ANOTHER Jane Austen Film Adaptation

[ParisPossum]

Just seen that there is a new adaptation of Emma available to watch. While I do appreciate Jane Austen's work, it gets tedious seeing adaptations of the same novels; Pride and Prejudice has been done to death over the decades. If you could nominate your favourite fabulous classic (or two), what would it be? My vote would go to A Tale Of Two Cities and Barnaby Rudge.

Ooh which adaptation and where is it available?

The Pickwick Papers.

Hard Times (Charles Dickens). They've never adapted that AFAIK and it was bloody brilliant.

Also The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan is well overdue a revival.

Ditto Agatha Christie. I love them but surely it's time to give someone else from that era a look in.

Trollope's Barchester Chronicles and The Pallisers are due a remake. There've been some excellent radio dramas recently but the TV series are quite old now.

I'd like to see more Nancy Mitford but not by the same team who produced the woeful series last year.

Perhaps some 20th century women writers like Mollie Panter-Downes or Barbara Pym? They're quiet novels but could be done beautifully.

Little women , I was so annoyed when the brought out the new film, my favourite is the 90's remake with Winona Ryder

Colin firth will always be my mr Darcy! My dc are the same, they fell in love with classic literature due to that series (and a trip to Bath)

Yes I want more PG Wodehouse adaptations. That cove had quite a way with words.

Hard Times was done on TV with Timothy West as Mr Gradgrind. Years ago.
The Anthony Trollope: Phineas Finn and parliamentary events was good on radio.

There have been remarkably few adaptations of Charlotte Brontë's novels beyond Jane Eyre. Shirley in particular deserves one in my opinion.

Well, maybe it will be better than the Anya Taylor-Joy one which was made by someone who didn’t understand the period or any of the subtleties of the novel?

I think there will be another P and P before too long — the Andrew Davies/Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle one will be looking quaint to another generation, despite its strong points.

I’d adore to see a multi-part screen adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s Villette (there was one in 1970, but it seems not to have survived, and there was talk years back of Emma Donoghue adapting it), but I can entirely see why it’s not been done. When you have a narrator who just refuses to tell you things, including why she abruptly finds herself totally penniless and alone in the world, a complete switch of love interest half way, quite a lot of hallucinations, a phantom nun, and a famously inconclusive ending, that doesn’t necessarily translate to screen…

Villette is my favourite, but Shirley would probably work better, you’re right. Though you’d probably have to leave out the comedy curates.

Hard Times is terrible. I did it for O level and the combination of sentimentality, sledgehammer attacks on the Utilitarians, and incomprehensible union-bashing drove me up the wall. Maybe if I gave it another chance as an adult I'd like it more but life's too short. IMO it's overlooked for a reason.

I saw this new adaptation advertised on i-player this morning; stars Anya Taylor-Joy. Worth a watch I'm sure but there are some great suggestions here and unfamiliar titles that I will check out; thank you. I reallly hope we don't get another P&P when there is so much great writing out there. Agree that some different Bronte and Trollope would be fab.

I'd like to see a version of Emma with a startlingly pretty Harriet Smith. Without that the plot makes no sense.

They should adapt something by Virginia Woolf, if only because I can't be a__ed to read her books. Or reboot George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell.

I'm surprised Waverley never got a film or TV adaptation. It even has a train station named after it!

Gosh yes, some Eliot updates are long overdue. I just checked if there had been a film release of Silas Marner and indeed there was in... wait for it... 1922! Over a hundred bloody years! Why are we neglecting so much great fiction?

That’s not new at all, though. It came out in 2020. It has some good performances, but it’s pretty meh over all.

Oh isn't it! Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up! Not worth a watch then by the sounds of it?

I always thought these were the multiple points of view of diametrically opposed characters and a reflection of their time/social positions rather than what the novel itself was saying (or any reflection on Dickens), but I've never studied English Literature, I just read a lot of books. I needed a new writing project, maybe adapting Hard Times into a screenplay should be my "it's never going anywhere" project. 🤣

But you can see why with that one. Not that it’s not a good novel (though it’s easily my least favourite of Eliot’s, bar Romola), but it’s very sentimental, with all that ‘she had come to replace the gold’ stuff, and the ‘plot’ is all about secondary characters and secret marriages.

I prefer the Anya Taylor Joy version of Emma to the Gwyneth Paltrow one. BBC had a series adaptation with Romola Garai which was good.

More Northanger Abbey would be enjoyable.

I enjoyed the 2020 version of Emma, I didn’t think the casting was great but I liked the music (and Johnny Flynn!).