When I realized that we were going
to be reading both Gatsby and Emma for class I was so excited. Jane
Austen’s novels and other works have taken up the most of the reading I’ve been
able to accomplish outside of assigned readings for the majority of my college
career, so reading an Austen novel in class was definitely appealing. (Not to
mention if I had made it through my entire career as an English major without
being assigned something by Jane Austen, I was going to be utterly distraught
come May)
The adaptation of Emma that we saw in class is one that I
have always had mixed feelings about. I
prefer the longer, more literal adaptation that I found in the 2009
mini-series, but I also know that the 1996 adaptation is more accessible and
light hearted in many ways. While watching these versions of Emma, my roommate, who had never read
the book, thoroughly enjoyed the 1996 version and feigned death by boredom throughout
the mini-series. The length of the adaptations obviously had a lot to do with
her reaction, but she also stated that the 1996 version was funnier and more
understandable.
While watching the film, I noticed
that this version takes a few liberties with the story to create modern humor
that a wider audience can appreciate and understand. Some of these liberties
include Miss Bate’s shouting random words at her mother, Emma’s conversation
with Harriet in the carriage (where she is constantly interrupted by being
polite to those she is passing), the goodbyes to Miss Taylor/ Mrs. Weston, and
the “don’t kill my dogs” archery scene.
These instances are events that you can
probably find in many modern movies, making the movie relatable these other
works. I also noticed that these devices
don’t rely heavily on language to get their humor across. Like with watching
musicals, the language used combined with the accents in Jane Austen
adaptations seem to be something you have to learn to listen to, making the
jokes/jabs Austen includes less accessible to those who aren’t accustomed to
listening to that style of speech. At least, that’s what I gathered from attempting
to watch any Jane Austen adaptation (excepting the 1996 that we watched in
class) with someone who isn’t familiar with this style of movie.
An adaptation of this nature can be hard for a modern audience. As you pointed out, those unfamiliar with the style can easily miss humor oriented towards it's original audience. When the majority of the audience won't fully appreciate the original work as is, they tweak it, as you noted, to make it more accessible. While I appreciate that they added accessibility for their audience, I personally enjoy it more when it's less subtle. I appreciated that Clueless went all out to put the story into a modern context for the audience. I also enjoyed the mini-series more because it was a more literal adaptation of the novel. I prefer the extremes when it comes to adaptations, so the 1996 version wasn't as enjoyable to me, though it still has its merits.
ReplyDeleteI think it's definitely true that the changes made to Emma were for the purpose of accessibility, and in that regard I think it was pretty successful. It isn't always easy to make texts written so long ago understandable to today's audience, but as you mentioned, it managed that pretty well. It may not be as faithful to all aspects of Austen's novel as some other versions, but it achieved its goal.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering about the larger concern for "accessibility" -- why make a film based on one of Austen's novels if a primary goal is just to make them "accessible"? Austen's works receive much adaptation into a variety of films, so if they are so inaccessible to modern audiences, then why do they have such popularity? Have many of the films taken on a life of their own, independent from the novel entirely? And if so, is that acceptable?
ReplyDeleteThe themes of Austen's novels are universal (pun intended). My first thought with accessibility is really with for the people who aren't fully able to understand the language of 1815. When watching the straight forward adaptation, people who aren't familiar with the language of the novels are left in the dark at times. This can also be said for many Shakespeare adaptations.
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