What he said
Alert Janeite Sarah sent us some excerpts from a review of Becoming Jane (along with two other similar flicks, Moliere and Shakespeare in Love) in the latest edition of The New York Review of Books. Unfortunately it’s not available online except by subscription, so Sarah sent some excerpts. We haven’t been linking to a lot of reviews of Becoming Jane lately, because most of them are lukewarm at best and repeat the same things over and over. But in the wake of the bewilderment of a visitor to AustenBlog as to why so many of us did not enjoy the film, we think this is rather timely.
“[T]he message of all these lit-flicks [...] is that to get the job done — to write the great play, compose the great symphony, paint the Sistine Chapel or the bridge at Arles — you need to Experience Life. Which means you need to fall in love — and then lose the loved one. And suffer.”
“Since Austen’s anti-romantic stance is so basic to her mode of thinking and writing, we can’t tell from these few remarks [her letters about Lefroy] whether she’s deploying her habitual irony to mask real feelings. The tone is very much the tone of her brilliantly parodic juvenilia, and certainly in no way suggests the anguish of Marianne or the melancholy regret of Anne.”
“Jane Austen was Jane Austen from the moment her consciousness formed: the wit, the implacable powers of observation, the trenchant moral vision, the sense of the ridiculous are all evident in her adolescent writings; it didn’t take a Tom Lefroy to unleash them. Certainly the circumstances of her life informed the novels — she wasn’t a fantasist — but it’s her unique mind that animates them, and that draws us to her; that makes us want to know her [...]. That she loved, that she suffered, may or not be true, but these things can’t begin to explain her. The movie’s title is a misnomer: you can’t become what you already are.”
“There are the Jane Austen novels; the Jane Austen industry, including this current and perfectly respectable movie, is irrelevant.”
“So you love and you sacrifice and you suffer, but it’s all worthwhile, because sooner or later the world is at your feet. Forget genius — you’re box office. Coming next week to theaters everywhere: Ibsen in Love. Becoming Willa. Emerson.”
We’re kind of surprised there hasn’t been a big blowup on the blog before now of the snarkers vs. the defenders, as there was with P&P05–the contempt has been pretty much universal in the Janeite diaspora. That circumstance, more than anything else, says a great deal, we think.
September 14th, 2007 at 3:37 am
“We’re kind of surprised there hasn’t been a big blowup on the blog before now of the snarkers vs. the defenders, as there was with P&P05–the contempt has been pretty much universal in the Janeite diaspora. That circumstance, more than anything else, says a great deal, we think.”
I recently read a review on Amazon where someone was insulted as a woman, as a feminist and as a Janeite by the film - a reaction well over-proportioned, if you ask me. I think Becoming Jane was a perfectly *nice* little *film*, not big enough to evoke passion in one direction or another (in that sense someone blowing up big over it is beyond me).
September 14th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Although I’m not about to go out and start a new feminist revolution over this movie, I can see where this Amazon reviewer is coming from. Jane is depicted as completely innocent and insecure before she meets Lefroy (she destroys work based on his negative comment!), and he, the worldly male must instruct her in the ways of humanity and, most importantly, sex (as seen in the Tom Jones sequence–of course Jane Austen had already read Tom Jones when she met Tom Lefroy). There is also the endless undertones of the “choice” between being a “real” woman (a wife, mother, etc), and an author (as seen especially in the Mrs. Radcliffe scene). This is, undoubtedly, sexist, and I must say, a bit alarming. The last scene really sums it up, with Tom and Jane presenting each other with their “children”–Tom with a flesh and blood daughter, and Jane with her “choice” of a book. Urgh.
September 14th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
I think in many people, having watched the film, digested it, and moved on, feel (i’m speaking for a number of friends here) indifferent about it. It’s not terrible enough to burn copies of in big bonfires, neither (obviously) is it so good or perfect, even, as a chick-flick/rom-com-drama, that people push it on their friends as required viewing. Perhaps its because there’s so much literature and tv docs about Jane’s life that we feel it is possible to avoid this film being taken as pure evidence, and therefore being guilty enough of a crime of false witness.
September 14th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
“The movie’s title is a misnomer: you can’t become what you already are.”
SO TRUE! Thanks for posting this.
September 14th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
“The movie’s title is a misnomer: you can’t become what you already are.”
I think that says it all.
So those like me who haven’t seen it, wonder what they show which ‘made Jane’. OK I am really not wondering - I know Tom lefroy ‘made her’
Added to this are the scenes witnessed in the current video clip here and articles, I think it is enough to make a decision against seeing it.
For me the greatest drawback was AH who didn’t give the impression of a woman who was so sharply witty, and ironic.
In fact she looked like a heroine of a film
rather than a character like JA who once lived.
September 14th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Well, I couldn’t even summon enough enthusiasm to go and see the movie - I’m sure there are many others just as disinterested.
September 19th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
not to worry, the language in the first two letters is adequate enough to demonstrates a flirtation if not a love affair; wife and I found the movie enjoyable enough considering that being a colonist we can’t get access yet to the three new British movies.