The Day After
Reactions to P&P3’s Oscar noms are rolling in. From the Beeb:
The UK’s Keira Knightley, who scored her first nomination for Pride and Prejudice said: “I’m very happy everyone liked it as much as they did.”
Mmmmmmkay! 
The Daily Mail points out that should Keira win the award, she will be the youngest actress ever to receive it.
The town of Stamford, where the Meryton scenes were filmed, is preparing to welcome visitors who enjoyed the film.
Unsurprisingly, the studios are all over it.
And we are tired and going to bed. Nighty-night.
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:36 am
Stamford has been here before - it was the location for much of the Beeb’s Middlemarch back in 1994.
Makes a change from the Royal Crescent, I suppose.
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:05 am
Trying to keep on topic, let’s analyse what had happened for the previous big-screen adaptations.
P&P0 was only nominated in 1 category and won it, that was best art direction in black and white. We could talk on and on about how deserved was that (not IMHO), there were several other nominees in that category that year, I will only mention those I have seen: Arizona, Foreign Correspondent, My favourite wife, Our Town, Rebecca and The Sea Hawk.
Then the big pause until, the no. 2 adaptations came along.
S&S2 holds the crown. Not my personal favourite among the lot, but I must acknowledge is a masterpiece of film art and based on that I have also to say it is the best of the big-screen JA adaptations. As we know Emma Thompson won the Oscar for her adapted screenplay, but beside that it was nominated in 6 more categories, those were: best picture, best actress, best supporting actress, best cinematography, best costume design and best music score.
They lost against Braveheart and the other nominated films were Babe, Apollo 13 and Il Postino in the best picture (One more example that the Academy did not give the award to the most deserving one, S&S2 and Il Postino were my personal favorites that year).
ET lost vs. Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking), while Meryl Streep (Bridges of Madison County), Sharon Stone (Casino), Elizabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas) were the other contenders in the best actress race. (I remember I was hoping for ET or Elizabeth Shue)
Kate Winslet lost the award with Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite), while the other nominated ladies in the best supporting actress category were Kathleen Quinlan (Apollo 13), Mare Winningham (Georgia) and Joan Allen (Nixon). There with KW you have really a young talented actress in a breaktrough performance really worthy of that nomination and the Academy still owes her an Oscar, not what we are now witnessing. She was my favourite (and please notice, Marianne is my least favourite heroine, I find her absolutely annoying and I think she deserves a SUTH -slap upside the head-, but IMHO KW captured precisely that) along with Mare Winingham.
The best adapted screenplay was won, but the other contenders that year were the ones for Apollo 13, Babe, Leaving Las Vegas and Il Postino. No debate here, ET’s screenplay was the best here, she took a classic novel and not the most popular one of the author and captured the spirit of it.
As in the picture category, the cinematography one went to Braveheart (Humph), and the other 3 nominees were Batman Forever (*more raised eye brows), The Little Princess (my personal favourite along S&S2 in the category, but mostly because Lubezki is my countryfellow) and Shangai Triad (Chinese film by director Zhang Yimou, who also has a beautiful cinematography in all his films).
The costume design award went to Restoration (another period piece, and the other 3 nominees were Braveheart, Richard III and 12 Monkey, which was the only one that was not a period piece. (Once again I rooted for S&S2, I loved the costumes there).
On musical score, it was one of those years when the Academy divided in drama and comedy score. S&S2 was in the drama score. Il Postino won and the other contenders were Apollo 13, Braveheart and Nixon. (I placed my bet on the S&S2 scorre).
Lets go to the next Oscar nominated big screen adaptation: Emma 2. It won best musical score for a comedy and was nominated for best costume design.
Emma2 is my personal favourite among all the JA adaptations (tied with P&P2 and P2, so there you got it, throw as much tomatoes at me as you wish). I know it is not a masterpiece of film art, I know it is not historically accurate, but IMHO it reflects the joyful part that I see on Emma the novel. There I could have been as biased, rooting irrationally for it, like some people this year for another adaptation.
I love Rachel Portman score (my favourite among all the JA adaptation scores), but perhaps I might acknowledge hers might not have been the best nor won if the category had not been split in 2 (drama and comedy), but it was the best in the comedy one. The other nominees that year in that comedy category were: The First Wives Club, Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tim Burton’s James and the Giant Peach and the remake of The Preacher’s Wife.
In Costume Design, unfortunately Emma2 lacks a lot of historical accuracy (I cannot defend it there), but it seems it quite fits the idea that the Academy does not consider too much historical accuracy and contents itself to nominate period films. The winner that year was The English Patient, and the other nominees were Angels and Insects, Kenneth Brannagh’s Hamlet and Portrait of a Lady, all period pieces.
Thankfully, MP2 was not even considered by the Academy, while P2 was unfortunately ignored too, but perhaps because originally it is a tv film (correct me if I am wrong but I cannot recollect if the Academy has ever considered a tv film for its awards).
Clueless was not nominated, nor Kandukondain Kandukondain, nor P&P Utah. But I like all those, P&P Utah the least of those modernizations.
While BJD (argueably a modernization) got the best actress nomination for Renee Zellweger and one ocassion when I was happy to take back the words I said when I knew she had been casted in the role. IMHO, it was again a deserved nomination. Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball) won the award that year, while the other nominees were Sissy Spacek (In the Bedroom), Judy Dench (Iris) and Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge, IMHO it should have been for The Others). That year, my favourite was Sissy Spacek, because it is known comedy performances rarely receive the award, so RZ was out of the question.
So, back to what’s going on this year. IMHO, the best score nomination for P&P3 is deserved. I like it, one of the few things I like about this adaptation. I do not know if it could win, maybe the Academy could give it as a consolation prize, but the other contestans are also very strong.
As for KK, IMHO, she did not deserve the nomination, she did it better than I expected, but that doesn’t mean it should be so much recognized. From what I see, there have been complaints that her countryfellows didn’t give her the BAFTA nom, while the Americans are doing so. I’m with the BAFTA’s, and I offer 2 theories on what has occured, why no BAFTA nom but yes an Oscar one. Since the BAFTA awards both tv and film, they already have seen another actress as Lizzy and like us, have something more to compare not only what has been going on the past year, which also weighted in their evaluation. The other theory is that KK is the actress for whom Focus Features had to concentrate their Oscar campaign in that category, the other acting categories were already covered with their other films (Brokeback Mountain in particular), so the combination won her the nomination and that’s why AMPAS members put her in their consideration. IMHO, Laura Lynney or Maria Bello should have had the spot, not KK. If I would have been asked to select one of the cast as the one to be particularly recognized, I agree what BAFTA members did, Brenda Blethyn should have been my pick, I had predicted she was the one who could have got an Oscar nomination, as she is (beside Sutherland and Dame Judy) known in the American film community for her talent (and another one to whom the Academy owes an Oscar).
Much has been already said on the art direction and costume design nominations, and maybe Karen Lee is right, they might not be considered true to the original source by some of us and even shocked us, but they have impressed the eye of others in a positive sense, so that’s why they got nominated.
Finally I do not think among us Janeites, another complaint against the Academy has been expressed. Since B&P was released in 2005 in USA, it could have entered the selection, but here is another example of what a short memory the Academy has. They only nominated 3 songs for the Oscars, I would have liked to see ‘No wife without wife’ nominated.
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Makes a change from the Royal Crescent, I suppose.
NEVAH! Never enough Royal Crescent (or Bath in general) for me.
I was watching a show on PBS about building a Roman-style bathhouse and every time they showed the Roman baths at Bath (as opposed to the ones in Turkey, near where they were building) I got a thrill! Yay Bath!
February 3rd, 2006 at 8:52 am
B&P was on the Starz cable channel this morning, and I was almost late for work because I had it on in the background while I was getting ready. I got out of the shower halfway through “No Life…” and, thanks to the miracle of DVR, was able to rewind the song back to the beginning. I love that song, and I really do love the movie.
February 3rd, 2006 at 7:43 pm
No Life, Without Wife was a real toe-tapper and I think the Academy really missed the boat on it. Most of the nominated songs are downers or worse.
Karen
February 5th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Wow, Cinthia, what a thorough and fabulous analysis! Thanks for taking the time to share all this.
February 6th, 2006 at 8:44 am
Well, yes, Keira would be the youngest actress to get the award if she won it. But she isn’t. No way. She did okay with the role, but the other four nominees did much more than that. My money’s on Witherspoon.