Mansfield Park

[osprey_archer]

After meaning to see the 1999 Mansfield Park for ages, at last I sat down and watched it. As long as you let go of the idea that this is an adaptation of Mansfield Park, it’s an entertaining period piece, if occasionally odd. Why does Fanny address the camera directly when she reads excerpts from her writing? It never fails to break the fourth wall.

If, however, you entertain the eccentric opinion that an adaptation ought to be similar to the thing that it’s adapted from...well, it’s not really an adaptation. Faced with the conundrum of making shy, retiring Fanny into a heroine, the filmmakers essentially gave up and swapped in another character: a bookish hoyden with a clever wit and a taste for whooping down the staircases of Mansfield Park.

In fact, this clever, lively Fanny seems a lot like a kinder version of Mary Crawford. As such, Mary Crawford fails to make herself felt as a true rival for Edmund’s affection. Why would Edmund fall for mean-spirited Mary Crawford when he could have his own high-spirited cousin? Especially given that Edmund seems to be half in love with Fanny for most of the movie, anyway?

However, this change does make the Edmund/Fanny romance much more convincing, so that’s a plus. Moreover, the filmmakers shifted the focus of Edmund & Fanny’s shared moral seriousness away from theatricals and elopements to the slave trade, which is more palatable for modern viewers and also opens up a dimension of the story that the original book skims over very lightly indeed.

Oh, and for the first time, Maria’s decision to run off with Henry Crawford made sense to me. I always wondered why she decided to do something so stupid: there is no endgame in a married woman running off with another man, after all, and no amount of vanity could make it seem like a good decision.

(I always feel so bad for Maria at the end of Mansfield Park. It’s hard to imagine a worse candidate for living a reclusive life in the middle of nowhere - and with Mrs. Norris as her only companion, too! What is she going to do out there?)

But here, Henry and Maria act not out of vanity, but panic. They flee Mansfield Park after Fanny accidentally walks in on them during a tryst, presumably in the panicked belief that Fanny and Edmund intend to tell the world. In the event, Fanny and Edmund attempt to cover for them, which...I am not sure I can see book!Fanny and Edmund doing, honestly.

I like bookish hoydens as much as wilting wallflowers, so I did enjoy it as a period piece. But it’s not very much like Mansfield Park.

Comments

[lycoris.livejournal.com]

Heh, that's the one that we put on and Mum made us turn it off after five minutes because she was about to explode in hate. My Mum is a huge Jane Austen fan (and an ex-English teacher) and thus mostly cannot cope. The lack of bonnets and the fact that Fanny Price was totally different than she was in the book was too much for her. This means I've never actually seen any adaptations of any Jane Austen books at all ...

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Jane Austen adaptations are often strangely bereft of bonnets! Maybe it makes it difficult to get good camera angles on the actress's faces.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

There are lots of bonnets in the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice. But they are in the style of the late 1830s! As are all the dresses! It is bizarre to see since it is neither an update nor a modernization, simply a time period the designer liked better than the Regency (or the Georgian) period.

I can't stand the 2007 Mansfield Park, myself. It is All Wrong O My Pearls. Chiefly because of the casting of Billie Piper as Fanny. I did love Hayley Atwell as Mary Crawford, though.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Occasionally I will think that I should see the 2007 Mansfield Park, but then I look at the DVD cover, with Billie Piper draped against the fence in a come-hither position, and think that the filmmakers clearly have no idea who Fanny is as a person.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Possibly this is why I enjoyed it, as although I love many of Austen's books, I could not make it through Mansfield Park.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

This is apparently fairly common. Most of the Mansfield Park adaptations are only vaguely related to the book.

[ursula]

My techniques for enjoying Mansfield Park are:

1) Pretend it is a horrible-boarding-school story, along the lines of Wolves of Willoughby Chase or the beginning of Jane Eyre.

2) Read the play. (This makes the intense awkwardness of the casting much clearer.)

3) Give Fanny credit for actually believing in marriages based on affection, unlike most of the rest of the characters.

If I were making a movie, I'd also go out of the way to make Julia's husband dumb-but-sympathetic.

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

Despite how everything I've heard marks the 1999 version as a terrible adaptation, I still kind of want to see it, because, well, period piece. So it's good to hear it at least succeeds on that front.

I watched the 2007 version when it came out, and while it's pretty abysmal, I do agree with the above statement that Hayley Atwell makes a very good Mary Crawford. And I feel an honorable mention must be made for James D'Arcy, who plays a delightfully soused Tom Bertram. (Billie Piper, while I do like her, was woefully miscast as Fanny, and seeing as how Fanny is the main character...well, it can get bothersome, to say the least.)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I think as long as you go into it expecting it to be terrible as an adaptation, then it is (or at least can be) enjoyable, so you're all set!

I'll keep the 2007 adaptation in mind. I think Persuasion is next on my list of Austen adaptations to watch, though: it's the only one that I haven't seen any of the adaptations of. I should probably reread the book, too; I might like it more now that I'm older.

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's arguably the case for the 2007 Mansfield Park, I feel--if you go in expecting it to be bad, it's easier to appreciate and enjoy the few things it actually does well.

(Now I kind of want to go on an Austen binge. Persuasion might just be my favorite story of hers (though it is so hard to say for certain!), and I never did get around to seeing the 1995 version. Nor did I ever see the 2007 (2008?) version of Sense and Sensibility, which I hear is very good, so...)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I love the 2008 Sense and Sensibility! The actress playing Marianne is clearly channeling her inner Kate Winslet, but on the whole I like the production better than the Emma Thompson version. And the locations are gorgeous!

[silverusagi]

If, however, you entertain the eccentric opinion that an adaptation ought to be similar to the thing that it’s adapted from...well, it’s not really an adaptation.

I really dislike this adaptation for those reasons, lol. I hate that Fanny is now a writer who talks to the camera.

I also found Fanny's costuming weird.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

The talking to the camera thing weirded me out so much. If they had to include it, couldn't they have Fanny read it to herself? Or read it to Edmund? Or have Susan read the letters aloud? Anything but Fanny reading to the camera!

And IDK what was up with Fanny's costuming. I think it's supposed to make her look younger/lower class than the others, but it does look kind of like she wandered out of a different decade.

[silverusagi]

I think they were trying to make her look lower class. But it just looks wrong. If she were lower class, her dress wouldn't be as fine, but it wouldn't be cut differently. As it was, she was usually wearing some weirdly collared shirt.