensions, and increasing  its accessibility to a wider audience. All have their triumphs and their problems, but what is paramount is that each succeed in that most important function of any literary adaptation: paying respectful and loving homage to a masterful work of fiction.     

Reviews -

1971 - http://alexaadams.blogspot.com/2010/08/sense-and-sensibility-1971.html

1981 - http://alexaadams.blogspot.com/2011/01/sense-and-sensibility-1981.html

1995 - http://alexaadams.blogspot.com/2011/01/sense-and-sensibility-1995.html

2008 - http://alexaadams.blogspot.com/2011/01/sense-and-sensibility-2008.html

Mashup -

http://alexaadams.blogspot.com/2010/08/sense-and-sensibility-mash-up.html

A lover of Jane Austen since her childhood, Alexa Adams is the author of First Impressions: A Tale of Less Pride and Prejudice and writes about Austen at her blog of the same name. Currently she is working on the sequel to First Impressions as well as a series of short stories, published serially on her blog under the title Janeicillin, in which she extends the ends of Austen’s novels by imagining events as they might have occurred between the proposals and the weddings. She lives in the Delaware Valley with her husband and two cats, and the whole family eagerly anticipates the arrival of their first child, a daughter, in June.