Reception History of Jane Austen - Modern Popular Culture - Adaptations

Adaptations

Sequels, prequels, and adaptations based on Jane Austen's work range from attempts to enlarge on the stories in Austen's own style to the soft-core pornographic novel Virtues and Vices (1981) and fantasy novel Resolve and Resistance (1996). Beginning in the middle of the 19th century, Austen family members published conclusions to her incomplete novels. By 2000, there were over one hundred printed adaptations of Austen's works. According to Lynch, "her works appear to have proven more hospitable to sequelisation than those of almost any other novelist". Relying on the categories laid out by Betty A. Schellenberg and Paul Budra, Lynch describes two different kinds of Austen sequels: those that continue the story and those that return to "the world of Jane Austen". The texts that continue the story are "generally regarded as dubious enterprises, as reviews attest" and "often feel like throwbacks to the Gothic and sentimental novels that Austen loved to burlesque". Those that emphasise nostalgia are "defined not only by retrograde longing but also by a kind of postmodern playfulness and predilection for insider joking", relying on the reader to see the web of Austenian allusions. Interest in Austen and adaptations of her novels have been common throughout the 20th century; between 1900 and 1975, more than sixty radio, television, film, and stage productions of Austen's various works were produced.

The first feature film adaptation of an Austen novel was the 1940 MGM production of Pride and Prejudice starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. A Hollywood adaptation was first suggested by the entertainer Harpo Marx, who had seen a dramatisation of the novel in Philadelphia in 1935, but production was delayed. Directed by Robert Z. Leonard and written in collaboration with the English novelist Aldous Huxley and American screenwriter Jane Murfin, the film was critically well-received although the plot and characterisations notably strayed from Austen's original. Filmed in a studio and in black and white, the story's setting was relocated to the 1830s with opulent costume designs.

In direct opposition to the Hollywood adaptations of Austen's novels, BBC dramatisations from the 1970s onward aimed to adhere meticulously to Austen's plots, characterisations, and settings. The 1972 BBC adaptation of Emma, for example, took great care to be historically accurate, but its slow pacing and long takes contrasted unfavourably to the pace of commercial films. The BBC's 1980 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice adopted many film techniques—such as the use of long landscape shots—that gave the production a greater visual sophistication. Often seen as the start of the "heritage drama" movement, this production was the first to be filmed largely on location. A push for "fusion" adaptations, or films that combined Hollywood style and British heritage style, began in the mid-1980s. The BBC's first fusion adaptation was the 1986 production of Northanger Abbey, which combined authentic style and 1980s punk, with characters often veering into the surreal.

A wave of Austen adaptations began to appear around 1995, starting with Emma Thompson's 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility for Columbia Pictures, a fusion production directed by Ang Lee. This star-studded film departed from the novel in many ways, but it quickly became a commercial and critical success. It was nominated for numerous awards, including seven Oscars. The BBC produced two adaptations in 1995: the traditional telefilm Persuasion and Andrew Davies's immensely popular Pride and Prejudice. Starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, Davies's film outshone the small-scale Persuasion and became a runaway success, igniting "Darcymania" in Britain and launching the stars' careers. Critics praised its smart departures from the novel as well as its sensual costuming, fast-paced editing, and original yet appropriate dialogue. This BBC production sparked an explosion in the publication of printed Austen adaptations; in addition, 200,000 video copies of the serial were sold within a year of its airing—50,000 were sold within the first week alone.

Books and scripts that use the general storyline of Austen's novels but change or otherwise modernise the story also became popular at the end of the 20th century. Clueless (1995), Amy Heckerling's updated version of Emma that takes place in Beverly Hills, became a cultural phenomenon and spawned its own television series. Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), based on the successful 1996 book of the same name by Helen Fielding, was inspired by both Pride and Prejudice and the 1995 BBC adaptation. The Bollywoodesque production Bride and Prejudice, which sets Austen's story in present-day India while including original musical numbers, premiered in 2004. Yet another adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was released the following year. Starring Keira Knightley, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet, Joe Wright's film marked the first feature adaptation since 1940 that aspired to be faithful to the novel.