First of all, apologies to all who read my blog for taking so long about writing my promised review of the BBC North and South - I have watched it all again, and found it even better than I remembered, but I was tempted to reread the book too and haven’t finished yet, though I’m nearly there.:)
When I decided to have a Gaskell season here, I had failed to realise it was her bicentenary in 2010 and that a lot of special events are planned to mark the occasion – here is a link to a posting at a blog I hadn’t previously come across (found this one via Fly High, Maria:), which has links to a lot of Gaskell sites. Most of the events are in Manchester or Knutsford so I don’t think it is likely I’ll manage to make it there, but I do hope to see the window being dedicated to her in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey.
N&S review coming up very soon!
I am eagerly awaiting your review of North and South. I do understand your need to re read the book. I have only just read it and am already tempted to re read it.
Janette
So! You are even re-reading the novel! Great. We will have a super blogpost about North and South, I bet on that. I’m glad you found my blogo-friend Luciana’s post useful. Let’s spread our love for Mrs Gaskell all together.
Your Gaskell series is perfect to celebrate this anniversary, Judy.
Thank you very much for the encouragement, Janette and Maria.
I sympathize. I’ve now watched carefully three times the 1997 Tom Jones and I love it. But I don’t want to write a blog about it until I’ve finished the novel. I know these blogs are not meant to be definitive or scholarly and yet I too want to read the major source (book) before embarking on a blog on the movie.
For a published book, one should also see the other movies this movie imitates, and other movies written by the screenplay writer, directed by the director, and even produced by the producer. For these are important sources for the movie too.
Ellen (looking forward to the blog and to reading Gaskell and about Gaskell this fall on WWTTA)
Thank you very much, Ellen – I have now written quite a bit about N&S, so I’m getting there, but still need to do some more work on it, and hope to post a completed piece tomorrow or Monday. I’ve been very distracted lately…
I haven’t seen Tom Jones or read the novel, so I have those pleasures still to come – and look forward to your blog too.:) I do agree that other movies made by all those involved in a production are also important sources, as you say. Thanks again.
Just a final comment: I find most interesting to see how these Victorian movies resemble one another too — across whatever novel they are filming. So recently I watched the 2008 Tess of the D’Urbervilles and find it has motifs which resemble the great 1994 Middlemarch. This is what makes watching these films so inspirting and relevant to us; what they are as a group saying to us, presenting us with.
Gaskell is centrally a Victorian and films of her books are Victorian films. North and South with its industrialization and class themes is core stuff.
Ellen
Thank you, Ellen, I do agree – all these adaptations seem to build on and echo one another, just as the novelists also influenced each other at the time. I liked the 2008 ‘Tess’ a lot and would like to see it again – I had hoped it would be repeated, but that hasn’t happened so far. Maybe it will turn up in summer, when many more series seem to be repeated here.