It is to laugh
This article (thanks Heather L. for sending the link) had us falling off our chair. Fortunately we didn’t drop our spork.
Now, ten years on, he is back in Edinburgh to promote his biopic about the life of Jane Austen, Becoming Jane.
The film, which stars James McAvoy – currently hot property after his star turn in The Last King of Scotland – and the equally sought-after Anne Hathaway, who received praise for her role in The Devil Wears Prada, is being hailed as another masterpiece.
So it’s surprising to learn that the producer had never read a single book by Austen until he was approached with the screenplay.
Not really surprising at all, actually. Not one bit.
“Of course, since she’s so popular we had to be very careful to get everything right, to avoid being hounded by the fans.
Too late for that, bubba!
Casting an American in the role was a brave choice, but Anne is actually a Jane Austen scholar, and she was perfect for the role.”
An Austen scholar? We can hardly type for laughing! Clueless much?
In a more sober vein–if this man, who must be a little bright, can be taken in by the Made Up Story, what’s the defenseless Great Unwashed going to think?
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Snorting at the ‘Jane Austen scholar’ bit as well (could you ask Dorothy for a shot of Tullamore Dew?). And I don’t want to sound catty, but there’s nothing ‘brave’ about casting a high profile American actress in a British film…what would Miss Zellweger do without filmakers being ‘brave’? Although I have no trouble with the geographical origin of any actress, provided she can play the part. From what I’ve seen in stills, Miss Hathaway is doing her best to trunce Miss Knightly in the Regency Slouching competition. I am TRYING to await ‘Becoming Jane’ with an open mind but it is very difficult. I am more looking forward to the ITV Jane Austen season, even despite Billie Piper’s ghastly ‘I’can’t believe it’s a Regency up-do’ hair. Ho hum.
Why, I am rendered speechless.
Well, the dud who directed the 2005 P&P had never read the book either.
“What’s to be done? I know that nothing can be done.”
Get it right? Anne Hathaway an Austen scholar? “…I mean she lived, she wrote, she died, that was pretty much it.”
OH Dear! Bring out the cluebats puh-leeze!!
He hadn´t read the book and that was obvious in the final result of P&P!
I will be sure not to watch Becoming Jane., i suspect it will be another disaster.
I haven’t commented on here before, but I don’t think the DH can stand to hear me rant anymore. Next they’ll be saying this crap was taken straight from the biography written by her brother, if they haven’t already. (Or am I giving them too much credit for thinking they know the bio exists?)
That’s not true. Joe Wright DID read P&P. He just has a different vision of P&P than Andrew Davies did. I happen to like P&P3 better than P&P2 (I also like P&P1 better than P&P2) and I’ve read the book literally dozens of times.
Yes, Julie P., we know you like it better. But JW says he read it, but I’m still wondering if he read the same P&P that you and many of us have read several times for several years. IMHO he read it only once and misread several paragraphs from the book, including that one where it is stated that Mr. Bennet did not love his wife!!!!
Note this link:
http://www.indiewire.com/people/2005/11/interview_with.html
Not a promising story. He was dyslexic, so he actually read very little. And apparently he read the script, THEN the book.
How much modification was done to the script after he read the book, do you think?
Lori, the World is agog! Do please tell us which of Jane Austen’s brothers wrote her biography. I’m sure I’m not alone in my wish to read this work!
I’m not Lori, but you can read it right here. I am guessing that’s the one she meant. There is another, slightly longer biographical sketch from 1833. It’s available in the Oxford World’s Classics edition of the J.E. Austen-Leigh Memoir.
I mean, you think it can’t get any worse, and then it does just that. A Jane Austen scholar. So, had she read one of the books as required reading in high school and then wrote a paper on it? Wasn’t she contemplating whether or not Jane and LeFroy had had sex?
Yes, I’m sorry I should have been more specific. Her brother, Henry, wrote both a “Biographical Notice of the Author” and later a “Memoir of Miss Austen,” both of which are included in the Oxford World Classics edition of the A Memoir of Jane Austen by her nephew, J.E. Austen-Leigh. (A used copy is usually a cheap find online.)
Douglas Rae, you are evidently unfamiliar with Jane Austen’s own words:
“I will not torment myself with Conjectures & suppositions; Facts shall satisfy me.”
Hate to be a nitpicker, Lori and Mags, but to call either of Henry’s pieces a ‘biography’ is absurd. Lord help us when we start believing what anyone’s family members says. Hasn’t anyone read Kathryn Sutherland’s introduction to ‘A Memoir of JA and Other Family Recollections’ in Oxford World Classics?
As for Jessica Irene’s comment, what ‘shall satisfy’ JA is another matter. Have you forgotten that she said, ‘I do not write for such dull elves/ As have not a great deal of ingenuity themselves’–or something to that effect.
Why be so hard, Helen, on a girl who went to Vassar? Wish I’d been so smart. I wouldn’t go so far as to swear Anne Hathaway was a JA ‘scholar’ but you know what the Brits are. She studied JA with a Vassar professor, which means she is not a nincompoop and that her professor wasn’t either!
Didn’t Jennifer Ehle say the most wonderful thing about being cast in P&P2 is that she actually got to *be* Elizabeth Bennet for a while? If Anne Hathaway feels like that about her role I won’t mind if she is or isn’t an Austen scholar. I might well mind the whole of the rest of the film though
For everyone’s information–Cassandra at #17 is the “Anon” from #11 and #16.
And we all know what Lori meant, so get off your high horse, dearie.
Joe Wright says that he read P&P, and I believe him. Doesn’t mean he understood it.
Thanks for the revelation, Mags. Now I can go back and read those anonymous posts. Hate those… Anyway, people should know by now that this is a friendly and welcoming place, and that there is no need for cloaks of invisibilty here, not even for nitpickers or Anne Hathaway fans.
But, let us have none of that “Absolutely no tongue, closed mouth if you can!” drivel, if you please. And you are welcome to stay on your high horse, child, alongside our ivory tower.
Now, Mags, can I sponge some of that Tullamore Dew off you?
My original post was simply a statement of my frustration concerning the Made Up Story being taken as fact silliness and wasn’t really meant to be taken seriously…I do find the ivory tower rather comfy, if I do say so myself:)
I would never dare to call myself a Jane Austen scholar, but aside from her works I have read countless biographies, critical essays and her letters numerous times. It’s enought to convince me that the biographical information supplied by her brother Henry was almost anal-retentive in its reservedness about her (I’m convinced) rather irreverant character for that day and age, and how powerfully she felt about her writing. It’s his version that created the image of the ‘retiring spinster’ who scribbled modestly away in her cottage purely for the amusement of her family and friends. Bullocks. It’s a completely different woman who emerges from the letters. The portraits her nieces and nephew painted of her in later decades have much more life, vividness and ring of truth about them. I can forgive Fanny, when she was an old woman, for describing her as ‘rather common’. Who knows if or how much Jane might have been hurt by such a description, but she certainly would have raised a cynical eyebrow and laughed. However I cannot forgive Henry for not putting a word about her achievements as a writer on her tombslab in Winchester Cathedral.
I will certainly go see ‘Becoming Jane’. I will even try to enjoy it. But I won’t be able to stop imagining how the person she was (as I ‘feel it’ from her writing and letters) would react to this being presented as a version of her life. Do we have any artists here? Would anyone be inspired to do a rendition of “Jane reaching for the Sporks”?
My point, Cassandra/Anon, is that the movie is not based on facts, and I don’t want to see the first movie for wide release about Jane herself based on someone’s dramatic idea about her love life which is innacurate. That is all, however one chooses to say it. Jane usually says things a lot better than I do.
Sadly, we seem to have dear Emma Thompson to thank for the casting of Anne Hathaway (or, more correctly, fear of Emma T.)
An article in China Daily explains: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-02/09/content_5718375.htm
Karenlee, I think Jane would just laugh.
By the way, attending Vassar does not make one intelligent. You can pass a course with a D, or get brilliant grades and then “brain-dump” after the final. A good college does not equal a good education in any subject. Only those who want to learn actually do.
I also believe that Joe Wright read P&P once and filtered it through his own experiences, beliefs, and prejudices. Most of his mistakes were just his being a rookie who lacked perspective.
It is good to remember that Jane would have laughed at all of this, and I, too, dearly love to laugh. Must remember to laugh at nincompoop filmakers, even when fingers are itching for cluebat.