All the Appearance of Goodness

OVERVIEW: If I were going to be isolated in a cave but could take with me one novel, it would by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. If instead, I were to be permitted just one film, it would be the 1995 A&E adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The reason for these choices is that the potential for delights is endless for each. The beauty of the language in the novel exceeds that of most any other work of prose and can bear reading and re-reading and continues to surrender ever richer insights and enjoyment. The film, though unable to fully duplicate the beauty of the language, stands up to repeated watching because of its high quality in so many production values: script, casting, locales, costumes, musical score, dance numbers, props, and direction. You can concentrate on one aspect during one viewing, another aspect on a different occasion, and will be repeatedly moved by the story each time. I have watched this film more times than any other.

The novel and the film share what is most important about the story: it is the most tautly crafted romance of all time. In the first half of the story, we experience the relentless accumulation of Elizabeth’s dislike for Mr. Darcy until it bursts forward at the climactic midpoint – when Mr. Darcy first proposes to her. Then, in the entire second half of the story, we observe the systematic disintegration of Elizabeth’s rationales for disliking him and their replacement by feelings of deep respect, gratitude, and love. The extraordinary power of this love story is that it transforms the fullness of contempt into the raptures of adoration. Of course, all that would be wasted if Elizabeth and Darcy were not two of the most complex, real, and lovable characters in literature. Thanks to script writer Andrew Davies, the film is highly faithful to the novel. A small number of (mainly visual) scenes have been added to make Darcy more personable in the second half of the film, but they work successfully.

JANE AUSTEN: Jane Austen was born December 16th, 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire, England. Her father, George Austen, was a rector, which ensured Jane access to books, which she read voraciously from an early age. She had six brothers and a sister, Cassandra, who she adored. She began writing at an early age, producing her first novel, Elinor and Marianne in 1796, at just 21 years of age. Her second novel was entitled First Impressions and it was later reworked into what we now know as Pride and Prejudice. Her first published novel was Sense and Sensibility (1811), which was a reworking of Elinor and Marianne. Pride and Prejudice then followed in 1813. Jane Austen is sometimes described as the Shakespeare of prose – and it really is not in any way an excessive complement. The power of her language is unsurpassed. My feeling about Jane Austen’s prose was nicely articulated by the author Robert Louis Stevenson, who was quoted as saying, “I drop to my knees each time that Elizabeth Bennet opens her mouth.” Her style, however, was before its time, in a sense, and her contemporaneous detractors included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mark Twain. Other than the beauty of her language and word choice, the strength of her works is in their psychological insights – the appreciation of which is far more cultivated in the twentieth century than it was in her own time. Austen teaches us about human nature, without moralizing about it in the manner of, say, Dickens. She saves her scorn for scoundrels rather than spreading it indiscriminately over society at large. Jane Austen herself never found her Darcy and never married. Today, her six great novels are widely revered.

THE GENIUS OF THE PLOT: Pride and Prejudice is written primarily from a woman’s point of view – from the point of view of Elizabeth Bennet specifically. To that extent – and that extent only – the story is more feminine than masculine in orientation. Nevertheless, there is plenty in the story for viewers regardless of gender, since most men care about one or more women (e.g., their wives, mothers, and daughters) and because the psychological insights and splendid romantic elements can provide as much in the way of enjoyment for either gender. Since it was written from a female point of view, let’s consider the genius of the plot of Pride and Prejudice (focusing on the central romance and omitting several important subplots) from the vantage point of a female viewer.

Imagine that you are Elizabeth Bennet -- a 20-year old young woman, the second of five sisters from an upper middle class family (the “lower gentry”, as it might have been called in the early nineteenth century when the story unfolds). You are something of a romantic idealist – in love with the notion of love. Nothing but the most violent kind of love will tempt you to marry (a somewhat radical notion, at that time, since most marriages then were marriages of convenience). In some respects, your prospects for finding an appealing partner are pretty good. You and your sisters are often described as “local beauties” and you and your older sister, Jane, are generally held to be the most beautiful of the lot. Your older sister is both your best friend and your confidant and you love her dearly. She is, perhaps, beautiful in a more glamorous way than yourself, but your beauty is especially enhanced by sparkling eyes, a lovely smile, and lively personality. You are also blessed with strong intellect and character. Even at age 20, you are widely admired for your wit, capacity for lively conversation, and your perspicacity. You have a fascination with people – the observation and study of whom is one of your chief delights in life.

On the other hand, there are also some factors operating against your prospects. Your father’s property, which is all that the family can lay claim to, will not be inherited, when he dies, by you, your mother, or any of your sisters. By the quirk of law, it must pass to the nearest male relative, and since you have no brothers, the estate is entailed to a distant cousin. You, therefore, have no dowry to offer – which in those days was a significant consideration. Secondly, your immediate family is something of an embarrassment in several respects. Your father, though intelligent and basically a decent kind of man, is somewhat unsocial and enjoys tormenting your mother. Your mother is a brassy, shrill, hypochondriac who often leaves you feeling that you want to deny any relationship to her. Two of your younger sisters are empty-headed flirts and the other younger sister is something of a pious prude, full of too much learning and too little understanding. Among the lot of them, your older sister is the only one of whom you are consistently proud.

Your social circle is somewhat limited and provides few opportunities to meet men of character and consequence. Into this circle, however, comes a Mr. Bingley and a Mr. Darcy, gentleman of some importance as well as attractiveness. Mr. Bingley is pleasant and personable and soon takes a shine to your beautiful older sister. Mr. Darcy, initially of some interest, reveals himself to be terribly proud and aloof. At a local dance, you even overhear him commenting about the local young ladies (including yourself) that there wasn’t one among them that it would not be a punishment to stand up with. Mr. Darcy might be handsome and extremely wealthy, but you find him altogether quite detestable.

You later learn from a male acquaintance, Mr. Wickham, whose company you rather enjoy, that Mr. Darcy cheated him out of his inheritance. Though you have already determined Mr. Darcy to be a bore, you had not thought him to be capable of such a despicable act. You have settled upon the fact that Mr. Darcy is a thoroughly unlikable character.

Several months later, you go to visit a dear friend, Charlotte, who has married the same distant cousin who will some day inherit your father’s estate. Charlotte has moved some distance away, where her husband works as a minister on a large estate. The estate is owned by an upper crust old matriarch, Lady Catherine, who also happens to be the Aunt of Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy comes to visit his aunt and you are, once again, thrown into contact with this disagreeable man. In addition to all of his other faults, in your mind, you find that he often stares at you and acts ill at ease. Now, you discover, in addition, that Mr. Darcy encouraged his friend, Bingley, to break off seeing your sister, on the grounds that her social standing was beneath him and that her family – your family – was disreputable. Your contempt for Mr. Darcy has acquired still another cause.

Mr. Darcy now comes to pay you a visit while Charlotte and her husband are out visiting. He has done so once in the past, but this time he seems especially agitated. To your utter amazement, he proposes marriage – this man for whom you have, perhaps, more dislike than anyone else in the world. As icing on the cake, he insults you and your family in the course of the proposal, saying that he is well aware that in proposing, he is going against his own best judgment – given the inferiority of your social position.

Now, on the one hand, you can’t help being flattered that this man, who nearly any other woman in the country would die for, has asked for your hand. At the same time, you are flabbergasted that he could imagine that you even liked him, much less would agree to marry him. You have so many reasons for rejecting him, that you can hardly compose yourself to reply in a manner that will not be unduly insulting to him. Isn’t he the man who was too proud to dance with you or your friends? Isn’t he, after all, the man who cheated another friend out of his inheritance? Isn’t he the beast of a man who ruined the chances of your beloved sister – her one best chance at happiness? Isn’t he the man who could not even deliver a marriage proposal without further insulting you and your family? You begin your answer to him: “In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot – I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly.” Mr. Darcy, incredulous at being rejected, replies, I “might as well inquire why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected.” You now enumerate your reasons: “I might as well inquire why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?” “But I have other provocations. . . . do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?” “But it is not merely this affair . . . Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham. . . . From the very beginning – from the first moment . . . of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.” Wow!! I guess you told him what to do with his proposal of marriage! Issue closed!

The next day, Mr. Darcy hands you a letter. Your curiosity gets the better of you and you read it anxiously, though you expect nothing but more pain. It contains explanations regarding his role in separating Mr. Bingley from your sister and of his relationship to Mr. Wickham. You read it through angrily, hardly able to digest the words, muttering to yourself, “Insufferable presumption” and similar effusions. You reread the letter, and again. You begin to recognize that there is truth, at least, in his facts about Mr. Wickham and that the story recited to you by Mr. Wickham was bogus -- that Wickham rather than Mr. Darcy was the real villain in that affair. No matter! You still have more than enough reasons to hate Mr. Darcy.

Time passes and you have put the episode with Mr. Darcy largely behind you. You go on vacation with your favorite aunt and uncle – two family members that you not only enjoy but of whom you can also be proud, in their manner and behavior. Since you are traveling in Derbyshire, where Mr. Darcy’s estate, Pemberley, is located, it is decided that you and your relatives will visit there. You don’t want to tell your aunt and uncle about what transpired between yourself and Mr. Darcy, so you reluctantly agree on the visit once you have been satisfied that the family, including Mr. Darcy, are away. You arrive at Pemberley and are stunned by the magnificence of the estate. Tasteful elegance in harmony with nature. Of all this, you could have been mistress! Still, there are those several reasons why you don’t like Mr. Darcy. You are shown around the mansion by the housekeeper. She babbles on and on about how wonderful Mr. Darcy is and how well he treats the tenants and the servants. Not a better master in the world, she says. Hmmm. Maybe he’s not so arrogant after all.

While you are walking around the beautiful grounds, suddenly the man himself shows up. Mr. Darcy. How awkward! What will he think of you? He acts uncomfortable, disappears, then reappears as you are about to make a hurried exit with your aunt and uncle. He is all politeness and grace! Not only to you, but to your aunt and uncle. Could it be, after all that you said to him in rejecting him, that he still feels something for you?

As you depart, he asks if you might do him the honor of letting him introduce you to his sister when she arrives the next day. May they call upon you at the inn where you are staying? He and his sister arrive the next day even earlier than you expected, along with Mr. Bingley. You and your aunt and uncle are invited to dinner at Pemberley. You like his sister quite a lot and she likes you. This man who you so emphatically rejected is now seeming more and more like the a different man – an appealing man.

Back at the Inn where you are staying, you get two letters from home – from your older sister, Jane. Calamity has struck! Your youngest sister, Lydia, has run off with – Mr. Wickham – and they are living together out of wedlock. The family’s reputation will be sunk and all prospects of good connections thrown to the wind. In the midst of your shock, in walks Mr. Darcy. He tries to console you but you are inconsolable. You know the truth cannot be hidden and so you tell Mr. Darcy what has happened. He is shocked, pensive, and, begs to be excused. Surely, he will want nothing further to do with you, now that this further dishonor has fallen on your family.

You return home to be of help and consolation to your family in this hour of disaster. Lydia’s reputation is lost forever and, with it, your family’s as well. Lydia is not even to be found. Finally, however, your uncle writes from London that Lydia has been found and will be married in London. Mr. Wickham’s debts are to be paid off in exchange. How has this come about? You write to your aunt, begging for details. When she writes back, what you learn is almost beyond belief. Mr. Darcy went to London shortly after leaving you at the Inn and worked on Mr. Wickham to marry Lydia, in exchange for paying off his debts and purchasing him a new military commission. Mr. Darcy!! – who hates Wickham took the trouble to save your sister Lydia’s future and, by extension, your family’s standing. What humiliation! The man that you so boldly and explicitly rejected has been your family’s savior – and none but you and your aunt and uncle even know of their debt to him.

A bit more time passes, and Mr. Bingley returns to his abode near where you live. Soon, he and your sister Jane have once again struck up their relationship, which seems like it was always meant to be. Surely this could not have happened without the approval of Mr. Darcy. Now, the last of your reasons for rejecting Mr. Darcy have melted away – one by one – and have been replaced with unmitigated admiration, gratitude, and – yes, you have to admit it – love. Isn’t it beyond all reason and hope that this wonderful man, who you now dearly love, could overcome the mortification of his pride and ask for your hand a second time? . . . . Well, watch the movie to find out!

What Jane Austen has revealed to us through this story is, first, a perfect brand of contempt and, then, its transformation, step by step, into perfect love. A flawless love story! Fans of Pride and Prejudice enjoy debating an obvious question: which of the two main characters suffers from pride and which from prejudice? Most experts, in the end, conclude, however, that both characters exhibit both defects. Elizabeth is so proud of her perceptiveness about human nature that she can’t recognize that she has misjudged Darcy (in part). Darcy is initially too proud to dance with or hobnob with the riff raff in Elizabeth’s circle. Elizabeth is prejudiced against the upper class, leading her to interpret as arrogance what is partly lack of ease on Darcy’s part with strangers. Darcy is prejudiced against people of lower social standing.

JENNIFER EHLE AS ELIZABETH BENNET: The selection of Jennifer Ehle to play the part of Elizabeth Bennet was a stroke of genius. Her selection was facilitated by just a smidgen of “cheating” on her part at the screen test. She had heard that one of the concerns about her doing the part was that she was blond, whereas Elizabeth was supposed to be brunette. Ehle died her eyebrows the night before the screen test and left her hair unwashed so that it would not appear too shiny. The casting people kept telling her, “We didn’t realize how dark your eyebrows were. . . .You’ll look fine in a darker wig!”

Ehle brought to the part, in addition to fine acting skills, two ingredients essential to the nature of Elizabeth Bennet: fine eyes and a bright smile. The range of Ehle’s facial expressions in Pride and Prejudice is part of the joy of repeated watchings. You can always find another nuance in the details of her performance.

In an interview [published in Sue Birtwistle & Susan Conklin: The Making of Pride and Prejudice, Penguin Books], Ehle expressed her enthusiasm for playing Elizabeth Bennet: “I thought I was the luckiest person in the world to spend an entire summer being Elizabeth Bennet. What a fantastic thing to do! . . . . but it can make you go a bit loopy being someone else every day for a long period.” Getting into her costume and makeup alone took nearly two hours each day and Elizabeth is included in nearly every scene in the film.

Is Ehle the perfect Elizabeth Bennet? In most respects, yes. Some viewers (typically the male ones) complain that they would have preferred an actress who was a bit slimmer craft, but such observations don’t typically sit well with female fans of this movie.

COLIN FIRTH AS FITZWILLIAM DARCY: Viewers who have observed Colin Firth’s work in other films might well doubt before watching Pride & Prejudice that Firth would be well-cast as Mr. Darcy. That’s not to say that his work has been less than exemplary in other films; only that his characters have tended mainly to range from prissy to sissified, in films such as The Importance of Being Earnest, Valmont, Apartment Zero, and Bridget Jones’ Diary. Most viewers, however, have seen none of those films except the last. Firth also appeared in two highly acclaimed films, Shakespeare in Love and The English Patient, but his part in each of those was not particularly memorable. Many viewers who adore Firth’s performance of Darcy in Pride and Prejudice therefore know him exclusively from that role. It is a testament to Firth’s complete command of the role that some of these fans actually believe that Firth as a person embodies the qualities that he portrays so ably in his performance as Mr. Darcy. Firth himself stated, however, “I didn’t feel that I would be able to make him what he should be. He seemed too big a figure somehow.” One special challenge in playing Darcy is that so much depends on what one does not do as opposed to overt acting. For much of the story, Darcy is aloof and passive. To Firth, the part seemed to present a fundamental paradox: “To make myself different enough to play Darcy, I will have to do an awful lot. But doing anything is the last thing that is right for playing Darcy. The only way for it to work is to be Darcy already. I looked in the mirror and I didn’t see Darcy.” In the end, however, Firth, despite being unlike Darcy in his own personality, created a portrayal of Darcy that was so close to perfection, that most Austen fans can no longer view Darcy separate from their image of Colin Firth in the part.

Another challenge in playing Darcy is that an essential and wondrous part of the story of Pride and Prejudice is that Darcy is motivated to change in a significant respect out of his love for Elizabeth, because he recognizes the validity of her rebuke of him. The film can only succeed if Firth convinces us that Darcy has made a change in his behavior, from aloof and prideful to respectfulness of those beneath his station in life. Firth successfully pulls off the great transformation, which must occur gradually and subtly, from brooding snob to perfect gentleman.

Before receiving the script for the film, Firth had never read a page of Jane Austen (assuming like many males do that Austen is girls’ stuff) and was prejudiced against doing the project based on his recollection of some rather dry and stiff BBC adaptations of great novels that had been done in the past. He was also tired of script reading from having recently encountered a number that he found unreadable. So, he picked up the script of Pride and Prejudice fully expecting to reject it, but then found himself unable to put it down, despite its considerable length, until he that read through it in entirety. Like so many of us, Firth was now hooked on Austen – the great Austen characters, the beauty of Austen’s prose, and her “capacity to frustrate you in a very positive way.” “Jane Austen is an amazing tease”, in Firth’s words.

THE REST OF THE CAST: The producers of Pride and Prejudice had pretty much the entire corps of English actors and actresses to draw upon and the results were generally impressive. Film viewers, however, are seldom perfectly satisfied with the casting in any film, especially the ones that they love and watch repeatedly. I was fully impressed by and satisfied with the following performances (in addition to the two principals): Benjamin Whitrow as Mr. Bennet, Tim Wylton and Joanna David as Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, Adrian Lukis as the sleazy Mr. Wickham, Emilia Fox as Georgiana Darcy, Crispin Bonham-Carter as Bingham, David Bamber as Mr. Collins, and Lucy Scott as Charlotte Lucas. I was not entirely won over by the casting of the Bennet sisters (other than Ehle as Elizabeth), which I feel was inferior to the 1940 MGM production. Alison Steadman, as Mrs. Bennet, took the most risks of any of the performers and the opinions regarding the success of those risks appear to be about evenly split from what I have read expressed by various viewers. Some, including myself, find the performance over-the-top and shrill to the point of being grating. I was also disappointed with the character Miss Bingley, played by Anna Chancellor, but am uncertain how much of that disappointment to place at the feet of the director versus the actress. The Miss Bingley of the 1940 MGM production matches my vision of this character much more successfully. It seems a bit ungrateful and ungracious, however, to quibble too much over these minor deviations from perfection, considering how truly remarkable this film is overall.

LOCATIONS, COSTUMES, AND PROPS: The scenic backdrop of Pride and Prejudice is utterly magnificent, including the various mansions and the rural countryside through which the carriage passes, for example, in the Derbyshire scene. The filming of Pride and Prejudice required virtually unlimited access to four magnificent residences: one to serve as the Bennets home (Longbourn), one for Mr. Bingley’s estate (Netherfield), a third for Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s estate (Rosings), and the last as Darcy’s fine estate (Pemberley). A parsonage was also required to serve as the Collins’ residence. Finding suitable locations was one problem and getting full access another. The production team chose, for example, a magnificent estate called Lyme Park as a stand-in for Pemberley, but when time came for shooting, the new management would not permit the filmmakers access to the interior of the mansion. The Pemberley episodes therefore had to be split and the interior scenes shot at another nearby mansion.

Since Pride and Prejudice is a period piece and a costume drama, the importance of the contribution of Dinah Collins, the costume designer, to the success of the film can hardly be overstated. Authenticity was assured by numerous trips to museums, in Bath, Brighton, Manchester, and Worthing. Since the Bingley sisters were “fine” ladies, they required lovely, ornate dresses, especially for the balls. The Bennet sisters, by contrast required simpler frocks, less colorful or ornamented. Obviously, the frocks worn by the Bennet girls while sitting around the house had to be simpler than the evening wear. The fabrics needed to be soft prints and had to be custom made using the printing facilities at a college.

The prop most often discussed among fans of this film is a painting used as a backdrop at one of the balls early in the movie – when the consensus view of Darcy among the locals was quite negative. Darcy is skulking around watching the dance proceedings but declining to participate and as he meanders around the perimeter, he stops in front of this great painting hung on the wall. It depicts some gallant officer on top of a magnificent horse – from the back side of the horse. As the camera zooms in on Darcy, his head is seen next to the horse’s prominent backside – the obvious implication being that we are looking at two horse’s arses! And talk about attention to detail! I read an article, at one time, by an ornithologist (bird expert) who had analyzed each occurrence of a bird sound in this film and had concluded that each one was appropriate to the location in England where the scene was set.

THE MUSIC: The musical score was composed by Carl Davis and is one of the best to ever grace a film. Davis was responsible both for the selection of “source music”, that accompanies the various balls, and the composition of the background music. The musical numbers performed during the dance scenes are well worth listening to independent of the movie, and many, including myself, do. Asked about the opening background music of the film and what he intended to convey, he states, “There were two main things I wanted to communicate. The first was to pick up the essence of the book – its wit and vitality . . . . I worked through something very lively and bright for this and then, without my being conscious of it, a slight hunting refrain crept in – which, of course, echoes one of the main drives of the book, the hunt for husbands! And this was linked with my second theme, which was marriage and affairs of the heart.”

Davis used a tactic that is more typical of opera than soundtracks: leitmotifs. As Darcy approaches Pemberley on horseback along the road, for example, during Elizabeth’s visit there, we hear the theme in the French horns that represents Darcy. Now the picture shifts back to Elizabeth and the Gardiners touring the art gallery in Pemberley. Elizabeth stares contemplatively at the painting of Darcy and the theme in the French horns continues – reminding us that he is approaching and building the tension of the inevitable confrontation. The cameras shift back to Darcy, as he strips off his outermost layer of clothing, preparing to dive into the pond that separates him from Pemberley and Elizabeth. As he splashes in the water, the “Elizabeth theme” is taken up, slowly and softly and in a lower than normal octave – again reminding us that she will be there when he arrives. The camera shifts back to Elizabeth, now walking on the grounds and the Elizabeth theme swells. Now we see Darcy walking along the path toward Pemberley, sending his horse to the stables with a servant. The Elizabeth theme grows stronger, moves up an octave, and is taken up by the strings. We hear these musical warnings that they will come face to face – but they, of course, cannot. It’s all reminiscent of a horror film when the viewer knows that the monster is looming behind the door but the protagonist doesn’t. The tension is palpable – in large measure because of the musical score.

OTHER FILM VERSIONS: There are two other versions of Pride and Prejudice, the 1940 MGM version and the 1980 BBC made-for-television version. The MGM version (Pride and Prejudice) is 118 min. in length and stars Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. As an adaptation, it has very poor faithfulness to the novel. The screenplay was written by the great Aldous Huxley, but it was not one of his better efforts. Major scenes are omitted, notably the entire sequence in Derbyshire. Many characters are omitted and some changed in their significance to the story. The casting of the 1940 film, however, is superlative in most respects and stands up in that one respect to comparison with the 1995 A&E miniseries. Austen purists find the lack of faithfulness to Jane Austen disturbing and typically dislike the film. I enjoy it by viewing it as a farce based on Pride and Prejudice rather than a true adaptation.

The 1980 BBC version (see Pride and Prejudice) is long (226 min.) and tedious. It does feature a worthy performance by Elizabeth Garvie as Elizabeth Bennet, but also an unbearable performance by David Rintoul as Darcy. Neither of these alternative versions come close to the quality of the 1995 A&E version and will have limited appeal to any but Austen aficionados.

CHOOSING A FORMAT: Regardless of whether you choose VHS or DVD, you have a choice between two cassettes/disks or five. Choose the version with two. It flows better and reduces the number of times you have to watch the credits.

BOTTOM LINE: The 1995 A&E adaptation of Pride and Prejudice certainly ranks as one of the finest film achievements ever. It faithfully adapts one of the finest prose works ever written and adds the highest standard of production values in every important respect: casting, direction, settings, costumes, and soundtrack. This is a film that, even at 300 minutes in length, stands up to multiple viewings.