MovieChat Forums > Emma (1996) Discussion > A Note to Modern Viewers

A Note to Modern Viewers

posted 10 years ago by fatalframe80
4 replies | jump to latest

Stop judging by our current social mores! If you can't step out of your own time long enough to enjoy a different period, that's fine. But don't complain that a movie is a 'bad' movie (or book) just because their time was different and you don't like it.

This has always bugged me. Yes, rules were different then, people were different, the class system was different. Don't read a book from the 18th or 19th centuries and expect people to act the same way.

Ok, rant over. This probably happens with a lot of older books but I notice particularly with Jane Austen's. Maybe because there have been so many modern adaptations of them that people tend to view them as more modern creations than they really are.

[–] liscarkat (19427) 5 years ago

Yes, you're right, but many people find it difficult or even impossible to put themselves mentally in another time and place. It's just a sad loss for them that they can't understand or enjoy a novel or film about people in a different century.

[–] Otter (24464) 5 years ago

Those people either need to avoid historical films, or shut up about them until they've seen enough of them to understand things.

Honestly, historical films have always been one of the things that got me into history, and made me understand how things worked in other times and places. Seeing "Gone With the Wind" really helped me understand the horrors of the Old South (even though the author intended to sugar-coat everything it was still my first exposure to that evil society and some of the real monstrosities were still visible), I read up on Tudor history after seeing "A Man for All Seasons", medieval history after "The Lion in Winter", etc. I mean this "Emma" isn't on that level of filmmaking, but it's okay on the historical front.

[–] Who (5146) 4 years ago

What is it that people aren’t getting?

[–] whoanelly (1592) 4 years ago

Probably the Emma-George age difference.