Essay by Natalia Mohar
Art by Linda You
When Charlotte Brontë criticized Jane Austen’s ignorance of “the Passions” in an 1850 letter (414), she conveyed more than personal preference. These authors’ differing views on the nature of romantic love indicate that its meaning changes over time, as illuminated by the adaptive relationship between Austen’s 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice and its 2005 film adaptation. The film Pride & Prejudice (P&P) centres Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship and updates their love story by heightening their passion for each other to reflect a modern notion of love, a process this paper will refer to as romanticization. Various additions and alterations involving dialogue, performance, setting, mise-en-scène, and music romanticize Austen’s text, especially in the following scenes: Elizabeth and Darcy’s first interaction, his first proposal, her change of heart, and his second proposal. This romanticization appeals to a contemporary and predominantly female audience, associating P&P with the feminine and the popular—entangled concepts that have often been considered inferior to traditionally masculine elite culture. Founded on perceived hierarchies of art and gender, this ideology of status trivializes and dismisses the romanticized version of Austen’s canonical novel, failing to consider P&P’s value as an adaptation. Robert Stam claims that film adaptations, in a process akin to Darwinian evolution, act as “‘mutations’ that help their source novel ‘survive’” by adapting it to “changing environments and changing tastes” (3). Applying this metaphor of evolution to P&P reveals how its romanticization of Austen’s text functions as a “mutation” that, by catering to a twenty-first-century female audience, helps the story remain relevant and hence persist through different sociohistorical contexts.
It is first necessary to clarify the interconnected concepts of romance, gendered popular culture, and status that inform this essay’s analysis of how and to what effect P&P updates its source novel. Susan Ostrov Weisser claims that our twenty-first-century definition of love takes ideas found in Austen’s works—such as a belief that “sensible affection” and “mutual respect” contribute to an ideal marriage (37)—and amplifies them with a Romantic influence discernible in Brontë’s fiction which emphasizes “sexual desire, intense and all-consuming feeling, and longing for a transcendent ideal” (38). Weisser argues that this shift in the concept of love necessitates “Brontëfying” or romanticizing Austen to appeal to “a modern mass audience” (38–39). Pamela Demory notes that Austen adaptations like P&P attempt to “appeal specifically to female viewers” by incorporating elements of “popular romance” and “‘chick’ culture” (142), including conventions that reflect modern ideas of love. The association with women lowers the status of these adaptations according to an ideology that Tiffany Potter traces back to the eighteenth century, which links “women’s culture” with popular culture so that they are “each used circularly to affirm the lesser value and cultural contribution of the other” (11). Furthermore, just as the definition of romantic love is mutable over time, so is the status of a cultural product, according to Potter (8). This fluidity is exemplified by how P&P returns Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, a text historically subsumed into masculine high culture, to the feminine popular realm; to use Potter’s term for this process, the film “retrivializes” its source novel through romanticization meant to attract a female audience (21). The ideology that characterizes feminine popular culture as frivolous diverts attention from more fruitful discussions. For instance, Demory observes that by combining “high art” and “low art,” film adaptations of Austen’s works attract fans of “both classic fiction and light romance,” revealing commonalities between the two groups (135). Such an outcome aligns with Stam’s metaphor of evolution (3), as by romanticizing and hence popularizing Austen, an adaptation like P&P reaches a broader audience and thus sustains Austen’s influence in the twenty-first century.
P&P’s romanticization of its source text is evident from Elizabeth and Darcy’s first encounter at the Meryton ball, at which point the film introduces an initial mutual attraction that significantly alters the story’s trajectory. In Austen’s novel, Darcy is clearly not infatuated with Elizabeth when they first meet, as he glances at her and callously says, “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me” (47). He only comes to find Elizabeth attractive with time; while Darcy “at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty” (56), he eventually begins to acknowledge and appreciate, to his mortification, “the beautiful expression of her dark eyes” and her “light and pleasing [figure]” (57). This admiration grows until, near the end of the novel, he publicly declares that he has come to consider her “one of the handsomest women of [his] acquaintance” (247). On the other hand, P&P visually communicates Darcy’s attraction to Elizabeth from the outset. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen) does a double take when he first sees Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) and stares at her until she looks up (00:07:05–00:07:10). Both Macfadyen’s performance and the sequence of shots conveying his gaze lingering on Elizabeth make Darcy’s later dismissal of her as merely “tolerable” ring false.
Elizabeth’s impression of Darcy is not explored in the novel until after he rejects her, and thereby colours her opinion of him, but P&P fills in this narrative gap with Knightley’s performance and additional dialogue. This supplementation supports Linda Hutcheon’s claim that “[a]bsences and silences in prose narratives almost invariably get made into presences in performance media” (71), including characters’ reactions which, as Stam notes, are “usually left unspecified in a novel but absolutely crucial in film” (22). Elizabeth’s behaviour at the ball, as portrayed by Knightley, indicates that she is interested in, if not yet attracted to, Darcy. For instance, when she first catches Darcy staring at her, she giggles to herself (00:07:10–00:07:14), and as she stands conversing with Bingley and Jane, the camera conveys that she glances over at him (00:08:52–00:08:56). Furthermore, while Austen does not give Elizabeth any direct dialogue in this scene, the film does, and the first words Elizabeth speaks to Darcy imply her interest in him. As they stand at the edge of the dance floor, she creates an opportunity for him to invite her to dance by asking, “Do you dance, Mr. Darcy?” (00:09:43). P&P’s portrayal of Elizabeth and Darcy as being intrigued by each other so early on in their relationship is not only an alteration but one contrary to the novel’s notion of ideal love. At a later point in the text, Austen’s narrator suggests that the affection Elizabeth holds for Darcy after coming to know and respect him is a “less interesting” but more sensible “mode of attachment” than an infatuation “arising on a first interview … and even before two words have been exchanged,” which Elizabeth’s experience with Wickham has proven to be unreliable (252). P&P rejects Austen’s more pragmatic view of love through extraverbal clues and supplementary dialogue that introduce the trope of “love (or rather attraction) at first sight,” setting the stage for the updated romance that will unfold throughout the film.
The mutual attraction P&P sets in motion does not ebb when these characters experience strong negative emotions during the first proposal scene, but rather escalates into passion and desire. In both Austen’s novel and P&P, Darcy confesses his love for Elizabeth and proposes when they meet again at Kent, but his insulting manner and her misconceptions lead to rejection. However, the film diverges from Austen’s text by charging this emotional scene with sexual tension through a change of setting and the actors’ embodiment of the characters, conveying a more modern idea of overpowering desire. First, P&P relocates the proposal from a room at Hunsford Parsonage to a more dramatic outdoor setting, the grand Temple of Apollo in the garden at Stourhead (01:12:36), permitting the addition of a downpour in which both Elizabeth and Darcy are drenched. Demory attributes this rain to the film’s intertextual relationship with other Pride and Prejudice adaptations that include “‘wet’ scenes,” such as the 1995 BBC miniseries and the 2004 film Bride and Prejudice (139). This intertextuality reflects Stam’s point that in addition to a source novel, its adaptations “can come to form a larger, cumulative hypotext available to the filmmaker who comes relatively ‘late’ in the series” (31). Demory claims that the “wetness” drawn from this expanded hypotext (namely the 1995 and 2004 adaptations mentioned previously) serves to evoke the image of sexual activity without literally representing it (140). By employing intertextual “water imagery” during the first proposal, P&P suffuses Elizabeth and Darcy’s quarrel with sexuality and, as Demory remarks, equality due to how both characters are soaked (141). In this manner, the outdoor setting subtly contributes to introducing more modern ideas of mutual sexual desire to Austen’s work.
P&P also heightens the passion in the first proposal scene with Knightley and Macfadyen’s performance. Stam notes that film can manifest the “extraverbal aspects” of discourse, allowing us to “witness the facial or corporeal expression that accompanies the words” and alters “the ostensible meaning” (19). By dramatizing Austen’s novel, which prioritizes the verbal aspect of this interaction, P&P must represent the expressions and body language of the characters, and the film utilizes this supplementary visual dimension to charge the proposal scene with sexual energy in a more conspicuous manner than the “wetness” does. During their heated argument, Elizabeth and Darcy gradually move closer, glance at each other’s lips, and Darcy leans forward in a manner that suggests a kiss is imminent (01:11:26–01:12:25). The actors’ portrayal of these characters implies that their desire persists even when they offend each other. Weisser claims that Brontë’s fiction borrows from the Romantics the idea that “romantic love entails intense feeling, uncontrollable longing even in the face of almost certain rejection” (40), an idea reflected in the modern association between romance and overwhelming passion. P&P adopts this view of love and enhances it in the first proposal scene by depicting Elizabeth and Darcy longing for each other even after the rejection has taken place. Thus, in contrast to Austen’s novel, where any sense of romance is overshadowed by negative feelings—including mutual anger (186), Elizabeth’s “indignation” (187), and Darcy’s “incredulity and mortification” (188)—in P&P, Elizabeth and Darcy’s passion for each other begins to materialize in this emotional moment. The mutual attraction the film foregrounds from these characters’ first interaction continues to be amplified, transforming into powerful desires that reflect a romanticized notion of love.
In the sequence where Elizabeth visits Pemberley with the Gardiners, P&P focuses specifically on female desire. In Austen’s novel, the narrator describes how Elizabeth’s opinion of Darcy improves as she tours his estate, culminating in “a more gentle sensation towards” him when she contemplates a portrait depicting his likeness (231). Furthermore, after Elizabeth and Darcy run into each other, she reflects on his behaviour and suggests that their feelings vary in degree of intensity: in contrast to Darcy’s “ardent love” for her, Elizabeth holds much more temperate feelings toward him, including esteem, gratitude, and “a real interest in his welfare” (243). These narrated thoughts and emotions must be transcoded into a different medium in P&P. According to Hutcheon, film can use “visual and aural correlatives for interior events” to reveal characters’ thoughts and feelings to viewers (58). P&P employs both methods to externalize and refashion Elizabeth’s emotional journey. First, the film substitutes the novel’s picture gallery with the sculpture gallery at Chatsworth House (01:22:34–01:23:32), where the Pemberley sequence is shot, which is significant considering Roberta Grandi’s point that objects can have “metonymical meanings” (49). For example, Grandi claims that the portrait of Darcy in the novel not only stands in for his person but also represents Elizabeth’s attitude towards him (49). By replacing this portrait with a bust of Darcy/Macfadyen among the sensual statues at Chatsworth, P&P alters the nature of Elizabeth’s feelings. Grandi observes that by “stress[ing] details of the naked bodies of the sculptures through close-ups and reaction shots on Elizabeth’s face,” the camera “fill[s] this emotional moment with unmistakable erotic suggestions” (50). Furthermore, concluding this series of sensual images with a shot of Elizabeth standing before Darcy’s bust allows the cinematography to channel her growing desire, as evoked by her contemplation of the statues, onto his character (01:23:33). The change of mise-en-scène, including the objects in the gallery and how they are filmed, conveys stronger emotions than Elizabeth’s “more gentle sensation” in the novel.
Not only is this passion alluded to visually but also aurally through the film score composed by Dario Marianelli. Hutcheon notes that sound in films “can be used to connect inner and outer states in a less explicit way than do camera associations” (41), an ability exhibited by the cue titled “The Living Sculptures of Pemberley,” which begins playing when Elizabeth first enters Darcy’s estate (01:22:09). This cue reveals the drift of Elizabeth’s thoughts to the viewer, introducing a subtle but significant reaccentuation. Specifically, the music swells as Elizabeth peruses the sculptures, largely drowning out the conversation between the Gardiners and the housekeeper in which the latter praises Darcy’s virtues. This dialogue is essential in Austen’s novel because it helps Elizabeth change her mind about Darcy, as she believes that “the praise of an intelligent servant” is a reliable indicator of merit (231). P&P sidelines Darcy’s redemption in favour of foregrounding Elizabeth’s desire, as the music suggests she is more engrossed by the sensual statues than the ongoing verbal exchange. While Elizabeth’s realization at this point in the novel concerns her newfound respect and admiration for Darcy, P&P transforms it into a sexual awakening. The fact that this reaccentuation recognizes female desire reflects the modern idea of equality that Weisser identifies as early as in Brontë’s fiction, in which “women’s desires” are portrayed “as legitimate and equal to men’s” (48), and which Demory claims is a significant element of chick flicks (141). Hence, by eroticizing Elizabeth’s feelings at Pemberley through visual and aural means, the film caters to contemporary female audiences.
The amplified passion between Elizabeth and Darcy reaches its peak during the second proposal scene, in which P&P employs music to elevate their love to the level of the sublime. The film first makes this moment more intimate by, rather than having Elizabeth and Darcy set out from Longbourn with others during the day (Austen 317), showing Elizabeth (clad in a nightgown and robe) wandering alone in a field at dawn before Darcy appears (01:52:00–01:53:18). As Darcy strides toward her, the cue titled “Your Hands Are Cold” grows louder and shifts into a familiar melody (01:53:18–01:54:04). Hutcheon notes that “a multitrack medium” like film can “make meaning possible on many levels” (70), including through sound. “Your Hands Are Cold” closely resembles “Liz On Top of the World,” which plays during the scenic shot of Elizabeth standing at the edge of a precipice earlier in the film (01:19:51–01:20:22). To comprehend the significance of the musical repetition in these separate scenes, it is necessary to consider a line spoken by Elizabeth in the novel: “What are men to rocks and mountains?” (160). Not only does P&P distance Elizabeth from this line by having Mary and Mr. Gardiner voice it instead (01:18:50, 01:20:35), but the film also contradicts its sentiment through a musical motif that does seem to equate men with rocks and mountains. The music in these scenes implies that Elizabeth’s feelings for Darcy in the second proposal scene are just as intense as the rapture she experiences on top of a cliff, gazing out at the English landscape. In this subtle but powerful manner, the film equates its heightened version of romantic love with the experience of the sublime.
The music preluding Elizabeth and Darcy’s interaction sets the tone for a romanticized proposal, in which words convey emotions so intense they transcend the body, and gestures simultaneously ground this passion through sensuality. P&P cuts much of Austen’s dialogue from this scene, especially lines concerning Elizabeth and Darcy rehashing the past and making amends (319–323). However, one significant line is added, or rather, transposed and transformed. In Austen’s novel, when Darcy begins to fall for Elizabeth during her stay at Netherfield, the narrator states that “Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her” (79). P&P seems to transpose this sentiment to the second proposal scene and externalizes it by having Darcy directly express an enhanced version to Elizabeth: “You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you” (01:55:17–01:55:22). This iconic line reflects the modern view of passionate love as being all-consuming, involving both the corporeal and spiritual parts of oneself. While the inclusion of the soul in Darcy’s declaration marks the transcendent nature of his emotions, the body remains key to this moment in the film. In contrast to Austen’s heroine, who cannot even make eye contact with Darcy in this scene (319), P&P’s Elizabeth boldly approaches him, takes his hand, and kisses it (01:55:34–01:55:45). This gesture provides a sense of closure as Elizabeth literally accepts the hand she rejected during the first proposal scene, when Darcy said, “Please do me the honour of accepting my hand” (01:09:21). Furthermore, the kiss instigates the intimate and sensual relationship between the pair, as it is followed by Darcy gently placing his other hand on her cheek and both of them leaning forward so that their foreheads come to rest against each other (01:55:49–01:56:05). The film’s focus on physical contact restores the corporeal aspect of these characters’ passion for each other, which is essential to manifesting their love on screen. Thus, by altering key stages of Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship throughout the film, P&P develops their romance into the ideal form of love according to modern standards, into a love story that appeals to a twenty-first-century female audience.
The matter of P&P’s alternative endings in its UK and US releases illustrates the effects of romanticizing Austen’s canonical novel. While the UK release concludes with Mr. Bennet granting his consent for Elizabeth and Darcy to marry (01:59:15–02:00:16), the US release includes an additional scene extrapolated from the novel, reflecting the sentiments expressed in Elizabeth’s letter to Mrs. Gardiner: “I am the happiest creature in the world … Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world, that he can spare from me” (331). The US ending concretizes these feelings in a nighttime sequence depicting Elizabeth and Darcy lounging outside Pemberley. The married couple are shown expressing their happiness and displaying physical affection, with Elizabeth stroking Darcy’s bare calf and him kissing her face tenderly, culminating in a kiss on the lips (Universal Pictures 00:07:05–00:08:43). Like other instances of updated romance in P&P, this scene manifests and amplifies the more subtle emotions found in Austen’s novel. This sentimental ending was cut from the UK release due to negative responses from British test audiences, but it was preserved for the US release to appeal to American audiences, who “like a little more sugar in [their] champagne,” according to P&P’s director Joe Wright (qtd. in Stanley). After the separate versions of the film were released, “popular demand” led to the inclusion of the US ending in a UK re-release (Stanley). These mixed responses to a scene epitomizing the film’s romanticized portrayal of Elizabeth and Darcy indicate how ideologies of status play out in practice. The disdain for the additional ending, which has been variously labelled “cheesy,” “sexed-up,” and “silly” (Stanley)—examples of derogatory terms often applied to the feminine and the popular—seems to be driven by a bias against the embodiment of passion that associates P&P with “frivolous” popular romance. Nevertheless, the film’s romanticization of its source text is also evidently sought after, gratifying mainstream audiences who hold modern notions of love. Popular romance may be diminished according to hierarchical ideas of art and gender, but Demory highlights that it is also “an undeniably popular and influential form” (135). By drawing from this tradition, P&P popularizes Austen’s novel, and while this romanticization is sometimes perceived as lowering the adaptation’s quality, it is also desired by many viewers.
Even as a high-fidelity adaptation, P&P alters Austen’s text significantly. The film employs the diverse means of expression at its disposal—verbal, visual, and aural—to fill in the gaps left by Pride and Prejudice and enhance the romance between Elizabeth and Darcy. These adaptive moves render the film a cultural product worth analyzing. Furthermore, the entertainment value of P&P should not be dismissed. As previously stated, popular culture appeals to a wide variety of people, especially when it blends “high” and “low” art (Demory 135), as do popularized adaptations of canonical texts. Considering the manner in which these adaptations cater to their contemporary audiences reveals how cultural perceptions and values shift over time, as, for instance, P&P’s romanticized portrayal of Elizabeth and Darcy illuminates the changing concept of love in Western culture. To recall Stam’s metaphor of evolution (3), film adaptations indicate which “mutations” help texts survive and thrive in different contexts. Productive scholarly discussions arise from examining the causes, mechanisms, and effects of mutations such as P&P’s romanticization without making evaluative judgements based on outworn ideologies of status.
Works Cited
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Brontë, Charlotte. “To W. S. Williams, 12 April 1850, [Haworth].” The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: With a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends, vol. 2: 1848-1851, edited by Margaret Smith, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 413–4. Alexander Street, search-alexanderstreet-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/view/work/bibliographic_entity|document|4208206.
Demory, Pamela. “Jane Austen and the Chick Flick in the Twenty-first Century.” Adaptation Studies: New Approaches, edited by Christa Albrecht-Crane and Dennis R. Cutchins, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2010, pp. 121–49.
Grandi, Roberta. “The Passion Translated: Literary and Cinematic Rhetoric in Pride and Prejudice (2005).” Literature-Film Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 1, 2008, pp. 45–51. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A177028508/LitRC?u=ubcolumbia&sid=summon&xid=b4570ea5. PDF download.
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Marianelli, Dario, comp. Pride & Prejudice (Music from the Motion Picture). Perf. Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the English Chamber Orchestra. Universal Classics and Jazz, 2005. Apple Music, music.apple.com/ca/album/pride-prejudice-music-from-the-motion-picture/1442444045.
Potter, Tiffany. “Historicizing the Popular and the Feminine: The Rape of the Lock and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” Women, Popular Culture, and the Eighteenth Century, edited by Tiffany Potter, University of Toronto Press, 2012, pp. 5–24. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442689985.5.
Pride & Prejudice. Directed by Joe Wright, performances by Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, Universal Pictures, 2005. Audio Cine Films, digitalcampus-swankmp-net.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/audiocine/watch/E13B690D1D35F0F7?referrer=direct.
Stam, Robert. “Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation.” Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation, edited by Robert Stam and Alessandra Raengo, Blackwell, 2005, pp. 1–52.
Stanley, Alessandra. “Oh, Mr. Darcy … Yes, I Said Yes!” The New York Times, 20 Nov. 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/weekinreview/oh-mr-darcy-yes-i-said-yes.html.
Universal Pictures. “Pride & Prejudice | Completely, Perfectly, Incandescently Happy.” YouTube, 30 Sep. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4upyq5QztM&t=424s.
Weisser, Susan Ostrov. “Chapter 2. Why Charlotte Brontë Despised Jane Austen (and What That Tells Us about the Modern Meaning of Love).” The Glass Slipper: Women and Love Stories, Rutgers University Press, 2013. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/book/26844.