A 1980 adaptation fan video set to Chopin

This romantic video makes the 1980 version look quite cinematic, with lots of lingering looks, smiles and of course stiff upper-lips from David Rintoul.

Pride & Prejudice – Harry Potter Style

A very cleverly edited Pride and Prejudice trailer using video footage of Harry Potter.

Pride and Prejudice – She’s Like The Wind

We have featured this video already on this site, but in view of Patrick Swayze’s tragic passing it seems right to remember once again at his most awesome. Here is Pride and Prejudice 2005 set to Swayze’s ‘She’s Like the Wind’ from Dirty Dancing.

Pride and Prejudice Trailer Spoof

I don’t want to write too much about this for fear of spoiling the quite horrible surprise! This is my personal favorite…

Lost In Austen- Amanda & Darcy- She’s A Lady

So Miss Amanda Price of Hammersmith might have had Jane Austen spinning in her grave ‘like a cat in a tumble-dryer,’ but she still won the heart of Mr Darcy in Lost in Austen with her radical manners and quirky modern ways. Here is Lost in Austen set to Tom Jones’ ‘She’s a Lady.’

So there we have it. Delightfully absurd and quite absurdly delightful. Once again, please let us know about your favorites too. Also, please don’t forget to check out Mitchell and Webb’s Disco Darcy sketch, entirely unrivaled in its ridiculousnesses, for a guaranteed giggle.

Here are My Pride and Prejudice’s all time top 10 pictures of the beautiful, kind and good-natured Jane Bennet.In no particular order and from all the major screen and TV adaptations we have Rosamund Pike (2005), Susannah Harker (1995), Sabina Franklyn (1980), Maureen O’Sullivan(1940) and Morven Christie (lost in Austen).

This transcript of the final scenes begins after Lizzy has been told of Mr Collins’ letter, warning that Elizabeth should not accept Mr Darcy’s proposal. After this encounter we dissolve to the scene in which Lizzy and Darcy are taking a stroll in the countryside.

Elizabeth and Mr Darcy are walking side by side.

MR DARCY:
Dearest, loveliest Elizabeth. By you I was properly humbled… No, I did not blame you for coming to Pemberley. I felt nothing but surprise. My object was then to show you that I was not so mean as to resent the past. As to my gravity and thoughtfulness on hearing news of Lydia I’d already resolved to leave in search of her.

ELIZABETH:
So, you gave your permission for Bingley to marry Jane?

DARCY:
(Nods)

ELIZABETH:
I guessed as much. Confessed interference in his affairs.

DARCY:
It was absurd and impertinent of me. He never had the slightest suspicion. The more I saw of them together the more I was convinced of her affection. I never doubted his.

ELIZABETH:
And your assurance I suppose carried immediate conviction to him.

DARCY:
It did.

ELIZABETH:
What set you off in the first place?

DARCY:
I cannot fix the hour or the spot or the look or the words which lay the foundation. I was in the middle of it before I knew it had begun.

ELIZABETH:
My beauty you had earlier withstood. As to my manners, did you admire my impertinence? You were sick of servility I dare say, of deference, of officious attention. I aroused and interested you because I was so unlike the rest. I did not want your approbation. There, I have saved you the trouble of accounting for it, and all things considered, I begin to think it perfectly reasonable. To be sure you know no actual good of me. But nobody thinks of that, when they fall in love.

Lizzy and Darcy walk for a few seconds before embracing.

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. LONGBOURN LIBRARY. DAY

Mr Bennet is seated, with a book. Mrs Bennet is pacing around excitedly.

MRS BENNET:
10,000 a year! How rich and great my Lizzy will be! What pin money! What jewels, what carriages she will have! I hope Mr Darcy will overlook my having disliked him so much. Three daughters married. I shall go distracted!

MR BENNET:
Mr Darcy! What an uproar there will be. (Laughs) But for what do we live but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them our turn. Mrs Bennet, if any young men come for Kitty or Mary, send them in, for I am quite at leisure.

So there we have it. The lines are beautifully written, and Mr Bennet’s ‘I’m quite at leisure’ remark is a lovely place to end the story, yet we miss the moment when Mr Bennet hears from Elizabeth just how much she is in love. It’s also noteworthy that Darcy doen’t recoil at the idea of his giving ‘permission’ to Bingley to marry as he does in the book. Instead he simply nods. This doesn’t seem particularly out of place in this adaptation, since David Rintoul’s Darcy never quite loses his superior, aristocratic air. I can easily imagine him ordering his inferior friend to propose ‘at once!’ once he’d withdrawn his objection.

I love that Elizabeth explains in such detail why Darcy is in love with her. It fits Elizabeth’s ‘impertinent’ personality so nicely, to have Darcy nodding along as she describes her own charms with such delicious irony. I think it’s a pretty good way to end the story. What do you think?

Darcy

Jane Austen wrote nothing about the hair color of Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice (although she does have dark eyes), and was similarly silent about Darcy’s, Jane’s and Bingley’s barnetts, so where does this certainty come from?

A decidedly dark Elizabeth Bennet

Casting directors have seen it differently in the past. In the 1940 adaptation, Greer Garson’s Elizabeth has blonde hair, while Jane Bennet (Maureen O’ Sullivan) is a brunette. Also, in the 1980 series, Elizabeth Garvie has light brown hair and, again Jane’s (Sabina Franklin) hair is dark. However, from the 1995 BBC production the hair color has been fixed, as is evident in the 2005 movie and in the TV spin-off Lost in Austen.

Hair color is of course richly symbolic within our culture; blonde shades, like the color white, signify sexual and moral purity. Jane Bennet, for this reason, could never join the Pink Ladies. Also, blondeness – unfortunately for some (including me!) – still hasn’t lost its association with dumbness in our culture. Perhaps binding these together is our association of blondeness with childhood, puberty being the time when hair thickens and becomes darker.

Three Blonde Moments - A most definitely blonde Jane Bennet

Dark hair and features are of course more readily identified with moodiness, mystery and danger. It’s obvious, therefore, why it suits Elizabeth and Darcy’s fiery courtship. Perhaps it’s also considered more masculine. Andrew Davies did describe Elizabeth as something of a tomboy, because of her love of country walks, her very ‘unladylike’ habit of arguing with her superiors, and her willingness to get muddy. He said he thought it might be Jane Austen’s code for saying Elizabeth had lots of sexual energy (there he goes again!)

Tall, dark and handsome Mr Darcy

Dark hair is also symbolic of the generally more complex world of the adult. Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship is contradictory and complicated from the start. They both struggle to contain their emotions. Bingley and Jane’s relationship is far simpler. Theirs is such an innocent courtship that it’s hard to see it as adult at all. Bingley is indecisive and Jane is shy. Both are, of course, childlike traits.

The blonde and boyish Mr Bingley

In fact, it doesn’t take a major stretch of the imagination to see the relationships of Elizabeth and Jane, and Darcy and Bingley, as both containing Parent-Child elements. Elizabeth is both awed and saddened by the naivety of Jane’s worldview. She is like a parent with no way to protect her daughter from the cruelty of the adult world. Likewise, it’s only when Darcy ‘pretty much’ gives his permission for Bingley to marry Jane, that the former finally proposes. His words, therefore, must have carried greater authority than those of a typical friend. Moreover, despite trespassing on his younger friend’s hospitality at Netherfield, he speaks to Bingley with an abruptness that few friends would tolerate.

I’m sure there could be other reasons for the automatic way in which most of us associate Elizabeth and Darcy with dark hair and Jane and Bingley with blondeness, but these are what occurred to me. Did I miss any other hints in the book as to their appearance, or have we just filled in the gaps with our own cultural associations?

Lizzy