He had us going for a minute
You know, after all the other Made Up Story stuff we’ve been hearing about BECOMING JANE, this tongue-in-cheek comment from James McAvoy shouldn’t surprise us in the least.
I’m quite urgently interested in Becoming Jane, in which his character sets about seducing and dumping Anne Hathaway’s Jane Austen, an episode which, according to the pre-publicity, ‘inspired her career as one of the world’s great romantic writers’.
Well, James, I say, this sounds exciting, doesn’t it, Becoming Jane? Who knew that Jane Austen…? ‘Took it up the arse?’ he says smoothly. ‘Because that’s what happens! No, it doesn’t,’ he hastens to add. ‘There are, however, a couple of smooches.’
Yes, we laughed. We are not quite so without humor. However, we feel obliged to point out the answer to the reporter’s question. “Who knew that Jane Austen…” needed a MAAAAAAAN to “inspire” her career? The answer, of course, is that SHE DIDN’T. It’s a Made Up Story!
Speaking of, this is just hysterical.
When 20 year old Jane Austen falls in love with a penniless Irish boxer,
*falls over laughing*
he inspires her to put pen to paper for the first time.
As Alert Janeite Tony A pointed out in comments, “Jane puts pen to paper for the first time at age 20. Oh, that’s right, I forgot. She dictated the Juvenilia to her personal secretary.”
But their affair is doomed: his lack of money and social status is frowned upon and to ensure her own family’s reputation they are tragically forced to apart… With Austen fever at an all time high, this is a touching romantic drama about the nation’s favourite author.
Who knew, indeed? But we think that this company has little to do with the actual film and suspect that there was a great misapprehension. We HOPE that is the case!
Don’t miss the comments responding to the original post…priceless snark. Well played, Janeites!
(And thanks to Alert Janeite Julia who sent in the Guardian link just as we were posting it!)
October 17th, 2006 at 11:37 am
that’s rather crass…
October 17th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
So the ” He inspires her to put pen to paper for the first time ” isnt Made Up right?? I didnt understand the James McAvoy part a bit. What did they mean with ” In which his character sets about seducing and dumping Anne Hathaway’s Jane Austen”… Does he dump her in the movie and then she becomes ill or what?
October 17th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
So the “He inspires her to put pen to paper for the first time” isnt Made Up right??
It is very much Made Up. Jane Austen was writing from the time she was a young girl–which is why we are making fun of that statement. By the time she met Tom Lefroy, she had already written a novel-length work that would later be reshaped into Sense and Sensibility.
I have no idea what story is in the film, but the real story is that Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy danced at balls together and flirted for a couple of weeks, they liked each other quite a bit, he was close to an engagement with an heiress, and since he would or could not marry Jane, his aunt sent him away before they could get too attached to one another. Jane wrote about the dancing and flirting in letters to her sister, the sister imprudently did not burn them, and biographers have been putting too much emphasis on it ever since. She died 21 and a half years later (though still much too young), probably not of cancer.
October 18th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Well it seems Mr. McAvoy at least does not take the movie too seriously. I think when I see it (which I probably will in spite of everything) I believe I’ll watch it as a parody and thus be able to laugh at it.
I’ve got another explanation for her “putting pen to paper for the first time.” Mr. Lefroy gave her paper for the first time. She’d been writing on papyrus before she met him.
October 18th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
Let’s face it. The producers are banking on the idea that consumers are not interested in Truth or Accuracy, but are interested in romance, and more specifically, sex. They are going to wet Anne Hathaway’s lips and make her eye James McAvoy with gooey pools of emotion, throw in improbable lip lock sessions, and goodbye to any semblance to the scant tale we read as the true Jane/Tom story. As long as they acknowledge it to be A Made Up Story (keep caressing the Cluebat, Mags) we will not have to riot.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
On the other hand, we could see Jane getting down with a sweaty boxer, Cinderella Man style. maybe Tom “Rocky” Lefroy could bawl “Yo! Jaaannnee!” after his matches.
October 19th, 2006 at 9:46 am
lol….