Alert Janeite Cinthia found a press release with some new photos from Miss Austen Regrets on the PBS site. Well, hello there Mr. Haden. What was the quote from her letter?

To make his return a complete Gala, Mr. Haden was secured for dinner–I need not say that our Evening was agreable.–But you seem to be under a mistake as to Mr. H.–you call him an Apothecary; he is no Apothecary, he has never been an Apothecary, there is not an Apothecary in the Neighbourhood–the only inconvenience of the situation perhaps, but so it is–we have not a medical Man within reach–he is a Haden, nothing but a Haden, a sort of wonderful nondescript Creature on two legs, something between a Man & an Angel–but without the least spice of an Apothecary.–He is perhaps the only Person not an Apothecary hereabouts.–He has never sung to us. He will not sing without a Pianoforte accompaniment. - Letter from Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, December 2, 1815

We’ve collected the news on the DVD front for the most recent adaptations.

A big piece of news is that the Region 1 DVD for Northanger Abbey does not restore the cuts made to the original British broadcast version. Approximately nine scenes have been cut–nearly ten minutes. It should be pointed out that North American audiences for the most part are not equipped to watch Region 2 DVDs. The percentage of AustenBlog readers might be larger, but looking at the larger Janeite diaspora, many people will buy the DVD and never know that they’re missing something. Although we were not that impressed with the films, it seems a shame to us.

The cuts made for broadcast have been restored on the Persuasion DVD. As Cinthia has pointed out, Persuasion is distributed by BBC America. Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park are distributed by WGBH Home Video. We don’t know why the cuts were made or who is at fault for perpetrating them. WGBH might not have had a choice in the matter. It’s a nonsensical decision however one looks at it. The MP DVDs, we believe, ship this week, and we’ll see if anything has been cut; it’s more than likely.

On the bright side, S&S and Miss Austen Regrets are BBC productions (huzzah!) and, like Persuasion, will be distributed by BBC America; therefore we are confident that whatever might be broadcast, the DVDs will contain the full version. There is some confusion about what exactly is contained on the DVDs. WGBH is selling a three-disc “collector’s edition” that, according to the site, has S&S and Persuasion and Miss Austen Regrets as a “special bonus.” The two-disc set has S&S and Miss Austen Regrets, as well as audio commentaries (rumor has it the Region 2 version has commentaries by Charity Wakefield, Dominic Cooper, Hattie Morahan, and Dan Stevens), interviews with producer Anne Pivcevic and writer Andrew Davies, a photo gallery, and deleted scenes (these are presumably *in addition* to a full original cut–there is no reason at present to think that the film on the DVD is cut in any way, but of course we will keep our readers informed). Presumably the 3-disc set includes these extras as well but we do not know that definitively; it makes sense that the extra disc would be Persuasion, though. Amazon also is carrying the two-disc set (we hasten to add that S&S does NOT, repeat does NOT, star Colin Firth. For crying out loud) and the three-disc collector’s edition. That’s what we’re talking about, Gentle Readers! That’s how you treat Janeites! Give us some value for our money. They wanted an Internet-savvy audience; that means a global audience, an educated audience, and it’s a little harder to pull the wool over our eyes.

Alert Janeite Julie P. sent us reviews of the Persuasion and Northanger Abbey DVDs by one Paul Mavis at DVD Talk. He likes both of them, and scolds the dried-up tar-hearted spinster purists. How special.

It’s unfortunate in a way that Andrew Davies has become so closely linked not only with period television adaptations in general, but especially with Jane Austen. Unfortunate because he really comes close to getting it sometimes, and sometimes you just wonder what the heck he is thinking.

Alert Janeite Diana Birchall sent us an article Mr. Davies wrote for The Times. Apparently he also has written the introduction for a new edition of Sense and Sensibility. Meaning the book. What? Anyway, there’s some interesting stuff in the piece.

Best of all, Austen has dramatic gifts herself. She would have been an excellent playwright. She builds surely and subtly towards the big scenes, then writes them so well that all the adapter has to do is copy them out.

So why don’t you then? Poor Henry Tilney, who has some of the wittiest and most intelligent dialogue in the Austen oeuvre, had a nearly complete dialogue makeover.

Austen, we can be pretty sure, identifies more with Elinor. Her wry shrewdness is very close to Austen’s authorial voice, and a million miles away from Marianne’s rather soppy eulogies about falling leaves, which are not unlike the utterings of Fotherington-Tomas. Moreover, Austen lets us see into Elinor’s mind and heart, whereas Marianne is represented by what she does and says in Elinor’s presence, and by what Elinor thinks about her. Whether consciously or not, Austen forces us to identify with Elinor.

We’ll buy that.

Then there’s Colonel Brandon. Austen shows us his instant and powerful attraction towards Marianne. We learn that he had a tragic love affair when young, and has not looked at another woman since. So, he has a passionate nature. Excellent. This is all very promising, except that Marianne sees him as an old man (that flannel waistcoat is a real downer); when Willoughby comes onto the scene, Brandon becomes virtually invisible to her. It has potential, but it’s difficult material, and Austen doesn’t handle it as well as she would have done in her later novels. We need a few hints earlier on that Brandon is more than a dry old stick, and, crucially, we need to see, in the final movement, how Marianne comes to love him. There’s at least one missing scene.

Honestly, it’s not that difficult. The reader understands that Colonel Brandon is, under the flannel waistcoat, a seething pile of romance, just like Marianne. He’s been a bit hardened by experience, and learned to keep it under good management, but it’s there, all right.

And we don’t need help to understand that Willoughby is a jerk, either. Every woman understands it. He publicly dumps her. Publicly. At a ball. In front of people. The sisterhood will stand as one on that, trust us.

These dark Austenian subplots are never fully dramatised; we always hear these stories at second hand. We never meet Eliza or her mother, so we are not likely to feel for them as we feel for Marianne, though their fate is so much worse, and I for one feel quite haunted by them.

Many readers do. Honestly, we’re not that stupid. We don’t need to have everything spelled out for us. It’s okay that stuff happens off-canvas. It’s also okay (if it’s not giving away the plot too early) to show a bit of backstory in an adaptation. It helps if the adaptation has enough time to develop the backstory AND the main plot; and an adapter who doesn’t bludgeon the poor viewer with what Jane Austen painted so painstakingly on her bits of ivory.

It is sad in a way that it takes the film adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels to get those novels a great deal of attention, but certainly that’s been the case all over right now. The Complete Jane Austen in the U.S., recent broadcasts in Canada, Sense and Sensibility in the UK, and The Jane Austen Book Club opening in Australia–she really is everywhere right now, at least in celluloid form.

Media commentary is predictably mixed. The Times has a short opinion piece pointing out that complaints about the irrelevancy of Jane Austen’s plots, with their emphasis on marriage, class, and money, is not as far off as one might think.

Nor would that ruthless analyst of the economics of love, Jane Austen, raise an eyebrow. In her claustrophobic world of drawing-rooms, where respectable women’s earning power was nil, she knew that ladies would of necessity rule out the poor and the socially unsuitable. They would then set their hearts on marrying the only eligible man for miles around, and never hesitate to call it love.

But her heroines generally get the best of both worlds–eligible gentlemen who love them sincerely, and more importantly, are worthy of the heroines’ love. A columnist for the American Chronicle seems to be a bit jaded about the Happy Ever After.

Sometimes along the avenue of life a handful of us might realise that love may not be all that one thinks it is. And maybe we once held on to the notion that love does conquer all things, until we found out from a little trial and error that it is not so.

Not always anyway. Sometimes there is a monetary value involved. And the more this notion lingers in one’s mind, the more evident it is becoming that maybe the late and extraordinarily talented Jane Austen touched on a similar issue in her works. It’s the one that states in a thought provoking, subtle sort of way that maybe we are only as worthy as our bank accounts would allow.

For one can hardly peruse a Jane Austen work without noticing how easily certain characters can dismiss themselves from one´s company the second they learn how much that person is not worth. Pick any work you like, ‘Northanger Abbey’ ‘Pride and Prejudice’ it’s there. It seems as if it’s a great insult to be interested in someone who is not worth something as far as a monetary value goes.

Jane Austen’s novels are all about balance. No matter how much love a couple shares, they need something to live upon (Isabella Thorpe was right about that, even if her wants were not as moderate as she claimed). There’s nothing in her novels that suggests that financial motivations are the only ones worth considering in a marriage; just that they should be taken into consideration.

There are the usual complaints about the irrelevancy of period dramas in general in The Guardian.

When you see it formulaically coagulated thus, there’s something deeply deadening here: Britain embalmed. And Jane Austen - or rather, the film-makers and serial-adapters who grind out TV and film versions of her rather slim output roughly once every five years - have a lot to answer for. Did she write Pride and Prejudice as a recyclable mini-series? Did she ever dream of Billie Piper playing Fanny Price around a cut-price ITV Mansfield Park? Of course she didn’t. The wonder of Austen’s novels is in the pungency of the prose, the wry wit and the observation. Roll them out on a digital conveyor belt as genteel rom coms, and their entire point is lost.

There was nothing remotely fresh or interesting about the Sense and Sensibility that fluttered through its last repeat last night. Just watch another team of gallant British actresses - old, wasted and expensive, or young and much cheaper - go through the motions of whining over Willoughby. Just chalk up another supposed plus for public servicing. But, in truth, it’s high time for everyone to call a halt to this march of battalions of bonnets.

While we agree with some of this comment, we are a glass-half-full kind of girl and still hope to someday see some more really good adaptations–not “fixed up” for modern sensibilities (or what The Powers That Be consider such) and with plenty of time and space for character and plot development. It is possible.