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Film Adaptation of Emma and the Changes Made by the Director ISSN No. 0974‐035X An Indexed Refereed Journal of Higher Education Towards Excellence UGC‐ACADEMIC STAFF COLLEGE, GUJARAT UNIVERSITY, AHMEDABAD, INDIA FILM ADAPTATION OF EMMA AND THE CHANGES MADE BY THE DIRECTOR Dr. Narendra K. Patel Abstract Film and television have become part and parcel of our daily life. The days are gone when people used to read literature for joy and entertainment. The study of novel and its film adaptation is an inter-medium study. A film is more like a novel, the action being presented not directly by actors but by a camera. Jane Austen is a famous novelist of the Eighteenth Century. There are number of film adaptation of Jane Austen’s novels. There are number of parameters to compare a novel with its film adaptation. The critics have not come to any conclusion as far the parameters are concerned. The researcher points out some of the parameters to compare any novel of Jane Austen with its any film adaptation. Changes made by the director, is one of the main parameters to compare a novel with its film adaptation. In this research paper the researcher compares Emma with its one of the film adaptations on the base of changes made by the director. Film Adaptation of Emma and the Changes Made by the Director Jane Austen once said of Emma, “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like” (Le Faye, Family Record 209). These words are as familiar to her readers as the brilliant opening paragraphs of her six novels. The reader can not be sure how serious Austen’s comment about Emma was but, judging from their own reactions to that character, readers can assume the author liked her as much as they do. Emma Woodhouse is; March, 2016. VOL.8. ISSUE NO. 1 www.ascgujarat.org Page | 38 Towards Excellence: An Indexed Refereed Journal of Higher Education / Dr. Narendra Patel / Page 38‐48 despite her many grave faults, a character the readers can enjoy and delight in because of her vitality and intelligence. There is no great adventure and high romance in the novel. Its most exciting events are social gatherings in a small town sixteen miles from London, engagements and weddings that take place there, and a brief report of ‘gipsies’ camped in the neighbourhood. The issues examined in it are as complex as human relations themselves. Emma, like Jane Austen’s other novels, deals with the subject of young ladies finding proper husbands. The novel deals with one community, several families and the two major characters- Emma Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley. The story reveals their friendship over seventeen years and the courtship that leads to their marriages. Intertwined with this simple story are the issues of marriage and freedom of choice, class consciousness and snobbery, morality, the evils of self-love and self-deception and the consciousness of women. Jane Austen deals with the complexities of social relations. She presents the reader with a view of the social life of the early nineteenth century; she focuses on the domestic lives of the characters involved. The two most important relationships concern the family and marriage. In Jane Austen’s day, both were nearly impossible to avoid. It was considered a women’s destiny to marry. How the woman goes about planning and securing her marriage is the issue at stake in Emma. Pre-arranged marriages between families had been the custom long before Austen’s time. By the eighteenth century, freedom of choice had become more of a factor. Jane Austen’s heroines reflect this growing independence, a concept new for women of that time. In Emma, women can exercise freedom of choice by the husbands they select or decline. Harriet can turn down Robert Martin’s first proposal and Emma can reject Mr. Elton. Emma’s fiery words to Mr. Knightley (in chapter-8) illustrate that the independence of women is still a fairly new concept to men as well. “... it is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her” (Austen Emma 47). In pre-arranged marriages, it was rare that people would cross class barriers and so the balance of society was not threatened. By Austen’s day, however, the emerging middle class had virtually bridged the gulf between the poor and the aristocracy. In Emma, the heroine’s governess can marry Mr. Weston and become the mistress of the Randalls estate; Jane Fairfax, orphaned and facing the bleak prospect of earning her living as a governess, can marry Frank March, 2016. VOL.8. ISSUE NO. 1 www.ascgujarat.org Page | 39 Towards Excellence: An Indexed Refereed Journal of Higher Education / Dr. Narendra Patel / Page 38‐48 Churchill, heir to the aristocratic Enscombe estate. As an heiress of thirty thousand pound, Emma does not need to consider the economics of marriage. The readers would expect Emma to find it simple to meet the right man. From the beginning the readers recognize that man to be Mr. Knightley, her neighbour and friend. But Emma’s progress toward that match will not be easy. She is hindered by her immaturity, her snobbery, her wilfulness and her need to dominate other people’s lives. The novel presents Emma’s journey to increased self-awareness that will result in the happy union with Mr. Knightley. On the surface this is what the story line of Emma is about, but the total subject matter of the book concerns much more than that. Within the chosen limits of upper-middle-class society and within the even more limited strict feminine point of view for telling the story, Jane Austen is fervently preoccupied with the way people behave. And this is the broad area of the moralist. Here is an account of the film adaptation of the novel in English only. 1. Emma (1948) BBC (105 Min.) Directed by: Michael Barry, Screenplay by: Judy Campbell, Produced by: Michael Barry 2. Emma (1954) NBC (1 hrs.) Screenplay by: Martine Bartlett & Peter Donat 3. Emma (1960) BBC (3 hrs.) Directed by: Campbell Logan, Screenplay by: Vincent Tilsley 4. Emma (1960) CBS (1 hrs.) Directed by: John Desmond, Screenplay by: Clair Roskam 5. Emma (1972) BBC (4 hrs.30 mins.) Directed by: John Glenister, Screenplay by: Denis Constanduros, Produced by: Martin Lawrence Cast: Emma Woodhouse: Doran Godwin, George Knightley: John Carson, Mr. Frank Churchill: Robert East, Harriet Smith: Debbie Bowen, Mr. Woodhouse: Donald Eccles, Miss Bates: Constance Chapman, Frank Churchill: Robert East, Jane Fairfax: Ania Marson, Mrs. Weston: Ellen Dryden, Mr. Weston: Raymond Adamson, Mrs. Elton: Fiona Walker , Mr. Elton: Timothy Peters , Harriet Smith: Debbie Bowen, Robert Martin: John Alkin , Mrs. Bates: Mary Holder , Williams: Vivienne Moore, Patty: Amber Thomas, Mrs. Cole: Hilda Fenemore, Shop Assistant: Norman Atkyns, Isabella Knightley: Belinda Tighe, John Knightley: March, 2016. VOL.8. ISSUE NO. 1 www.ascgujarat.org Page | 40 Towards Excellence: An Indexed Refereed Journal of Higher Education / Dr. Narendra Patel / Page 38‐48 Yves Tighe, Mrs Goddard: Mollie Sugden, Mrs Ford: Lala Lloyd, Betty Bickerton: Marian Tanner, Gypsy Boy: Sam Williams 6. Emma (1996) Miramax Films (2 hrs.) Directed by: Douglas McGrath, Screenplay by: Douglas McGrath, Produced by: Patrick Cassavetti and Steven Haft 7. Emma (1996) Meridian Broadcasting, A&E (1 hr. 47 mins.) Directed by: Diarmuid Lawrence, Screenplay by: Andrew Davies, Produced by: Sue Birtwistle 8. Emma (2009) BBC (2 hrs.20 mins.) Directed by: Jim O’Hanlon, Screenplay by: Sandy Welch, Produced by: George Ormond From all these adaptations the researcher has selected the 1972 version directed by John Glenister, screenplay by Denis Constanduros and produced by Martin Lawrence. Opening and Ending of the novel and the film: The film version begins in a similarly leisurely fashion with Emma arriving home after the marriage. The maker of the film was obviously not much concerned with immediately catching the attention of the viewer. The audience see a shot of an elegant mansion surrounded by blooming hydrangeas and of a carriage pulling up to it. The scene shifts to the interior where Emma enters, pauses at the bottom of the stairs, then starts upstairs. There she finds Mr. Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley discussing about Miss Taylor and her marriage to Mr. Weston. Emma claims to have made the match and plans to make another for Mr. Elton. Mr. Knightley opposes her plan for Mr. Elton. Mr. Woodhouse laments the service of cake at the wedding. The novel starts like this: “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her” (Austen Emma 5). Then the audience is introduced with Mr. Woodhouse, Miss Taylor, and Mr. Weston. The widower life of Mr. Woodhouse and the married life of Mr. Weston and Mrs. Weston (Miss Taylor) are described by Jane Austen. The discussion about the married life of Mr. and Mrs. March, 2016. VOL.8. ISSUE NO. 1 www.ascgujarat.org Page | 41 Towards Excellence: An Indexed Refereed Journal of Higher Education / Dr. Narendra Patel / Page 38‐48 Weston is going on in the dialogue form between Emma and Mr. Woodhouse, at the tea table. Mr. Knightley also joins them in their tea and discussion also. Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight-and thirty, was not only a very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly connected with it as the elder brother of Isabella’s husband.
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