Liveblogging 'Persuasion'

PBS is airing Persuasion tonight.  I am a tremendous fan of the 1995 film, (and the book, of course) which starred Amanda Root as Anne and Ciaran Hinds as Captain Wentworth.  I could listen to Hinds read the want ads and consider myself in heaven, so I am dubious...this version seems pleasant enough -- Anthony Head is Sir Walter Eliot, played in '95 by Corin Redgrave, who remains hard to beat in the role (or any role, IMO).  So far the wonderful scene at Uppercross where Anne is cornered by all her inlaws who kindly dump on her about her sister Mary's snotty behavior hasn't shown up...it's so true of any family behavior towards an outsider, it's a shame that it isn't included here -- but perhaps it shows up later in a different context.

Simon Burke, the screenwriter, uses Anne's over-narration (as she writes in her diary), as exposition regarding her views of Wentworth's feelings, which works to a point but is annoying.

Aha...now Louisa is informing Wentworth that Charles once wanted to marry Anne, and that Lady Russell talked Anne out of it...this is of course not true; Anne refused Charles because she was still in love with Wentworth; but Anne overhears the convo and Wentworth's response, which is that Louisa shows great strength of character by refusing to be swayed by outside influence.  Wentworth begins to hope anew....

Certainly Sally Hawkins has the pale, washed out reserved nature of Anne down pat.  It is yet to be seen if she blossoms like Root did in the '95 film.

They are now at Lyme to see Wentworth's great friends Captain Harville and Captain Benwick.  Soon Louisa will jump off the mole and concuss herself...Anne and Benwick are now debating literature and constancy...Anne's famous statement, "the one claim I shall make for my sex is that we love longest, when all hope is gone" is made, vs the film where she did not say this until the end at Bath. 

I can't judge the accuracy of the costumes, but I really like the bonnets.  They have more style than typical early 19th century replicas do...Aha the sea air has put roses in Anne's cheeks...is she about to meet the heir Mr. Eliot?  YES, they meet on the stairs... Mr. William Eliot, from Bath, played by Tobias Menzies., who always reminds me of a chipmunk...Mary's social-climbing remains intact...well, how could they do otherwise?  Uh oh, Louisa jumps off the mole and MISSES!  Idiot girl.  Anne is sharp in a crisis and Wentworth takes notice (again).  Unlike the film, there's blood.  Now Mary, the  worst nurse in the world, pitches a fit about being sent home to Uppercross, so it's Anne that Wentworth hands into the carriage...and as usual the camera lingers on her hand in his, because (accurately) there can be so little physical contact between an unmarried man and woman that what contact there is becomes highly charged.

Now we have just suffered an entirely made-up dialogue section where Harvill tells Wentworth that the Musgroves assume he will offer for Louisa, and Wentworth realizes the embarrassment he will cause if he doesn't offer for her and the social complications that will ensue.  It's been a while since I read Persuasion but I don't remember that passage at all....   

Anne and Wm Eliot meet in Bath and he clearly sets his cap for her (rather than her sister Elizabeth, the bon-bon eater) whilst denigrating Sir Walter's growing affection for the social climbing Mrs. Clay, of whom we shall hear more later in our programme.  How British I'm inpsired to be.

Now Anne has had a letter from Charles Musgrove hinting at a visit to Bath to purchase wedding clothes for Louisa, which Anne takes to mean an engagement between Louisa and Wentworth is forthcoming; and cries copious tears.

Anne then defies her father and sister and goes off to visit Mrs. Smith her invalid school friend, and the talkative Nurse Rook, who has more teeth in this version than in the '95 film.  Teeth are a good thing.  Oh, look, the Crofts have just dropped in at Camden Place with a letter from Mary...they explain about Louisa's upcoming marriage to......BENWICK!!!  But they torture Anne, inadvertantly, before the truth is revealed...Wentworth is free, his heart unclaimed.  Anne nearly faints on the spot.  And, it is revealed that Wentworth is in Bath!  Oh, happy day!

Now the rainy coffee shop scene, where Anne comes face to face with Wentworth...in a crowded coffee shop, they stand only inches apart...can you remember a time when being only inches from your heart's desire made your pulse race, knowing you were forbidden from reaching out and touching them?   There is something, albeit a small something, to be said for strict sexual mores...they certainly heighten yearning...

Charles and Mary turn up to take the waters, setting the stage for the denoument, and invitations for the evening party are handed out; Anne's tete-a-tete with Wentworth is interrupted by their arrival, and Wentworth explains that his brother in law is willing to vacate Kellynch Hall in the event of Anne's marriage to Mr. William Eliot...which gives Anne the opportunity to deny her engagement to Wm. Eliot, but they are interrupted by the arrival of Lady Russell and the Musgroves, and Wentworth leaves.  Anne chases Wentworth, only to be intercepted by Mrs. Smith, who fills her in on Mr. Eliot's perfidy with...Mrs. Clay!  Did all these women walk like 21st century dames?  They all stride!  Surely that can't be right? 

Anne meets Harvill, who gives her Wentworth's note declaring his love, and Anne runs through Bath to find him, only to learn that he has returned to Camden Place, where she smashes into Charles and ... Wentworth...they pack Charles off to buy a shotgun, and Anne and Wentworth are left alone with their passion...and she says... YES....and they kiss...

Now we are back with Anne and Wentworth at Kellynch...she is blindfolded and he takes off the scarf, reveling her "wedding present."  And they waltz.  Well OK, tremendously romantic, and true to the spirit, I guess, but not a patch on the '95 film.

On the whole, I think the film superior; if only because it runs 107 minutes versus the PBS production's 90 minutes...more of the book made it into the theatrical film intact; plus, in the PBS version, Tobias Menzies' sideburns resemble the mold UO grew in his shower stall when we were dating.  Ugh.

(Plus, the music in the PBS verion's score can't touch the '95 film.  The film uses lots of Chopin (preludes and modernist variations thereof)...I mean, you'd buy the soundtrack to the film, and I can't remember one thing about the PBS version.)

Up next week: Northanger Abbey!

Comments

[Brett Peters]

The film, oddly enough, was Roger Ebert's favorite of the crop of '90s Austen movies, and is a truly hard movie to beat. Thanks for the review; I may just stick to the film now.

As an aside, does UO's footballblogging have anything to do with the motives of this post?

[Mrs Offering]

HAH! No, at least not consciously. The arrival of the laptop sort of coincided with my tv's move from our bedroom into The Littlest Offering's room (cable connections, it's dumb and complicated), so my past-years' retreat from football being closed off, I gravitated to new timewasters. I got nothin' to say about Austen, she's close to being without peer; but I like watching and comparing the various adaptations, like the '96 4 hour BBC Pride and Prejudice with the 2 hr film from two years ago. Both are worth watching but they come at Lizzie (and Jane) from widely different perspectives.

[Brett Peters]

I resisted the latest P&P for some time, but was quite pleased with it when it finally came out. Very different take.

I count "Clueless" in with the Austen adaptations of the '90s, too. That may or may not be fair.

[Mrs Offering]

I do also, but its "apples" are a bit different from the '95 Paltrow/Northam effort's "apples." Both versions of Emma are satires on the mating rituals of their periods, but "Clueless" is a much more aggressive riff on overprivileged teens and LA society (and the rest of us) than Austen's Emma ever was. Or... perhaps what reads to us as gentle laughter was viewed as strong criticism by the society of Austen's time. I'm not an Austen scholar, didn't even read her in college, so I can't say. Do you know?

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[Mrs Offering]

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