Despite the general assumptions of so
many cultural commentators about the dumbing down of American audiences and the
consequent deterioration of the art of cinema (along with the decline of the
West and the end of Civilization As We Know It), the critical and popular
reception of some recent movies suggests some cause for hope.
Although they must compete with the
usual holiday blockbusters, apparently Capote and Good Night, and Good Luck, both
“little” films, manage to draw viewers around the country, even beyond the art
houses. And now, the most recent of a number of adaptations of Jane Austen’s
novel Pride and Prejudice currently
appears on screens in the same multiplexes that usually reverberate with small
arms fire, large explosions, and the screams of the wounded.
The most difficult of the challenges
that any adaptation of Jane Austen faces derive from the very nature of her
work. Her witty, polished examinations of the rural upper classes in the
England of the late 18th and early 19th centuries provide a seemingly limited
subject and a narrow arena for the motion picture camera, but as both Ang Lee’s
Sense and Sensibility and the present
film demonstrate, a good writer and director can turn the ostensibly precious
and unpromising material into intelligent and entertaining cinema.
If it now and then neglects the
subtleties of Austen’s dialogue and description, the picture retains not only
the major characters and the essential romantic relationship, but also
something of the look and feel of Austen’s England. The director employs a
number of lovely panoramic shots of great houses, rolling hills, and lush
greensward populated by various domestic animals to establish the changes of
season and the varying moods of the story.
Elizabeth Bennet (Keira Knightley)
and her four sisters, members of a family of impoverished country gentry,
absolutely must find husbands — without a son, their father’s property will
devolve to their cousin, an odious sycophant of a clergyman. Her sister Jane
(Rosamund Pike) falls in love with Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods), a wealthy
bachelor newly arrived in the neighborhood, while Elizabeth finds herself
involved in a much less simple connection with Bingley’s best friend, Mr. Darcy
(Matthew MacFayden). In the usual manner of the course of true love, both young
women encounter a number of obstacles before finding fulfillment and happiness.
In the film, as in Austen’s novels,
the real subject, beyond the romantic relationships, lies in the author’s
depiction of the manners of an isolated, inhibited social class governed by a
set of unspoken rules of behavior and the very real facts of money and
property. A young woman of a certain class lacking sufficient fortune faced a
bleak future, and thus absolutely depended upon the prospect of a good
marriage. The smart, spirited Elizabeth, a perfect counterpart to the
thoughtful, saturnine Darcy, reacts angrily to his interference in her sister’s
relationship with Bingley, a snobbish acknowledgment of her family’s situation,
which temporarily damages the possibility of a romantic connection.
Aside from the predictable story of
love lost and regained, the movie retains some of the truth of Austen’s
portrait of an age and a world, where the complexities of social class smother
a whole society and hinder any individual development, except for a fortunate
few. It shows the difficulty of speaking freely and openly and thus knowing and
understanding other people, where much depends upon gossip and rumor, the fuel
of social intercourse in a restricted and sterile culture. It also displays something
of the Austen notion that proper behavior and moral action sometimes coincide,
which thus determines the goodness of her men and women throughout her novels.
The director allows his camera to
suggest much of the film’s meaning, without attempting to underline the action
with narration or authorial comment, employing Elizabeth’s point of view, for
example, to show in visual terms her thoughts and feelings. The script allows
the actors to speak the careful sentences of Austen’s dialogue, so that even
the stilted language of polite society expresses a depth of thought and emotion
that transcends the boundaries of a stifling decorum and control.
Pride
and Prejudice displays a sensitive understanding of Jane Austen, and even
better, a surprisingly deft cinematic translation of her creation, a rare
instance of a motion picture doing justice to a book.
Pride and Prejudice (PG), directed
by Joe Wright, is playing at Culver Ridge 16, Henrietta 18, Little Theatres,
Pittsford Plaza, and Tinseltown.
This article appears in Nov 30 – Dec 6, 2005.
