Letter M: Mansfield Park (DVD Review)

Mansfield Park, the novel by Jane Austin, will be 200 years old on May 9. In celebration, I am reviewing as many spinoffs and DVDs as I can find, and today I am reviewing the second DVD,  based on a screenplay by Patricia Rozema, who also directed the shooting.

Fanny is not the Fanny written by Jane Austen. The basic plot elements are the same, and the three interlocking love triangles are still there: Fanny-Edmond-Crawford, Edmond-Mary-Fanny and Maria-Rushworth-Crawford. But Fanny becomes a combination of the Fanny of the original Mansfield Park and Jane Austin herself. She is a storyteller and writer, and many of the lines she is given were actually written by Jane Austen, in the juvenalia as well as the novels.

Ms. Rozema’s research into Jane Austen also turned up the fact that she greatly admired abolitionist writings. The original Mansfield Park has several veiled references to slavery, which was the ultimate source of the wealth Sir Thomas derived from his estates on Antigua. Ms. Rozema has brought the problem of slavery to the foreground of her adaptation, and made it the source of all the problems Sir Thomas has with his children.

As an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (which I like as it is) this did not work for me. As an independent movie looking at the interrelationship between the horrors of slavery (some of which are portrayed in Tom’s sketchbook) and the wealth of the landed gentry of England, it is excellent. But it is not Mansfield Park.

Quotes from Jane Austen

Here are the contexts of the quotes tweeted  (and placed on facebook) between March 6 and 12, 2014. All but the last are from Mansfield Park, by Jane Austin, which is 200 years old this year.

“Every thing will turn to account when love is once set going, even the sandwich tray.” Edmond is captivated by Mary Crawford playing the harp, and it seems everything in the room is adding to the enchantment.

“Selfishness must always be forgiven, you know, for there is no hope of a cure.” Part of Mary Crawford’s apology to Fanny when she knows she has kept Fanny’s horse too long.

“A young party is always provided with a shady lane.” A somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment by the narrator on the fact that hot weather is not going to spoil the pleasure of the young people.

“To whose happy lot was it to fall?” Maria and Julia are rivals for Henry Crawford, and both want to sit with him on the barouche box.

“A whole family assembling regularly for the purpose of prayer, is fine.” Fanny’s comment (which brings a good deal of satire from the rest) on the old custom of daily household prayers.

“Every body likes to go their own way.” Mary is arguing for freedom of choice where religion is concerned.

“I think now I made the wrong choice.” Sue Ann Bowling, Tourist Trap. Xazhar is beginning to think that his grandfather is wiser than his father.

Quotes from Jane Austen

These are the contexts of the quotes tweeted from @sueannbowling between February 6 and February 12, 2014. All but the last are from Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen.

“Much as you know already, there is a great deal more for you to learn.” Mrs. Norris is speaking to Maria and Julia, having first emphasized how much they know.

“I can never be important to any one.” Fanny to Edmond, when she thinks she is to be sent to live with Mrs. Norris

“Not all her precautions could save her from being suspected of something better.” Mrs. Norris has put a good deal of emphasis on having a spare room for a friend, which she does not intend for Fanny.

“They were much to be pitied on the occasion, not for their sorrow, but for their lack of it.” Maria and Julia on their father’s departure to Antigua.

“She really grieved because she could not grieve.” Fanny’s reaction to Sir Bertram’s leaving.

“Their vanity was is such good order that they seemed to be quite free from it.” Describing Maria and Julia enjoying the social round in the absence of their father.

“She could not abandon the remnant.” Sue Ann Bowling, Homecoming. Marna, when she finds a mummified body after the plague.

Review of Mansfield Park DVD (BBC 1986)

All of Jane Austen’s completed novels have been made into films. This includes Mansfield Park, though I get the impression from reviews that in some the original plot is unrecognizable. The DVD I am commenting on here, however, is the only one I’ve watched, though I’ve ordered two more recent ones.

One of the things that came up during the Pride and Prejudice bicentennial was that as far as video was concerned, most people tended to like best the first video they saw. For me, that was the BBC version with Colin Firth as Darcy. That may be part of the reason I find the 1986 BBC video of Mansfield Park so much to my taste – it was the first I saw. Quite aside from that, it is very close to the book, with much of the dialog taken directly from Austen. The characters are very much true to those originally drawn by Miss Austen, and I particularly like Mrs. Norris, who is almost a caricature.

In reading reviews, I get the impression that people who liked the book like this video. People who find Fanny Price boring (I don’t) often preferred film versions that changed Fanny considerably from the way Jane Austin created her. I look forward to the arrival of other versions, but I doubt that I will like them any better.

I had hoped to find a film trailer for this DVD, but instead I found that the entire DVD is up on YouTube, chopped up into short segments. So I selected one of the shorter sequences, a conversation between Tom and Edmond Bertram and Mary Crawford, to give you a taste of the style. (NB: The YouTube episode says 1983, but it is clearly taken from the movie I am reviewing.)

Quotes from Jane Austen

Last year, in celebration of the bicentennial of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, I tweeted quotes from that work for one week each month. This year is the bicentennial of Mansfield Park, and while I do not plan to post regular reviews of spinoffs (there aren’t that many) I will tweet quotations from that work, and give their contexts here. Normally this will be the second or third Wednesday of the month, following a week of tweets. This is the first of these blog posts, and the first six of the quotations below are from Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen.

“There certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.” Narrator’s comment on the lucky marriage of Miss Maria Ward to Sir Thomas Bertram.

“A girl so brought up must be adequately provided for.” Sir Thomas, when they are discussing the idea of raising Fanny.

“Do not let us be frightened from a good deed by a trifle.” Mrs. Norris, who throughout the book deludes herself into thinking she is responsible for taking Fanny from her poor family and giving her a better life at Mansfield, but who in fact gets out of every obligation.

“It being a wicked thing for her not to be happy.” Mrs. Norris has managed to make Fanny think that Fanny’s failure to be overflowing with happiness at being taken away from her home and siblings is a fault.

“There is moderation in all things.” A good principle in itself, but not as Mrs. Norris applies it to Fanny’s homesickness.

“The favorite holiday sport of the moment, making artificial flowers or wasting gold paper.” Fanny’s cousins are far more interested in other things than in getting to know Fanny.

“Don’t let it be obvious that you’re acting.” Tourist Trap, by Sue Ann Bowling. Lai’s advice to Roi as Zhaim’s trial approaches.

Mansfield Park (Review)

Last year was the bicentennial of Jane Austen’s classic novel, Pride and Prejudice. I took part in the celebration hosted by austenprose.com, which involved reading or watching (and reviewing) a number of spinoffs and DVD’s based on the book. I also added Pride and Prejudice to the books from which I put short quotes on Twitter @sueannbowling, and then explained the contexts on Wednesdays on this blog.

This year another of Jane Austen’s books has its 200^th anniversary: Mansfield Park.

This is a book many critics tend to put near the bottom of Jane Austen’s works. Certainly it has far fewer spinoffs, retellings, or adaptations than Pride and Prejudice, and many readers tend to dismiss it because the heroine, Fanny Price, is merely good, rather than spirited and a bit kickass, like Elizabeth Bennett. This is particularly true since Fanny is set up against Mary Crawford, who seems everything that an Austen heroine should be.

I don’t agree.

Yes, Fanny is a quiet, modest girl who adheres to the mores of her time. But she does not lack a kind of quiet heroism of her own, as when she refuses the outwardly eligible Henry Crawford. And her observations of the other characters, and Jane’s drawing of those characters, is wonderful. I’ve read and reread many of Jane Austen’s books, and I would group Mansfield Park with Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion as far as the number of re-readings gives a ranking.

I’ve heard that Jane’s intention was to give Fanny only goodness, and to purposely show the contrast between the quiet, principled Fanny and the far more engaging but less scrupulous Mary Crawford. Yes, her uncle, especially after his return from Antigua, thinks her “very pretty,” but she is not set up as a great beauty, nor does that seem to be nearly as important, in the marriage market Austen describes, as are wealth and social position.

In fact all of Austen’s heroines are basically good, principled people. They may be naïve in various ways, but there is not a one of them who is not careful of the feelings of others or who would not view adultery (in either sex) with horror. Mansfield Park is the novel in which this characteristic appears in its purest form.