Comparing the Text and the Two Filmed Versions of Jane Austens Emma Es

Comparing the Text and the Two Filmed Versions of Jane Austens Emma after reading Jane Austens Emma, then viewing the BBC production and Miramax films based on the saucy one can understand why most authors are horror-struck over the translation of their novels into film. The two film versions are quite dissimilar from one another, but both take such liberties with the original text as to wonder why the film makers of each even daunted with Austens work. The BBC production encompasses more of the tone and atmosphere of the text, the polite, mannered, upper-class social environment of squared-toe England than does the Miramax version, but both make variants of the text that belie the filmmakers docket than they do of Austens own. The films are different from the novel in many ways, including characterization, setting, action, colloquy and theme. For example, the Miramax version of Emma with Gwyneth Paltrow portrays an Emma who is more like cupid armed with the bow of mod femi nism. In the BBC version, Emma is not portrayed as lightly and as humorous. Instead, she is turned into a bantering harpy who lacks much of the charm of Austens Emma. This analysis will discriminate the first chapter of Emma with the corresponding opening scene in each film. By doing so, we will see not only many differences among them (including some intrusive additions on behalf of the films), but we will also see how the filmmakers differed in their interpretation of Austens original. The opening scene of each film directly corresponds to the first chapter of Austens novel. In the text this chapter describes Emma Woodhouse as spoiled and self-willed, convinced she knows what is right for other spate particularly when it comes to affairs... ...express all the ideology of modern day feminism. Unfortunately, neither of these scenarios is plication to the scenario of an unconventional Victorian woman as portrayed by a Victorian female author. This is not to say that the filmed v ersions of Emma are not entertaining or without merit in their own right. rather, it is to suggest that or else of faithfully recreating Austens work, the filmmakers felt it necessary to add their own personal interpretations of the work, modern interpretations that serve to undermine Austens text. Like the tightly controlled, oppressive environment of Victorian England, Austens Emma is best understood from within the confines the ideology of that elitist microcosm, not finished the lens of modern interpreters who try to impose their own values on it. WORKS CITED Austen, J. Emma. F. A. Thorpe Ltd., Great Britain, 1995.