Emma (DVD/BBC)
This latest rendering of Jane Austin’s fourth novel, EMMA (1816), is a longish four hour mini-series that only picks-up in its last episode, which does then superbly bring it all together.
Many successful attempts have been made on Austin’s work, the best being the 1995 four-hour PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle; the gritty P&P (2005) which starred Keira Knightley, the famous Goldwyn 1940 P&P with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier; along with 1998’s more contemporary-feeling EMMA, starring Gwyneth Paltrow; Canadian director Patricia Rozema’s 1999 MANSFIELD PARK, starring Frances O’Conner; the Robert Young/Kay Mellor 1997 JANE EYRE; and the Brit TV version of NORTHANGER ABBEY (2007).
Jane Austin is still exceptionally well-regarded, both for her valuable historical view of her times and her shrewd but caustic views of the social conventions she had to live with, being one of the genteel impoverished. Any successful film version must approach her works as social satire and have some fun with the situations her people – most especially her heroines – get into.
Austin’s plot for EMMA: Emma Woodhouse is a rich, smart, sweet and meddlesome young woman (Romola Garai), heir to quite a fortune, and one not liable, she feels, to the temptations of marriage. So she wiles away her time in match-making, some desirable; some disastrous. The humor lies in how she learns the value of love in her own life and a greater perspective on qualitative pairings.
This version from last year is, as almost all Brit historical films are, exceptionally good at re-creating the era. This, after all, was a time before TV, Internet, Movies and Books for the Blind, and consequently a slower-paced life. Films about these folk, therefore, must make up for the quieter life they lived and still keep us attached to them. Now, the best way to keep our attention is through character-development, which influences the storyline; and Austin’s take on them is invariably the right one. But strong combinations of male/female attachments are imperative: check out Ehle and Firth as Miss Bennett and Mr. Darcy to see how it should be. Garai and her co-star Jonny Lee Miller here have very little vibration – both are good and strong actors, but the direction seemingly has taken their written attraction and denuded it of sexual interest. True to the period, but of less interest to us today.
As is usually true of this genre, it is the secondary characters, given to excellent British character-actors who bring it all to home: Michael Gambon, Rupert Evans, Jodhi May (well-remembered for her work in Nancy Mekler’s SISTER, MY SISTER (1995), Robert Bathurst and Laura Pyper, along with everyone else.
The glory of BBC and ITV television ultimately lies with the producers, directors, art-directors, cinematographers and hair-and-make-up folk. These behind-the-scenes artisans delight the eye, as the writing generally delights the mind. And especially the actors who are in front of us -- they bring it all home.