Some Marmite for Miss Austen
Alert Janeite Sylvia M. found some musings about Becoming Jane in The Observer.
Some people are being sniffy about the new biopic, Becoming Jane. What were the producers supposed to do? There will always be an audience greedy for Jane Austen on screen, but she only published six books and they can’t just keep remaking Mansfield Park. The alternative was trying to film the unfinished Sanditon, but that’s a real coach crash of a novel (in-joke for the diehard Austen fans there).
Yes, yes, we get it.
Sylvia M. opined that she wouldn’t mind seeing a filmed version of the completion of Sanditon by “Another Lady.” We like that book and love the fragment, and wouldn’t mind seeing a completed version filmed, either; though, pray, not adapted by Andrew Davies. 
Hathaway hasn’t made an effort to get ugly in her Austen guise, but she has done her best to be Method. She bought quill pens so that she could write home while imagining herself to be Jane Austen. She also told the press that she had used her ‘British accent’ on and off set, and eaten beans on toast and Marmite. All Jane Austen’s favourites.
No doubt.
We won’t bother to parse the faux letters home, but allow our Gentle Readers to enjoy and discuss themselves.
March 17th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I haven’t seen it here before, so I thought I’d post it in this thread. There is a YouTube clip from BBC Breakfast in which James McAvoy tells about ‘Becoming Jane’ (he’s talking about the burned letters again!). There’s also a fragment from the movie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UEzyF0lFmo
Also, there seems to have been a documentary about ‘Becoming Jane’ on BBC2 today… I totally missed it, though! Has anyone seen it?
By the way, I think Andrew Davies would be perfect to adapt Sanditon!
March 17th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
I’m sure he’d try to stick a nude bathing machine scene in there somehow. Bleagh.
March 17th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Well Julie, people do go to Sandition for the waters. Let us remember that the producers of previous adaptations have been able to rein him in, so it might be a good idea to get the better part of his talents and ignore/supress the rest.
RE: Miss Hathaway’s quills…my mother read that and said she thinks the girl needs professional help. Mom doesn’t think much of method acting. Actually, I don’t either. It strikes me as somewhat creepy, possibly faintly sociopathic.
March 17th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Now that I think of it…there IS a bathing scene in the “Another Lady” completion, and men DID bathe naked in those days. (But the scene in Sanditon is ladies bathing.)
March 17th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
I have liked Andrew Davies’ adaptations so far. At least he keeps a good portion of the original text in his scripts.
“Let us remember that the producers of previous adaptations have been able to rein him in, so it might be a good idea to get the better part of his talents and ignore/supress the rest.”
I agree with this statement. There have been questionable scenes in his previous scripts that have been sent to the cutting room floor. I would assume that the same thing would happen in this case, especially if they intend to keep these films family oriented.
March 18th, 2007 at 5:57 am
I wonder why the author specified that they ‘can’t keep remaking Mansfield Park’. As far as I know, that hasn’t been filmed so very often, and certainly less than some of the others. And yes, there’s a coach crash at the beginning of Sanditon, but does anyone have any idea what it is that makes it a ‘real coach crash of a novel’? The fact that it’s unfinished? Oh my, how very clever.
*checks off her portion of forced and clumsy analogies for the day*
I would also be delighted to see a well-filmed version of Sanditon as finished ‘by a Lady’. I thoroughly enjoyed the quite accurate and very respectful way she continued on with Austen’s beginning and really loved some of the places she took it (Arthur and Miss Lambe
).
March 18th, 2007 at 9:35 am
I shudder to think how much worse The Way We Live Now would have been if someone hadn’t reined him in. Personally, I think Davies thinks way too highly of his own abilities.
March 18th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Thanks to an article in the Saturday, March 17th Toronto Globe and Mail, I have discovered this wonderful site. And now gone to many of the sites linked here. Thank you.
I have to agree with Sylvia M about Andrew Davies. I have watched the videos of his P&P adaptation many many times and found it very faithful. Not being privvy to UK television - except for BBC Canada, which seems to favour primarily decorating shows and programs like Eastenders and Footballers Wives- I can’t comment on anything else he’s done.
I do have to say though that Persuasion is my favorite and while I wonder how pleasant Captain Wenbtworth will continueto be after Ann’s marriage to him, or how long her emancipation will continue, (will Wentworth take over where her family and Lady Russell left off)I still find it a very satisfying book.
How I wish I could join you in Vancouver for the meeting. I guess I’ll just have to content myself with my memories of a visit to Chawton and tracking in Bath all the places mentioned in Persuasion as well as anything vaguely Jane Austen in the city. cheers laurice
March 19th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Oh, I don’t know about method acting being creepy. Remember some of those snarky comments about Janeites who like to dress up? Method acting doesn’t seem any creepier to me than reenactors, or Janeites wearing ballgowns to their annual meetings.
March 19th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
But reenactors are just having fun. Most of them do not LIVE that way for weeks at a time. A few, but arguably not the sane ones.
April 2nd, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Why is it creepy? Reenactors are “just having fun.” Ms. Hathaway, on the other hand, was engaged in research that affected her livelihood. She believed practicing with the quill pens was something that would enable her to do her job better, so she did it. I think it would be more accurate to call it “professionalism.” It may not be a choice that you would make, if you were doing the same job, but that doesn’t make it “creepy.” It makes it “a different choice.” It doesn’t make it “sociopathic,” unless you think of all acting - and reenacting, for that matter - as “sociopathic.” In which case, why spend your time and/or money watching a bunch of sociopaths cavorting on screen?