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.

We could do with another great expectations 😂

Yes to Villette. I would say Barchester Chronicles but the 1980s production was too close to prefection to ever be bettered imo. I would love to see some Walter Scott and perhaps Martin Chuzzlewit, though I think the US audience might not care for it lol.

I remember a great Dombey &Son (with Avon from Blakes Seven as the villainous Charker with his chilling perma-smile), a new production of that would be good.

A Tale of Two Cities as well, or Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety. And while we're in revolutionary France, how about the Scarlet Pimpernel?

Much as I despised it as O level fodder*, "A Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (Annes opus magnus) seems as appropriate (if not more) today than ever.

David Tennant as Gilbert Markham would just be too much 😀

*Doing it was an excuse to go and see Joan Bakewell doing a one woman show about the Brontës at the Old Vic.

More Gaskell would be good. Have they ever done Mary Barton? I loved the Wives and Daughters back in the 90s possibly.

There was a Silas Marner one Christmas, partly filmed at the pub in my mum's home village. How about a new Middlemarch? Though no Will Ladislaw could induce a dead swoon like Rufus Sewell did...

@JaneandtheLaundry "39 Steps" 4 versions I know. I liked the Robert Powell and The Rupert Penry-Jones (2008) ones. The most ridiculous being with Kenneth Moore.

It is strange that it was published in 1915 but does not mention the war specifically. It is as if it is set in 1913.

I think it is set in 1914 at the pinnacle of the tipping point before the war because at the very end there's a line about how he joined up when the war started but felt he'd already made his greatest contribution from the adventure. I thought the last adaptation of it was many years ago (the 1960s) so I'll look out the newer ones to see if they're more... exciting.

I'd like to see more big movie adaptations of Elizabeth Gaskell, too.

Not Victorian, but actually I’d like to see a good adaptation of AS Byatt’s Possession. The film with Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart was beyond bad.

And Wilkie Collins! That version of the Woman in White a few years ago was dire. There are at least two others I think would be great.

Not wanting to derail your thread @ParisPossum but a second list of stories to be banned. No more "Hound of the Baskervilles" ever, preferably no more Sherlock Holmes.

I never saw it, but a good one would be great. With an excellent actor as Marian Halcombe.

Yes! Emma thinks she can move up the echelons by dint of her beauty - that's why there's that (misunderstood) flurry around getting a portrait of her too...

I think if they get the period look spot on and the acting is good enough it doesn't date. The Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett from the 80s would be hard to better IMO, interesting they haven't done a full "straight" (as opposed to modern setting) TV version since.

It's worth a watch for the production and costume design, which is outrageously gorgeous. It's nicely directed and well-paced, and there are some very good performances and fun touches, but I find Anya Taylor-Joy a weak actress, for all that she is strikingly beautiful. She has no depth.

So she would have been perfectly cast as Harriet!

The Anya Taylor Joy version is almost 5 years old, it was the last movie I've seen at the cinema before lockdown.

Yes! Exactly!

The costuming was also superb, lots of one-to-one replicas from fashion plates and paintings. Especially refreshing in comparison to the woefully inaccurate and drab costuming of the Keira Knightley P&P.

It's not really very filmable as it stands as a book imo. The denouement is not exactly action packed. The film version's plots are pretty altered. For example what the 39 Steps are are changed. I love the Robert Donat version and I love the original book but they're not similar.

Didn't see the tv version with, iirc, Rupert Penry Jones.

I'm surprised they haven't done new versions of Ngaio Marsh. I don't think they've done them since the Patrick Malahide/Belinda Lang ones.

That's a real shame given that it inspired the entire Hannay series which I also rather liked (even if it was a bit hackneyed).

I would love to see a new adaptation of Middlemarch.

it's AWFUL!

Also the Cazalet books