We Read To Know We're Not Alone

So, I've been meaning to revisit Tolkien and the LotR films for about a year.  And, since a friend of mine has the blurays and a desire to watch them, we got together tonight and watched the first half of the extended edition.  (Note to friends who may have heard stuff: the blurays do not seem to have serious filtering problems creating extra visual noise - but my friend's system may have just not been hi-res enough for them to make a difference.)

I saw both The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers in theaters twice - which, as a homeschooler who saw about six films in theaters before he hit college in 2004, was pretty momentus.  I saw The Return of the King at midnight.

And I hated it.  Partly because I had to sit in front, but mostly because it was bad Tolkien and bad filmmaking.

However, this time through, I promised myself that I'd find ten things I loved, unambiguously, about the film.  I can easily do so for the first two films - with all their flaws, they have warmth, energy, and visual beauty to spare.  The third film, however, sticks to monochrome (often digitally created), awkward framing, intrusive editing, and overly ambitious special effects which aren't necessary to convey the scope and power of the story - not to mention the extreme lack of trust the filmmakers had for the source material, editing and adding with no regard for the moral or emotional sense of the story beyond "We must have many people die and our heroes in constant peril and occasionally a politically correct moment like Gandalf coughing to show smoking is bad and Eomer being all sexist."

So, as you can probably tell, it was not easy for me to find elements of the film I loved.  But I did - and I do love them.  If you've ever watched a film I don't like with me, you probably wonder if there's anything I can say positively - but I assure you, I am as serious in my loves as my hatreds.  So, here we go.

1) The design of Minas Tirith is utterly gorgeous.  Though a bit monochromatic, like much of the film, the white allows for more color contrast.  Furthermore, the touch of artist Alan Lee is clear in the dramatic yet delicate lines of the city.  Sure, there might be more attention to detail in the distance between Minas Tirith and Osgiliath, or in the surrounding countryside (which really should be covered with farms to support such a huge city), but these are quibbles.  The city is amazing and beautiful, and I love it (and Howard Shore's theme for it).

2) Pippin's offer of service to Denethor in payment for Boromir's death.  Though ringed about with rather tone-deaf comedy from Gandalf, Billy Boyd's acting is heartbreaking in its sincerity, and very true to the note Tolkien strikes in the book.  Similarly, Denethor's insensitivity plays very well, conveying much more subtly than most of his scenes the state of his mind and the city of Gondor.

3) Gandalf's history of the city of Gondor - very much in Tolkien's archaic style, very much in Tolkien's moral mode, and well played and filmed.  Just a well done little moment.

4) Sam and Frodo seeing that the head of the statue has a crown of flowers highlighted by the sunset.  Another beautiful little moment from the book.  Noteable because it is one of the most powerful visual images in the book, and filmed with taste by Jackson - sad because so many of the other powerful images which are clearly on the page were ignored for no discernible reason.

5) Gandalf and Pippin's relationship - though occasionally marred by ill-judged comedy, the warmth, irritability, foolishness, and protection are all quite touching and well played (and filmed).

6) The design and shooting of the lighting of the beacons.  Though I am not a fan of the "we must trick people into doing the right thing" motif as established in The Two Towers with the Ents and again with Denethor here, the actual execution of the beacons from Gondor to Rohan was brilliant and beautiful, with a stirring score from Shore.

7) Merry's pledge of service to Theoden.  Clearly and beautifully in contrast to Pippin's pledge - which was made with equal sincerity, but to a much less worthy lord.

8) Faramir and Pippin's relationship - particularly when Faramir confirms that Pippin's pledge to Denethor is well done.  Beautiful lines from the book (though taken from Gandalf, I believe).  Also, Pippin's uniform is really lovely - black, soft cloth with the tree against the stark white with black detail of Gondor's design.

9) Faramir in general.  Though Jackson really dropped the ball with Faramir in The Two Towers (one of that excellent films serious flaws), he somewhat redeems himself by showing Faramir as the complex, emotionally torn but morally true leader of men and dutiful and loving son he is in the book.

10) Theoden and Eowyn's relationship - tender, supportive, and well acted.  Though I have issues with Eowyn's portrayal (particularly in the way Aragorn seems to lead her on, and in the second half of the film), Miranda Otto shows exactly why she won me over despite my dislike of the way she doesn't match my image of Eowyn from the books - she is a brilliant and emotionally precise actress.

11) Faramir's charge.  Though I think the fact that they explicitly ignore Tolkien's exclusion of hobbit songs in court is annoying, and Denethor chowing down on bloody tomatoes and chicken as his son follows his suicide orders is way beyond over the top, the charge itself is movingly constructed and well filmed.

Hopefully we'll get the chance to finish the film soon, and then I'll return with more things I loved.

And, by the way, pretty much everything besides these points is either annoying or downright infuriating.  I really, really am not a fan of this last film.  But it does have a few moments.

So, in news only to those who aren't obsessively watching the CBS pilot for their proposed modern American Sherlock Holmes, Lucy Liu has been cast as Watson alongside Jonny Lee Miller's Sherlock Holmes.

And I think this is good.

I've gone on record with my reservations about the current crop of Holmes adaptations.  The Robert Downey/Jude Law films are stupid bordering on entertaining and infuriating, the BBC Benedict Cumberbatch/Martin Freeman series hovers between self-satisfied and brilliant, and House sucks (at least as Holmes).

I've not seen much of Liu, though I did watch Lucky Number Slevin last night to see what she is like in a semi-similar role.  She was cute and fun, but I felt the romance didn't quite work for me - mostly I believe because there was no real character outside of her enjoyable curiosity.  On a side note, the director of that film is Paul McGuigan, who also directed the underrated capepunk film Push, but more recently is the lead director for the BBC series Sherlock.  So I'm curious if that will come out in Liu's interviews.

In other news: calm down, fandom.  Seriously.  You annoy me already with your "Holmes/Watson shipping but Irene Adler can't be bisexual" hypocrisy and your pretentiousness.  Whatever CBS does, I seriously doubt that this pilot deserves the kind of scrutiny it's getting.  It's just another show - and the last pilot I noticed with this much attention before a single scene was filmed (for all we know, there's not even a script written) was Wonder Woman.

Which was between wretchedly awful and offensively terrible.

So.  Here's to hoping that Elementary will be at least smart, funny, and enjoyable.  The BBC's Sherlock generally manages that.  And whatever it is, again I say: it is seriously not the end of the world.

So, two really cute and awesome comic parody ideas that I would totally buy the heck out of if they were actually published (more than the actual DC comics, which I am buying a grand total of zero issues):

http://relaunched-blog.blogspot.com/2011/09/wonder-girl-1-by-lee-leslie.html

I love me some dark and painful Wondygal - Greg Rucka's run on the character in the mid-2000s moves me more than almost any comic series has - but the recent runs on the character seem to emphasize that quality to the exclusion of all else (Gail Simone, Straczynski/Hester, and Azzerello - particularly the last).  An all-ages Wondygal with love, compassion, and amazing spunk would be really cool - sort of like the Supergirl in elementary school that was done a few years ago.

http://relaunched-blog.blogspot.com/2011/08/supergirlbatgirl-1-by-mike-maihack.html

I adored the Batgirl/Supergirl team-up in the (vastly superior to the current) Batgirl series a year or so ago.  Though this one stars the "wrong" Batgirl (I love Steph Brown, and think she should have stuck around), the art and concept looks just perfect.

In other news, I adore Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.  Probably my first fandom (I was reading the original stories by the time I was eight or ten), the adaptations of the series first interested me in film and adaptation.  So I find I can't resist seeing even horrible adaptations (like the recent sequel to the sort-of-decent Robert Downey Jr. "interpretation").  I've greatly enjoyed (though with caveats) the BBC modernization show Sherlock, and so it is with a heavy heart that I notice that the US, in the grand tradition of making incredibly lazy and fail-filled shows based on UK exports, have commissioned "Elementary," a show which I predict will not only not try to adapt the original stories, but make Watson an idiot but still try to fill the kind of odd friendship relationship which makes Sherlock still watchable despite serious missteps.

And yet, I will still watch it.  And probably the third Sherlock Holmes film.  And keep reading the dreadful Sherlock Holmes comics by Dynamite Entertainment (which seem to think Sherlock's either really stupid, or some young version of the RDJ "Holmes").

At least I can always go back to my Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke...

Well, it's six minutes into the last day of the year, and I thought I'd do a meme.  While I watch the Downton Abbey Christmas Special for the second time.  So, here goes.
( Click here for memeage! )

Watching Downton Abbey series 2 and rereading Jane Austen has started me rewatching and thinking about costume drama again, so I've pulled my old drafts and tried to compile a rudimentary history of the genre, on the BBC, its main competitor ITV, and the way the genre differs when it jumps to feature films.

BBC costume drama: The Miniseries Queen

Though it does have a nice line of films, including the 1995 Persuasion, the BBC is primarily known for its costume drama miniseries, using the expanded length to help make up for the budget limitations which often prevent costume dramas from being truly jaw dropping spectacles (though the BBC particularly doesn't often have too many problems in the budget department).

1970-1994 -

Most of these dramas have not survived as popular entertainment. Though the Jane Austen and Charles Dickens adaptations are still sold, I believe that has more to do with the author's cachet than the quality of the drama, which is often stultifyingly dull in script, painfully dry in acting, and blazingly bad in directing (often on videotape and recorded live, rather than on film and edited together). Though there is a small and passionate fanbase, and the series often have influence on later productions (Andrew Davies has been open about taking elements and reimagining them, particularly in series such as Bleak House), there is generally no danger that they will become huge hits and eclipse their children. Their existence does indicate, however, that evern ten years will see a new wave of costume dramas based on famous authors – so despite the fact that the past 15 years has seen all but one of Jane Austen's novels adapted twice, I fully expect new adaptations in 10-20 years.

Jane Austen films and series also occupy a significantly more popular place in culture than the Dickens, Eliot, Trollope, etc series.

1994-present (by year) -

1994 – Middlemarch – though it often feels like one of its 80s/early 90s cousins, the presence of Andrew Davies means that the script decides to take a jaunty look at the original, adding looks into more intimate scenes and stagings than originally seen, and though it lacks the filmic touch of its follow up, Pride and Prejudice, it still heralds the new age of costume dramas, especially in casting such luminaries as Robert Hardy and Rufus Sewell.

1995 – Nothing can quite explain the impact of Pride and Prejudice. Casting, writing, artistic passion – everything worked together to make a costume drama the world has not seen before or since.

96 and 97 didn't produce any dramas I'm familiar with, but as the BBC was no doubt recovering from the huge success of P&P and the new format of costume drama, that's not too surprising.

1998 – returning to the form with Sandy Welch's Dickens adaptation, Our Mutual Friend, with a fine cast, but a script which uneasily cut out things instead of attempting to combine or shorten them, it was a nicely long but somewhat emotionally confusing drama which doesn't quite match Andrew Davies' later Dickens landmarks. Davies himself adapted Vanity Fair, but I've not seen that.

1999 – Eleven years before now, Great Expectations got a stylish adaptation (though I've not seen either or read the novel, so I don't know much beyond clips). Harry Potter starred in David Copperfield, which also received accolades (I also haven't seen it), and similarly is rumored to be scheduled to be remade (Andrew Davies has complained that he's been asked to adapt it instead of the less well-known Dombey and Son). Finally in this apparently rich year for BBC costume drama, Davies adapted Elizabeth Gaskell's unfinished masterpiece Wives and Daughters into a beautiful, bucolic, and brilliantly cast series.

2001 – Davies teamed up with future Harry Potter director David Yates, and stars from major film franchises (Matthew Macfadyen, David Suchet, Miranda Otto, and Cilian Murphy) to make a bombastic, often silly, but often touching adaptation of Trollope's response to Dickens' Little Dorrit (which Davies would adapt seven years later, with much greater success artistically (in my opinion) and earned many awards).

2002 – Not pausing for breath, Davies tackled his second huge George Eliot novel in Daniel Deronda, plucking two powerful stars to lead this bifurcated and troubled novel's series in Romola Garai and Hugh Dancy. Tom Hooper, later of John Adams and The King's Speech fame, directed with more subtlety and flair than I believe was seen in his later work.

2004 – Davies returned to Trollope in He Knew He Was Right, Joe Wright of Pride and Prejudice directed his last television work with the historical drama Charles II: The Power and the Passion. But the big surprise was Sandy Welch's adaptation of Gaskell's North and South. Though Davies' work on Wives and Daughters was stellar, it received little attention. Thus, it came as a huge surprise when fans crashed the BBC's message boards for the series, launching star Richard Armitage into Colin Firth-like levels of cult adoration.

2005 – Though Davies had been pushing for a more modern approach to classic literature for a while, Bleak House represented a brand new take entirely. Filmed using entirely hand-held cameras (and digital rather than film), the visual style was dramatically different than anything seen before, and certainly influenced the acceptance of hand-held directing in later dramas. A powerful cast, led by Anna Maxwell Martin, Denis Lawson, and featuring future rising star Carey Mulligan buoyed up this sometimes meandering and frustrating drama, cut into soap-opera length half-hour chunks in an addictive mix of romance, economics, politics, and costumey fun.

2006 – Continuing her slow but steady working through the major British novellists, Sandy Welch produced what I think is the finest adaptation of Jane Eyre, which full attention given to all sections this time, rather than cutting or eliding the final fourth of the novel. Powerful lead performances by Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens smoothed out the roughness of the books central characters (which is certainly a project of debateable desireability), and direction was a blend of traditional costume drama careful framing and Bleak House unsteadiness.

2007 – A new voice began its song – Sarah Phelps adapted Oliver Twist, but sadly her work was shoddy, fully of lazy shock tactics, contempt for Victorian mores, and despite its longer running time, still deleted significant chunks and characters from Dickens' second major novel. Andrew Davies unleashed his always present prurient side and produced Fanny Hill.

2008 – Bookending a brilliant year for costume drama and a long-awaited return to form, Andrew Davies adapted Sense and Sensibility and Little Dorrit, the former in classic three-part miniseries hour-long episode format, the latter in the half-hour blocks which marked his similarly epic Bleak House. Both are beautiful, cast perfectly, though neither received the popular attention of his previous work for the authors (Austen and Dickens) – though Little Dorrit went on to sweep the Emmys.

2009 – Finishing up her sweep through British novelist history in the 19^th century, Sandy Welch produced the brilliant (if uneven) Emma, starring Romola Garai in the role she was born for (and sadly, hasn't done again since). I believe this series marks the end of the second Austen wave, and expect that the next adaptation of Pride and Prejudice will be seen sometime between 2020 and 2030.

2010 – Sadly for the BBC, ITV finally woke up to costume drama this year, and their own offering of 1920s and 30s drama, the revamped Upstairs Downstairs fared poorly in ratings and critical acclaim (justly, as I found it a dry, episodic, frustrating exercise).

2011 – With funding low and changes constantly preached, Andrew Davies turned in a rushed three part adaptation of the interbellum feminist socialist novel South Riding, with a fantastic cast and a nasty edge. Sarah Phelps returned to her Dickens-tarnishing ways with Great Expectations (why the BBC thought they needed a new one eleven years after the first one is beyond me, especially since there are many other Dickens novels they haven't done, like Davies' dream project Dombey and Son).

The future of costume drama for the BBC seems cloudy for me – more series of Upstairs Downstairs are rumored, but with Jane Austen exhausted in the public's mind (though not, of course, for me), Dickens starting to be inexplicably remade, Eliot garnering little buzz, and other novelists really not providing the kind of draw wished for, I look forward with trepidation to what 2012 brings.

Their competitors, ITV, have had notable successes in the past (the Sherlock Holmes series from 1984-1994 starring Jeremy Brett, Brideshead Revisited), but most often rely on either low-budgeted telefilms (the many Austen telefilms from the past fifteen years) or lazy miniseries (Lost in Austen). However, for the past two years, Downton Abbey has dominated the competition with a combination of soapy plotline, beautiful actors and costumes, and historical interest. The American offering are usually of the grim, gritty, often softcore pornographic HBO, Showtime, and Starz variety, with John Adams being a happy exception (though it's still a pale shadow of the British product).

So, after about two months, I finally finished up A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi with a friend of mine who had not seen them before.  We watched them on my newly purchased complete Blu Ray editions (did not watch the prequels, but did watch all the cool deleted scenes from the original trilogy).  While it was as amazing a visual experience as watching, say, Tangled or Beauty and the Beast on Blu Ray, where they really popped the colors and sharpened the image from the DVD presentation, it was very clean and clear, and many special effects were cleaned up.

As someone who likes the Special Editions, I didn't really mind the blinking Ewoks, the added Darth Vader "Nos," and the Hayden Christiansen Anakin.

I think, watching for the first time in about five or six years, that I have a significant amount of emotional and artistic distance from these films now.  They are no longer as jaw dropping or engaging as they used to be.  I am much more aware of my suspension of disbelief, the rough writing, the haphazard acting, and the occasionally dodgy effects (much cleaned up, but still originally from the 80s).

However, I was more strongly struck by Jabba's evil - his casual murder of the helpless, his disgusting abuse of Leia.  And despite my reservations, I was again swept up in the emotion of the storytelling - the Ewok's contribution to the victory, the Rebel military spacefleet holding on until they could strike, and Luke resisting the call of power and easiness to finally say, "You have failed, your Highness.  I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

I'm glad I can go back, even if it's not the same.

Here's a thing I just did, because I remembered the various times I watched these trailers, the way they related to the actual film, and my life as a Janeite.  The famous 1995-1996 Jane Austen mania period was too early for me, but starting around 2003, I would follow all of these productions eagerly.

Pride and Prejudice 1995

None found. It speaks for itself,
though.

Sense and Sensibility 1995

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJMnm28vAqQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns17RQr1yK8

Both use Little Women music, and
promise bright and happy, which is incongruous with the pacing and
visual language of the film. Both are also American.

Persuasion 1995

http://www.videodetective.com/movies/trailers/persuasion-trailer/6035

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4T5dl1isp8

There's a film version and a television
promo – the TV one is boring but not necessarily confusing – the
film version seems like an adultery plot for some bizzare reason.
However, despite the completley inappropriate music (pounding
percussion), the film utilizes the quick, nervous energy of Roger
Michell's visual language much more appropriately than Ang Lee's
thoughtfulness was used in the S&S trailer.

Emma 1996

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmMCTU_OIbY

And yet again, more Little Women
trailer music...but more appropriate – just wish the film was
less...well, dumb. At least the uploader was clumsy enough to cut it
off before the end...er, what?

Emma 1996

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb868ylMKZw

Actually a promo from 2008's The
Complete Jane Austen on Masterpiece, the rerelease was in HD (better
than available DVDs), but bizzarely cropped to fit widescreen...which
was both awesome and idiotic in equal measures.

Mansfield Park 1999

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaiSsbu3Yv4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2QJWA7ALcI

Other than continuing the
commercial/arthouse blend of trying to appeal to snobs and costume
drama fans simultaneously, and incredibly bizzare claims about “Jane
Austen's Favorite Novel”, these trailers are mostly notable for
featuring Patrick Doyle's lovely Great Expectations music (the
second) – perhaps because peeps who like pretty films that trash
the source material would be happy? The first tries to play off a
Noel Coward film type of meta-trailer, complete with jazzy intro
music (and apparently ends with Shakespeare in Love music – trying
to play off the “incorporate the writer into their works” theme?)

Pride and Prejudice 2003

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slt3PX8aLHo

Despite the fact that I refuse to
include Clueless in this list, I feel like including this trailer –
for one thing, it's terribly cute – for another, it was the first
purchase I made after moving to college.

Pride and Prejudice 2005

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTZAzVzFShw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJA27Jujzq4

The film that kicked it all off – I
waited well over a year for this one. Very much in the Mansfield
Park mould of trailer – referencing previous successful Austen
films, even using Pat Doyle's S&S music. Ending with Love,
Actually's trailer music (lovely piece). The UK trailer was a bit
better, but had the weirdest ending – almost fooled me into
thinking they were going for a tragedy (strange, no?). They also
used some Little Women music.

In the early fall of 2005, I would
watch this many, many times (I believe the UK version), so much so
that peeps would recognize it while on the phone with me. Ah,
Matthew Macfadyen's voice...

Jane Austen Season 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeHOremzqnw

Sadly a bundle of cut-rate productions
with promising actors and scripts. Promos did their best to disguise
this fact by highlighting the actors.

Mansfield Park 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_3bIbKkwFc&feature=related

Not even sure what they were going for
here

Persuasion 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72IkJeJeDU4

Featuring the Jane Austen Season theme,
Crystallized Beauty, this teaser highlighted the, shall we say,
overly weepy aspect of this extremely derivitive (but nonetheless
occasionally lovely) remake.

Sense and Sensibility 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxXffditEgA

This 30 second teaser for some reason
seems to think that “Sense” means “senses.” Which it
doesn't. Lovely series, despite that. But trailers like this
explain why I didn't much care about keeping up with it.

The Jane Austen Book Club

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zatP2-_NH2A

Was so not lookin forward to this –
loved by the wrong people (the “Jane Austen was a snarky bitch”
club), adapted from a book I disliked (pretentious bit of plotless
meanderingness) – but when I finally watched it on DVD, it turned
out to be one of my favorites. And it agrees with me on Mansfield
Park.

Complete Jane Austen 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqgqtKZQ0AA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA5aL2j2DTk

Some of these were just kinda “woo.”
Some, like the “Fix you” video, were really interesting and
memorable. I have to say, other than getting to see the ITV versions
(which I forever branded as hilarious to my then-seven-year-old
brother, since one of the chicks in Mansfield Park was also in Bionic
Woman at the time, so I kept calling her “robot chick” when she
appeared), I was less than enthralled by this collection. Bizzare
choices, like making fullscreen films widescreen, and cutting the DVD
releases, made it almost a relief when I could just buy the DVDs and
be done with the whole thing.

But I do appreciate the idea.

Northanger Abbey 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDsOiuwVOlo

I actually got to watch this on telly
in the US (while on break at home, happily), and would dance about
the house whenever a new promo came on for it.

You will note that I completely ignore
the abomination that was “Anne Hathaway prances around with James
Macavoy pretending that they are both British when they're really
American and Scottish...”

Emma 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjPMEopKtDs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09x1eSEWeOM&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hGyfhtOpYk&feature=relmfu

The Masterpiece versions tended to be
better than the UK ones, oddly enough. The UK ones for some bizzare
reason seemed to emphasize all the stranger moments of acting (like
Mr. Knightley's hand flapping, which is not really noticeable in the
series, when out of context is quite distracting).

I was actually really torn when the
promos were coming out – Romola Garai was the perfect casting –
in fact, I dreamed that she would be perfect, but never cast because
she was too perfect – and when I read she had been picked while on
break from my job at the mall, I skipped back.

But I was unconvinced with Jonny Lee
Miller (mostly because of Mansfield Park) – fortunately, he proved
me so very, very wrong.

---

Today is Friday, December 16, 2011. All this week, confused by the fact that I'm going English Country dancing Satuday, the 17th, I've been convinced that Jane Austen's birthday was that same day.

It's not.

Fortunately, I was reading Jane Greensmith's blog last night, and discovered my error. And then today, I've been trawling the blogs, entering wonderful giveaways and generally having a great time.

My Austen love has also been rekindled recently by the monthly releases of the comic adaptation of Northanger Abbey, which has been quite a delight, as the only treatments of that book in film are both far too short, even though the more recent film had winning performances and a semi-decent script.

At work, as I stock shelves, I've been listening to a very nice free audio recording of Sense and Sensibility, and rediscovering the pleasures that Jane Austen gives me. Even in her first published novel, which all too often feels like a semi-unpolished ramp-up for Pride and Prejudice, the wry, exquisitely controlled voice, the sparkling moral clarity, and the characters who seize your heart proclaim this book as a work of towering genius, and the future career of the author one of passionate fruitfulness. The fury at the greedy injustice of the powerful and powerless alike, the compassion and enjoyment of those both smarter and less gifted, and the enormous depth of her understanding of humans and their actions spring to vivid life in her pages.

On this occasion of her birth, I am saddened by the illness which cut her life off at 41, devastated that he last hours were so painful, and hopeful in the life everlasting that there is some measure of reward for a life well lived.

And one day, maybe, I will have at least one person who I've affected positively the way Jane Austen has affected me.

---

Today is Sunday, October 25, 2009. It's my first year in grad school. Classes have been good, but hard – I took a year off, and getting back into the swing of things wasn't terrible, but it is sometimes a bit much to juggle. Like tonight. I just looked at my syllabus, and found out that there's an annotated bibliography due tomorrow. 15 books to skim and summarize in 20 hours.

But tonight is Emma night. For the past month, the BBC has been airing the new dramatization of Emma in four parts, and since I am unfortunate (or fortunate) enough to live right next to Washington, DC, I must rely on the helpfulness of British friends to watch the series as it comes out. So, every Sunday, I go to the school library (my own internet connection is far too slow for such things), pop onto the forums and communities, and wait for a friendly Janeite from across the pond to upload the next episode.

Last week, it wasn't uploaded till Monday morning – but well worth the wait, as Emma's dance at the Crown in brought tears to my eyes at the power of the emotions evoked by the actors, music, and camerawork.

This week, I do not have that long to wait (fortunately for my annotated bibliography). The looming deadline adds anxiety to my watching as I unzip the file and watch it, earbuds nestled under my overly long hair (haven't gotten my annual haircut yet, since I haven't been home since term began). The edge-of-my-seat, should-be-doing-something-else feeling in my stomach zestifies the incredibly painful Box Hill scene, culminating in the palpable relief of the final scenes of character and relational growth. I am relieved – not just because I can sleep and work on my paper – but because this, my very favorite of Austen's novels, has finally gotten a treatment both respectful and passionate.

And there are tears – right there in the library, an hour before midnight – as I watch characters stumble heroically along the thorny pitfalls of their own moral failures.

Is it worth it? Of course.

---

Today is Tuesday, January 8, 2008. I have one more semester in college – am procrastinating working on my thesis about film versions of Pride and Prejudice, home for the Christmas holidays, browsing online on my mom's computer. I bounce to YouTube, and somehow I see “Sense and Sensibility 2008 part 1.” Oh, that's right – the guy who adapted Pride and Prejudice in 1995 is doing another multi-part Austen adaptation. Oh, those are some nice shots of a house, and a funeral train. Hmmm, I shall have to check this out!

At this point, off I go again to the library, since even at home, my internet is too slow. So this time, I trek off in the cold to the public library (my school is in a different state), where I spend my day learning about where to find British television which has most ungraciously not been offered to the US (this is before I had wonderful communities where people are deliberately helpful about it).

It's been interesting, my undergrad experience. In less than a month, I'd be back at school, and a tornado would tear through campus, destroying over half the dorms. By God's grace, not one person was killed – but many were injured (not myself or any of my close friends), and millions of dollars of damage and school closing for two weeks did result.

But for now, I'm at home, rediscovering my love for this difficult novel – shortly afterwards, I would finally be able to finish my first reread of the book (I'd started a reread twice before, but given up halfway both times).

People may dismiss the miniseries as a pale shadow of the 1995 film, but for me, it's a revelation.

---

Today is a day in late spring/early summer 2003. I have just discovered Jane Austen for real. After struggling through Sense and Sensibility (in order that I might watch the 1995 film), and then pushing through Persuasion, I'd gotten to Pride and Prejudice.

Which I devoured.

And then, immediately, devoured again.

And again.

Three times in a month did I read this light, bright, sparkling novel. I am well and truly hooked. This year, my life has been changed in a way I've not seen since I read G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday and discovered that I hated rebellion, or watched Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes and discovered that wearing nice clothes and combing my hair didn't have to be horrible.

My mother is pregnant with my youngest brother, and when she gives birth in July, I pester her to read Emma. In hindsight, that mayhaps wasn't the most intelligent thing I've done. But what can I say – it's my favorite novel, and I didn't have a soul to talk about it. I was involved with a couple online communities, but found the groups uncongenial to an arrogant 16-year-old boy. Funny how that is.

I have my first literary crush with gentle, frightened, but impossibly morally strong Fanny Price in Mansfield Park. I first read Ellen Moody's posts defending Fanny – little knowing that over half a decade later, I'd meet her in person when I attended the school where she teaches.

It's a year of revelation – and a tiny, sweet little brother I adore.

---

Today, I am 13. I have just read the first page of Pride and Prejudice, and I hate Jane Austen and think classics are for dumb people who want to look smarter than they really are.

I am a stupid boy.

So, since I am horrible at this whole, you know, blogging thing, I've decided to add another thing to be horrible at: vlogging!

Here is number one!



And another one!  That's not me, by the way.