Hath you seen the Jane Austen-y goodness that is Indie Jane? For heaven’s sake, get thee hence. If you dream of Regency dresses and men in (ahem) breeches, there’s no better go to site on the web.
They’re having a mad giveaway that includes a Kindle Fire and 20 Janeaholic novels. But even if you miss the giveaway, you ought to check the site out.
All the good Janeites do so.
All those rumors you heard are true. I did post over at Dasia’s amazing blog, Dasia Has a Blog. You can go read it here: Anna’s Guest Post on Dasia Has a Blog – Top Ten Torrid Moments in Period Film.
Disclaimer: This guest post includes a great deal of blushing and self-fanning, as well as some of the most torrid moments in period film I could find. It was too saucy for this blog, which ranks it roughly at PG-13.
I’m still missing my number 10, so head over there and share your favorite. Seriously. Because there’s only so many times I can watch some of these scenes over and over again before people start talking.
WARNING: May cause quickened breathing and increased heart rate. Just saying.
Books and films have an uneasy alliance. If you truly love a book, you may passionately want to see it brought to life in a film…or you may not. In fact, some of the most vehement reaction to a book adaptation comes from some of the book’s biggest fans.
When you are first reading a book, you picture the characters, visualize the scenes as they unfold. For me, it is like watching a movie in my head. My actors do as they are told, as they turn the page. In fact, there have been a few times where I remember a “scene” in a movie, when in fact it was only in my head from reading the book.
Though the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice (1995) is as beloved as Jane Austen’s classic (#13 in Amazon’s top bestsellers), I defy anyone to watch it and then reread the book and not see this:
Arguably, seeing Colin Firth in your head for long stretches of time is not a bad thing. However, I can’t even remember what my original Mr. Darcy looked like. I’m fairly certain he had dark hair and flashing eyes and a haughty demeanor, as Darcys are wont to have. Other than that, I can only ever see Colin Firth.
It is a tribute to Firth’s acting skills that he has replaced the actor in my head; he was voted the Best Darcy by the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, England. But what of my long, lost Darcy?
Once a book’s character is codified into the face of an actor, there’s few ways to reset it: Vivian Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara, Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter are actors who permanenty define their character hereafter.
We are a deeply visual culture, so we delight in the ease and immersive experience of watching a movie. No one denigrates the joys of a classic, well-done film. But reading a book requires us to conjure faces and feelings in our own imagination, subject to no person except ourselves.
I have resisted watching the new Jane Eyre thus far, to avoid replacing the Mr. Rochester in my head with this:
As for you, which characters are now inseparable from the actors that have made them famous? Does this please or dismay you?