Love & Friendship

A delicious end of year treat is Whit Stillman's LOVE & FRIENDSHIP, a quite popular movie this year, and is on several end of year best lists. It is based on a rare Jane Austen novella "Lady Susan" and exceeds all expections of Austen costume dramas.

Set in the 1790s, Love and Friendship centers on beautiful widow Lady Susan Vernon, who has come to the estate of her in-laws to wait out colorful rumors about her dalliances circulating through polite society. Whilst there, she decides to secure a husband for herself and her rather reluctant debutante daughter.

Like in those other Austens smart women in those days had to secure a rich husband and a position in society. How Lady Susan manages it is deftly handled here and offers Kate Beckinsale her best role ever which she grabs with both hands, 

The film looks great, the supporting cast glitters (Chloe Sevigny, Stephen Fry, Tom Bennett), it was filmed in Ireland, and is a fun, briskly-paced romp through those country house settings. We are now looking forward to Stillman's earlier THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, also with Beckinsale. 

Summer re-reads: Jane Austen & the california high life ...

This is what I said about Jane Austen's PERSUASION, back in 2011, when writing about some favourite books:

I absolutely love Jane Austen's PERSUASION and have re-read it several times and no doubt will again. PRIDE & PREJUDICE is a witty comedy of manners (and there is that great BBC version of it), SENSE & SENSIBILITY was a nice discovery too as we follow the Dashwood girls in and out of love (and we have Ang Lee's perfect film as scripted by Emma Thompson, and the rather nice recent TV version) - I have not felt the urge though to bother with EMMA or NORTHANGER ABBEY, while MANSFIELD PARK was rather a chore. It is PERSUASION though that I want to read and re-read. For one thing it is perfectly romantic as the thwarted lovers slowly begin to rediscover each other, and Anne Elliott is the most charming and wise Austen heroine, compared to her family and the interfering Aunt, Lady Russell. Anne is only 28 but is practically an old maid as she missed her chance with the dashing Captain 8 years previously when she was persuaded to give him up as he had no fortune. Captain Wentworth too is the perfect hero, back from the navy, his fortune made - no wonder those silly Musgrove girls throw themselves at him, as we travel from Uppercross to Lyme Regis and its famous cobb, and high society in Bath. All the 3 adaptations create their own endings. Austen actually wrote two perfectly romantic endings to her book, but neither is cinematic, so in the films we have Anne chasing all over Bath to catch up with the Captain, and the couple kissing! I prefer the 1995 BBC version which is a real film, but the recent one is fine too. The book though is a lasting pleasure. See Austen label for reviews of the films of her books.

It is now another late summer and I am engrossed in PERSUASION once again. Despite like the three television versions going back to the book is a treat with all that perfect prose and Austen's style to savour, as in describing Sir Walter Elliott fear of ageing: "and the rapid increase of the crow's foot about Lady Russell's temples had long been a distress to him". or:

"Anne Elliot, with all her claims of birth, beauty and mind, to throw herself away at nineteen; involve herself in an engagement with a young man, who had nothing but himself to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession, and no connections to secure even his further rise in that profession; that would indeed be a throwing away, which she  (Lady Russell) grieved to think of! Anne Elliot, so young; known to so few, to be snatched off by a stranger without alliance or fortune; or rather sunk by him into a state of most wearing, anxious, youth-killing dependance! It must not be, if by any interference of friendship, any representations from one who had almost a mother's love, and mother's rights, it would be prevented. "

How Anne and Captain Wentworth overcome such objections is perfectly worked out. Lets look at the blurb again:

PERSUASION, the last competed novel Jane Austen wrote, was published in 1817, a year after her death in 1816. It features a heroine, Anne Elliot, older and wiser than her predecessors in earlier books, and its tone is more intimate and sober as Austen unfolds a simple love story with depth and subtlety. Anne's goodness is not the cloying kind, but an unsentimental quality that, combined with stoicism and integrity, enables her to find happiness in love after seven years when it seemed she had forever put an end to such a prospect. 

The settings of Lyme Regis and Bath are evoked no less vividly than the characters who frequent them, and Jane Austen's achievement is exemplified by Tennyson's famous remark when visiting Lyme in 1867: "Now take me to The Cobb, and show me the steps from which Louisa Musgrove fell".

A total contrast, and almost as delicious, is a 1999 novel by one Doug Guinan, CALIFORNIA DREAMING, which reads like a gay Jackie Collins on acid trashfest. It is witty and complex though telling several stories, as we follow those West Hollywood gym boys Kevin and Leon and their various entangements. Kevin is the uber-gay, who smoulders a lot and manages to land multi-millionaire media and music mogel (think David Geffin) Brad Sherwood and becomes his boy-toy - until a nicely worked out party causes it all to fall apart. Leon meanwhile meets cute personal trainer Kim and their romance dovetails nicely too, as we follow the high life of Brad and his friend Roy with all their assorted hangers-on. We also get the backstory of Kevin's first romance with Anthony, the prince son of a mafia don in New York, and how he had to flee to California when the father finds out.  Kevin has to return to New York but will he also go back to Brad in California, who comes to track him down. This is a delicious fabulous read (particularly where Kevin goes on a shopping spree with Brad's card), ideal for the beach or a plane or a holiday. We like it a lot. As one review said: I haven't read such a fun and involving book like this since Tales of the City. The characters at first seem shallow but this proves, in the long run, their humanity both with their foibles and at times their surprising depth. When I finished the book I felt as though I had lost some new friends. I read it all in one sitting on a plane to LA. Fabulous and fun - a cross between Gordon Merrick & Armisted Maupin.

Persuasion, Persuasion, Persuasion ...

I have just enjoyed the 1995 BBC production of Jane Austen's PERSUASION (left) once again, its a real film (by Roger Michell, of the BBC film of MY NIGHT WITH REG, plus NOTTING HILL, FOUR WEDDINGS & A FUNERAL, THE MOTHER, LE WEEKEND) as opposed to a TV series, and is maybe the best version of this, my favourite Austen novel. It has a perfectly romantic ending. It looks great and super cast too: there's young Simon Russell Beale, Victoria Hamilton, Samuel West, Sophie Thompson and more. This is what I wrote about it, and those 2 other PERSUASIONs back in 2011: I want to see them all again now! :

Away from the Arthouse Classics and Bad Movies We Love and sometimes Utter Trash, we occasionally need a good Costume Drama - and no-one does it better than the BBC or ITV with their Jane Austen adaptations. The recent PERSUASION was an ideal treat after the Royal Wedding, so it was fun to see it again.
I absolutely love Jane Austen's book "Persuasion" and have re-read it several times and no doubt will again. This latest version is quite nice - though Sally Hawkins is a very put-upon dowdy Anne Elliot while Rupert Penry-Jones positively smoulders as Captain Wentworth, and Alice Krige is the meddling Lady Russell. Anne is only 28 after all but is practically an old maid as she missed her chance with the dashing Captain 8 years previously when she was persuaded to give him up as he had no fortune. Now he is back, wealthy and looking for a wife .... we travel from her estate to Bath and Lyme Regis with its famous cobb where that silly Louisa Musgrove famously falls from, as our star-crossed lovers slowly rediscover each other. For me it is a perfect romance. Anne, as Lady Russell knows, is so much better than her frivolous father and bitchy sisters.

.The 1971 version is in 4 parts so can take its time and Ann Firbank and Bryan Marshall are quite ideal but looking at it now it has that bright over-lit look of 70s television. The best version for me is the 1995 BBC production where Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds (below) are quietly excellent, it is nicely condensed and is a real film, as directed by Roger Michell, with able support from Corin Redgrave, Fiona Shaw, Phoebe Nicholls and Susan Fleetwood etc. The most recent version also alters the ending with our heroine running all over Bath to catch up with Wentworth - but then Austen wrote two endings both perfect but not very filmable for a romantic climax!
.The recent SENSE & SENSIBILITY is also a treat, nice to look at - I love their idea of the cottage the poor Dashwoods have to make do with! Dan Stevens and David Morrissey are ideal romantic leads and it all looks a treat
.
Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman and a top-notch cast even in the small parts (Gemma Jones, Elizabth Spriggs, Harriet Walter, Imelda Staunton, Hugh Laurie) all make Ang Lee's 1995 film the definitive version, as scriped by Emma (whose playing of the final scene is a delight).
...
And of course the only definitive version of PRIDE & PREJUDICE is the BBC's 1995 version, ideally cast too with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, plus of course Alison Steadman and Benjamin Whitrow as the Bennetts and the fearsome Lady Catherine De Burgh of Barbara Leigh-Hunt and the oily Mr Collins of David Bamber, with Susannah Harker and Anna Chancellor. The 2005 film by Joe Wright with Keira Knightley enraged me with it's filleted version of the book, major characters reduced to the sidelines and its period all over the place. THAT version ended up in the trash can! - despite sterling work by Tom Hollander as Mr Collins and Brenda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland and Judi Dench. I just did not see the Bennetts as having pigs in their house! The 1940 film has it's pleasures too though one can hardly take it seriously, Olivier and Garson sparkle though. (A shame though to see Ehle in just the small part of Mrs Logue in Firth's success THE KING'S SPEECH).

The 1999 version of MANSFIELD PARK is also very entertaining with the likes of Sheila Gish, Lindsay Duncan, James Purefoy and Harold Pinter - though Fanny Price is the most priggish, least likeable of Austen's heroines. EMMA and NORTHANGER ABBEY though do not interest me at all! Then of course there are those Merchant-Ivory productions like A ROOM WITH A VIEW, MAURICE, QUARTET, HEAT AND DUST, HOWARD'S END, THE EUROPEANS, THE BOSTONIANS and the great tradition of costume drama continued with CRANFORD and Julian Fellowes' DOWNTON ABBEY, we will be waiting for that second series, let's hope Maggie Smith gets some more great moments. Hmm, maybe it's time to re-visit those '70s hits: Lee Remick as JENNIE Churchill and Francesca Annis as LILLIE Langtry (which also has a sterling Oscar Wilde by Peter Egan)...

Some books I like ... (2)

Another round of books we like ... and can return to several times.

I absolutely love Jane Austen's PERSUASION and have re-read it several times and no doubt will again. PRIDE & PREJUDICE is a witty comedy of manners (and there is that great BBC version of it), SENSE & SENSIBILITY was a nice discovery too as we follow the Dashwood girls in and out of love (and we have Ang Lee's perfect film as scripted by Emma Thompson, and the rather nice recent TV version) - I have not felt the urge though to bother with EMMA or NORTHANGER ABBEY, while MANSFIELD PARK was rather a chore. It is PERSUASION though that I want to read and re-read. For one thing it is perfectly romantic as the thwarted lovers slowly begin to rediscover each other, and Anne Elliott is the most charming and wise Austen heroine, compared to her family and the interfering Aunt, Lady Russell. Anne is only 28 but is practically an old maid as she missed her chance with the dashing Captain 8 years previously when she was persuaded to give him up as he had no fortune. Captain Wentworth too is the perfect hero, back from the navy, his fortune made - no wonder those silly Musgrove girls throw themselves at him, as we travel from Uppercross to Lyme Regis and its famous cobb, and high society in Bath. All the 3 adaptations create their own endings. Austen actually wrote two in her book, but neither is cinematic, so in the films we have Anne chasing all over Bath to catch up with the Captain, and the couple kissing! I prefer the 1995 BBC version which is a real film, but the recent one is fine too. The book though is a lasting pleasure. See Austen label for reviews of the films of her books.

THE TAKEOVER by Muriel Spark, 1979. As dazzling as her other gems like THE GIRLS OF SLENDER MEANS, THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE, MEMENTO MORI, THE ABBESS OF CREWE. The time is the late Seventies, the place is Italy, particularly the enchanted lake at Nemi, southeast of Rome, where the Temple of Diana once stood. The people form an extraordinary cast chasing love (or sex) and money, with the goddess-like American heiress Maggie at the center, justly famed for her beauty, her wealth, and the steeliness of her will - like her namesake, Maggie Thatcher. 
To many, as to her old confidant, Hubert Mallindaine, Maggie is ever-tempting target for takeover. Indeed he squats in one of Maggie's houses, selling off her paintings and furniture and seeking to set up the cult of the ancestress he claims, Diana herself, while Maggie plots to oust him. An assortment of jewel thieves, counterfeiters, art smugglers, adulterers, gay secretaries, spongers, and fanatics, plus the international confidence man Coco de Renault, after nothing less than her entire fortune, seek to exploit Maggie. There is also Lauro, the petulant Italian waiter/gigolo/general all-rounder who has slept with almost everyone in the book for his own gain .... It is a familiar Spark scenario - with riches, drinks, crooked servants, poetic quotations, domestic intrigue, and double-edged jokes about Catholicism. It is about being so wealthy that they can no longer afford to insure their possessions, and attempt to foil their predators - by hiding their jewels in hot water bottles, by making false floors to false kitchens, by burying their ill-gotten gains in their mothers' well-tended graves. Maggie though scores the last word.  It is all sheer delight. As witty as her other books! Like Iris Murdoch's THE BELL (or almost any Murdoch) it would make a perfect film or tv series. (To review soon: the film of Murdoch's A SEVERED HEAD).

THE COUNTRY GIRLS by Edna O'Brien. The first of Edna O'Brien's 24 novels, about Cait and Baba and their adventures in '50s Ireland, in the country and at school and the loneliness and excitement of  living and surviving on their wits and their charms in Dublin (as continued in THE LONELY GIRL). Caithleen is a bookish, introspective Catholic girl who falls for an older and married Protestant man. 
This formed the basis of the 1964 film THE GIRL WITH GREEN EYES, which I like a lot, as per other items on it here. We follow the doomed romance of Cait and Eugene, and it ends with the girls catching that ferry to London - a very nostalgic moment for those who have also done that journey. Edna has now published her own memoir COUNTRY GIRL, the fascinating real story of her life which she used for her fiction. More on the films of O'Brien books at O'Brien / Ireland labels.

FIRE FROM HEAVEN / THE PERSIAN BOY. Mary Renault's much admired novels about Alexander The Great repay several visits as she totally conjures up that ancient world of mysterious kingdoms and rites as the boy Alexander mesmerises everybody as he grows up to claim his inheritance and become the ruler of the known world. The first volume FIRE FROM HEAVEN is terrific on his childhood with his lifelong friend Hephaestion, and his mysterious mother Olympias and father Philip. THE PERSIAN BOY continues the story as Alexander's men follow him to the ends of the known world, when it all comes tumbling down in Babylon (where a third novel FUNERAL GAMES is set). 
The Boy is the Persian eunuch Bagoas who becomes another of Alexander's lovers and we see it all though his eyes. It is a stunning feat of imagination. There are other Alexander fictions but these are the ones for me. You do need though to be interested in Alexander and that ancient world to really enjoy these. I have other Alexander books like those by Plutarch and expert historian Robin Lane Fox, but Renault (1905-1983) too was highly acclaimed in her time for her historical novels set in Greece, like THE KING MUST DIE, THE CHARIOTEER, often with gay themes, a novelty back then in the '50s and '60s - Like Patricia Highsmith she was one of the first writers of her era perceived to be lesbian - Renault though had a lifelong partner. Her history of Alexander: THE NATURE OF ALEXANDER is a terrific coffee table book too, with great illustrations.

DUBLINERS - James Joyce.  Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They form a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century, and again, repay re-reading. 
The most famous story of course is THE DEAD. The stories centre on Joyce's idea of an epiphany, the moment where a character experiences self-understanding or illumination. Gabriel Conroy has such a moment when he attends a new year party with his wife Gretta, about the nature of life and death. It is really more a novella than a short story, and was lovingly filmed by veteran John Huston in 1987, his last film and testament, as we too linger at that party where Gretta hears that lament which brings back all those memories of the boy who loved her and died - as the snow falls over the living and the dead ..... as beautifully captured by Joyce's prose and Huston's film. It is perfect - I have written about it in more detail in my review of the film, Huston / Ireland labels. .

Persuasion, Persuasion, Persuasion

Away from the Arthouse Classics and Bad Movies We Love and sometimes Utter Trash, we occasionally need a good Costume Drama - and no-one does it better than the BBC or ITV with their Jane Austen adaptations. The recent PERSUASION was an ideal treat after the Royal Wedding, so it was fun to see it again.

I absolutely love Jane Austen's book "Persuasion" and have re-read it several times and no doubt will again. This latest version is quite nice - though Sally Hawkins is a very put-upon dowdy Anne Elliot while Rupert Penry-Jones positively smoulders as Captain Wentworth, and Alice Krige is the meddling Lady Russell. Anne is only 28 after all but is practically an old maid as she missed her chance with the dashing Captain 8 years previously when she was persuaded to give him up as he had no fortune. Now he is back, wealthy and looking for a wife .... we travel from her estate to Bath and Lyme Regis with its famous cobb where that silly Louisa Musgrove famously falls from, as our star-crossed lovers slowly rediscover each other. For me it is a perfect romance. Anne, as Lady Russell knows, is so much better than her frivolous father and bitchy sisters.



The 1971 version is in 4 parts so can take its time and Ann Firbank and Bryan Marshall are quite ideal but looking at it now it has that bright over-lit look of 70s television. The best version for me is the 1995 BBC production where Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds (below) are quietly excellent, it is nicely condensed and is a real film, as directed by Roger Michell, with able support from Corin Redgrave, Fiona Shaw, Phoebe Nicholls and Susan Fleetwood etc. The most recent version also alters the ending with our heroine running all over Bath to catch up with Wentworth - but then Austen wrote two endings both perfect but not very filmable for a romantic climax!

The recent SENSE & SENSIBILITY is also a treat, nice to look at - I love their idea of the cottage the poor Dashwoods have to make do with! Dan Stevens and David Morrissey are ideal romantic leads and it all looks a treat.
Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman and a top-notch cast even in the small parts (Gemma Jones, Elizabth Spriggs, Harriet Walter, Imelda Staunton, Hugh Laurie) all make Ang Lee's 1995 film the definitive version, as scriped by Emma (whose playing of the final scene is a delight).



And of course the only definitive version of PRIDE & PREJUDICE is the BBC's 1995 version, ideally cast too with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, plus of course Alison Steadman and Benjamin Whitrow as the Bennetts and the fearsome Lady Catherine De Burgh of Barbara Leigh-Hunt and the oily Mr Collins of David Bamber, and Susannah Harker and Anna Chancellor. The 2005 film by Joe Wright with Keira Knightley enraged me with it's filleted version of the book, major characters reduced to the sidelines and its period all over the place. THAT version ended up in the trash can! - despite sterling work by Tom Hollander as Mr Collins and Brenda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland and Judi Dench. The 1940 film has it's pleasures too though one can hardly take it seriously, Olivier and Garson sparkle though. (A shame though to see Ehle in just the small part of Mrs Logue in Firth's success THE KING'S SPEECH).



The 1999 version of MANSFIELD PARK is also very entertaining with the likes of Sheila Gish, Lindsay Duncan, James Purefoy and Harold Pinter - though Fanny Price is the most priggish, least likeable of Austen's heroines. EMMA and NORTHANGER ABBEY though do not interest me at all! Then of course there are those Merchant-Ivory productions like A ROOM WITH A VIEW, MAURICE, QUARTET, HEAT AND DUST, HOWARD'S END, THE EUROPEANS, THE BOSTONIANS and the great tradition of costume drama continued with CRANFORD and Julian Fellowes' DOWNTON ABBEY, we will be waiting for that second series, let's hope Maggie Smith gets some more great moments. Hmm, maybe it's time to re-visit those '70s hits: Lee Remick as JENNIE Churchill and Francesca Annis as LILLIE Langtry (which also has a sterling Oscar Wilde by Peter Egan)...