Life I spent the day in Pride and Prejudice world, watching the Andrew Davies adaptation from ten years ago. I missed the original screening in the mid-nineties; I was at uni discovering cider and art house cinema and not at home much, although I remember one night when I couldn't get any of my housemates to go out because the final episode was being shown. Now I can see why. I can't attest as to how accurate an adaptation of the book this is, but considering the publicity its amazing how Lizzy and Darcy are kept apart for so much of the time, only getting together in those final moments. In some episodes they're barely together for a few seconds and yet this is enough to sustain their story and keep it prominant.
The real joy is that it takes time to tell the story, whole scenes simply reflecting a mood or a meeting, any information being revealed simply an impression of a feeling if not necessarily some great gesture to move the plot forward. It takes time, allows characters to simply sit there, looking at each other, for minutes sometimes, wordless conversations with motives withheld from a wider group, glances seen only between lovers or confidents and the audience. Although I love dialogue, so much has been lost lately in films which are filled with useless chatter and extranious exposition. I'd imagine this will be gone in the new movie -- the trailer is a very busy thing, and it'll be worth seeing to compare how much of the story will be lost to take the running time down to two hours.
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