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North and South
Jan. 20th, 2014 12:57 amI suspect that the director of North and South spent a lot of time shouting, “Smolder, Thornton, smolder!” Because Thornton, cotton mill owner and romantic lead, smolders like a champion through most of the miniseries. He also broods and glowers and generally makes attractively grim faces.
This adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South is a sort of confirmation of the theory that second-rate novels make first-rate adaptations. Almost all the changes the adaptation makes are improvements: they smooth over the rough patches of the plot while mostly retaining the novel’s characterizations. (They also add a scene where Margaret visits to the Great Exhibition of 1851, probably purely on the grounds that world’s fairs are cool. I heartily approve.)
I am curious, though, why the filmmakers decided to roughen up Mr. Thornton’s already rough edges even more. They introduce him beating up a worker he caught smoking in his cotton mill, a brutal scene that doesn’t occur in the book at all. He’s not being presciently anti-smoking. Cotton mills, which had cotton fluff floating in the air like snow, had a tendency to go up in blazes if people smoked in them, so I can see why Mr. Thornton would be so fanatical about it...but nonetheless it’s an odd choice to introduce the romantic hero by having him beat bloody an underling who can’t fight back.
The filmmakers also rather drama up the ending, but I tend to think that’s an improvement - not least because their version cut out all reference to Mrs. Thornton.
Mrs. Thornton is Mr. Thornton’s mother. She has virtues, like a steely will and a firm and flinty honesty, and I should probably appreciate them more than I do; but I just can’t. She’s just so mean! She doesn’t love anything or anyone except her son, not even her daughter, Fanny. Fanny is, admittedly, a bit of a brat, but how could she be anything else after a lifetime trying desperately to wring a few drops of attention from a mother who obviously favors her brother?
This adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South is a sort of confirmation of the theory that second-rate novels make first-rate adaptations. Almost all the changes the adaptation makes are improvements: they smooth over the rough patches of the plot while mostly retaining the novel’s characterizations. (They also add a scene where Margaret visits to the Great Exhibition of 1851, probably purely on the grounds that world’s fairs are cool. I heartily approve.)
I am curious, though, why the filmmakers decided to roughen up Mr. Thornton’s already rough edges even more. They introduce him beating up a worker he caught smoking in his cotton mill, a brutal scene that doesn’t occur in the book at all. He’s not being presciently anti-smoking. Cotton mills, which had cotton fluff floating in the air like snow, had a tendency to go up in blazes if people smoked in them, so I can see why Mr. Thornton would be so fanatical about it...but nonetheless it’s an odd choice to introduce the romantic hero by having him beat bloody an underling who can’t fight back.
The filmmakers also rather drama up the ending, but I tend to think that’s an improvement - not least because their version cut out all reference to Mrs. Thornton.
Mrs. Thornton is Mr. Thornton’s mother. She has virtues, like a steely will and a firm and flinty honesty, and I should probably appreciate them more than I do; but I just can’t. She’s just so mean! She doesn’t love anything or anyone except her son, not even her daughter, Fanny. Fanny is, admittedly, a bit of a brat, but how could she be anything else after a lifetime trying desperately to wring a few drops of attention from a mother who obviously favors her brother?
