Getting Made-Uppier by the day
Alert Janeite Arwen posted the following information in comments:
A person claiming to know someone on the set of Becoming Jane posted a cast list on the IMDB message boards. I do not know if it true, but this is what the person said:
Anna Maxwell Martin is playing Cassandra, Jane’s sister
Julie Walters is playing Mrs Austen
James Cromwell is Mr Austen
Maggie Smith is Lady Gresham, an aristocratic landowner whose favourite nephew has fallen in love with Jane
Lucy Cohu is Jane’s half-French cousin who has been widowed but has designs on Jane’s brother, Henry
Ian Richardson plays Tom Lefroy’s cantankerous uncle
The person also said, “word is that Anne Hathaway is fantastic and her accent really spot on.” Also in the movie Lady Gresham does not like Jane Austen.
We are guessing that Lady Gresham’s nephew is NOT Tom Lefroy. We are further guessing that she is entirely…fictional.
Oh, and Eliza de Feuillide was not “half-French.” She was English, and had married a Frenchman, who was guillotined during the Terror for attempting to bribe a member of the Committee of Public Safety to dismiss charges against a neighbor. “Designs” on Henry? More like the other way around…actually both James and Henry Austen liked her and wanted to marry her. Apparently she liked being a widow very well indeed and had to be persuaded to give up her independence to marry Henry.
Also, Cassandra Austen was not present during Jane’s flirtation with Tom Lefroy. We only know about the bally thing because Jane wrote about it in letters to Cassandra. Obviously, had Cassandra been present, Jane would not have had to write letters to her about it, would she?
Say it with us…MADE UP STORY!
April 17th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
I do not have a Baronetage to hand, but there WAS a Lady Gresham around at the time this film is set (1796 or so.) She lived in Titsey, Surrey - within ten miles of Sevenoaks, the ancestral home of Jane Austen’s family. Titsey is only three miles west of Chevening, Kent, widely thought to be the model for Rosings. (One of Jane Austen’s Sevenoaks cousins was the rector of Chevening.) So, although apparently there is no mention of Lady Gresham in the Letters or the various biographies, it is very likely that the Austens knew Lady Gresham (and her roguish nephew, if any.)
April 17th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
Okay, then–but it’s doubtful she hosted a ball in Hampshire that Jane and Tom would have attended.
April 17th, 2006 at 4:52 pm
Well, as a member of Harry Potter fandom, I know how these rumours go, and I suppose that there is some hope. Perhaps Cassandra Austen is only in the film at the beginning and/or the end, or shown receiving letters from Jane. And, perhaps the person in questions was confused about the cousin and took her being in France for meaning she was half-French. The main thing, I would say, is that you really can’t trust anything anyone says on the comments of IMDb…and to reserve judgement until we’ve seen the film. I’m sure it’ll give everyone a lot to…pick on (; I can’t really blame them for wanting to add a little here and there though; I love Jane, but she didn’t really have a very dramatic life.
April 17th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
Probably - just to spite you, Mags - it will turn out that this “favorite nephew” is in fact Tom Lefroy. I’d lay ten dollars on it. It just seems to be the way that Hollywood works.
April 17th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
I had almost forgotten that Anna Maxwell Martin was going to play Cassandra, that the one lovely thing about this movie! Since she’s not quite as big a star as any of the others mentioned perhaps she’ll only appear in frequent letter writting scenes and ocassional heart-to-heart talks, what do you think? Hmm…but this whole thing about an aristocratic aunt and a cantankerous uncle is rather ridiculous. One of those, “if they changes the names it would be a great movie” deals huh? Lucy Cohu would make a good Eliza de Feuillide from the looks of it though I’m not sure I’ve seen her in anything as yet. But her having designs on Henry is really off the wall! Henry had nothing for most of his life didn’t he, he was always failing in buisness and Eliza was the rich one.
This should make for some interesting snarking!
April 17th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
Oh lordy me. However Mags, you’ve delighted me with a new term (which I suggest you trademark as it’s bound to get a lot more use in bloging about this movie) - ‘made-uppier’!
April 17th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
Well, we’ve already heard that the story will expand past the few weeks that Tom and Jane spent together in Hampshire, so that’s probably when we will see Cassandra. Besides, it’s all MADE UP anyway!
Eliza wasn’t rich; her first husband sunk all his money into a project to drain swampland on his estate, if memory serves, and I believe the Republican government confiscated all his property after he was executed. Henry did okay while he was a banker, but eventually his bank failed (after Eliza’s death) and he struggled for the rest of his life.
April 18th, 2006 at 2:42 am
Ditto on that ‘favourite nephew’ - I also think they’ll make that be Tom. What’s the money on them making her a Lady Catherine de Bourgh clone?
Eliza was indeed never was able to get her hands on her husband’s assets in France, but she did get a significant legacy from her godfather (many say he was actually her father) Warren Hastings, the first Governer-General of India. She wasn’t super rich, but she was very comfortably well off. Enough so that she would not have needed to marry unless she wanted to. Eliza having ‘designs’ on Henry was not because he was wealthy, but because she really liked him (although it took her long enough to make up her mind between him and his brother).
April 18th, 2006 at 9:46 am
I’ve been thinking about this…so what everyone here is saying is that Lady Gresham is basically replacing Madam Lefroy in this scenario?
I guess that’s why it’s taking so long to sink in for me, because the real story (that Tom met Jane when he came to stay with his uncle, the rector of Deane) is so well-known. It just isn’t registering with me. I keep trying to figure out how the facts fit into it, and it seems they have just been discarded.
So, to further extrapolate from what has been said in the press…Tom Lefroy comes to stay with rich aunt Lady Gresham (and Karenlee, you’re probably right about the Lady Catherine thing–there’s a bit of consolation to cling to, Dame Maggie as a faux Lady Catherine, almost as good as the real thing) and meets Jane Austen and they fall in love. Rich Auntie Lady Gresham is v. unhappy about this because Jane Austen is a poor country parson’s daughter and Not Good Enough For Her Nephew, so she breaks up the relationship.
I can see where such a story would lead to Jane writing P&P, but for one problem…it’s completely MADE UP! It’s not even close to the real story!
I hope the cinema where I see this movie has extra cleaning crews standing by with mops and buckets for when my head explodes. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I am becoming. Why would someone remove Madam Lefroy from the story? An educated, cultured woman who was a sort of mentor and surrogate mother to Jane Austen, who helped form her taste, which in turn informed the books she would write? Because she was a woman, perhaps?
I think it was my pal Teresa who said a while back that a really interesting relationship in Jane Austen’s life was that between Jane and Cassandra, and other neighbors with whom she interacted. I tend to agree. There’s no reason to pervert the whole story in the way this seems to be going.
Of course, we could be totally misreading the plot. I really would like to give the benefit of the doubt as much as I can, but the more we learn, it seems like the worse it gets. Definitely Made-Uppier. A shame, because it is a waste of a truly fabulous cast.
April 18th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Mags, I don’t think that you are misreading the plot, because they are trying to reproduce the base story P&P by making up the fake aunt (lady Catherine) and the rich nephew falling for the poor Jane. How annoying and misleading for those people who know little or not at all about Jane Austen’s life. It is very frustrating….
April 18th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
I can definately see Dame Maggie as the “faux Lady Catherine.” I’ve decided that I’m not going to form any opinions on this movie until I see it though- good or bad. However, I wouldn’t be suprised if it turns out to be a decent movie, though a complete lie. Kind of like P&P3 was a decent movie, yet a ghastly adaption.
April 18th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
And that’s the point exactly - it will probably be a very good movie, complete with the fabulous cast, beautiful costumes, lush scenery, and a moving musical score.
But to misquote Mary Crawford: Everyone will be completely taken. What will end up happening is that the great unwashed will assume that what they are seeing is actually Jane’s life and the next thing you know, some clueless college student will write their masters thesis on Jane’s “doomed” love affair.
BTW: I find that I can not be so generous as some of you when it comes to Anne Hathaway’s acting ability. I’ve seen just about everything she has made, and I have never been impressed. Anna Maxwell Martin completely outclasses her and actually she should be the one in the role of Jane.
April 18th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Doh! I meant “taken in”
April 19th, 2006 at 10:02 am
I have resisted commenting to all posts regarding the film. But, heck, it’s asking for snark!
Like ‘gritty realism’ was the noun du jour of P&P3 (buries head in hands and weeps at the ghastly memory), I see how poor Tom Lefroy will now always be presented with the prefix ‘rogueish Irishman’. Poor lad.
I can’t really comment on the actress’s ability, being unfamilar with her work but from the photos, may I ask why must all female protagonists in recent Austen films now have to resemble an attacking piranha (teeth of doom)? I’ve seen a couple of photos of the costumes (a ball scene) and am suitably underimpressed. Wrong fabrics, wrong colours, bad posture (aeeiii) and why, oh why, must all designers assume that women only wear the styles when they were teens, so thus 40 year old women must be dressed as if it’s 1770. This is like assuming that any woman today who was a young woman inthe 1960s would only wear now days miniskirts, pale lipstick and false eye lashes!! Fashion was followed by all women of means, while it’s true that it would be adapted according to one’s wealth, position and age, you wouldn’t have this generation gap clothing. I moaned when I saw Judi Dench in that purple get-up in P&P3 and yet I see they’re doing the same thing year.
Obviously they have decided that anything remotely resembling Jane Austen’s real life would be “too boring” so she must have this “doomed love affair” with “easy” parallels with P&P (the film).
I hesitate to think what the muzak will be like. No doubt lots of booming piano chords to indicate passion (no director of any Austen film has ever been the least bit interested in the many volumnes of Jane Austen’s music books at Chawton, which are a treasure trove of what music really was popular at the time).
Yeah, MADE UP STORY!
I’ll try my best to approach this with an unformed opinion (which I tried doing for P&P3 even though the first pics I saw could have told me everything). I can see the title of my review already: “Dude, where’s my Jane Austen?”
April 19th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
On the subject of music, does anyone know where I can get more information on Austen’s music books at Chawton? I tend to stumble on CD’s that *claim* to be the music of Austen’s time, but I’m more interested in the actual sheet music she had in her possession.
April 19th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Sophia, I attended a concert a few months ago by a college professor/opera singer who has recorded a couple of CDs of music from Jane Austen’s songbooks and she is preparing a book of the music. Here is her website: Julianne Baird - scroll to the bottom and see “Works In Progress.” I can recommend the CD, too, it’s lovely.
April 19th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
WOW! Talk about hitting the nail on the head… Great info - thanks a million!
April 19th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
There’s confirmation now from Lucy Cohu’s agent that she is playing Eliza:
http://www.thetalent.biz/cv/159/
Looking through her CV, I hadn’t realized before that she played Cassandra in The Real Jane Austen.
Another coincidence here is that both Lucy Cohu and Anna Maxwell Martin, who is probably playing Cassandra in Becoming Jane, have both been nominated for BAFTA 2006 awards for Best Actress.
April 19th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Yes, I will be very happy when Jane Austen’s songbooks get published, so hopefully OUP gets cracking! There is a list of music in the Jane Austen’s collection available which is very interesting, especially to learn what was popular music at the time (and despite what most concert programmers think, not Mozart & Beethoven). There’s even a song which perhaps would please the writers of the upcoming film called “Nobody loves like an Irisman” (in which all nationalities are compared but finally the singer decides that they are not up to snuff compared with an Irishman, ha,ha)
Sigh…I’ve actually trilled my fingers across the keyboard of the piano at Chawton. Well, it’s not Jane Austen’s piano but it is an absolutely beautiful very early 19th century square piano. The curators there let me and a musician friend have a go!
April 19th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
One surprising song in the Jane Austen Songbook (it’s on the Julianne Baird CD mentioned above) - the Marseillaise, maybe an unconventional choice for a tory and the sister of two RN officers. It is a glorious arrangement and a very nice performance. The Irishman is fun too.. a bit roguish.
April 19th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
I am being terribly clumsy. Where is the Marseillaise mentioned? I have followed the link to Ms. Baird’s site, then to her Discography and her CD sampler and the only CD I found there about JA is the one titled “Jane’s Hand: Jane Austen Songbooks” and when I enter to the link where the CD content is shown, I cannot see the French national anthem. Probably I am missing something. Can anybody help me, please?
Now back to the main topic. Well, definitely, the plot seems to be getting to fantasy level, not true facts. Perhaps it is that since the beginning I had been considered it will be entirely fictional that I am not so upset. But I think I understand the controversy that it has stirred, in particular since it seems it will be sold to the unsuspecting public as a true story (à la Elizabeth and Braveheart, as Mags has pointed out, and not à la Shakespeare in Love as I had hoped *sniff*), but then I refuse to make my liver suffer now, it will be hard enough when the film is released, then the uneducated will have to be educated (P&P3 made me work hard enough with the ignorant journalists in my country, Becoming Jane will be the sequel), that will be most likely the moment when I will be enraged. *sigh*
I still think the cast seems promising, though I admit I am dissapointed to learn that Ian Richardson and Dame Maggie Smith will not be playing Mr. and Mrs. Austen nor Julie Walters Madame Lefroy (in my mind they were perfect for those roles), but all the hopes I had about the script have almost vanished (more so since the person at Janeites who had read it, has conffirmed she liked MP2).
Kathleen, I will be looking forward to your review. You are definitely more qualified to express an opinion on the costumes. I could only say that I was not badly impressed with the first photos we saw (I too remember very well how horrified I was when I first beheld those of P&P3) but those for the ball didn’t strike me as adecuate but I could not put my finger on what was wrong. And I could not agree more on what you say about fashion for the mature ladies. Yes, probably there were women who still wore their outdated dresses, but I think it is Mrs. Musgrove (Charles’s mother, not Mary) who would be one of them -and by her own choice not by constraint-, not Lady Catherine nor Mrs. Bennet and certainly not this Lady Gresham nor Eliza de Feudille.
On a final note, well, then at least I still have “The Real Jane Austen” as a consolation (Mags, I really hope you could see it someday, I think you would like it as much as I do). BTW, I would like to point out I was the first one who had mentioned that Lucy Cohu had been Cassandra in that dramatized documentary (when we learnt she was among the cast for Becoming Jane).
Yes, MADE UP STORY!!!…
(but I’ve been saying so since the beginning)
April 19th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
Cinthia, try this link at Amazon–that is the CD that I have and that Robin is talking about. It has the Marseillaise on it. And I, too, like the rendition of “The Irishman.” When I saw Dr. Baird perform, she sang it herself; its sung by a male singer on the CD. Somewhere on her site is the script of her Jane Austen recital. Also, one of the songs in Jane’s book was changed from “The Soldier’s Adieu” to “The Sailor’s Adieu.” Interesting, huh?
Re: costumes: Over at Démodé the serious costume geeks are discussing the costumes and casting and the film in general, and pretty much saying the same things we’re saying here.
April 20th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
No wonder I was so confused. And this CD is not listed in Ms. Baird’s site. But both contain melodies from JA’s songbooks. Thanks a lot
April 21st, 2006 at 11:53 am
“admit I am dissapointed to learn that Ian Richardson and Dame Maggie Smith will not be playing Mr. and Mrs. Austen nor Julie Walters Madame Lefroy (in my mind they were perfect for those roles).”
I adore Maggie Smith in everything she is in, but I can’t agree she’d have been perfect for Mrs Austen because (sorry, I’m a stickler), whe was only 54 years old when Jane was 18 - almost a whole generation younger than Maggie’s age. And although she started turning into something of a hypochondriac as Jane grew older, she was by all accounts quite a rolicking, robust sort of woman. She lived to be 88! Even in her very old age, neighbours would see her out in the kitchen garden in her green apron and boots digging up potatoes. To my mind, that’s just not Maggie Smith. Anna Lefroy was quite a different type - warm, cultured, elegant, and a great reader. She was a bit younger than Mrs Austen, I think. She was a great friend and mentor to Jane from her childhood and I’m convinced that relationship had an important impact on the woman and writer that she became. I think Julie Walters could have done EITHER Mrs Austen or Lefroy very well,.
April 21st, 2006 at 2:52 pm
I adore Maggie Smith in everything she is in, but I can’t agree she’d have been perfectfor Mrs Austen because (sorry, I’m a stickler), whe was only 54 years old when Jane was 18 - almost a whole generation younger than Maggie’s age… To my mind, that’s just not Maggie Smith. Anna Lefroy was quite a different type - warm, cultured, elegant, and a great reader. She was a bit younger than Mrs Austen, I think… I think Julie Walters could have done EITHER Mrs Austen or Lefroy very well
Perhaps it was my phrasing and it will be still the phrasing, I’m afraid, so I hope you can excuse it, Karenlee. When we learnt those actresses were to be part of the cast but without knowing exactly their roles, speculation inevitably began and the most likely idea around was that they were to be Mrs. Austen and Madame Lefroy respectively. My mind got used to the idea, so they sort of became perfect in my mind, mine only of course, no one needs to agree :).
But I see your points about ages, in fact IIRC, also when we learnt about their taking part in the film, what we made was to check the ages of Mrs. Austen and Madame Lefroy at the time (Madame Lefroy was 10 years younger), as a way to figure out what roles the actresses could be given. I think we did notice Julie Walters is closer (or just?) Mrs. Austen’s age, but beside I had mentioned before about the speculation, also some of us are used to have actors in younger roles than their actual ages (though I get angry when studios advertise the cast fits the age stated in the original material, when it is plain that is not the case, I think all may know what I am talking about). Even Anne Hathaway is a few years older than JA was then. But now it has been conffirmed the script is fictional, so let’s not worry about that.
My mind now have to adjust to imagining the actors playing the roles
and as you say, I think Julie Walters can do very well either role.
Finally about disagreeing. I think I will disagree a bit with you, perhaps it is only the phrasing also. IMHO, it is not that Mrs. Austen and Madame Lefroy were quite different. I imagine them different but only in few extremes. Mrs. Austen cold, while Madame Lefroy might have been warm, definitely a great difference. But both women were IMHO cultured and great readers (and by force of that difference of warmthness, one would be encouraging -Madame Lefroy- while the other not-), though Madame Lefroy a bit more and also her appearance might have added to that impression too, in particular about the elegance. I do not know how to convey more properly the idea.