The things I've been watching lately besides Weeds, SixFeetUnder, and stupid movies like Eagle vs. Shark is- I've been watching Jane Austen. It started innocently with the Masterpiece Theatre retinue of all Austen sundays. Which started with a charming and achingly lovely Persuasion, followed by less apt and too brief Mansfield Park, Northanger, the Firth version of Pride/Prejudice which I love the brooding Firth but Elizabeth? ehh, and of course the Thompson version of Sense/Sensibility (which I watched on AMC or something). Emma might be coming up next after the 2nd part of P/P tomorrow night... then of course maybe 6months before all of this was that silly movie called "The Jane Austen BookClub" and I hit it on the head then, how terrible all these couples coming together when in fact Jane was stricken in all her books of unrequiet. But then I thought maybe that's my issue... And then the BBC biopic of Jane Austens life which I thought heartaching and played well by Olivia Williams and to complete the cressendo Becoming Jane which was too long and lacking even if Anne Hathaway is idyllic. The whole time I'm thinking, oh, god but I know this one doesn't end happily! I don't know why the fuck all these movies have banned together to attack us now. It's a deluge. Surely there are other female authors we could learn about, come to celebrate?
That's hardly the problem though. I'm twitching with it. Why I've drawn them all into my circumfrence? God, I have no idea. It didn't finally hit me until watching Becoming Jane tonight. I had to remove the '95 v. of Persuasion from my cue. It's those fucking happy endings in all her books. The actual real brilliantly tangible unrequitted love that all her heroines suffer with. And then couple that with the actual facts about her life- marry Becoming Jane with the Austen Bio pic and we've got her 17-41... and she dies alone and by all biopic accounts though gutsy, independent and funny and sarcastic, even though she never traveled or saw anything of the world- she also dies sort of tortured and poor and hello ALONE, even if not full of regret and man. Fuck. And then her sister torches her letters. And each of these movies has just left me with a twinge of there is no happy ending and what we, I love about the books is the possibility of all well that ends well, and then yet no. You see that was her hope and love also as a writer- and it didn't happen. How can her books not echo both courses in her life. And maybe that's the disease of it. This indulgence in happily ever after, when in reality if we could face singleness here and now, today- it certainly isn't so life and death, even if it may or may not have been then- and might we, I face it better if we, I didn't have these books and things and movies to tell us otherwise. That to end up alone as the credits close is sad, so of course the more satisfying course is the wedding. Wouldn't we all pen it so?
That's hardly the problem though. I'm twitching with it. Why I've drawn them all into my circumfrence? God, I have no idea. It didn't finally hit me until watching Becoming Jane tonight. I had to remove the '95 v. of Persuasion from my cue. It's those fucking happy endings in all her books. The actual real brilliantly tangible unrequitted love that all her heroines suffer with. And then couple that with the actual facts about her life- marry Becoming Jane with the Austen Bio pic and we've got her 17-41... and she dies alone and by all biopic accounts though gutsy, independent and funny and sarcastic, even though she never traveled or saw anything of the world- she also dies sort of tortured and poor and hello ALONE, even if not full of regret and man. Fuck. And then her sister torches her letters. And each of these movies has just left me with a twinge of there is no happy ending and what we, I love about the books is the possibility of all well that ends well, and then yet no. You see that was her hope and love also as a writer- and it didn't happen. How can her books not echo both courses in her life. And maybe that's the disease of it. This indulgence in happily ever after, when in reality if we could face singleness here and now, today- it certainly isn't so life and death, even if it may or may not have been then- and might we, I face it better if we, I didn't have these books and things and movies to tell us otherwise. That to end up alone as the credits close is sad, so of course the more satisfying course is the wedding. Wouldn't we all pen it so?
4 comments:
Thank you for saying this!
And you say you have nothing to blog about.
I still want to rent The Jane Austen Book Club. I read the book, and I remember it being not really that happy of a story... so I'm curious.
I've caught some of the PBS stuff. Missed Persuasion, couldn't get into Mansfield Park. Ok, so I watched Northanger Abbey and enjoyed it, and now I'm really enjoying the book.
My mom and I watched JABC last week. I wasn't particularly in the mood for it, but it was entertaining. Good cast. (Totally didn't realize one of them was Emily Blunt.)
I'm glad I didn't watch the Jane Austen bios though, since Atonement about did me in a couple weeks ago. At least I can tell myself someone made that one up.
The BBC Emma with Kate Beckinsale is great ("Badly done, Emma! Badly done!")
Becoming Jane was okay, not too sad. Remember, true love or not, we all die alone!
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