There still are some bits to finish up from last week’s UK broadcast of Miss Austen Regrets. The Telegraph’s Stephen Pile said:

At the start of the 21st century we are all madly interested in What Jane Austen Was Really Like, but the reports are confusing. In the cinema Becoming Jane showed us an intelligent woman who was nonetheless feminine and romantic, but television is not so easily fooled and has come up with something far more complex.

In Miss Austen Regrets (BBC1, Sun) she had an utterly different set of boyfriends from the film (Rev Bridges, Bigg-Wither and even, controversially, Dr Haden, but no sign of the racy Lefroy). What emerged was Jane Our Contemporary.

The Times’ Roland White seems less than pleased.

Yet the Jane Austen portrayed so brilliantly here by Olivia Williams was hardly a role model for today’s spiky, independent career girls. For all her bravado on the subject, she was obsessed by the one thing that eluded her - Mr Right. It was pretty much all she talked about: partly advising her niece and partly reflecting on her own lack of success.

We feel as though we should paraphrase Edward Austen from the film–”If that’s what you think it is about, perhaps you should watch it again.”

Whereas the Guardian’s Andrew Anthony is in raptures.

Surely not even the most devoted member of the Jane Austen Society would have thought that what British television needed just now was another costume drama of early 19th-century social manners featuring Hugh Bonneville. And yet Miss Austen Regrets was a sublime delight. Olivia Williams as Austen grabbed our sympathy with throwaway epigrams, and such was the spirit of the piece, that every visual cliche seemed almost fresh.

Alert Janeite Carmen sent us a link to a fan-made trailer for Miss Austen Regrets (complete with Spanish subtitles! Lovely!) since neither PBS nor Auntie Beeb bothered to make one:

Most of the British press, now that the movie is past, seemed to like it well enough. Perhaps if they had said so before it aired, it wouldn’t have lost in the ratings to Midsomer Murders. Or maybe not.

Here’s an article we missed on Sunday, from the Times.

What she calls the “Janeites” – the legions of (mainly female) fans obsessed with Austen and all her works – are already complaining online that Olivia Williams, the actress who plays Austen, is too tall

Where is all this complaining going on? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

The Telegraph has a thoughtful look at the film.

Above all, she reflected on her own romantic history, as Fanny’s questions (put, it seemed, on our behalf) constantly raised the issue of why she’d never married.
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To its credit, the programme didn’t come with a simple answer to that – or a simple emotional response. Instead, Austen pondered her single state with a mixture of bullishness, puzzlement, satisfaction and sadness. In a touching scene towards the end, one of her old suitors, the Rev Bridges (Hugh Bonneville at his most gently benevolent) asked her if she was at all sorry that she hadn’t married him. “What would be the point?” said Austen.

Sam Wollaston at the Guardian liked it despite his allergy to bonnets. (One longs to quote Edward Knight in the film–”If that’s what you think Aunt Jane’s books are about, perhaps you should read them again.”)

OK, so I’m not a Jane Austen freak, I’ll admit. I have subject-matter issues, plus an irrational hatred of bonnets, carriages, marriages, gravel, ribbons, mazes, and all that. But this dramatisation, by Gwyneth Hughes, of the second half of Austen’s life really was beautifully observed and thrilling to look at, with performances that left me weak with admiration (sorry, I’m getting carried away). The real star was Olivia Williams in the lead, who lifted this from standard Sunday-night BBC1 costume drama to something special. Her complex Austen was witty and brilliant, as you’d expect, but also moody and a bit mean, sometimes bordering on bitter. Suddenly it was clear: of course, that’s exactly what Jane Austen was like. A classy film.

The Times (again) has another reviewer who professes to hate Austen, but praises the film.

The central performance from Williams was a knockout, complimented by harsh unglamorous close-ups of a harried face, pale and careworn, and sad, soulful eyes. But best of all, however, were the silences. Whereas the wearisome Austen brand mistakenly equates prolixity with charm, here the words were cut down to a minimum. Gorgeous scenes, composites of close-ups, of Austen alone, staring, reflecting and aching, all underscored by the pining piano of the composer Jennie Muskett, somehow described Austen’s crushing loss and confusion without a line of dialogue. The closing topper, where Austen revealed that she was pressurised into remaining unmarried by her sister, and was thus a novelist by default, made complete sense.

What? Did anyone else get that from it?

And for all you soundtrack fanatics out there, Music from the Movies reviews the soundtrack, which (as we posted previously) is available for download on iTunes and will be out on CD next week.

We are pretty sure that Miss Austen Regrets got fairly good reviews after its broadcast here in the U.S., if not absolutely enthusiastic embrace, perhaps. We liked its intelligence and wit, the presentation of Jane Austen as a businesswoman and not so much of a romantic, and Olivia Williams’ magnificent performance that captured Jane Austen’s intelligence and wit and sense of fun as well as a clear-minded view of her life. It is clearly the screenwriter’s interpretation of events, not all of which we agreed with, but overall we were pleased with it. However, the theme of the UK press coverage in anticipation of the Sunday broadcast is the same old “The tar-hearted dried-up spinsters of the Jane Austen Society won’t approve! Tsk Tsk!” We really detest the press sometimes.

ETA: We nearly forgot! Alert Janeite Kate wrote to tell us that the soundtrack for Miss Austen Regrets is available to download on iTunes, and will be available to purchase in shops on May 12.

The Daily Mail (not exactly a bastion of thoughtful journalism, we admit) leads the tsking.

An incorrigible flirt with a crush on a man half her age, a woman who scandalously reneges on the acceptance of a marriage proposal, and a reveller familiar with hangovers because of her penchant for wine.

The above depiction of Jane Austen has already sent shudders down the corsets of her fans worldwide, for this little-known side to the early 19th-century author is the subject of a new BBC costume drama, Miss Austen Regrets.

*rolls eyes*

To make matters worse, when Jane died, aged 41, her sister Cassandra burned many of her letters - probably to spare the feelings of relatives and acquaintances who were the target of Jane’s barbs.

Actually, it’s more likely because they were letters to Cassandra and nobody else’s business. Slight difference. She didn’t burn the one with the dead baby joke, did she? Nope.

“People who think of Jane Austen as a little country mouse who was reserved around men will be shocked,” reveals Gwyneth Hughes, who wrote the script after painstakingly scouring Austen’s letters for revealing new insights into the author’s life.

Does anyone think that?

But Hughes is adamant. “Yes, she liked a drink,” she smiles. “When we showed the film in America, I got e-mails from the Jane Austen Society asking on what evidence we based the fact that Jane Austen had hangovers.

“So I found the quote from a letter which said: ‘I believe I drank too much wine last night; I know not else how to account for the shaking of my hand today.’”

Well, to extrapolate that to a hangover might be pushing it a bit. But no matter. (We are wondering about that “letter from the Jane Austen Society” as well.)

Another acquaintance, Reverend-Brook Bridges (played by Hugh Bonneville), is another potential husband.

“Jane mentions Bridges about half a dozen times in her letters - always affectionately and with a slight tinge of what might have been. There is a real sense of something between them, that he was a real contender, even if he never proposed,” says Hughes.

We’re not so sure about that, but it was okay in the movie.

But the third man in Austen’s life was half her age - and it was more like she had a girly, sexual crush on him. The object of her desire was the 20-year-old Dr Charles Haden (played by up-and-coming actor Jack Huston, who starred in Factory Girl).

Haden treats Jane’s sick brother and gets on very well with Jane until he is diverted by the charms of her niece Fanny.

“There was sex and passion on offer from Jane. She describes him as ’something between a man and an angel’. We have these letters with incredibly smitten feelings about this young chap. She was like a teenager,” explains Hughes.

We still are of the opinion that Jane was more likely joking with Cassandra about Fanny’s crush on Mr. Haden–imitating her way of talking, perhaps. While we think that Jane was quite capable of being pleased by an attractive young man who said lovely things about her “darling children,” we also think she would have tempered any attraction with common sense. Though he does come on kind of strong in the film!

Moving on to another article in the Yorkshire Post, which had this interesting tidbit that we think must have been a misapprehension by the reporter.

“Then I remembered that I had read Claire Tomalin’s biography of Jane Austen a few years previously,
and had come across this amazing thing.

“The woman we all think of as the archetypal spinster wasn’t someone who had had no offers of marriage. She’d had an offer from an extremely eligible man who was wealthy and whom she had known all her life. He was a family friend, his sisters were her best friends, and his name was Harris Bigg.

“Had she married him she would have been rich, but she said yes one evening in December 1802, then got up the next morning and said no. Giving back-word was a shameful and appalling thing, so what happened during the intervening night, when she went off to bed, sharing a room with her sister, Cassandra?”

Tomalin had discovered this relatively little-known Austen fact through an account left by Jane’s 10-year-old niece, who witnessed the effects of this scandal on the family.

What? While we think well enough of Claire Tomalin’s biography of Jane Austen (though we usually recommend others), she was hardly the first to “discover” l’affaire Bigg-Withers. It was mentioned in Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters: A Family Record, which was published in 1913. We’re not sure if that is the first mention, but it certainly predates Tomalin. It also is mentioned in the wonderful biography by Elizabeth Jenkins, in our opinion the most readable of all Jane Austen biographies.

But at least Gwyneth Hughes admits she made most of it up–though she backs it up with evidence from the letters. As we already said, we don’t always agree with her interpretation, but Olivia Williams’ intelligently wonderful performance puts the film over the top for us. And we love this part:

“All the men in the story are real and all are mentioned in the letters – some very fully and others not. I took each one and imagined who he was and what kind of relationship they might have had.” To Hughes, the least interesting was Tom Lefroy, with whom Austen shared a teenage flirtation, a puppy love previously examined in the rather slight and unsatisfying feature film Being Jane.

Hee hee heeeeeeeee!

Reuters also has an article that covers most of the same ground, and the Times chats with Greta Scacchi about her portrayal of Cassandra Austen, though oddly they run a photo of Olivia Williams with the article, and they really don’t talk much about Miss Austen Regrets. The journalist seems more interesting in putting a “gotcha” on Ms. Scacchi and getting her to say something unguarded.

So UK Janeites, do stop in and let us know what you think of the film once you’ve seen it!

This article is probably not unexpected, with the impending broadcast of Miss Austen Regrets on UK television, but we found it a trifle strange nonetheless.

She flirts remorselessly. She wakes up with a hangover. She wisecracks with her women friends about the myriad failings of the pitiful male specimens she surveys. Sex and the City’s Samantha? Carrie? Miranda? No, Jane Austen, of course.

OHDEARJANENOTWITHTHESEXANDTHECITYCOMPARISONSAGAIN!!!!! Elvis wept, people! Something original, please!

“Your only way to get a man like Mr Darcy is to make him up,” says Olivia Williams’ Jane Austen to her niece Fanny (a sentiment echoed by my mother, who once sent me a card bearing the cheery greeting “Searching for Mr Right?” and then inside the helpful solution: “Look in fiction!”). This vehement assertion of no-nonsense realism is underlined by an obsession with money that has this Jane swinging slightly wildly between acerbic social commentator and Regency Heather Mills.

Oh, she has GOT to be kidding us. The “obsession” with money in the film was related to the fact that the Austens, as a family, had suffered several financial setbacks–setbacks, incidentally, that may have contributed to Jane Austen’s death (severe emotional distress exacerbates the symptoms of Addison’s disease). They didn’t even put them all in the film–we can’t remember the expected legacy from Uncle Leigh Perrot not coming through, but that happened around the same time that Henry’s bank failed, if memory serves. Jane was at the time in her career when she was just starting to make some decent money, and get attention in the right places–reviews by Walter Scott, the patronage of the Prince Regent–and then she fell ill, and couldn’t take advantage of it. Are we the only ones who can follow a very logical plot? Sheesh!

Besides, Heather Mills, unlike Jane Austen, can actually go out and get a job. Not that she will, but just saying.

It is, however, somewhat undercut by the drama’s central thesis: that Jane Austen was a passionate romantic, one who withdrew her acceptance of a rich young Londoner’s proposal because she wasn’t in love with him, and who regretted, till her dying day, her decision not to marry the man she loved because he was too poor.

We think she has Miss Austen Regrets confused with Becoming Jane. Surely she didn’t think that Jane regretted Brook Bridges? (In the movie, meaning–it’s doubtful she spared the guy a thought in real life).

Frankly, this whole thing sounds like it was written by Bridget Jones after a bottle of Chardonnay, except that we know Bridget suffers from writers’ block. By the end we were wondering WTFerrars it had to do with Jane Austen.

At last! A very good article in the Independent about Miss Austen Regrets gives a broadcast date for the UK: April 27. We’re sure the Region 2 DVD will quickly follow for all the Europeans waiting on it.

In a break between scenes on set at Hall Barn, an appropriately stately manor house near Beaconsfield, the 39-year-old actress confides that she’s fearful of the consequences if Austen’s legions of passionate fans – the “Janeites” – take against her portrayal of their heroine.

“It’s a terrifying prospect,” Williams shudders. “These diehard Janeites will pelt me with rock cakes if I make a mistake. Already, they’re complaining online – ‘She’s too tall, she doesn’t look right!’”

For once, that’s not us. But this is the sort of thing that gets us tossing cakes, er, swinging the Cluebat:

Jane reflects wistfully on the fact that this episode put her off the very idea of marriage. Consequently, she never settled down with her soulmate, the Reverend Brook Bridges (Hugh Bonneville)

Soulmate? Let’s not get carried away here.

In a feat of serendipitous timing, we also got word yesterday of a lovely essay on JASNA’s website about Brook Edward Bridges and his relationship (such as it was) with Jane Austen. The essay was written by Elizabeth Philosophos Cooper, the regional coordinator of JASNA’s Wisconsin region.

A few years later Austen wrote to Cassandra from Godmersham: “Lady Bridges looked very well, & would have been very agreeable, I am sure, had there been time enough for her to talk to me . . . . Her son Edward was also looking very well, & with manners as un-altered as hers” (30 June 1808). A letter written later that year to Cassandra, who was visiting Godmersham, includes an important emphasis: “I wish you may be able to accept Lady Bridges’s invitation, though I could not her son Edward’s; she is a nice Woman, & honours me by her remembrance” (7 October 1808). Citing this letter, Deirdre Le Faye, in Jane Austen: A Family Record, says, “it seems possible that Edward Bridges proposed or attempted to propose to [Austen during her visit in 1808], . . . a proposal which she had no difficulty in politely rejecting.”

What was that about soulmates again? Back to the Independent article…

Even if these events saddened Austen as a woman, they enriched her as a writer. Her life bled into her work. In Persuasion, for instance, she writes wryly that “a woman of seven and twenty can never hope to feel or inspire affection again”.

Psst. Not Persuasion. Try Sense and Sensibility. And since it’s coming out of Marianne Dashwood’s mouth, it’s certainly not meant to be taken as Jane Austen’s opinion.

Austen’s bittersweet experiences endowed her novels with a rare astringency. “One’s impressions from screen adaptations of Austen is that it’s all lovely girls running down hills in flowery dresses,” Williams says. “But Austen could be a real bitch as well. She could nail the weaknesses in someone’s appearance or accent. She could deconstruct people accurately and uncharitably, and would rail against their faults and foibles. That’s why I – and the vigilante Janeites – love her.”

Well, one of the reasons, but that’s nicely said!

Williams, who studied English at Cambridge University, says: “I’m in awe of Austen. She is the reason I’ve never written anything. I remember trying to write like her once and coming up with these clearly risible attempts to plot or describe things as brilliantly as she does.”

Oh, honey. That’s no reason to not write. Don’t try to write like Jane Austen. Trust your own voice, and work at it. Remember those lovely encouraging letters from Aunt Jane when asked to read her nieces’ and nephews’ writing. She would never tell you to not at least try.

The actress, who says she never goes anywhere without Austen’s letters

Alert Janeite Cinthia let us know (last week, and we forgot to post it!) that the release date for the Region 2 DVD of Miss Austen Regrets has been pushed back from March 24 to May 5. That is probably because the film has not yet been broadcast in the UK or Europe. We will keep an eye on the listings for a broadcast date, which we hope will be the first weekend in May now for the UK at least.

Alert Janeite Cinthia found the press pack for Miss Austen Regrets on the BBC website. It will be on BBC One…soon. No date yet, but Cinthia points out that the DVD is set to ship on March 24, and it is likely that when the Week 13 schedule is announced, we will see Miss Austen Regrets on Saturday the 22nd or Sunday the 23rd; Sunday being more likely. Watch this space.

While we’re taking a (probably needed) break from the Complete Jane Austen, a few interesting pieces of news crossed our desk.

According to a column by the president and CPO of Twin Cities Public Television, despite all the Janeite complaints, the ratings for the films have been quite good.

And suggesting that “Masterpiece Theater” has “settled” for an all-Jane Austen format is simply incorrect — “The Complete Jane Austen” drew the highest audiences for the program in more than a decade.

Yep, they might stink, but we watched them like the big Janeite saps we are, and that’s all that matters. Sad but true.

For those of you outside the U.S. and UK, many of you are going to have the chance to see some of the new films, if you haven’t already. The BBC has sold rights to S&S07 and Miss Austen Regrets around the world.

Meanwhile, acclaimed screenwriter Andrew Davies’ adaptation of “Sense and Sensibility” sold to 11 markets, including Japan, Sweden, Poland, Canada and Korea, and Jane Austen biopic “Miss Austen Regrets” also enjoyed solid sales.

Naturally, if we hear anything we’ll let our Gentle Readers know!

There’s even a tidbit of Becoming Jane news of sorts: a profile of Laurence Fox, whom many of us adored as Mr. Wisley, reveals that he originally was offered another role in the film, but turned it down.

“…With Becoming Jane they wanted me to be another part who was a bit jokey and buff but I didn’t have any interest in it. I quite liked the concept of going, ‘Maybe there is an alternative for everybody. Here is this shy guy who’d like to be able to express himself but can’t.’ Which is probably more like me anyway.”

Soooooo, who was it? Jokey and buff? Henry Austen, perhaps? Or–dare we say–Tom Lefroy himself? Because who else COULD it be?

Crudely tattooed on his left wrist is “Mrs Fox 31-12-07”, a memento of their honeymoon in Mexico. “Drunken moment in Playa del Carmen. And she’s got ‘Mr Fox’. But don’t tell the agent.”

Just how Fanny and Edmund would have spent their honeymoon, eh?

Lastly, a lot of viewers seemed to really like the music video that PBS put together for the Complete Jane Austen set to the music of Coldplay’s “Fix You.” It’s on YouTube now, so you can rewind to your heart’s content. (And a PBS representative told us about it, so the self-appointed Jane Austen Copyright Police can go have a cup of tea or something.)

Alert Janeite Helen B. wrote to let us know that Miss Austen Regrets will be available on Region 2 DVD on March 24, 2008.

We wonder if that means it will be shown on television around that time? Hmm.

And look! Cover art!

We’re just posting stuff now to take up space so the title of the next post doesn’t overlap on wide-screen monitors.

That’s much better.

Alert Janeite DeeDee let us know that there is an online petition to release Miss Austen Regrets on DVD on its own, not just bundled as an “extra” with S&S08. Freedom for Miss Austen!

(Regrets? Get it? We do crack ourself up.)

No pre-snarking, as we are really posting this before it aired so we haven’t seen it yet…so what’s the verdict, Gentle Readers?

Well, after we complained about the slowdown in news the other day, naturally there was a veritable tidal wave of opinions and reviews about Miss Austen Regrets. It’s being positioned as An Alternative To That Athletic Contest Taking Place Today as well. Why would it be assumed that Janeites wouldn’t like football, and vice versa? We’re actually not that exercised about it this year ourself, but we’ll watch for the commercials if nothing else. Incidentally, TCM will be showing S&S95 opposite the SuperBowl.

The reviews are mixed, as we suspect our own readers’ opinions will be–and perhaps our own. The Los Angeles Times found it interesting, at least.

This is the second recent movie about Austen, after last year’s theatrical release “Becoming Jane,” a thing of wild invention that packed her off on an aborted elopement to Scotland. Like that film, “Miss Austen Regrets” ruminates on the author’s love life, or lack thereof — tries to rectify it, in a way, by painting her as a creature of inner passion. But while screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes (the excellent kidnapping miniseries “Five Days”) has drawn some serious curlicues around the few available facts — and she has definitely done her homework — she has also managed to create plausible characters and crises.

Well, that sounds good. (more…)

As we mentioned previously, the news flow around The Complete Jane Austen is slowing down some, but has not completely stopped. We found a common theme among some of the latest items: either they express outrage at the latest crop of adaptations, or spark outrage in the reader.

Alert Janeite Surreyhill sent us a review of Mansfield Park from the Flick Filosopher, who apparently took Agent Scully’s ridiculous introduction of MP07 a little too much to heart.

There’s a term for characters like Fanny Price: Mary Sue. And it’s not a particularly nice term. Mary Sues are stand-ins for the author, the author idealized, as Fanny surely must be for Jane Austen in Mansfield Park. Fanny is beautiful, kind, faultless yet modest, noble of heart and spirit but of humble origins that prevent her from being spoiled. She is, in a word, perfect. Fanny may have pleased Austen herself, but she makes for less than compelling drama for the rest of us, at least in the new adaptation of the novel that just aired on Masterpiece Theater, and lands on DVD today.

WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.

And misses the whole bloody point of the book. Thanks for playing, enjoy your lovely parting gift. (And we’ve thought of another Fact About Fanny Price: Fanny Price knows you don’t like her, and knows it doesn’t matter.)

Alert Janeite Lisa sent us an interview with Virginia Newmyer, who was to lecture on Jane Austen films at the Corcoran, and expresses her opinions very, um, decidedly.

» EXPRESS: Do you think that, overall, the film adaptations have done a good job at capturing Austen’s novels?
» NEWMYER: I can’t say that, because they started adapting “Pride and Prejudice” [practically] in silent films. They’re not all good. I’ve seen most of this stuff and I know the books quite well. I mean, Andrew Davies did the miniseries adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” — that was absolutely wonderful — but he’s done some of these things that are on television this January that are not worthy of him or of Jane Austen.

I don’t insist on faithful adaptations. One of the best adaptations is Patricia Rozema’s adaptation of “Mansfield Park” and she turns it into a modern look at Jane Austen. “Mansfield Park” is the most problematic of Jane Austen’s books — of the good ones — and Rozema removed all the problems.

*head explodes*

There’s more. Keep reading. We shall retire to Bedlam.

Theresa Hogue expresses genteel outrage with the films so far in the Corvallis (Oregon) Gazette Times. We enjoyed it up until…

Of the three so far that have aired in the series, I can safely say that “Northanger Abbey,” was not only faithful to the text,

Not really. How much more “delightful” would Henry Tilney have been if he had been allowed the witty and intelligent dialogue that Jane Austen gave him, instead of a watered-down rewrite?

Many Gentle Readers are no doubt rolling their eyes at the Editrix once again beating that particular dead horse, but this shows why it’s important.

Northanger Abbey, another Masterpiece Theatre piece, was the first of Austen’s novels to be published.

WRONG!

From a modest family, Catherine’s interactions with the group, coupled with her increasing jump into a fantasy land, make it an interesting concept but a flawed story.

As we were saying…

It shows all the hallmark of a writer struggling to find her voice, and the film reflects it.

Uh, no. The narrator in Northanger Abbey is confident and knows exactly what she is doing. Don’t blame Jane Austen for bad rewrites of her work.

Despite all evidence, we’re still looking forward to Miss Austen Regrets this weekend, not having heard any real evil of it (and the producers having presumably learnt from the experience of Becoming Jane to not attempt to dress up a Made Up Story in truth’s clothing and shine on the Janeites with it)…though the reviews are not exactly promising.

Laurel Ann Nattress has written a review for PBS’ Remotely Connected blog:

I admire how the story succeeds in interweaving moments that parallel scenes or lines from Jane Austen’s novels, or is it scenes or lines from her life that make it into her novels? Art imitating life and it is believable. We see Jane represented honestly and with integrity as a strong woman who made a decision to write instead of marrying without love. Her choices would be against the norms of society, disappointing her family and adding pressure and financial stress in her life. How could anyone not regret the outcome of such adversity?

Ms. Place doesn’t hate it, but is dissatisfied.

I won’t review the entire film for you. Just suffice it to say that if I had been the director of this tale, I would have emphasized that single women do find fulfillment in pursuing their talents, in nurturing family relationships, and in being true to their vision. I wish the plot had dwelled more on the creative, talented side of Jane, instead of her constant worry for money.

And Maureen Ryan at the Chicago Tribune thinks it’s a mess.

Far from shedding light on what made Austen a peerless examiner of the human condition, “Miss Austen Regrets” is an irritating, poorly paced misfire.

Ouch! But this part made us happy:

scenes of Jane ruthlessly, even cruelly, satirizing well-meaning clerics and clerks behind their backs.

HA HA! Can’t wait! What was that about Miss Jane Austen would find sarcasm the lowest form of wit again?

So, three down, four to go, counting Miss Austen Regrets. We’re actually rather excited about this one. We just have a gut feeling that it’s not going to completely stink. But then we’re a glass-half-full kind of blog, if you haven’t noticed.

Mopping up the post-mortem for MP08, Alert Janeites Christiane and Lisa sent us this review from the Boston Globe.

Tomorrow night, Piper takes on Fanny Price, the shy, morally sound heroine of Jane Austen’s “Mansfield Park.” And Piper wins, big-time, as she pulls poor, pious Fanny over onto the Billie Piper side of life. In this third adaptation in PBS’s Austen “Masterpiece” season, our pre-Victorian introvert is a ravishing wild child who recalls Madonna in a Herb Ritts video, or a stoned hippie chick in “Woodstock,” more than a polite teen in a bonnet and frock. In “Mansfield Park,” tomorrow at 9 p.m. on Channel 2, Fanny’s rather rockin’.

Now, there’s an interesting take–Fanny as the rock-n-roll wild child. Not sure about it, but there you go.

Ultimately, this “Mansfield Park” makes Patricia Rozema’s excellent 1999 version (in which Fanny is made into an Austen-like writer) seem stubbornly loyal to the author.

As Christiane said, he had us up to the “excellent 1999 version.” Huh?

AP, via the San Francisco Chronicle, has an article that combines local and international interest, along with some anecdotes from the set of S&S08.

Dominic Cooper recalled the hash he made initially of one of the novel’s most romantic moments — when his character, the “uncommonly handsome” Willoughby, rescues Marianne Dashwood after she slips and twists her ankle running down a hill.

The torrential rain “did make it quite difficult picking her up from a 90-degree angle on a wet, greasy, green hill and turning back to walk up the hill with a very long, wet coat on,” Cooper recalls. “When I kind of squatted down, the jacket got caught. I fell over immediately and put her head in a ditch.”

Ha!

We found a blogsite dedicated to Miss Austen Regrets. It seems a bit sploggy but we think it’s in earnest. (A hint to the proprietors: To make it seem LESS sploggy, try writing some original content.)

The Jane Austen’s House Museum has seen visitors rise from past productions, and is seeing a surge of interest due to That Made Up Film last year and S&S this year. Also, for our UK readers who are feeling a bit left out of the Complete Jane Austen excitement, there will be an exhibition of costumes from S&S08 at the museum starting in March. If you go, send us a report!

We want to clear up a few rumors and misapprehensions we’ve seen bandied about the Intartubes the past couple of weeks.

1. Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park were two hours long when they were broadcast in the UK and only 90 minutes on the Masterpiece broadcast and Region 1 DVDs!

Those three films were all broadcast at 92-93 minutes (this is according to the Region 2 DVD cases). They were never two hours long. Ever. Even in script version. (We shall comment on that presently.)

1b. They would be so much better if we could see the whole thing!

From someone who has seen the “uncut” versions: Afraid not. Really.

2. Andrew Davies did a hack job on Mansfield Park and Persuasion!

Andrew Davies had nothing to do with writing the scripts for those two films. He also had nothing to do with Miss Austen Regrets, which has yet to be broadcast. The PBS press releases were confusing; we had previously corresponded with one journalist who claimed in an article that he wrote the scripts for “the four new films,” so we made bold to write her a friendly note correcting her error. She wrote back insisting, “That’s what the press release said.” It didn’t, but she thought it did. So there’s a lot of confusion on this point.

Don’t blame Masterpiece for the first three films only being 90-some minutes long. That’s what they bought. Blame ITV. Though why anyone thought 90 minutes was sufficient time for any of these is beyond us, and why limit the running time of a TV movie anyway? Why not make it a two-parter? Two 60-minute episodes? We can speculate, a little bit. We have a copy of the original script of NA, which is 89 pages long. The generally assumption is one page of script equals one minute of running time. The script that we have is nearly the one that was shot; minus one scene in which Catherine walks in on Henry while he is bathing and plus the visit to Woodston, such as it was. The apple-picking scene was not in the script, but there is a similar “montage of General-free fun at NA” sort of thing in there. But generally it is the same.

Cub Reporter Heather L. has a good history of the long journey from page to screen of this particular production in her NA review at Remotely Connected. The script came into our possession while it was owned by Miramax and seemed dead in the water. (Our understanding is that it was being seeded around the Internet to raise interest amongst Janeites. We’ve been complaining about it ever since. ) There were a few false starts, but nothing really positive until after the success of P&P05 and the resulting resurgence in interest, at least among the entertainment Powers That Be, in Jane Austen.

So we’re not sure why the script was written to be 90 minutes. It could be that Andrew Davies felt that the best length for the film. It could be that was the length he was originally given by London Weekend Television. In that case, one could hardly “blame” Mr. Davies for the length of the film. However, if he was unhappy with that length, why wouldn’t he then rewrite it to be, say, two 60-minute episodes? So we presume it’s exactly the length he thought it should be.

Further speculating (we stress that this is SPECULATION, but it makes an awful lot of sense): ITV bought one script at 90 minutes. It therefore would make sense that it would contract for the other two films in its planned series to be approximately the same length.

We also have comments on record from Mr. Davies that the BBC originally wanted his new version of Sense and Sensibility (which is getting good reviews, but many thought was a little too short for a TV series) to be four 60 minute episodes, but he thought three was better. Why? When Pride and Prejudice, a novel of similar length, required 6 50-minute episodes, or five hours? And even his Emma was 107 minutes, which is a little better (but still too short–the theatrical film is 120 minutes).

So, while we can’t place direct blame on Mr. Davies for Persuasion and Mansfield Park, it is clear that there is a pattern with him of contracting Jane Austen’s novels to short films–perhaps shorter than they should be–and we can speculate that the length of his script for NA dictated the length of MP and Persuasion, all of which, it is generally agreed, would be improved with at least an extra half-hour. One of the selling points of the ITV “Jane Austen Season” was that “each generation deserves its own Jane Austen adaptations.” Too bad this generation gets the short-attention-span versions.

After all the excitement and media attention of the first few weeks, perhaps, as the sole Mansfield Park 08 review we found (actually Alert Janeite Lisa sent it to us) says, we have reached adaptation fatigue with Jane Austen.

It’s hard not to wonder, three weeks in, if PBS’ decision to air “The Complete Jane Austen” in single-episode weekly installments does a disservice to its subject. As early scenes of “Mansfield Park” unfold there is no denying that the bloom has faded a bit from the rose. The manor houses, the décolletage, the inevitable brass candlesticks do not provide quite the cozy respite they once did. The characters too seem a bit worn about the edges: Here is the spirited but disenfranchised heroine, the noble man she loves but seemingly cannot have, the scheming female friend, the charming rake, all vying for income and position with marriage based in love being the ultimate and elusive prize.

So one can be forgiven a little armchair psychoanalysis — is a country walk in Austen ever just a country walk? And why are all the rakes and rogues instantly identifiable by the wildness of their hair?

But it would be a shame to take what may be a flaw in the concept out on its parts. As itself, “Mansfield Park” is as charming an adaptation of the novel as one would wish, and if American television viewers can find value in weekly weigh-ins of the morbidly obese or soap operas thinly disguised by surgical scrubs, they can certainly look past the repetition of skirt-trailing picnics and thundering carriages bringing dire messages in the middle of the night.

Hear, hear! And it’s awfully early in the Complete Jane Austen to be getting bored with it, especially with Miss Austen Regrets and a new S&S, both of which have received very positive reviews, on the way still. While MP is not perhaps the most inspiring film in the current set, taking a glass-half-full attitude, we are looking forward to seeing James D’Arcy in Gaping Frilly Shirtage™ (one of his best looks in our opinion), not to mention Sir Walter Elliot’s brocade suit from P95. (more…)

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.

ARE they all horrid? Our Gentle Readers have judged the latest adaptation of Persuasion and found it lacking; next up, Northanger Abbey.

Several Alert Janeites, alarmed and horrified to find Andrew Davies holding forth on Jane Austen on the front page of CNN (we’re not snarking, you should read the e-mails), sent us a link to this article. We were a little surprised to see so many e-mails about it, as we were fairly certain we had already snarked this particular piece, but alas, no. It’s just that we’ve read it all before.

Her work, Davies argues, “is not just social comedy. It’s about money, struggle for individualism, sex — all the kinds of things that interest us now. People sometimes misinterpret that. Jane Austen is regarded as such a prim writer. Well, she’s not, really. The engine of her plot is often sexual desire.”

Are we all taking notes? Good. (more…)