Jane Addiction Part 8 - Emma

Welcome to my 10 week critique of films based on the works of Jane Austen. I will review each installment of PBS's "Masterpiece: The Complete Jane Austen" and also take a look at other adaptations of the same novel. Enjoy!

Emma

Emma Woodhouse leads a charmed life at her widowed father's country estate. Being rich, clever, popular and used to getting her own way, Emma thinks she knows all there is to know about life and love. When her beloved governess gets married, Emma takes full credit for the match and decides to occupy herself by playing cupid amongst her company (as she has determined, at age 20, that she herself will never fall in love and therefore has no need to marry). She concentrates on uniting Harriet, an impressionable young orphan, with social climber Mr. Elton, despite her good friend Mr. Knightley's warnings against meddling. Emma is so assured in the brilliance of her scheme that she successfully convinces Harriet to refuse humble farmer Mr Martin's marriage proposal. By the time Emma discovers Mr. Elton is more interested in herself than in Harriet, her friend's hopes for marrying into wealth have reached impossible heights. At the same time, Emma reconsiders her stance on marriage when she ignites a casual flirtation with impetuous Frank Churchill. Mr. Knightley's aggravation mounts when he sees his young friend pursuing the wrong man.

When Jane Austen began writing Emma, she told a friend, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like". Millions of readers would disagree, but truly, no other Austen heroine is more difficult to render likable on screen. This is not a problem in Diarmuid Lawrence's 1996 television version of "Emma" (the eighth installment of "The Complete Jane Austen"), which stars a young Kate Beckinsale as our know-it-all protagonist. Beckinsale gets it right, because she's smarter than the character. She gets inside Emma's unwarranted swagger and plays it so sternly that you can't help but laugh at her when she solemnly speaks of her misguided plans. There are moments when you almost want to hate her, like when she huffs and puffs at Harriet and Mr. Martin every time they meet. But just as you are cursing her for interfering with her friend's happiness, you're laughing at Emma's serious and completely unfounded belief that Harriet must be the natural daughter of an aristocrat. The subtle ridiculousness is all in the script (another of Andrew Davies's spotless adaptations) and Beckinsale is expert at translating that into a quiet scowl or a smug grin.

It's a shame that this little-remembered "Emma" was overshadowed by the thankfully forgotten feature film version that was also released in 1996. That Emma starred a preening Gwyneth Paltrow as our heroine. The problem with Paltrow is that she doesn't seem altogether different from her character - haughty, indignant and in love with herself. Her chemistry with Jeremy Northam's Knightley left me cold. The Internet Movie Database claims that Northam is married to a woman in real life, but this adaptation convinced me that he was gay. Topping off this disappointing mess is screenwriter/director Douglas McGrath's script, which is hallow of Jane's words and full of scenes that aren't in the book.

John Glenister's 1972 five hour "Emma" mini-series promises a more thorough adaptation of the story, but ruined this writer's inclination to watch by starring hideous, shrill Doran Godwin. The first dvd was back in the case before the first scene had ended.

Conversely, I have never watched another film more frequently than writer/director Amy Heckerling's Clueless, 1995's far-flung adaptation of the text. Not only is this the best modernization of any Austen novel, it is also the best Emma. In this version, Emma is Cher (Alicia Silverstone), a beautiful and charming Beverly Hills high school student whose main interests include dressing well, driving terribly (with a learner's permit, without an adult), caring for her gruff attorney father (played by brilliant character actor Dan Hedaya) and, of course, match-making. Eager to prove to her "do-gooder" ex-stepbrother Josh (Paul Rudd) that her ploys are not purely based on self-interest, Cher takes on her toughest project to date - a working class, East coast stoner named Tai (Brittany Murphy). Despite Tai's immediate interest in dizzy skateboarder Travis Birkenstock, Cher determines that popular and arrogant Elton is a better choice for her wayward pal. And the parody builds from there.

What makes this movie such a great adaptation is that, even with all of the contemporary twists, the all-important tone is exactly as it should be. Emma is one of Austen's more comic stories and this retelling is genuinely hilarious, from the "As if!" valley girl slang to the clever choice of casting Christian - the modern-day Frank Churchill - as a homosexual (it isn't hard to believe that Frank may have been gay, as well). The point is that Heckerling managed to use the framework of a brilliant tale to tell a story that is as funny to modern viewers as the original must have been to a more genteel audience. I'd like to think that Jane, herself, would be proud of that feat.

The Thaw

The sky pounded out a half foot of snow on Friday evening. On the Tuesday prior, I was wandering through a soft, humid haze which emanated from acres and acres of defrosting lawns. Today is Easter Sunday, the fourth day of spring, and though I find myself, again, in a winter white world, I’m happy to report that the sidewalks are mostly clear. Ice doesn’t form so much when the ground is no longer frozen solid. It’s March in Michigan and I like to rally around the small victories.

You see, in Michigan the trees don’t bloom until the second half of April. By June, you can be reasonably assured that you won’t see your breath in a chilly breeze until September, but there are no guarantees in April or May. Winter usually suffers a slow death, so I find myself savoring all the quiet little harbingers of spring. The dawn of Daylight Saving Time is the first tangible reminder of summer’s existence, and I love that it now falls so early in the year. The evening is bright and that’s a change you can really feel. The vernal equinox – the moment when the sun’s direct light rises above the equator – is a more subtle, but no less significant change. This is the start of daytime’s six-month reign over night. To me, this is the true New Year’s Day.

That may be because I was born this time of year. I’ve always felt like I was really lucky to born in April, when there is so much promise of fun times ahead and all the Michigan people are experiencing every warm day as a moment of mass euphoria. Everyone is in an incredibly good mood when it’s 70 degrees and sunny in April. It’s like the entire population is on really good drugs. We’re just so happy that we can finally barbecue and have sex without socks again. It’s the yin to February’s yang. You can’t understand how those first warm days feel unless you’ve known a Michigan February, when everyone is depressed and driving poorly.

But don’t forget, winter can rise from the dead, like a bad action film villain, just to take another shot at your tender, thawing heart. This mini-blizzard from two days ago is a perfect example, and we’ve seen that sort of thing happen at the end of April, after many of the flowers have bloomed. And, snap! Everyone is back to being a February grump. That’s why I think it’s really important to focus on the little changes – the days that grow longer, those pregnant tree branches that are looking a little red and fuzzy around the edges, that first daffodil that you spot by the side of the road, the more frequent chirping of birds, and so on. Maybe I can trade this thick coat in for a jacket, and maybe I don’t need to wear a hat today. I get excited for these things, because even under all this Easter snow, the promise is still there.

Remember, Remember, Remember, Remember

I recently heard the theme from Fame on the radio, and quite unexpectedly, I was flung back about 25 years. Fame was a 1980 film before it was adapted for the telly in ’82. I don’t remember much about the movie, except the Oscar-winning song and that it was about high school performing arts students, but I absolutely loved the TV show. I’ve probably seen every episode, though it’s been about 20 years since I’ve watched it. But isn’t it strange how TV memories work their way into your subconscious mind and it turns out there’s all this space in your long term memory for an old Wrigley Spearmint gum jingle or the ad for the Pizza Party board game (bunch of fat guys with giant 'staches singing "Par-ty, Pizza Par-ty")? Well, that’s how it is for my brain when it comes to “Fame”. In fact, “Fame” may have been the most important television show of my childhood, and considering that I spent a good 15-20% of my youth in front of a TV set, that equals a pretty heavy influence.

Very often, I think about some random aspect of the show as it connects to my everyday life and I’m amazed that it should resonate that deeply after all these years. For instance, “Fame” was my introduction to anorexia. Remember when Holly the ballerina became obsessed with weight loss and stopped eating and then she went to the psych ward for anorexic chicks and befriended this other girl who taught her how to be bulimic and then that girl died and Holly “saw the light” and decided to eat breakfast and got to go to prom where her AC Slater-looking boyfriend serenaded her with Lionel Richie’s “Hello”? Well, shit, I remember and what’s more, for my whole life, every time I hear someone mention anorexia, I automatically think Holly/psych ward/dead girl/weird boyfriend with big greasy hair.

As an aside, I find it interesting that Cynthia Gibb, the actress who played Holly, also played the starring role in the made-for-TV movie, “The Karen Carpenter Story”. In an industry where most women could qualify as anorexic, how did she get typecast?

Anyway, I think the reason I loved “Fame” so much is that I wanted it to be my life. I wanted to go to the school where there were plausible outbreaks of song and dance in the hallways. I wanted to learn ballet from Clair Huxtable’s sister (Debbie Allen) and play the cello with the girl from Footloose (Lori Singer). If I could have been anyone on the show, I would have been Nia Peeples’s Nicole, because she had cool hair and was adopted, which struck me as sort of exotic. I last remember Nia Peeples hosting “Party Machine,” a late night dance show that followed Arsenio Hall. And just like Arsenio, I haven’t heard much of her since then.

But getting back to “Fame,” one of the things that made it really cool and more than just a teenybopper musical was the fact that it took place in New York in the ‘80’s, and boy, was it skanky. The neighborhood was rough, drugs and crime were everywhere, racial tensions were high. But against this dirty backdrop – which seemed to include a lot of grungy sets and costumes, as if, in my sister’s words, the show had been shot through a haze of Murphy’s Oil Soap – these kids worked their asses off pursuing artistic dreams. My young mind found that pretty fucking poetic.

One thing that really confused my young mind was when I would tune in for a new episode and instead, there would be one of those “The Kids from Fame” concerts. Apparently the actors went on tour, singing and dancing the show’s most beloved numbers. I felt a little cheated when that came on, though I always enjoyed it. Still, I found it disconcerting that, even though the actors were essentially singing and dancing in character, they were announced by their real names. When I would watch the next episode a week later, I found it very difficult to suspend disbelief because I had just seen the actors performing as themselves and now I was supposed to believe that Nia was Nicole and Janet Jackson was Cleo.

Speaking of Janet (Miss Jackson, if you’re nasty), this was her last TV role before she became a musicale superstar. Not only was she “Fame’s” Cleo, she was also Charlene (a.k.a. Willis’s girlfriend) from "Diff'rent Strokes" and Penny from "Good Times". Who can forget Penny, the little girl whose mother beat her with a hot iron? That “Good Times” wins second place for Most Fucked Up Sitcom Episode Ever*, and certainly many of us thought that Janet would be hard-pressed (ha ha) to surpass that performance. By the age of eighteen, she was a veteran sitcom actress and maybe no one expected her to be more than that chick from TV who is also Michael Jackson’s sister. And now, the emergence of her very boob is enough to send middle-America into hysterics. Who knew?

I guess that watching Janet rise to such stardom was like seeing the “Fame” dream come true. And I suppose that being famous was very appealing to me as a child. Now, I tend to think that being famous is mostly a pain in the ass, but I love the idea of being able to live and breathe your artistic pursuit. And I can’t think of any other television show that so impressed me with that notion. Not even Star Search.

*The first place winner is the “Diff’rent Strokes” when the boss of WKRP tries to drug and molest Arnold and Dudley.