Spend Friday Night At the Flicks with Elizabeth Ellen Carter
On the very sad end of the week when we learn of the death of renowned US film review Roger Ebert we start a new feature called Friday Night @ The Flicks.
While not claiming to be in the same league as the redoubtable Mr Ebert (certainly not in the same pay scale), I do have to claim a kind of kinship because I too was a professional movie reviewer for part of the 1990s.
My mother had been singularly unimpressed when at the age of 17, I suggested that my interest in writing and journalism could lead to the exciting career of film and TV reviewing.
I have three men to blame for this.
The first and most important was the man who eight years later became my husband. He was an entertainment writer for our city’s local newspaper and I thought he had the best job in the world.
I soooo wanted to be Laura Holt back in the 1980s. The shoulder pads and the fedora are to die for.
Second was Pierce Brosnan who, as Remington Steele, related every case taken by him and Laura Holt, the real brains of the detective outfit, back to a classic Hollywood movie.
Not only was he heart-swooningly handsome in his breakout role, Brosnan wasn’t half bad as James Bond either, helping to bring that film franchise to the point where it could reboot successfully out of the 1970s and 80s camp which Roger Moore (who had far more interest and grit as The Saint), had left it.
The third very influential man was Bill Collins whose introduction to Friday night’s Golden Years of Hollywood introduction, first on the Seven Network, later Channel Ten and now Fox Classics.
Dear ole Bill has a way of infusing his passion for classic film into the viewer and for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, can introduce people into a world of deeper film appreciation.
To this day I have to pay homage to Bill for introducing a suburban child of the 80s to the filmmaking techniques of Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock and George Cukor, among others.
Most of all I have to thank Bill for introducing me to classic literature.
As a teenager, I hadn’t heard of Jane Austen – Hollywood’s Austen mania was nearly 10 years away – but then I saw the 1940 version Pride And Prejudice and fell in love.
Starring the almost forgotten Greer Garson and the peerless Sir Laurence Olivier, this version might well have been considered the definitive until the 1995 mini-series starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.
Trivia: Screen writer for Garson-Olivier version was none other than Aldous Huxley, author of the seminal dystopian fantasy Brave New World.
The appeal went beyond the gorgeous costuming and instead opened up a world where subtlety and precision of language provided a greater depth of understanding and involvement as our hero and heroine parried and thrust with words from their journey of mistrust and disinterest to longing and love.
Mr. Darcy: I have made the mistake of being honest with you.
Elizabeth Bennett: Honesty is a greatly overrated virtue. Silence in this case would have been more agreeable.
Never mind. Consider the film to be a $15 introduction to the book.
It has been argued that film cannot match the universe an author creates in a book.
Perhaps that might be so, but they are two different forms of media, more akin to cousins than siblings but each and yet have plenty to teach the other.
In the case of film to books, the structure of three acts with rising climax and mid-third act denouement, has set the pace for many a great novel.
In the case of Bill Collins and his Golden Years of Hollywood, a war time, star vehicle, costume drama introduced at least one person into the world of classic literature from which she has never recovered.
Perhaps rather than disparaging the filmmakers art, it would be best to see film adaptations through another lens with a view it will introduce audiences to a wider world of books including some of the finest writing in the English speaking world.
In the mean time enjoy this compilation of the three adaptations of Jane Austen’s comedy of manners.
This cleverly edited compilation takes the 1940, 1995 and 2005 film and TV versions Pride And Prejudice and compares the scene where Elizabeth and Darcy first meet at Netherfield Park and immediately set to sparring.
Pride and Prejudice celebrates its 200th anniversary this year and if you or your daughters or granddaughters have not read this book, then enjoy the clip below and then go out immediately and get yourself a copy. The good news is that is now in the public domain.