Austen Therapy: Pride and Prejudice and Popular Culture (original) (raw)
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The opening lines of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice have become renowned for encapsulating the author’s ironic point of view on the relationships between the sexes within the marriage plot. However, two cinematic adaptations of the novel chose distinctly different approaches for their versions of the opening scene. The BBC’s 1995 miniseries opens with a scene featuring the two male leads and is packed with masculine energy. The opening of the 2005 film adaptation, however, introduces us to our heroine in pastoral and serene surroundings. It seems that the BBC version was interested in privileging Darcy’s character, and while many critics view this as a radical move, I believe the end result is a production more traditional than the original novel. Hollywood, however, was interested in drawing a young female audience to identify with a free spirited heroine. The choices made in the opening scene have a tremendous effect on the cinematic work as a whole and also raise important questions regarding the manipulation of a literary masterpiece for the sake of commercial success.
This thesis deals with film adaptations of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. This work examines how this particular novel has been translated into film and the issues that arise from changing media. This study focuses on five different films [Pride and Prejudice (1980), Pride and Prejudice (1995), Pride and Prejudice (2005), Bride and Prejudice (2004) and Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)] and their relationship to the book and adaptation theory. To provide the reader with a greater understanding of adaptation theory, this thesis will include a section briefly outlining current adaptation studies followed by in-depth analyses of each film in comparison to the novel and theory.
Looking for Austen in the 21st century: from Pride and Prejudice to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
2015
espanolJane Austen y su obra han sido parte del canon desde principios del siglo XX, pero Austen como fenomeno popular y cultural datan esto en 1995 debido al estreno de la adaptacion de la BBC de Orgullo y prejuicio. Este renacer de las seis novelas de Austen en forma de adaptaciones en peliculas, spin-off y merchandising ha conducido a lo que se conoce como ‘Austenmania’. Sin embargo, no solo el mundo de Austen se introduce en la epoca contemporanea, sino que la epoca contemporanea se introduce en Austen; esto se ve claramente en los DVDs El diario de Lizzie Bennet (originalmente videos de You Tube). Este trabajo analizara la ultima adaptacion contemporanea de Orgullo y Prejuicio, El diario de Lizzie Bennet, siguiendo un «visionado atento» de los videos ademas de una lectura atenta de Orgullo y prejuicio. EnglishJane Austen and her works have belonged to the canon since the beginnings of the 20th century, but Austen as a popular and cultural phenomenon dates back to 1995 with the ...
“Screening Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in Transcultural Britain: Joe Wright’s Little England and Gurinder Chadha’s Global Village.” Transcultural Britain. Special Issue of Journal for the Study of British Cultures 15.1 (2008). Eds Bernd-Peter Lange and Dirk Wiemann. 43-58.
Throughout the 1990s, the long-standing tradition of' Austenmania' and 'Janeism' culminated in a large number of filmic adaptations of Jane Austen's novels, which inspired critics to coin inventive terms such as' Austen Powers' and 'Janespotting'. In the current decade, both literary and filmic rewritings of Austen's work have once again found large and enthusiastic audiences. Austen remains a cultural fetish, whose status is only loosely connected to her actual writings, as Claudia Johnson emphasises: "loving - or hating - her has typically implied meanings well beyond any encoded in her works" (1997: 212). In the following, I will focus on two of the more recent adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, which is not only acknowledged as the most popular narrative of Austen's oeuvre, but has also recently been elected the second-best loved book in the UK. Given the enormous popularity of Austen's novel to the present day, its cultural significance seems out of question. Questions that do arise, however, are: Why is the novel so popular? Which aspects make it attractive to the present day? The filmic adaptations of the novel can help to illuminate the issue, since they, for economic reasons, have to appeal to the tastes and interests of the majority of Austen fans as well as to those audiences who are unfamiliar with the novels. Directors Gurinder Chadha and Joe Wright and their teams worked almost simultaneously on adaptations of Austen's classic. Their films Bride and Prejudice and Pride and Prejudice, which were released in the UK within eleven months of each other in October 2004 and September 2005 respectively, give contrasting answers to questions regarding the novel's relevance for present-day cultural concerns.
Screening Austen ' s Pride and Prejudice in Transcultural Britain
2016
Throughout the 1990s, the long-standing tradition of' Austen mania' and 'Jane ism' culminated in a large number of filmic adaptations of Jane Austen's novels, 1 which inspired critics to coin inventive terms such as' Austen Powers' and 'Janespotting'. In the current decade, both literary and filmic rewritings of Austen's work have once again found large and enthusiastic audiences. Austen remains a cultural fe ti sh, whose status is only loosely connected to her a lual writings, as Claudia johnson emphasises: "loving or hating h r h, s typically implied meanings well beyond any encoded in her works" (1997: 212). In the fo llowing, I will focus on two of the more recent adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, which is not only acknowledged as the most popular narrative of Austen's ceuvre, but has also recently been elected the second-best loved book in the UK. 3 Given the enormous popularity of Austen's novel to the present day, it...