Interesting read.
edit: What I find fascinating is that she loved the book, the story, had a deep appreciation for it. Enough appreciation that she desperately wanted to do the script for a movie. Scripting a navel (beautiful typo, huh?) mean movel of this length into a <2hr movie would be double tough.
She says, "All of us on the producing and writing side knew and loved this book since childhood." So this interpretation was not just one person's unique approach but benefited from the input of more than her. Yet there are many posters who simply are convinced it just missed the mark. The script writers and those directing the actors simply didn't know enough to "get it right."
I do think one thing that she did might have contributed to the sense that Mia only came across as sullen. By beginning with the leaving scene, that is the first impression we get of her. And that scene and her sullen weary stressed look goes on for several minutes...she's bounding away, she's caught on the moor, she's carried in, soaking wet, she's sitting there being studied by strangers...all of which is supposed to elicit sullen, stressful facial expressions. AND they show that leaving scene twice, once at the beginning and then later on in the movie. SO we get a double dose of the "stern faced" Mia. Plus, by showing the leaving part twice, it probably meant they couldn't put in some other scenes (because of time constraints) that MIGHT have shown her interesting facial expressions. I keep harking back to one of my favorite scenes. It's when she's playing with Adele with Mrs Fairfax looking on, and in the background we see Mr R helping some other men digging out a stump. Jane looks over and smiles. A glimpse of her showing that 1) she's happy to play with Adele and 2) she likes that she's "in the area" with Mr R. That scene represents to me, and allows me to imagine many such scenes where she does look pleased with her surroundings.
And, the other thing this version brought to light, to me anyways, was the incredulity Mia shows when Mr R declares his love and proposes. NONE of the other adaptations show so well that Jane can hardly believe it. And this seems so real to me. It would seem to me that would be prevalent emotion that would come through when she first receives the proposal. I think so many viewers already know he's going to propose, so there's no sense of surprise, no incredulity. They are looking for the emotion they themselves feel...the overwhelming happiness. But I think it more likely that the happiness would not register so soon and what would actually come through at first would be surprise and disbelief. She has NO reason up to that point to imagine Mr R is the least bit interested in her. She thinks he is to marry Blanche. She thinks he's so far above her station as to make such a match unthinkable. He does not seem to treat her nicely...as if he wants to marry her.
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