Saturday, April 14, 2007
AUSTEN REDUX
Today we had the newer
We saw the 9 hour mini-series film earlier this year.
This one weighs in at just over 2 hours.
Obviously one cannot compare the two as they are distinctly different takes on the wonderful story of Miss Bennett and Mr. Darcy; Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen.
Nevertheless, it is two hours filled to the brim with wonderful film imagery and great acting.
The Austen story is timeless. Convention holds no less hold on people today. Just different conventions.
The emphasis is on the internal conflict of head and heart. The young people are almost contemporary in their intensity and ego. This is not a complaint. How else should we watch a 'period' piece than with our own eyes and ears?
There are many long, one shot scenes which are masterly choreographed. The farm, particularly, seethes with life.
One is only mildly distracted with the thought of how all this could possibly have been done.
We are soon slammed back into the action and forget the legerdemain.
I liked it a lot.
I find that I am always as invested in the outcome of Elizabeth's sister Jane's romance with Mr. Darcy's friend Mr. Bingley. It is no less fraught and almost as fulfilling to see resolved.
This is a much sexier version than the PBS match but it does suffer from the lack of detail on critical subplots.
I guess that they figure we know the story enough to get it.
Since I did, I do not know how it would run if I had never heard of these people before.
In one of those cinematic coincidences, we get to see Donald Sutherland as the father just days after seeing him in the wonderful film Aroura Boreais.
He is our grand old man of the cinema!
Of course I would rate this 5 if I rented it from Netflix but I did not. This is a house copy owned by my partner who still cries at the end of the picture after many viewings.
Well, I did too but it was my first time.
Labels: films, Sutherland
