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.

So agree with you about Austen @ReadWithScepticism

My favourite ever Little Women film is the 1949 version with Elizabeth Taylor.

I wasn't a fan of the newest film, there was a BBC adaptation made just a couple of years before the new film that was far better IMO.

I liked the Emma with Kate Beckinsale in it but agree with pp that Clueless is the best!

The best Tess of the Durbervilles for me is the Roland Polanski one with Natasia Kinski as Tess. She will always be the real Tess to me. Beautifully filmed . I can just hear her now, " Angel, Angel Clare..."

Amanda Root's Anne Elliot is perfect. Persuasion is such an elegiac novel. No room for sass, lipstick or himboism in a lovely portrayal of a mature (by early 19th century standards), thoughtful relationship. And, well, Ciaran Hinds.

I'd like to see Northanger Abbey. But I think it would be really difficult to get the humour across.

There is a (I think, good) adaptation of Tenant of Wildfell Hall with Tara Fitzgerald and Toby Stephens in it.
@CurlewKate The Felicity Jones Northanger Abbey is worth watching, she and JJ Field are amusing if not laugh out loud funny.
I’d love to see a gothic novel like The Romance of The Forest by ann radcliffe attempted, it would be amusing if not scary.

That could be fun. Since it is itself a genre parody, it could be done as a parody of a particular film or TV drama style. Woman-in-peril mystery thriller? True crime? It could even add in a parody of all the other Austen adaptations.
It is way dafter and broader her other stories so I would feel less offended by an adapter taking liberties with it

It’s been done- 2007 with felicity jones.

Agree completely! There are so many good ones.

Yes, but the problem with Wilkie Collins was just that, unlike Dickens, he wasn't brilliant enough to pull it off without causing readers to feel so manipulated.

If Dickens wrote a six-season Netflix blockbuster, you would see at the end of it why it needed exactly six seasons, no more and no less, to encompass all of its well-judged sub-plots and tie up all their loose ends into a resolution of the main plot.

If Wilkie Collins wrote a six-season Netflix blockbuster I'm pretty sure we'd be left fuming that series four was a total digression, and that series six was mostly just a curtain call, and ...etc etc

Ha well I can’t agree as I think he does pay off the diversions etc, but I get it as that’s exactly how I feel about Vanity Fair.

I loved the BBC Cranford. You have reminded me to dig my box set out.

I’d love some Balzac or Zola. Or anything international- I don’t even know the classics in Italian or Spanish. There must be something out there.

Oh yes, Zola would be great. Thérèse Raquin done as a psychological crime drama so intense that it almost had elements of the supernatural would be a fab TV drama.

Would be good to see Flaubert, too. Madame Bovary in all her moral ugliness. Every character crass and depressing like in Abigail's Party

I'd like to see Shardlake adaptations! They could reuse the costumes and sets from Wolf Hall!

Definitely Tale of Two Cities, its my favourite Dickens. I loved the old film with Dirk Bogarde as Sidney Carton (so noble!), but not the old TV series with James Wilby, wrong for the part imo, too wet looking.

Shardlake is currently going out on Disney+

@StringOrNothing damn! Oh well.

I love these books! I wish there were movies of the entire series.

Another vote for A Tale of Two Cities. I was going to say The Forsyte Saga, but I see a version is already in production.

If they’re going to do another Agatha Christie it should be Death Comes as the End for something different!

I could see Mark Rylance as Shardlake.

the first in the series, Dissolution, is currently on Disney.

It's...okay.

I agree that their version is perfection.

In 2024 I don't think you could cast an actor without a disability for such a high profile disabled character.

Yes, that did occur to me after posting, but I still feel Rylance has the better face for it.