Deborah Moggach on The Snog
Well, here’s something to liven up a slow news week…
Although she is candid about many visual touches the director added to her script to make it more cinematic that she feels improved it, she was not happy with the most controversial addition - a passionate kiss between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy at the very end. British audiences were so incensed by this scene that it was cut from the British version, although it will be seen in America because “apparently they thought American audiences have a bit of a sweeter tooth.”
According to Moggach, who wrote an alternative scene to establish the intimacy between Elizabeth and Darcy at the end, “the kiss is so not Jane Austen. They were very powerfully attracted to each other, we certainly understand that. But it was a time of restraint and constriction.”
Really, the kiss is fine. There’s nothing wrong with the kiss. It was the dreadful dialogue that accompanied it that many of us have a problem with. Ms. Moggach’s original conception of the scene (the dialogue for which came from a scene in the novel) was a better fit, in our opinion.
ETA: Because it’s a slow news week, here is the scene from the earlier draft of the script:
EXT. PEMBERLEY - NIGHT.
We move through a vast wedding party, following Elizabeth and Darcy. We meet all our characters. Lydia and Wickham are missing. Let everyone have an end.
Darcy and Elizabeth kiss, then Darcy pulls Elizabeth off into the shadows. We see them disappear into the park.
Coming close, we see them in the moonlight. It’s Darcy and Elizabeth. Deer turn to gaze at them. The music fades as they walk further from the house, up the hill, past the outcrops of rocks. An owl hoots. Darcy turns to Elizabeth and smiles.
DARCY
Allow me, Mrs. Darcy.
He puts out his hand. She takes it. He helps her up the rocks. When they get to the top they sit there, side by side, and gaze at the distant lights of Pemberley.
ELIZABETH
How did it begin?
DARCY
I cannot fix the hour, or the spot, or the look. It was too long ago and I was in the middle before I knew it had begun.
ELIZABETH
Now be sincere, did you admire me for my impertinence?
DARCY
For the liveliness of your mind, I did.
ELIZABETH
You may as well call it impertinence, though make it a virtue by all means. My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible. And, in return, it belongs to me to find occasions for teasing and quarrelling with you as often as maybe… and I shall begin directly…
We draw back…their figures diminish, smaller and smaller under the immense, star-spangled sky…Fainter and fainter, the sound of music and laughter…
FADE TO BLACK…
THE END.
Well, not great, but better than all that nonsense about divine goddesses and pearls, not to mention the heart-stopping (in a matter of speaking) sight of Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley’s naked hairy calves. It gives a bit of closure, which even Jane Austen knew was necessary. We would, unsurprisingly, prefer something with a bit of Austen-style snarkiness to it.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:26 am
For me, it wasn’t so much the kiss, which I enjoyed, or even the dialogue, as un-Austen as it was, that gave me pause in the scene. It was the sight of Lizzy stroking Darcy’s calf, and the fact that, as a friend of mine puts it, Darcy appears to be wearing women’s capri pants. Yikes!
January 31st, 2006 at 12:29 am
Heh. I think you were posting as I was editing. The calves!!! Actually I think he was wearing breeches that were unfastened at the knees.
January 31st, 2006 at 4:41 am
Having not yet even seen this infamous scene (we got the English version in Australia), I still feel I would have much prefered a scene as it was written above. Why is it so difficult to close a filmed version of P&P on just the right note? While I enjoy the wedding at the end of P&P2, the kiss is awkward and you don’t get any of the delicious post-proposal dialogue. At least P&P1 attempted it.
January 31st, 2006 at 5:43 am
A kiss will have been better after the nose-to-nose scene. Am I the only one longing for a kiss at that moment?
January 31st, 2006 at 6:07 am
I, too, am sadly deprived of (spared from??) the “Kiss” scene.;-)(”the divine goddesses and pearls”: I am intrgued!) All European versions were the same as the ones shown in the UK. Having seen, the current P&P3 four(!) times, I can, I hope, comment now on how much this movie relied on “physical/visual” telling of the story (even without the kiss) as opposed to JA mastery of dialogue. Now, it is OK for a movie to rely on visual, of course :-), but it’s a pity about the chopped or corny lines, since they had such a wealth to choose from! - Note to JW: “What people say is as important as how they say it!”
As it is, although I love JA for her dialogues, my favourite scene, by far, in the P&P3, is the “encounter at the vicarage” between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, where there is almost nothing said. (I find it the most “Austen TM” :-)of all the scenes)
January 31st, 2006 at 8:01 am
Deer turn to gaze at them
An owl hoots
While we’re in the wildlife department, she should have added
a fox barks eerily
as a homage to P&P2…
January 31st, 2006 at 9:38 am
“A fox barks eerily”
Robin, that made me burst out laughing in the middle of a quiet library.
But personally, I like the scene! It seems a tragedy that it was never filmed( at least for me…) I didn’t like the way the kiss was filmed and while the dialogue WAS a little cheesy, it was definitely better than no kiss at all. Had there not been that, I would have felt cheated.
Did anyone else feel as thought the scene had been ‘tacked on’? It just didn’t seem to flow well, moving from mr.bennet right to that! I felt robbed of a wedding. Really that was my only complaint of the entire movie.
January 31st, 2006 at 9:50 am
So, by now we can say the suspicion that Emma Thompson it is the one responsible for the dreadful dialogue seen in the American ending, right? Badly done, Emma, badly done indeed!
Cinthia, who feels grateful for being spared that dialogue.
BTW, Oscars have been announced and once again surprise, surprise. KK grabbed Oscar nod as actress (I say it is by default, as there were not many great female roles this season) so the appalling art direction and costume design grabbed nominations (¡Horror!). IMHO, only the best score nomination is deserved.
January 31st, 2006 at 11:38 am
I’m pretty sure that Emma Thompson has better taste than that of whoever wrote the bad dialogue of the kiss scene. After all, she studied English at Cambridge and adapted S&S for the screen. I’m inclined to blame the producers. Or perhaps the director, who seems to be much more of an image man than a word man.
January 31st, 2006 at 11:56 am
Like Cinthia, I’m horrified that the costume design got a nomination–egads! And I admit to cherishing a thoroughly ungenerous hope that KK won’t win best actress, because I thought her performance too insipid to deserve such recognition.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Sophia, I think it’s safe to say that Emma Thompson was indeed responsible for the Mrs. Darcy Ad Infinitum scene. Whether she thought it was a good idea or wrote it at the behest of the director/producers/whomever cannot be ascertained and I suspect will never be revealed. Personally, I find it interesting that she did not want a screen credit for her work on the screenplay.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:59 pm
I hated the American “kiss scene”. Not so much the kiss itself, but the God-awful dialogue. I was literally cringing in my seat with embarassment in the cinema every time that scene came up. Glad to see I’m not alone in this.
January 31st, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Kira, I felt that the ending snog bit was tacked on to. -Like, no transition from Mr.B to Pemberley. It was rather disjointed. And KK and especially(!) MM’s costumes in that scene made me shudder. MM’s costume in the 2nd proposal made me shudder too.
Deer turn to gaze at them, An owl hoots. QUITE ridiculous!
I do hope Keira wins that Oscar! She wasn’t awesome, but still, she played our Lizzy, and I want her to win for Lizzy and P+P’s sake. And I don’t mind if they win for Best Costumes. I mean, they were bad looking from a Regency standpoint, and KK didn’t look really good in them, but I still liked them (somewhat).
January 31st, 2006 at 5:30 pm
If you consider that the film doesn’t even take place during the Regency, I’d say that’s a pretty good reason why the clothes might not look good from a Regency perspective.
As for P&P2’s ending, he kisses her while he’s still wearing his hat. Talk about inappropriate!
January 31st, 2006 at 6:05 pm
Gosh. I can see I’m going against the crowd here, and for that I wish this was a mere devil’s advocate exercise, only it’s not. (But I’m going to throw my 2 cents into the fray, anways). Here goes: I LIKE THE KISS SCENE. All of it. The snogging. The dialogue. The setting. The costumes. The calf. I think it works.
I think any film adaptation (or stage adaptation, for that matter) of a play or novel reflects not only the setting and era in which the source material is set, but the current era and climate, too. And c’mon! Modern audiences like sex. They like snogging. And they like happy endings. Lizzie and Darcy have one of the most sexually charged relationships ever concocted, and even if the “coda” is made up (or not what some of us imagined, ourselves), I think the film’s ending achieves what we want. I mean, don’t most people who read P&P imagine that the Darcy’s have a damn good marriage and sex life after the book ends? I do …
I’ve also seen both presentations of the film – several months apart – and I believe that the UK ending is less effective as a FILM CONCLUSION. It felt anticlimactic. By the end of the movie, we’re very focused on the achievement of Lizzie and Darcy’s admission of love and their getting together. To end on Mr. Darcy’s moment (while a very nice scene for Sutherland) just felt odd. I agree with those who argue there are multiple ways to achieve a L&D romantic conclusion … I wouldn’t have written the final scene that way, myself … but for what it is, I think it’s sexy and nice and ends the film where we can walk away satisfied.
January 31st, 2006 at 6:43 pm
And to that P&P2 ‘inappropiate’ kiss, Julie, then we can add the one in P2 -even more innappropiate as to those surrounding the couple, the lady was not even his wife- or and the one from Emma2, but I love them no matter how historically innapropiate they might be. Is there one in Emma3? I cannot remember at the moment, and then we also have that from -brace yourselves, delicate ladies, because I am about to mention that bad adaptation- MP2.
January 31st, 2006 at 8:10 pm
I agree with Sophie C. A kiss in the mist would have been lovely. I also would have liked to have seen Ms. Moggach’s original conception of the scene, with that sweet conversation about how Darcy first fell in love with Lizzy, from the book. I am glad I have seen a clip of the kiss scene, and will get it on the DVD, but I do agree the film is better without that stilted conversation about Lizzy’s pet names. The actual kisses were sweet though, and it is not unlikely that Mr. Darcy would have enjoyed repeating “Mrs. Darcy” as that is her new married name, showing that she belongs to him.
January 31st, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Is Moggach actually arguing that Elizabeth and Darcy never kissed each other? Well yes, yes I know they didn’t actually, what with them being fictional characters, but really.
Hold on, there was dialogue in that scene? Seriously? I just remember the lovely Mr. Macfadyen….
January 31st, 2006 at 10:03 pm
I totally agree there has to be a denouement, some payoff for the viewers, some closure, and a nice romantic kiss is fine, but I really wish they had used the dialogue that Jane Austen wrote. It is much more fitting.
January 31st, 2006 at 10:30 pm
Count me as one who enjoys a kiss, but found the dialogue that accompanied it retchworthy.
A hand to the cheek, a caress of the neck or a wayward curl, it all conveys so much when accompanied by Jane’s dialogue. Then, if there was a smooch, so much the better. But honest to pete, I thought they needed marshmallows, sticks, and a campfire on the marble portico of Pemberly.
January 31st, 2006 at 11:48 pm
I saw the “kissing Scene” and I thought it was so corny. They should have just shot the scene in the original script…at least it was really part of the book. I was actually disappointed that they didn’t include any of that part of the book…I think it would have provided ample closure to their relationship.
February 1st, 2006 at 2:11 am
Really, the solution is simple. All you have to do is turn the volumn down when you get to that part of the DVD and imagine he is saying whatever you please!
February 1st, 2006 at 6:57 am
I gather that Emma Thompson is responsible for the snog.
I confess that I liked it, corny as it is, and am glad we got it here in North America. To those who don’t like it, buy the Region 2 copy of the disc, and you’ll never have to see it unless, for some odd reason, you choose to.
February 1st, 2006 at 11:26 am
I really can’t (=don’t want to) believe that Emma Thompson invented the snog scene… ?! Where does that come from?
That would be disappointing indeed since she did the S&S sreenplay so beautifully.
February 1st, 2006 at 7:08 pm
I don’t know about the snog scene, but Emma T did write the Charlotte “Don’t Judge Me” Lucas scene.
February 1st, 2006 at 10:09 pm
I liked the ending, especially the kiss. And his attire did not bother me.
The dialogue might have been improved, more jane austen, less love names.
But we all loved the Kiss in my family! Jane may not have written about kisses in her novels, but we all know lovers kissed at the endings of her novels (between the lines).
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:29 am
we got the american version in singapore….quite mushy but on the whole, the movie is very much enjoyable…is not for those who like to strictly follow the book, but for reliving jane austen, darcy and elizabeth is a lovely movie.
February 3rd, 2006 at 4:14 pm
I think the kiss was needed, the dialogue was a bit corny but what can ya do?
i think it was alot better than the kiss in pp2 which looked kind uncomfortable.
i do wish we could have had a wedding in this one though.
February 4th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
Dear, dear, they simply cannot write a good snog scene, can they? I’m of the belief that there was more tension and attraction in the first proposal than in the entire last fifteen minutes of the movie. *sigh*
Anyone here seen BBC’s adaptation of North & South? Now *there* was a good kiss ending, despite how it was rewritten.
February 5th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
I just saw this beautiful film in Paris, was moved to seek out more on the web and found your site. The ending, precisely *because* everyone in the modern audience is expecting a kiss, is perfect. Elisabeth moves towards Darcy, takes his hand and kisses it. She is wordlessly asking forgiveness for her blindness. They move closer together, their faces touch, but there is no kiss. Everything,including their passion for each other, is in the future, finally assured. The controlled response is sublime. And the music was exactly right. What more can you ask? Que demande le peuple?
February 5th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
Ah, I admit that I thought the dialogue was on the cheesy side but Matthew McF could have said anything at that point in the film because I was hooked. The nod to KK is lovely but sad that poor Matthew did not. I loved his vulnerability it was sure closer to Darcy. So much was right in the movie and there is that two hour challenge. I know some of you are experts on Jane Austen, Regency period and whole clothing thing but we mere mortals just love the film and the, ahem, romance. Seeing the movie in Paris?? Wow, now that set my heart aflutter.
February 6th, 2006 at 12:08 am
Susan: The kiss on the hand is not the kiss under discussion. There was an additional scene on the end of the film that was not shown in Europe, only in North America and (I think) a few other countries.
February 7th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
I just stumbled onto your site and I love it by the way. But I have to admit that I liked the kissing scene. I mean, it was rather choppy from Mr. B. but it gave an insight into marital felicity, which isn’t really seen in either P&P1 or P&P2. I thought the scene was sweet and confirmed my love for MM. But I am not yet twenty so I can only state what I think and I am a hopeless romantic
February 8th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Really I LOVED the kiss!!!! Not the first time I saw it, when I was a bit taken aback by the dialogue, but around about the 3rd time. I particularly liked this scene because I realized that it shows Darcy FINALLY relaxed, confident and happy with his love, Elizabeth. I personally am very glad they did NOT use the screenwriter’s version.
February 13th, 2006 at 11:43 am
Hi to everybody!!, first of all, i’m a Spanish girl, so please!, forgive me my possible mistakes.
Three days ago (10th February) this film came to our cinemas at last. I didn’t like it much, surely because i love BBC’s P&P.
I wanted to see the “famous kiss”, but it was the European version, the film ends with Donald Sutherland. I’ve just got the american ending but i don’t understand it wery well, so, could anybody please transcribe it for me?, i’d like to see those new two minutes.
Thanks very much!. Greetings!.
February 15th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
(a little late to post this, buuutt…)
Quite honestly, oglamar, you’re not missing much. They’re just talking about pet names, is all.. for the most part, I’d like to second what Maze said.. McFadyen is gorgeous; so, really, all you have to do is turn the volume down.
I think they deviated from strict-P&P dialogue on purpose; and though I agree it would have been better WITH Austen’s wording; I can’t blame them for trying to be original. One scene where I thought they were rather sucessful in deviating from the film was the first proposal. That was -intense-. Much better than the TV version, which was, to me, rather stilted in that part.
I think it’s safe to say both, the 1995 and the 2005 versions, have their horribly cheesy parts. I personally was just happy to NOT see Colin Firth’s transparent and virtually floating head pop up in Lizzy’s mirror/carriage window. I’m also kind of, in a strangely comical way, relieved to know Matthew McFadyen doesn’t shave his legs. I don’t think I could take the image of Mr. Darcy reclining in the bathtub with a razor. XD
note to Karen 2L: lol, you make Charlotte sound like Aretha Franklin..
March 3rd, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Can anyone tell me if the U.S. DVDs have the kiss scene? I just watched P&P during the flight from London to Boston and it was the kiss-less version. There’s a glimpse of the kiss scene in the trailer, I’d like to see the whole.
By the way, I loved Macfadyen’s puppy dog love eyes during the mist scene. His face looked totally different. The scene was not quite what I expected. (And I was a bit amused by the film makers idea that the early nineteenth century gentility would be wandering around the countryside in their nightdresses)
March 13th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
I was surprised to learn that the ending I saw here in Canada, was different from the one seen in the UK. I had no idea until recently that Joe Wright released his film “sans kiss” to appease Austen fans/critics who’d complained about it in the wake of an advance screening, if I’ve heard correctly?
Having just read Moggach’s original draft, I do like her dialogue better. Not sure why Wright changed her draft and revised that scene, but I imagine it was a subjective call on his part. Perhaps he was aiming for something a little more intimate?
Ideally, I’d have prefered to see a compromise. Take Moggach’s dialogue, place them in a moonlit garden setting at Pemberley, everyone has long since departed and Darcy & Elizabeth are alone. Keep them in their nightdresses, allow the subtext to breathe. I mean seriously, they’re newlyweds, it’s hardly shocking; no one thought they were going to go off now and live like monks. And they implied just as much in the BBC/A&E version when they showed a brief shot of Lydia and Wickham in their bedroom, in terms of “intimate relations”.
And speaking for myself, I like seeing a little of what happens after characters have resolved their differences and you’ve arrived at your happy ending. As long as it’s not crass or vulgar, it strikes me as simply an honest acknowledgement of the fact that two people love each other very much and sexuality is a natural part of what they feel for one another.
March 13th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
No, the Pemberley coda was removed in the U.K. because the test audiences didn’t like it and the studio thought it best. If they were that sensitive to Austen fans, they would have removed it in the U.S., too (or reshot using the original screenplay).
But seeing Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley’s hairy naked calves is just wrong. Just wrong.
March 14th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Ah; so it was the studio who removed the kiss! How silly! Imo, people should be allowed to make up their own minds. And if folks can’t make the distinction between a book and a movie, quite frankly, I think they need to stay home and simply enjoy what they already know and love.
Which isn’t the same thing as having an opinion about the film of course.
I’m thinking of things I’ve seen and read elsewhere; ie: reactions to the film. I mean, you’ve got the 1980 BBC version with David Rintoul clocking in at approx: 4 hours and 30 minutes (265 min.) And imo that version of Darcy is the most literal interpretation of the character to date. So unless you wanted to remake it with higher production values, which they sort of aimed to do with the 1995 mini-series, surely you’d know going into a 2 hr film that they were going to cut out a great deal etc. Not to mention attempt to a different take on the story itself - as why else bother? Again; you can’t film the personal experience that is reading the novel. So it makes me shake my head that some expected that walking into the theatre; chuckle!
As for Darcy’s hairy naked calves, was it literally seeing his legs or the context in which you see them? Would you have minded seeing Colin Firth’s calves if he’d rolled up his pant legs after going for a swim in the lake? That moment surprised me more, actually. That he’d jump into the lake and walk towards the house soaking wet, carrying his overcoat etc. As it’s broad daylight and although he’s on his own estate, people, albeit servants, were bound to encounter him in what amounts to an unkempt state. Which is ironic given the importance paid to ones public apearance, back then.
Jane Austen never wrote about things she hadn’t personally noted; which is why you never get scenes taking place just between men in a private club for example. She was never privy to that world. Whereas you could argue that at least when Darcy shows his legs, he’s with his wife; and so it remains within the realm of possibility that a woman would be able to conceive of such a moment, as wives certainly didn’t expect never to see their husbands legs.
To me, it was a just tender moment of intimacy. They’re relaxed and comfortable with one another, their problems solved, they can now just enjoy one another’s company and companionship as a married couple.
March 14th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Would you have minded seeing Colin Firth’s calves if he’d rolled up his pant legs after going for a swim?
Yes. Some things are just wrong, and having it forcibly imprinted on one’s consciousness that Mr. Darcy has hairy legs is one of them. Of course he does, but still. (Actually in the theatre I had a fit of the giggles that lasted pretty much through the whole scene.)
I remember watching P&P2 the first time and watching Firth disrobe with something akin to horror; I thought he was going to skinny-dip, which also would have been very, very wrong. I was rather relieved when the stand-in dove into the pond fully clothed. I understand that Andrew Davies originally wrote the scene with Darcy skinny-dipping. Thank heaven the BBC prevailed on that one.
Another example of “just wrong” is in the Mollywood P&P, in which Jane tells Lizzy that Bingley baptized Darcy, that is, converted him to the Mormon faith. Also wrong. It puts Bingley in a position of power that changes the whole dynamic of their relationship.
March 22nd, 2006 at 10:22 am
Having read the book, watched the tv version and saw the film i have to admit that I am officially a pride and prejudice obsessive (lol). I was a bit disappointed with the UK ending and prefered the US one. I think it showed how comfortable they were with each other and how much in love they both are. I mean, it was really disappointing, in the UK version, to end the film with old dad laughing. Come on people, we need to know more about Darcy and Lizzy!!!
Oh, and as for Mr Darcy and the mist scene, I thought it was completely romantic even if it seemed cheesy to some people. What I enjoyed about the film version compared to the TV series was the increase in passion and the way Darcy’s feelings were much more animated and obvious
I mean come on girls, you must also agree with me that Darcy’s line “I love, I love, I love you.” made you go weak at the knees!!! (lol)
March 22nd, 2006 at 10:31 am
and may i add, that i’m firmly on marie’s side. I wouldn’t have minded seeing Colin Firth’s calf (chuckle), some people have to just lighten up and remember that it’s only a film. Hey, I don’t mind seein mathew’s legs, who does? and if you do mind I seriously worry about your sanity!!! chuckle! chuckle!
March 22nd, 2006 at 1:47 pm
in my honest and vast educational experience, i believe that some people in this webpage, is conversing the largest amount of poo. i think the movie is deep and emotive, truely beautiful. Though i must admit mr Darcy is very dreamy. MMM!!! the movie is great, so develop taste!
March 24th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
I saw nothing wrong with the kiss at the end, or the dialouge. After an entire movie of sarcasm, it would have been a little weird to end it as sarcastically as the earlier version does. And umm, he calls her “Mrs. Darcy”. This means they are MARRIED! I see nothing wrong with her stroking his hairy leg as much as she wants now that they’re married. There’s obviously no one else around, except for us curious moviegoers. So it’s not in the book, I still think it’s not very far from the spirit of it, and the love that they share in it. Just my two cents.