Darcy’s Body in a Film Adaptation of Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is very famous among the
film makers of the whole world. Here is an account of the film
adaptation of the novel in English only.
- Pride and Prejudice (1938) Screenplay by: Michael Barry
- Pride and Prejudice (1940) MGM: feature film (114 min., black and white), Directed by: Robert Z. Leonard, Screenplay by: Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin, Produced by: Hunt Stromberg
- Pride and Prejudice (1949) NBC Philco Television Playhouse (1 hour, black and white), Directed by: Fred Coe, Screenplay by: Samuel Taylor
- Pride and Prejudice (February 2-March 8,1952) BBC: mini-series, 6 parts (180 min., black and white), Directed and Produced by: Campbell Logan, Screenplay by: Cedric Wallis
- Pride and Prejudice (January 24-February 28,1958) BBC: mini-series, 6 parts (180 min., black and white), Directed and Produced by: Barbara Burnham, Screenplay by: Cedric Wallis
- Pride and Prejudice (September 10-October 15,1967) BBC-1:mini-series, 6 parts (180 min., black and white), Directed by: Joan Craft, Screenplay by: Nemone Lethbridge, Produced by: Campbell Logan
- Pride and Prejudice (1980) BBC-2 mini-series, 5 parts (226 min.), Directed by: Cyril Coke, Screenplay by: Fay Weldon, Produced by: Jonathan Powell
- Pride and Prejudice (1995) BBC/A&E: mini-series, 6 parts (300 min.), Directed by: Simon Langton, Screenplay by: Andrew Davies, Produced by: Sue Birtwistle
- Pride and Prejudice: A Latter Day Comedy (2003) Excel Entertainment Group. An LDS feature film (104 min.), Directed by: Andrew Black, Screenplay by: Anne K. Black, Jason Faller, & Katherine Swigert, Produced by: Jason Faller
- Pride and Prejudice (2004) Miramax Films & Pathe Pictures (1 hr. & 52 mins.), Directed by: Gurinder Chadha, Screenplay by: Paul Mayeda Berges & Gurinder Chadha, Produced by: Deepak Nayar & Gurindar Chadha
- Pride and Prejudice (2005) Focus Features (2hrs. 9 mins.) , Directed by: Joe Wright, Screenplay by: Deborah Moggach, Produced by: Debra Hayward
- The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (2013) American Drama Web Series, Directed by: Hank Green, Bernie Su, Screenplay by: Margaret Dunlap, Kate Rorick, Produced by: Jenni powell
- Pride and Prejudice and the Zombies (2016) Studio/ Network: Lionsgate, Directed by: Burt Steers, Screenplay by: Burt Steers, Produced by: Sue Baden-Powell, Edward H. Hamm, Jr. Phil Hunt, Compton Ross, Lauren Selig
From all these adaptations the researcher
compares the Pride and Prejudice with the Film Adaptation of the
novel as a Mini Series (1995) directed by Simon Langton,
screenplay by Andrew Davies and produced by: Sue Birtwistle.
There are many parameters to compare a novel with its film
adaptation. There are some specific parameters to compare the
novels of Jane Austen with their film adaptations i.e
1. Plot
2. Narrative techniques
3. Opening and ending
4. Characters
5. Role of body
6. Costumes
7. Locations and settings
8. Gothic setting
9. Balls and dances
10. Symbolic scenes
11. Role of sound and music
12. Commercial barriers
In this research paper the researcher compare the character of
Darcy of the novel with the character of Darcy in the Mini
Series and specially the use of his body.
The film is not only in the verbal rewriting of Austen but
figurative and visual rewriting. “Davies added several scenes to
give the viewers a sense of Darcy’s life away from Elizabeth and
to reveal him as a physically active and sensitive individual”
(Parrill 66). The film is divided into two slightly unequal
halves, part one culminating in Darcy’s first unsuccessful
proposal of marriage to Elizabeth. Throughout the first half,
Darcy is presented carefully and consistently in two specific
ways: either in profile by a fireplace or looking out of a
window. When Mr. Bingley, his sisters and Darcy make their
initial appearance at the Meryton assembly, the scene is
structured primarily around the interaction of their party with
that of the Bennets. The Bennet sisters are for the most part
shot frontally, Darcy is seen in profile. When Bingley moves
forward to speak to Jane, Darcy hangs back. Finally, after the
ball is over, he stands in profile by the fireplace at
Netherfield, discussing the event with Bingley and his sisters.
At the dance at Lucas Lodge, the same emphasis is maintained.
Darcy stands in profile by a mirror and is also seen reflected
in another direction opposite it. While Elizabeth and Charlotte
discuss him, his head is seen in profile between them. When
Elizabeth visits Jane at Netherfield, the Bingley sisters
discuss her unexpected appearance; he first stands in the
profile by the window and then turns to gaze out of it. When the
discussion is going on Darcy is shown full-face, centre-screen,
with his eyes fixed meditatively on someone whom the audience
cannot see, but may well presume to be Elizabeth. The moment is
significant not only in the development of the narrative but
also in the representation of Darcy, for even as Elizabeth
becomes the object of his gaze, he himself is clearly offered as
the object of ours.
The scene which shortly follows is one of the most famous of
Andrew Davies’s addition to the original novel. Darcy is seen in
the bath; the audience is shown only his back and shoulders
before a servant covers him with a robe. He gazes down from the
window to where Elizabeth plays with a dog. Once again he looks
at her and the audience look at him. From the bath scene
onwards, Darcy looking at Elizabeth becomes a recurrent and
compelling image, used both to provide a crucial insight into
his character and to build up a powerful erotic charge, of which
he is clearly the centre. When Elizabeth and Jane leave
Netherfield, Darcy watches their departure from the window.
After the first proposal of Darcy, the first part of the film
comes to an end. Elizabeth’s dismissal of him is heard in the
voice-over. Returning to his aunt’s house, he immediately rushes
upstairs. The audience follow him into his bedroom and see him
at once begin to write the letter, which the audience hear
reading in voice-over. As the voice-over continues, he moves
away from the desk and looks out of the window, through which
the audience see a flashback to his Cambridge days. Looking
disgusted, Darcy closes the door and he plunges his face into a
basin of water. The episode shows the next section of the
letter, in which the audience is cut from Darcy writing to
Elizabeth reading. The audience hear of his comments on the
Bingley episode and particularly on Jane’s apparent lack of
response. The whole question of sexual attraction and female
desire is sharply highlighted. “Darcy’s body is obviously not
just a body but a medium of emotional expression” (Troost 24).
After Elizabeth’s departure from Kent, Darcy temporarily
disappears from the narrative. In the novel he does not re-enter
until Elizabeth unexpectedly encounters him at Pemberley. In the
adaptation, Andrew Davies has added another episode: Just as
Elizabeth and the Gardiners make their trip to North, Mr. Darcy
is seen fencing with a professional. As the professional leaves,
Darcy mutters between his teeth, “I shall conquer this…I shall!”
At Pemberley Darcy is seen dripping deep in the lake. These two
scenes are added in the film adaptation for the 20th century
audience.
The emotional dialogue with the self is best expressed in the
film by physical exertion. Unlike the film the novel does not
express Darcy’s continued emotional struggle. When Darcy and
Elizabeth are separated, the readers learn nothing of his
thoughts and actions. The novel leaves the readers, like
Elizabeth, uncertain of Darcy’s emotions. The film allows no
such questioning of the relationships. The director has added
the masculine physical actions to show Darcy’s growing and
continuing love. The film’s interest in Darcy’s bodily struggle
with his emotions is best evidenced by the scene in which he
writes a letter responding to Elizabeth’s rejection of his first
marriage proposal. In the novel, the letter’s text is given to
the readers after it has been received by Elizabeth. The letter
is voiced by Elizabeth as she reads the letter. In contrast, the
film gives the viewers the text of the letter as Darcy is
writing it. The letter is read aloud by Darcy, not Elizabeth.
The mental activity of reading is translated into the physical
activity of writing. The letter becomes a means of showing
Darcy’s emotional depth and conveying the struggle at
self-expression. A quiet scene of silent reading is emotionally
charged with the masculine activity. This is how the twentieth
century expresses the masculinity which is not found in Jane
Austen.
Immediately after being rejected by Elizabeth Darcy returns to
his aunt Lady Catherine’s Rosings Park. He avoids the gathering
party and rushes up-stairs, breathing heavily and entering his
bedroom in an agitated manner. He immediately sits down at his
desk and starts to write. After a few sentences, he is overcome
by emotion and sets his pen down. He stands up and walks over to
the window, deep in thought. The film chooses not to show him
composing his letter in a rational manner but to display him
composing his letter as a part of deeply personal process of
revealing his past. While gazing out of his window, a set of
flashback scenes remind Darcy of his troubled relationship with,
Wickham, displaying their shared childhood, shared time at
school etc. The letter writing scene ends with a dishevelled
Darcy washing his face and groaning, the implication being that
he has been up all night. He returns to his room and violently,
even painfully, extinguishes his candle with his bare fingers.
His physically tortured night reflects his tortured emotions.
There are many scenes in the film which are full of emotional
excess; Darcy’s physical actions also demonstrate restraints.
Darcy’s silent staring out of a window serves as a repeated
motif in the movie. Darcy quite literally turns his back on any
gathering to watch Elizabeth come and go at Netherfield, Rosings
Park and Pemberley. He similarly turns his back on any gathering
that discusses Elizabeth’s charms or faults. He refrains from
showing any emotion to the others, yet the viewers can see this
show of physical restraint as an expression of emotion.
Darcy’s intense stare becomes more and more interactive over the
course of the film, drawing Elizabeth into it. Most strikingly,
when Darcy and Elizabeth have reunited at Pemberley, the film
collapses together several drawing-room conversations, creating
a scene in which Elizabeth helps Georgiana with her piano
playing. Darcy stares lovingly at Elizabeth, who overlooks
Georgiana at the pianoforte; she raises her hand and confidently
looks back at him, and they exchange telling smiles. Later that
evening, after the guests have retired, Darcy takes a candlelit
walk back to the music room, leans on a mirrored fireplace, and
looks longingly at the pianoforte. A flashback allows him to
relive the image of Elizabeth’s smiling face. While the essence
of Austen’s drawing room conversation has been maintained, the
film adds a nonverbal series of glances, smiles and flashbacks
which become the force of the scene.
Elizabeth’s rejection of Darcy’s first marriage proposal can be
read as a rejection due to his inability to voice his full
emotions. Compared with his billiard playing, bathing, fencing,
and swimming, Darcy’s proposal seems restrained; although he
expresses his love, he is unable to put his hidden emotions into
a verbal vocabulary that matches the intensity of his physical
vocabulary. Viewing the film, audience feel Elizabeth is right
to reject him. He has not given full expression to the depth of
the emotions. In contrast, the novel can be read as constructing
the scene according to completely opposite dictates. Darcy’s
proposal is rejected because he has displayed too much of his
emotions rather than too little. Darcy does not show proper
courtship restraint and propose according to proper social form.
Austen’s Darcy has suddenly displayed too much emotional
freedom; he expresses his love openly and then openly states the
frustrating barriers his love has overcome.
In the film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice: the bathing scene
of Darcy, Darcy’s fencing with a professional and his dripping
deep in the lake, Darcy’s bodily struggle when he is rejected by
Elizabeth for the second time, the non-verbal series of glances,
smiles and flashbacks of Darcy and Elizabeth at Pemberley are
some of the additions by the film maker. Austen’s Darcy
expresses his love very openly but the Darcy in the film
adaptation does not show proper courtship and propose according
to proper social form. Darcy and Elizabeth exchange a kiss at
the end of the film adaptation which is not found in the novel.
The modern film adaptation emphasizes different aspects of Jane
Austen’s novels. The BBC/A&E Pride and Prejudice (1995)
contains the scenes of kiss and Darcy’s cool passion with a dip
in the pond. By introducing the scenes lacking in the novel; the
film adaptation faces both criticism and appreciation. There is
a big reading mass of Jane Austen who considers this addition
inauthentic material and for them it affects the cultural value
of an Austen experience and it is a betrayal or a negative
addition.
WORKS CITED:
- Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New Jersey: A Watermill Classics, 1981. Print.
- Parrill, Sue. Jane Austen on Film and Television: A Critical Study of the Adaptation. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2002. Print.
- Troost, Linda & Greenfield, Sayre. ed. Jane Austen in Hollywood. Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2001. Print.