Some news on new ‘Jane Eyre’ feature film

Sorry not to have been around, but life and work are getting in the way of blogging, as ever. I was interested to hear today that things seem to be developing a bit with the projected feature film of Jane Eyre . Originally, Juno star Ellen Page was supposed to be playing the title role, but she dropped out a while ago and now it is said that the heroine will be played by Mia Wasikowska, who is also playing Alice in the new Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland, with Michael Fassbender as Mr Rochester.  Here’s a link to the full information at Variety.  

Garrow’s Law (2009)

I’ve now seen the first episode of BBC1’s new costume drama series, Garrow’s Law, which I wrote a little advance piece about a few days ago, and really enjoyed it. I think Andrew Buchan in particular is excellent in the title role as pioneering 18th-century barrister William Garrow, who fought to make sure defendants were properly represented and not assumed to be guilty without a fair trial. I’d only seen him in one or two smaller parts before this, but in this drama he has an intense presence, and he makes a good combination with Alun Armstrong. It’s also always refreshing to see a historical drama which turns the spotlight not just on the people who could afford the fine costumes, but also on the servants and poor people like the defendants in this opening episode. Anyway, I hope to write a longer piece when the series ends, considering it as a whole, but just wanted to say that I’m liking it so far.

Looking forward to Garrow’s Law

If you were wondering what to do on Sunday nights now that Emma has finished its run, the good news for UK viewers is that BBC1 is immediately following it with another historical drama. (Not sure when you will get this series in other countries.) Starting this weekend is Garrow’s Law, a four-part series based on the life and work of William Garrow, a pioneering 18th-century barrister at the Old Bailey who, from what I’ve read about this series, introduced the concept of cross-examination and was the first lawyer really to fight cases for the defence.

Andrew Buchan and Alun Armstrong

Andrew Buchan, who played Jem Hearne in Cranford and St John Rivers in the most recent Jane Eyre, takes the title role as William Garrow, with Alun Armstrong and Rupert Graves also starring. The writer is Tony Marchant, who has mainly scripted contemporary dramas but has done adaptations of Dickens’ Great Expectations and Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment in the past.

I thought I’d pass on links to a few sites for people interested in knowing more. The BBC has a site with a lot of information, and there is also an independent fansite, similar to those set up for some other recent costume dramas. The legal and historical consultant on the show, Mark Pallis, has set up a blog at WordPress giving background on the cases featured in the show, and Clive Anderson wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph about Garrow’s place in legal history.

I’m going to watch the show, but am hoping I find it easier to follow than Channel 4’s 18th-century legal drama City of Vice, where I found myself getting hopelessly lost every week…

Emma (2009) episode 4

I’ll admit that at first I wasn’t sure what I felt about this BBC mini-series, scripted by Sandy Welch. But now, after seeing all four episodes, I am well and truly won over – and looking forward to watching the whole thing again. I’d just like to know whether the region 2 DVD will have any special features, such as a commentary, behind-the-scenes film etc – Amazon doesn’t give any information on this, but does say it is all on one DVD, which makes me fear that perhaps there won’t be room for any extras.

Something I have enjoyed as the series developed is seeing the contrast in acting styles between Romola Garai as Emma and Jonny Lee Miller as Mr Knightley. Garai’s face and voice are always very expressive, vividly putting across what she is feeling or thinking at any given moment. By contrast, through most of the series there has been something deliberately understated and buttoned up about Miller – his body language and expressions are much quieter than Garai’s, and you often have to watch closely to see a fleeting glimpse of emotion before it is hidden again.

Tamsin Greig and Jonny Lee Miller as Miss Bates and Mr Knightley at Box Hill

Emma (2009) episode 3

Up to now I had slightly mixed feelings about this version of Emma. But something has clicked and I’m finding myself loving it. I don’t in all honesty know whether it is that the adaptation has improved or that my mood has mellowed – or that I’m now rereading the novel alongside my viewing and noticing the similarities and changes.  But, in any case, I’m enjoying it a lot, and just wishing the viewing figures were better. The landscapes, costumes and music all add up to a seductive mixture, and I’m increasingly appreciating how the actors interpret Austen’s characters.

Jonny Lee Miller as Mr Knightley at the ball

The definite highlight of this episode is the ball scene, which I think has been created perfectly – I’ve watched the sequence with Emma (Romola Garai) and Mr Knightley dancing several times (while making screencaps for this posting!) and never failed to be enchanted. I now think that Jonny Lee Miller deliberately played Mr Knightley as rather stuffy at the start of the series, so that it would come as more of a revelation when he started to show his real sensitivity later on. In this scene, the glimpses of him standing at the side watching as Emma dances with Frank are the more poignant because it is all so understated – Miller does so much with the slightly wistful expression in his eyes at moments like this, making you know that his character is feeling every year of his age.

Emma (2009) episode 2

I’m sorry to be so late in saying anything about the second episode of the new BBC Emma, but I’ve had a frantically busy week at work and haven’t had time to string two words together! However, I have now managed to see the episode twice and, to be honest, have slightly mixed feelings about it. This will really just be a few disjointed thoughts rather than a proper review, as the time I have available is still quite short – I feel a bit like Miss Bates going over her latest letter from Jane, and will have to bring my thoughts into some sort of order at the end of the  series.

Romola Garai and Jonny Lee Miller

I am still enjoying the series and impressed by the beauty of the scenery and the whole world which has been created. I’m also impressed by the actors’ performances – especially Michael Gambon as Mr Woodhouse and Jodhi May and Robert Bathurst as the Westons – yet I feel increasingly that perhaps too much of Austen’s satiric bite has been lost, that the story has been softened too much round the edges. And yes, I do still miss the language of the novel. However, while feeling slightly disappointed at the moment, I remember having doubts about previous Sandy Welch adaptations and being won over in the end – her version of Jane Eyre is one of my favourite costume dramas of recent years, for all its departures from the book – so it may well be that her Emma will grow on me just as much.

Upstairs, Downstairs to make a comeback

I was intrigued today to see an article in the Daily Telegraph about a new follow-up series to 1970s hit Upstairs, Downstairs being made, with Jean Marsh returning as Rose, now a housekeeper, and Dame Eileen Atkins also expected to star.

The original series was made by ITV but this will now be made by the BBC – Heidi Thomas, who did the screenplay for Cranford, is writing the script. ITV has a drama on a similar theme in production, Downton Abbey. It seems as if you wait ages for a series about the family and servants in a great house, then two come along at once!;)

 I’ve only seen bits and pieces of the original series of Upstairs Downstairs, so will have to try to catch up with some of it before the new one starts! Anyway, good to see the BBC making another costume drama – this one will begin around 1930.

Emma (2009) episode 1

I’ve now seen the first episode of the eagerly-awaited new BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma starring Romola Garai and Jonny Lee Miller, slightly belatedly since I was working on Sunday evening.

Michael Gambon, Romola Garai and Jonny Lee Miller

I’ve actually watched it twice now –  initially I was impressed by the gorgeous costumes, sunlit green landscapes and chocolate-box houses, but disappointed that there seems to be little of Austen’s own language and above all her wit. However, I liked it better the second time, which I find is how I often react to adaptations of favourite novels. Screenwriter Sandy Welch’s previous adaptations include  Our Mutual Friend (1998) and Jane Eyre (2006) – I came to love both of these, but they took a time to grow on me, and I think the same might be true of her version of Emma. (The director of this version, Jim O’Hanlon, has directed many contemporary series for British TV, but I think this is his first historical drama, so I don’t recognise his style as yet. )

So far, I do like Garai as Emma – she gives the character a sort of mischievous, luminous quality, making her seem younger and more naive than I’d imagined her, but also making it believable that she can get so many people to do her bidding. I’m not so sure, yet, about Miller as Mr Knightley – he seems a little stuffy so far, and his remonstrating with Emma too often comes across as one-upmanship and nagging rather than the desire to bring out what is best in her.  Though maybe that is intentional, I suppose, and he will be shown changing later.

Mixed news on TV costume drama

Sorry again not to have been around much – I’ve  just had a couple of days away from home and am still behind with reviews I want to write! But, anyway, here is a bit of costume drama news.

This week’s Radio Times in the UK carries the news that Andrew Davies’ new adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s great series of novels The Pallisers has been axed. Davies says the BBC is going downmarket and now only commissioning adaptations of big-name works – he has also been asked to adapt David Copperfield instead of Dombey and Son, which I’m a bit disappointed about as DC has been done so many times already.

I haven’t found the Radio Times article online, but here is a link to another
report quoting the same comments:
I’m mystified by the quote saying that Davies is now adapting Arnold Bennett’s South Riding.  Just editing (October 6) to say that today’s Radio Times has a correction pointing out that this novel is in fact by Winifred Holtby – and that it was the magazine’s mistake, not his!  This one has been adapted before, but not for a long time, and I will be interested to see it.

On a happier note, the BBC starts showing the new Sandy Welch adaptation of
Jane Austen’s Emma this weekend – I’m really looking forward to it and also hoping it gets brilliant ratings to give TV costume drama a badly-needed shot in the arm.

ITV’s recent mini-series of Wuthering Heights, which I thought was powerful
although flawed in places, did fairly well in terms of ratings (the Radio Times
claims 4.28 million was disappointing, but I would have thought it was pretty
good during the main summer holiday period) and has also sold to networks all over the world. Possibly on the back of that, ITV has now commissioned Downton Abbey, a major nine-part series scripted by Julian Fellowes about a country house in the Edwardian era and around the First World War, which will be about both the family and the servants, as with Upstairs Downstairs – so maybe costume drama is already starting to bounce back.

Onegin (1999)

I was tempted to watch this atmospheric adaptation of Alexander Pushkin’s early 19th-century verse novel because of the fine cast, headed by Ralph Fiennes as world-weary aristocrat Eugene Onegin, Liv Tyler as the heroine, country girl Tatyana, and Toby Stephens as Onegin’s idealistic friend Vladimir Lensky.

However, fine as the actors are, I think in the end it will be the stunning scenery, the cinematography (by historical drama expert Remi Adefarasin) and above all the snow that stay with me from this production.  Recently I watched the BBC mini-series The Impressionists, which uses slightly blurred colours to make its landscapes look uncannily like the paintings. This feature film often has the same kind of visual effect, slightly blurring and fading to create a haunting, dream-like impression.

The film is something of a Fiennes family project, with Martha Fiennes directing, her brother Ralph doubling as the star and the executive producer, and another brother, Magnus, having composed the haunting music, which nonetheless sounds very Russian to me. The blend of music and scenery reminded me of David Lean’s Dr Zhivago (1965), though I don’t think there are any balalaikas. I don’t know anything much about the screenwriter, Peter Ettedgui, but see from the imdb that he also scripted Vigo (1998), which is another tragic story, tracing the brief life of French film-maker Jean Vigo.

The film opens with a weary Onegin travelling through the Russian countryside after leaving St Petersburg to go to the deathbed of his uncle, a country aristocrat. His sophisticated lifestyle in St Petersburg, an endless succession of opera visits and affairs, is suggested in flashback, before he arrives in the bleak countryside – where he inherits the estate and meets Lensky, forming an instant friendship.

I should warn that I’m about to give away the whole plot of the film as I can’t really discuss it further without doing so – I don’t usually worry too much about spoilers, but there are a couple of twists, so if you don’t know the story, you might want to stop reading here.