THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601210001
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 177 lines
THERE WAS Jane Fonda and Jayne Mansfield. Jane Powell and Tarzan's Jane.
But the Jane of the year is Jane Austen. She's been dead for 179 years, but no matter. The novelist's subtle-but-saucy sexual mores and 18th century social manners have captured the moment.
Austen's stories transport a harried and callous modern world back to the days of courting as a fine art. She was the Bard of Bath, England, teaching us how to woo with style.
On Friday, area theaters will see the long-awaited arrival of ``Sense and Sensibility,'' a film in the running for a Golden Globe Award (at 8 tonight on NBC) as well as a front-runner for this year's Oscar race.
The release of ``Sensibility'' - with Emma Thompson as its star and screenwriter - is but the latest and most mainstream of the screen events that have made Austenites of many.
In the past year, Austen has been adapted for screen more than Stephen King. The critically praised teen comedy ``Clueless,'' which made a new star of Alicia Silverstone, was actually an updated version of Austen's novel ``Emma.'' A six-hour television film of ``Pride and Prejudice,'' starring Jennifer Ehle of Winston-Salem, N.C., as Elizabeth, was such a hit in London that businesses closed while it was on the air. (It aired in ``the Colonies'' last week on A&E.)
A more serious-minded film of ``Persuasion,'' her final novel, was a recent art-house hit. And a new movie of ``Emma,'' starring Gwyneth Paltrow, is now being shot, to be released later this year.
No doubt: It's Lady Jane's day.
Austen is hotter today than she was in her own lifetime (1775-1817). She was not widely read in Georgian England. Charlotte Bronte, who wrote ``Jane Eyre,'' went so far as to call her writing ``insensible.''
She was born at a parsonage in Hampshire, England, and lived among the country gentry. At an early age, she wrote plays and parodies intended for the amusement of her minister-father, six brothers and sister Cassandra. She wrote six novels before dying of Addison's disease at age 41.
Explaining her current popularity with movie audiences and producers is not easy. One theory is that audiences want to return to a simpler and slower era - even if it was an age in which women were severely hampered by society.
Austen's heroines, although afflicted with femininity (unable to inherit property and such), rise above mere men in clever ways. The intelligent heroine might be plain and poor, but she still managed to land the most worthy man.
Some say Austen fulfills the feminist agenda of the 1990s. Others say her popularity is grounded in her satirical humor.
Perhaps her popularity is a reaction to the widespread presence of modern ``phonies'' in offices and social gatherings. Austen's characters rarely say just what they mean, and put on witty masquerades.
Also, sex and romance these days can be so confusing, mused Emma Thompson. And Austen's plots ``return us to the basics,'' the actress said. ``In the modern world, there's a lot written about how we know how to give each other multiple orgasms and such. But, more than ever before, men and women don't know how to communicate.''
George Tucker, a longtime columnist for The Virginian-Pilot and author of the critically lauded ``Jane Austen: the Woman'' and ``A Goodly Heritage: A History of Jane Austen's Family,'' reasons that the rebirth is due ``to the fact that thinking people today are fed up with overt sex and violence. This doesn't mean that Jane Austen stuck her head in the sand.
``There was just as much sex and violence in her era. She was no Pollyanna. She had her seamier side as well as her pleasant side. But, after all, none of her heroines did it on a park bench.''
Tucker, 86, spent several decades researching his two books, in an effort to prove that Austen was a ``real woman'' and not the Victorian creature past biographers had depicted.
``I think she'd like a cut of the profits from all this new interest,'' he said.
Tucker found that Austen's life, previously believed to have been rather cloistered, was worldly enough to have exposed her to scandals and politics.
``She was a full-blooded woman, not just a shadow,'' he said. ``There are two kinds of people who like her today. First, those, like me, who see her as endlessly delightful and funny. And then there are the academics, who have tried to read all kinds of hidden meanings into her plots.''
Like other celebrities, Austen has faced tabloid-style claims. One story alleged she had an incestuous relationship with her sister. Tucker merely shakes his head. ``She never married but there is evidence she had proposals of marriage. Only a full-blooded woman could have written the plots she did. Only people with a sense of humor should even read Jane Austen.''
Early on, ``Sense and Sensibility'' didn't have the benefit of a bandwagon on which to jump.
Until this latest spate, the last movie based on an Austen novel was MGM's all-star 1940 ``Pride and Prejudice.'' In it, Greer Garson was a rather mature but impressive Elizabeth, and Laurence Olivier was an aristocratic Mr. Darcy.
It was a hit, but looking back, purists might bemoan the many cuts. Also, time was moved up, allowing women to be dressed in Victorian hoops rather than Regency styles. The result was more Dickens than Austen.
Actress Thompson, while on the set of the 1991 thriller ``Dead Again,'' (in which she co-starred with her then-husband Kenneth Branagh), got the idea to try writing an Austen script. At first, she wanted to do ``Persuasion,'' but ended up adapting the first novel.
``Sensibility'' producer Lindsay Doran recalled that she initially felt the odds were against raising the money for a new adaptation.
``As a girl I always thought Austen's novels were pretty silly,'' Doran said. ``Just people who visited each other a lot, and talked. I think teachers require these novels because they are `safe' for young girls. At Emma's insistence, I read `Sense and Sensibility' again and found that it was wonderful, and would make a great movie.
``It had not one, but two heroines, a lot of humor, plot twists and a surprise ending - everything. But, still, Emma wasn't famous yet. We had an untried screenwriter and a 200-year-old novel.''
Sydney Pollack, who has directed such hits as ``Tootsie,'' became the executive producer. Even today, he thinks the film has only a ``fair chance'' of making back its money.
``We got it made for $15 million, which is very little in modern terms. We got it done because Emma and Hugh Grant, and some other people, did it for less than they'd normally charge,'' Pollack said.
In an interview in New York, Pollack said he was worried because his company's previous two films, ``The Fabulous Baker Boys'' and ``Searching for Bobby Fischer,'' ``got great reviews, but didn't make a penny.''
Yet he feels encouraged that ``marriage is currently making a comeback. Jane Austen's humor is all about getting married. It may work.''
Taiwanese director Ang Lee was a surprise choice to handle this quintessentially British project. Already the winner of the ``best director'' accolade from the National Board of Review for ``Sense and Sensibility,'' Lee was getting big Hollywood offers after his surprise success with his recent films ``The Wedding Banquet'' and ``Eat Drink Man Woman.''
``There were offers for more money, but not for as good material,'' Lee said. ``What I wanted most to do with this film is to make people cry after they've laughed. It is a real trick to bring off satire. Either it is too bitter or not funny.
``What I tried to do is keep the humor, but also keep the edge. I think it takes an outsider to do this. It is good, for this project, that I am not English.''
Emma Thompson, an Oscar-winner for ``Howards End,'' said that her script ``is the result of a lot of tears. I'd get up and write for three hours and then cry a little. It's been so many drafts that I have no idea where I started,'' she said.
Thompson worked on it for five years. ``There was what I call `The Italian Draft,' written while we were filming `Much Ado About Nothing' in Italy. Then, there are drafts that have just been trashed somewhere. Everyone was surprised, including myself, that I didn't resent all this rewriting, that I could take all this rejection.''
Thompson says she has always loved Austen's humor. While a student at Cambridge, she stole ideas from Austen's writings for her all-female revue.
``Sense and Sensibility'' centers on two sisters, one sensible and the other passionate and willful. Thompson wrote it with Vanessa Redgrave's two actress daughters, Natasha Richardson and Joely Richardson, in mind.
Thompson said she reluctantly took the role of sensible Elinor, at Ang Lee's insistence. Kate Winslet, from ``Heavenly Creatures,'' played the other sister.
She wrote the role of Edward with Hugh Grant in mind ``back before he became the most famous man in the world. Now, I wonder about casting him, because he is repellently gorgeous - much prettier than I am.''
She is ready to take the wrath of Austen purists - almost.
``I feel that there are people who will want me dead,'' she said. ``I was on an airplane the other day and this woman approached me and said she had heard about the film. `Did you keep the basket scene?' she asked. I had to think a moment about what `the basket scene' would be. When I told her that I had cut that because I had cut the entire character of Anne, she merely blanched.
``Speechless, she backed away from me, looking as if I had just killed her firstborn. I expect this to happen. The first thing I did was to dramatize every single scene in the book. Then, for five years, I've been forced to cut.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Current works based on the novels of Jane Austen include the movies
``Sense and Sensibility,'' starring Emma Thompson, top photo, and
``Persuasion,'' featuring Amanda Root, Richard McCabe and Ciaran
Hinds, middle photo. Austenmania has hit television as well, in the
form of the miniseries ``Pride and Prejudice,'' starring Jennifer
Ehle and Colin Firth, bottom.
Photo
PARAMOUNT
The 1995 teen comedy ``Clueless,'' an updated versino of Jane
Austen's novel ``Emma,'' starred Alicia Silverstone and Justin
Walker.
by CNB