Ideology in images : the 1990s Austen film revival
Date
2001
Authors
Atkinson, Lois Dawn
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
In the 1990s all five of Jane Austen's two-hundred-year-old novels were newly adapted for cinema, television, or both. This thesis seeks to understand the appeal of these adaptations by examining a selection of three. The first to be discussed is the popular television mini-series Pride and Prejudice. Although the most technically faithful to Austen, it is also the most embellished. Austen's heroine and hero are frankly exploited as objects of desire, luxury goods are displayed as part of the entertainments, and romantic passions repeatedly upstage Austen's social commentary. The second is a high art film version of Sense and Sensibility. In this adaptation, new feminist dialogue and a pronounced Cinderella motif are inserted into Austen's romantic plot. Again, Austen's social debate is eclipsed by romance, and feminist protest is finally absorbed into wedding imagery. The third film under discussion is the avant-garde production of Mansfield Park in which Austen's plot and characters are virtually re-invented so that a post-colonial feminist political agenda can be developed. Austen's passive and long-suffering heroine is transformed into an active one who has romantic adventures, and who becomes a narrator as well. Meanwhile a new slave sub-plot simmers with sex and violence. In the end, the heroine achieves an idealised post-feminist resolution: she becomes a traditional wife and a successful fiction writer. Although these adaptations differ in style, all three minimize, exclude or distort Austen's social-feminist agenda. Although these adaptations differ in style, all three reflect a self-conscious I 990s approach which, despite updated feminist content, results in an increased emphasis on romantic love as a woman's ultimate.