MindsBase

So, the other night I was sorely lacking in Netflix movies, so I thumbed through my well-worn personal collection, and trumped out the Hollywood version of Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice.

I own this movie, yes. I also hate it.

Or, I did hate it when I first saw it. But since I love the story (like every other English-speaking pansy) I thought I’d better let it rest and try it again later. And yes, on subsequent viewings, I’ve hated it LESS, but I still hate the poor movie as though it has personally injured me.

Why, I asked myself upon this latest viewing. I shouldbe able to rationally dissect it after a handful of viewings, shouldn’t I? Why do I have such a visceral reaction to it?

Here are some thoughts:

1. Elizabeth — is poorly cast. Now, I’ve liked Keira Knightly in other roles — she makes a great Elizabeth Swan, so she’s not inappropriate for period dramas (did I just call Pirates of the Carribean a period drama? Ho ho ho!) But why on earth did the poor woman think that spunk meant baring one’s teeth and looking as cat-like as possible. Her performance lacked elegance. Elizabeth Bennet was not brash, just spirited. This distinction is important to the story because she contrasts her ridiculous family (as well as her elegant but demure elder sister — a delicate balance).
2. Darcy — is poorly cast. Okay, I had to look up Matthew Macfadyen to see what else he’s done, so obviously I’m not an MI-5 fan. Maybe his fans were pleased. And I’m not saying it’s easy to reprise the role that made Colin Firth an immortal sex symbol. But all his mannerisms seemed off to me. He helps her into the carriage, then, upon walking away, splays out his fingers like he’s trying to shake off something disgusting. Maybe he’d gently stroke the tips of his fingers with his thumb, re-enacting the touch of her hand? Maybe he’d clasp his hands together in front of his face, bringing her touch to his own lips. Splayed fingers, not working for me. The pasty mask that was supposed to be shy indifference didn’t work for me, either.
3. Other castings — oh dear. Mr. Bingley is not a buffoon! Mr. Collins is not a serial killer! But I best move on…
4. Dialogue — Why is everyone in such a hurry to say their lines? Are they trying to fit a three hour movie into two hours? Apparently. Yikes. Slow down, people.
5. Beauty — the film lost something of the art of Jane’s book. Something the 1995 BBC version captured. I get it — they were trying to differentiate the public assembly dance from the Netherfield ball, but the assembly came off dirty and chaotic. Dude, I would thumb my nose if I were Darcy! Yet in this scene we are supposed to side with Elizabeth.

But here’s the real problem with this version: The Screenplay!The credited writer is Deborah Moggach who has no other notable credits, but as is often the case with Hollywood, the compromised story and affected dialogue may not be her fault… it may have been a case of too many cooks in the kitchen.

The thing is, you can’t rush a character story. You can’t fit all the scenes from the book into two hours and make any of them feel genuine and nuanced, subtle and understated. Pride and Prejudice is over 120,000 words long. Harry Potter six had to hack it to the bone to display 170,000 words onscreen… but then I think they’ll bleed over some key points into HP7. But I digress.

Lesson to be learned: Writing is important! A good screenplay is like the first domino. When it falls, everything down the line suffers. And it’s really hard to adapt a well-woven character story into a two-hour narrative. When adapting a classic you have this ugly desire to be “faithful” to the book. I’d rather see them be true to the spirit of the book than to the actual scenes. They tried, with P&P, but ultimately I think they failed. You don’t love Elizabeth’s spunk, you don’t admire Darcy’s reserve, you don’t laugh at Mr. Collins or understand Charlotte’s choice. Wickham and Georgiana become cardboard and don’t feel important to the plot, and poor Bingley is truly cringe-worthy. Jane and her parents survive rather well, as does Lydia. Lady Catherine is given too much screen time, presumably to play her role in the reversal of fortune at the end, but frankly the stronger motivator of reconciliation is what Darcy does for Lydia. Not that I would change the book one iota. But a film is not a book.

I give the Hollywood version of Pride and Prejudice a paltry two nods:

Last night, feeling the void where a great period adaptation should be, I put on Little Women. Ahhhh. Need satisfied*.

* To be fair, Pride and Prejudice is a longer novel than Little Women by 30,000 words.

Now, to end on a sweet note:

–Pride and Prejudice, 1995, BBC adaptation

Well, I was going to let it go at a twitter, but I’m still thinking about it, so now it’s a post.

The kids and I drove for an hour to see the new Miyazaki film, Ponyo. (It didn’t come to my local theater in backwoods, usa.) We are huge fans of Miyazaki films, each with our own fav:

4yo loves Totoro for its lovable furry title characters, the soot spirits and the Nekobasu (the cat-bus.)

7yo loves Princess Mononoke, arguably the most gruesome of Miyazaki’s films, but perhaps the most realistic.

9yo loves Spirited Away, loves No Face and even Yubaba, but especially spider-legged Kumaji and her other allies.

My husband likes Nausicaa best. Not sure why — the insect thing?

And, of course, I love Howl’s Moving Castle. I love Diana Wynne Jones’ book (and its sequels) so that’s part of it, but Miyazaki put his own stamp on an already lovely story. It’s a love story with spark (did they use that as the tag line? They should have!!). Oh, don’t you love Calcifer? In fact, I would say the Door-Mat in MindsBase was somewhat inspired by Calcifer.

Now, I feel rather amiss not even mentioning Castle in the Sky, or even The Cat Returns or Kiki’s Delivery Service, all of which we also own and love.

So, back to Ponyo. I knew, going in, that this would be a younger story, more on the order of Totoro than Mononoke. But I really got my hopes up when the hip 20-something boy at the ticket counter offered “It’s really great!” when I bought the tix.

Here’s what was great about it:

• Watercolor artistry, oy yes.
• Spectacular visuals, especially the oceanic events. Depicting the waves as giant fish — brilliant!
• The magically-enlarged toy boat powered by a candle-fired boiler. My kids want to try to build one of those now.
• The old ladies. One thing I love about Miyazaki films (and Japanese culture in general) is the integration of older people as valued members of society.
• The smaller story of Ponyo and Sosuke is backdropped by the larger world of the mother, the father and the town dealing with the storms — LOVE IT!
• The wonderful details such as the ham radio, the generator and the Morse Code spotlight. My kids eat up this kind of stuff.
• The Sea King Fujimoto. Does he remind you a little of Howl? Great voice choice in Liam Neeson.

Here’s where it fell down for me. I never felt enough attachment to Ponyo or Sosuke. I never felt that Sosuke loved Ponyo the way a boy eventually needs to love a girl. He seemed to love her as a pet, but she didn’t end up as a pet, she ended up as a human girl. I needed to see them have some version of love as boy and girl — a girl who acted a little more like a girl than an alien experiencing the earth for the first time.

I felt like that was the promise, and not just because it’s the route Disney took on the Hans Christian Anderson classic. The opening scenes with Sosuke (at least the English version) spoke much of love — the love Sosuke immediately had for Ponyo and the love (shown by hurt when he didn’t return) Sosuke’s mother had for his father (and vice versa).

As the movie progressed and became more about Ponyo’s transformation (literally and emotionally) what I saw was Ponyo experiencing LIFE. I didn’t see her experiencing LOVE. So, in the end, I was left a little empty with where Ponyo’s story would go from there. Would Sosuke grow tired of Ponyo over the years, or see her as a sister (since all signs pointed to her being raised in his household). Would Ponyo really like being a human better if she wasn’t loved by Sosuke? Would she miss her many sisters and long to return to the sea?

Fortunately, my kids weren’t troubled by these same lingering questions. But they also haven’t begged for us to buy it when it comes out on DVD, which is often the first question after a great in-theater experience.

SO… compared to other Miyazaki films, it was okay. Compared to films like Open Season, it was “really great” — just as the ticket-boy promised.

= 3 nods

Now, go put all the Miyazaki films in your netflix queue!! Most are FIVE NODS!

(P.S. Is queue not the weirdest-spelled word?)

I had a dream last night that one of my friends’ family was coming to visit me (on a tropical island where I lived) when I got a phone call saying that they had all been killed in a plane crash.

In the dream, I sunk to my knees and began to sob. Then I shook myself awake, out of the dream, but I still felt racked with emotion and guilt for inviting her to visit me on my island.

Couldn’t shake the feeling all morning. Don’t you hate that?

But its interesting, isn’t it, what things come out of our subconscious minds and how they affect our lives. I wonder what worries, or expectations, or preconditions we carry around with us that impair our ability to be happy and successful? If my worries are leaking into a dream, they must be somewhere buried inside me. And they probably have nothing to do with worries about plane crashes or this particular friend. Dreams — mine, at least — are abstract at least, and metaphorical at most…

Or maybe I’m just playing out story ideas while off-the-clock.

Here’s an LA Times post about the significance of dreams >>