Jane Austen didn’t take herself or her novels seriously, and neither should we. That’s why they pack such a punch. It is their understated passion that simmers below the surface that so enchants us. For the character to be too self-aware and serious is to betray the self-effacing spirit of Austen and her work.
The professor of my college English literature class opined that Jane Austen’s Emma was “the perfect novel.” He enthused about its careful structure, the subtle characterization, and Austen’s masterful combination of dialogue, wit, social commentary, and morality.
Austen’s novels have provided a deep source for dramatic and cinematic spinoffs. Last month the students of our small Upper School pulled off a brilliant stage version of Sense and Sensibility and a range of film directors have brought Austen’s delightful stories to life on screen. To date there have been eight film adaptations of “the perfect novel” including Clueless—which transfers the plot to a Beverly Hills High School— and Aisha, an upbeat Bollywood re-make of Clueless. The most recent conventionally costumed versions are the 1996 film with Gwyneth Paltrow in the title role, a 2009 BBC production, and the 2020 film version directed by Autumn de Wilde and starring Anna Taylor Joy.
The supreme Austen film adaptations must be Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility and the BBC’s classic Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. To my mind, they set the standard for Austen films. Both not only portray the beauty and mannered restraint of regency England, but they also capture the wit and vivacity of Austen’s writing and the feisty spirit of her heroines.
Autumn de Wilde’s most recent treatment of Emma is in this respect a disappointment. The production is lavish in its photography, costumes, sets, and locations. The lush costumes and settings probably overstate the luxury of Hartfield, Randalls, and Donwell Abbey, but the opulence makes the film a delight to look at.
The problem I had with Autumn de Wilde’s treatment is that Anna Taylor Joy was so unlikeable as the eponymous heroine. Jane Austen herself admitted that she was probably the only person who would actually like Emma. The actress has the difficult task of creating a character who is attractive: girlish, bubbly, and charming while also being manipulative, snobbish, and selfish. Anna Taylor Joy managed the snobbish, self-absorbed and mean girl part, but we missed the winsome charm of Emma that sparkles in the novel. Anna Taylor Joy’s Emma was far too serious. Jane Austen didn’t take herself or her novels seriously, and neither should we. That’s why they pack such a punch. It is their understated passion that simmers below the surface that so enchants us. For the character to be too self-aware and serious is to betray the self-effacing spirit of Austen and her work.
Anna Taylor Joy’s serious Emma betrays what I suspect was the director’s intended feminist subtext. A recent favorable review of the film gushes,
Austen’s tale gets a 21st-century treatment thanks to a clever script adapted by Eleanor Catton that delivers on progressive themes like female empowerment and challenges the sexist laws and social hierarchies of Austen’s time. By shifting sex politics and rotating gender power dynamics of the Georgian and Regency-era, de Wilde and Catton balance out stale fixtures of the period drama genre and correlate contemporary sensibilities within the centuries-old material.
In other words an ideologically driven scriptwriter and director managed to manipulate Austen’s charming romance into a feminist tract. This uploading of a contemporary sexual sermon spoils the whole film because an alert audience knows what’s going on. The preachy subtext in this case was quite subtle, but it was still as serious in its intent as Anna Joy Taylor’s heavy-handed treatment of the title role. As such it cast a suspiciously serious pall over the whole production.
I have written elsewhere in these pages of the destructive results of making Shakespeare woke. Imposing one’s own ideology on past classics is like drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa and thinking oneself clever. It’s worth remembering Ogden Nash’s quip: “Here is a good rule of thumb, Too clever is dumb.”
The masterpieces of the past are our shared heritage, and while they do come to us with a historic context, worldview, and embedded ideologies and beliefs, part of the appreciation of these masterworks is the understanding of the worldview and belief systems in which they are lodged, and from which they have sprung.
It is not vital that one accepts those beliefs or seeks to follow their worldview, but it is vital to retain them and portray them as faithfully as possible so that the re-imagining of them is an homage and not an act of arrogant cultural vandalism.
Fr Dwight Longenecker’s latest book The Way of the Wilderness Warrior is a fictional account of a college student who embarks on a quest of spiritual enlightenment. Learn more at dwightlongenecker.com
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The featured image is “Reading the Letter” (1885) by Thomas Benjamin Kennington, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
You are right on target with the last two paragraphs of this essay. We need to know and understand the great works of the past – agreeing with them is optional, not required.
Father, you may have missed (luckily) the horrendous Persuasion adaption produced by Netflix last year. It was a study in vulgarity and presentism, applied to Regency England. The good news is that it was almost universally panned and rejected. The 1995 Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds version of Persuasion belongs in your top tier. The 2007 version was respectfully done and enjoyable.
As to Emma, the Romola Garai BBC version is my favorite. Garai may have been too charming an Emma, but it’s believable that Mr. Knightley would fall for her, unlike the charmless 2020 Emma.
Father Longnecker, you would do us all a great service by ranking you top 2 or 3 film versions of Jane Austen and any other classics that you deem worthy of such a list.
I have to disagree with your assessment of the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. To my mind, Jennifer Ehle overplays Elizabeth’s “righteous anger” and neglects the natural sweetness of disposition that makes it impossible for her to affront anyone, even Mr. Darcy. I haven’t seen a TV/film version of any of Austen’s works that captures the moral sensibility underlying them. In the BBC Pride and Prejudice, I get the sense that Elizabeth is distressed about Lydia’s elopement because Wickham is both destitute and untrustworthy, but nowhere do we hear her voice her real opinion–that both characters lack virtue and overfeed their passions, making happiness in marriage (or in life, for that matter) almost impossible.
Austen’s work is political in the sense that she does not question the order of things. She accepts that there is a social strata, and that some people are in positions of wealth and power, and some are not. What Austen wants changed is the behavior of those at the top of the pyramid. Gentlemen–and ladies—should behave as gentlemen, fulfilling the attendant duties and thereby making English society the envy of all nations. She lampoons those who through self-centeredness, stupidity, etc., fail to live up to her expectations, and therefore make English culture less moral, less Christian, and less just. She also gives the reader examples of characters who are moral and just–Darcy after his first proposal to Elizabeth being such a character. Austen’s supreme example of the proper English country “gentleman” is Mr. Knightley, and as such, he is the real hero of Emma. The problem with the “feminist” treatment of the film version is not that Emma is made to be an unlikeable snob–Emma IS an unlikeable snob, at least until the end of the book when she finally grows up. The problem is that we don’t get the sense in the film that, as her brother-in-law would say, it is Emma who is the lucky one, Emma who is getting the supreme reward, when she becomes engaged to Knightley. The sense we get of Emma’s ultimate worth is that someone like Mr. Knightley could care for her. Otherwise she is just a girl who happens to be pretty, intelligent, and rich, but who is also self-centered, a shallow thinker, who ruins other’s lives through her prideful games.
Patti,
My sincere hope is that you will start writing essays here in addition to Fr. Longenecker’s treatments of the classics. Your insight inspires me to read the original, not just take the manly approach of watching the chick flick version with my wife. (And all I thought I was doing is silently enjoying the better versions of the films while placating my beautiful wife.
It’s great that you want read the source material now, but I’d advise against accepting the take of one random internet commenter as the gospel, especially if they’re opinion about which adaptations are best differs from the rest of the fanbase. (Not that you should discount their opinions either! A lot of people say the movie, Clueless, is actually the best Emma adaptation and I can’t stand that one.)
I think it’s kind of funny that that’s your problem with Jennifer Ehle’s Elizabeth Bennet because my problem is that she has this sweet little smile all the time and doesn’t come across as cynical or sarcastic enough for the character.
Like just about everyone else, the first time I saw the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, I thought it was wonderful–so much better than the 1980’s version, which I also loved. So of course, over the years, I’ve watched it over and over, and each time I became less enchanted with Ehle’s portrayal of Elizabeth. Ehle may have a “sweet little smile” much of the time, but watch for her temper-tantrums after encounters with the machinations of the Bingley sisters or Darcy. Elizabeth is probably Austen’s most popular character, with justice as she is quite complex–realistic to the point of cynicism, and yet lovingly accepting of the foibles (but not vices) of her neighbors, friends and family. Her wit is almost sarcastic, yet she is just naturally too kind to be able to affront anyone. And, of course, she is very, very, intelligent–she’s basically self-educated–so besides being pretty enough, she’s an equal to Darcy in the most important way. I feel that Ehle failed to capture the depth of the character, and since many people fail to see the depth in Austen’s novels, and only connect with the surface romantic comedy, it’s not surprising that she won accolades for her portrayal of Elizabeth.
Well, FWIW, in the medium of film, there’s no way to show a character is upset without them “throwing a temper tantrum” of sorts. We can’t see what they’re thinking. This is unfortunate for people who want to adapt Jane Austen for film since her books have a lot of internal drama but she also stresses the rarely stressed virtue of emotional control.
Thanks for your perceptive insights. I think your critique of Jennifer Ehle’s Lizzie is accurate, but perhaps you are expecting too much from a modern film adaptation as I probably have done in my critique of the Emma film. To have shown the deeper moral implications and character would require the actors, writers and directors to understand (if not accept) the moral and doctrinal assumptions undergirding Austen and her world. That is probably too much to expect from film makers in our Hollywood/Disneyland world.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who dislikes Anya Taylor-Joy’s Emma! While the character is supposed to be arrogant and snobby, she’s also supposed to be witty and playful.
That being said, this article doesn’t back up any of its points about how the movie’s problems are the result of a feminist agenda or any agenda really. All it cites is a random review and the part it quotes doesn’t really give any specific evidence either.
I mean, I assume the filmmakers are feminists since feminism is prevalent in the culture, but I also can’t help but notice how they included so many instances of Emma being wrong and her male love interest, Mr. Knightley, being right in the movie. I suspect the movie’s agenda isn’t so much “subtle” as Longenecker is used to blaming everything wrong with classic book adaptations on modern agendas.
I had the same reaction. Thank you for stating it so succinctly.
I’m so thrilled to have found this site! This article was especially motiving for me to put down my phone and get the books out of my library. (and add to it!) How blessed is Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church to have Father as their pastor. I imagine his homilies are as inspiring as his writing.
Yes they are. I visited once, so I can state that from experience, anecdotal as it may be.