Pride and Prejudice (1995 TV series)

Show name	Pride and Prejudice
Caption	UK DVD cover showing Jennifer Ehle (Elizabeth Bennet) and Colin Firth (Mr Darcy)
Genre	Costume drama
Writer	Andrew Davies (from the novel by Jane Austen)
Director	Simon Langton
Starring	Jennifer EhleColin Firth
Composer	Carl Davis
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Num episodes	6
Producer	Sue Birtwistle
Camera	Single camera
Runtime	55 minutes (each)
Channel	BBC One
Picture format	PAL (576i)1080i50 (HDTV) (blu-ray)
First aired	24 September 1995
Last aired	29 October 1995
Website	http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/prideandprejudice/

Pride and Prejudice is a six-episode 1995 British television drama, adapted by Andrew Davies from Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice. Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth starred as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. Produced by Sue Birtwistle and directed by Simon Langton, the serial was a BBC production with additional funding from the American A&E; Network. BBC One originally broadcast the 55-minute episodes from 24 September to 29 October in 1995. The A&E; Network aired the serial in double episodes on three consecutive nights beginning 14 January 1996.

Set in England in the early 19th century, Pride and Prejudice tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet's (Benjamin Whitrow and Alison Steadman) five unmarried daughters (Susannah Harker, Jennifer Ehle, Lucy Briers, Polly Maberly, Julia Sawalha) after the rich and eligible Mr. Bingley (Crispin Bonham-Carter) and his status-conscious friend, Mr. Darcy, have moved into their neighbourhood. While Bingley takes an immediate liking to the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane, Darcy has difficulty adapting to local society and repeatedly clashes with the second-eldest Bennet daughter, Elizabeth. The New York Times called the adaptation "a witty mix of love stories and social conniving, cleverly wrapped in the ambitions and illusions of a provincial gentry". Birtwistle had worked with him on the mid-1980s comedy film Dutch Girls, but he repeatedly turned down her offer as he neither felt attracted to Austen's feminine perspective nor believed himself to be right for the role. Birtwistle's persistent coaxing and his deeper looks into the Darcy character finally convinced him to accept the role. Firth and Ehle began a romantic relationship during the filming of the series, which only received media attention after the couple's separation.

Benjamin Whitrow and BAFTA-nominated Alison Steadman were cast to play Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth's distinguished but financially imprudent and occasionally self-indulgent parents. Steadman was offered the role without auditions or screen tests. Elizabeth's four sisters, whose ages ranged between 15 and 22, were cast to look dissimilar from each other. Susannah Harker portrayed Elizabeth's beautiful older sister Jane, who desires to only see good in others. Lucy Briers, Polly Maberly, and Julia Sawalha played Elizabeth's younger sisters – the plain Mary, the good-natured but flighty and susceptible Kitty, and frivolous and headstrong Lydia. Being 10 years older than 15-year-old Lydia, Julia Sawalha of Absolutely Fabulous fame had enough acting experience to get the role without screen tests. Joanna David and Tim Wylton appeared as the Gardiners, Elizabeth's maternal aunt and uncle. David Bamber played the sycophantic clergyman, Mr. Collins, a cousin of Mr. Bennet. Lucy Scott portrayed Elizabeth's best friend and Mr. Collins's wife, Charlotte Lucas.

The producers found Crispin Bonham-Carter to have the best physical contrast to Firth's Darcy and gave him his first major television role as the good-natured and wealthy Mr. Charles Bingley. a handsome militia lieutenant whose charm conceals his licentiousness and greed, but Adrian Lukis was cast instead. Anna Chancellor of Four Weddings and a Funeral fame played Mr. Bingley's sister Caroline Bingley (of interest to Austen fans Anna Chancellor is also Jane Austen's niece by eight generations ). Mr. Bingley's other sister and his brother-in-law were played by Lucy Robinson (Louisa Hurst), and Rupert Vansittart (Mr. Hurst). Casting the role of Darcy's young sister, Georgiana, proved hard as the producers were looking for a young actress who appeared innocent, proud and yet shy, had class and could also play the piano. After auditioning over 70 actresses, Simon Langton suggested Joanna David's (Mrs. Gardiner) real-life daughter Emilia Fox for the part. Barbara Leigh-Hunt was cast as Darcy's meddling aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, without auditions or screen tests. Birtwistle in particular felt that a new adaptation on film would serve the drama better than the previous videotaped Pride and Prejudice television adaptations, which looked too "undernourished" and "unpoetic". Emphasising sex and money as the driving themes of the story, The biggest technical difficulty proved to be adapting the long letters in the second half of the story. Davies employed techniques such as voice-overs, flashbacks, and having the characters read the letters to themselves and to each other. Davies added some dialogue to clarify events from the novel to a modern audience, but left the novel's dialogue mostly intact. Two weeks before filming began, about 70 of the cast and crew gathered for the script read-through, followed by rehearsing, lessons for dancing, horse-riding, fencing, and other skills that needed to be ready ahead of the actual filming. Reflecting the wealth differences between the main characters, the filming location for Longbourn showed the comfortable family house of the Bennet family, whereas Darcy's Pemberley needed to look like the "most beautiful place", showcasing good taste and the history of the aristocracy.

The producers found Belton House in Grantham, Lincolnshire the best match to Lady Catherine de Bourgh's estate, Rosings,

The producers imagined Darcy to be dark despite no such references in the novel, and asked Firth to dye his naturally light-brown hair, his eyebrows and lashes, black. They additionally instructed all male actors to let their hair grow before filming began and warned them to shave off their moustaches. Three brunette wigs were made to cover Ehle's short, blonde hair, and one wig for Alison Steadman (Mrs. Bennet) because of her thick, heavy hair. Susannah Harker's (Jane) hair was slightly lightened to contrast with Elizabeth's, and was arranged in a classic Greek style to highlight the character's beauty. Mary's plainness was achieved by painting spots on Lucy Briers's face; her hair was greased to suggest an unwashed appearance and was arranged to emphasise the actress's protruding ears. As Kitty and Lydia were too young and wild to have their hair done by the maids, the actresses' hair was not changed much. Makeup artist Caroline Noble had always considered Mr. Collins a sweaty character with a moist upper lip; she also greased up David Bamber's hair and gave him a low part to suggest baldness, although the actor was not balding at all. Among the songs and movements that were played in the serial were Handel's "Air con Variazioni" and "Slumber, Dear Maid" from his opera Xerxes, Mozart's "Rondo Alla Turca", "Voi Che Sapete", and other music from his operas The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, Beethoven's Andante Favori, the second movement from Muzio Clementi's Sonatina No.4, and the traditional folk song "The Barley Mow". A soundtrack with Davis's themes was released on CD in 1995.

As dancing was an integral part of social life and courtship in Austen's time, many key scenes in the book were set at dances or balls. Choreographer Jane Gibson used a 1966 book named The Apted Book of Country Dances by W.S. Porter for instruction, which included several late-18th-century dances by Charles and Samuel Thompson such as "The Shrewsbury Lasses", "A Trip to Highgate", and "Mr. Beveridge's Maggot". Although these dances gave the mini series an impression of authenticity, they were not correct for the period being depicted, as they would have already been out-dated by the time the story takes place. Some fifteen dances were choreographed and rehearsed before filming began. Polly Maberly and Julia Sawalha, who played the dance-enthusiastic Kitty and Lydia, had three days to learn all of the dances. Three days were allotted for the filming of the ball at Netherfield, whose pace and style designedly focused on elegance rather than the community enjoying themselves as at the dance at Meryton. Like the musicians, the dancers had tiny earpieces with music playing to not affect dialogue recording. Many wide-shots of Elizabeth's and Darcy's dance at Netherfield later turned out to be unusable because of a hair trapped in front of a camera lens, and the editors resorted to close-up shots and material provided by a steadicam.

Themes and style

Adaptations of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice have been analysed in numerous scholarly studies. The BBC drama received praise for its faithfulness to the original novel, Describing the adaptation as "a witty mix of love stories and social conniving, cleverly wrapped in the ambitions and illusions of a provincial gentry", The adaptation instead opens with a view of Darcy's and Bingley's horses as they race across a field toward the Netherfield estate, expressing vitality; Elizabeth watches them before breaking into a run herself. While the novel indicates Elizabeth's independence and energy in her three-mile trek to Netherfield, the adaptation of this scene also shows her rebelliousness and love of nature.

In what is "perhaps the most radical revision of Austen's text", While the novel leaves both Elizabeth and the reader uncertain of Darcy's emotions, the adaptation uses additional scenes to hint at Darcy's inability to physically contain or verbally express his emotional turmoil. Scholars argue that activities such as billiards, bathing, fencing, and swimming (see the lake scene) offer Darcy to a female gaze; he is often presented in profile by a window or a fireplace when his friends discuss Elizabeth. Many passages relating to appearance or characters' viewpoints were lifted directly from the novel.

The novel's wit shows irony with "unmistakable strains of cynicism, ... laughing at human nature without any real hope of changing it". Laughter in the story, which ranges from irresponsible laughter to laughter at people and laughter of amusement and relief, can also be linked to the sexual tensions among the different characters. Despite their appeal to modern audiences, laughter and wit were seen as vulgar and irreverent in Austen's time. The BBC drama made changes and additions "with a view to exposing a character, or adding humour or irony to a situation". and Elizabeth's appreciation of the beauties of Derbyshire elevates Darcy in her and her relatives' opinion. In contrast, Darcy's gaze through the window works as a movie screen, projecting Elizabeth's actions for him and the viewer. His participation in the English landscape is his redemption.

Reception

Broadcast

Between 10 and 11 million people watched the original six-episode broadcast on BBC One on Sunday evenings from 24 September to 29 October 1995. The episodes were repeated each week on BBC Two.

Home release and merchandise

The serial was released on VHS in the UK in the week running up to the original transmission of the final episode. The entire first run of 12,000 copies of the double-video set sold out within two hours of release. 70,000 copies had been sold by the end of the first week of sales, increasing to 200,000 sold units within the first year of the original airing. The Blu-ray was released on April 14, 2009.

Critical reception

The critical response to Pride and Prejudice was overwhelmingly positive. Gerard Gilbert of The Independent recommended the opening episode of the serial one day before the British premiere, saying the television adaptation is "probably as good as it [can get for a literary classic]. The casting in particular deserves a tilt at a BAFTA, Firth not being in the slightest bit soft and fluffy – and Jennifer Ehle showing the right brand of spirited intelligence as Elizabeth." He considered Benjamin Whitrow a "real scene-stealer with his Mr. Bennet", but was undecided about Alison Steadman's portrayal of Mrs. Bennet. Reviewing the first episode for the same newspaper on the day after transmission, Jim White praised Andrew Davies for "injecting into the proceedings a pace and energy which at last provides a visual setting to do justice to the wit of the book. With everyone slinging themselves about at high speed (the dances, in a first for the genre, actually involve a bit of sweat), it looks like people are doing something you would never have suspected they did in Austen's time: having fun."

A few days before the American premiere, Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times considered the adaptation "decidedly agreeable" despite its incidental liberties with Austen's novel, and named Elizabeth's parents and Mr. Collins as the main source of humour. John O'Connor of The New York Times lauded the serial as a "splendid adaptation, with a remarkably faithful and sensitively nuanced script". He commented on Jennifer Ehle's ability to make Elizabeth "strikingly intelligent and authoritative without being overbearing", and noted how Firth "brilliantly captures Mr. Darcy's snobbish pride while conveying, largely through intense stares, that he is falling in love despite himself". O'Connor praised Barbara Leigh-Hunt's portrayal of Lady Catherine as "a marvellously imperious witch" and considered her scenes with David Bamber (Mr. Collins) "hilarious".

However, O'Connor remarked that American audiences might find the "languorous walks across meadows" and "ornately choreographed dances" of the British production too slow. The official A&E; Network magazine summarised a year later that "critics praised the lavish production, audiences adored it, and women everywhere swooned over Darcy. So much, in fact, that newspapers began to joke about 'Darcy fever.'" Commendation for the serial continued in the years following its original transmission.

Awards and nominations

Pride and Prejudice received BAFTA Television Award nominations for "Best Drama Serial", "Best Costume Design", and "Best Make Up/Hair" in 1996. Jennifer Ehle was honoured with a BAFTA for "Best Actress", while Colin Firth and Benjamin Whitrow lost their BAFTA nominations for "Best Actor" to Robbie Coltrane of Cracker. Firth won the 1996 Broadcasting Press Guild Award for "Best Actor", complemented by the same award for "Best Drama Series/Serial". The serial was recognised in the United States with an Emmy for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Costume Design for a Miniseries or a Special", and was Emmy-nominated for its achievements as an "Outstanding Miniseries" as well as for choreography and writing. Among other awards and nominations, Pride and Prejudice received a Peabody Award, a Television Critics Association Award, and a Golden Satellite Award nomination for outstanding achievements as a serial.

Influence and legacy

As one of the BBC's and A&E;'s most popular presentations ever, the serial was "a cultural phenomenon, inspiring hundreds of newspaper articles and making the novel a commuter favourite". Together with the 1995 and 1996 films Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility and Emma, the serial was part of an ensuing Jane Austen euphoria which caused the membership of the Jane Austen Society of North America to jump fifty percent over the course of 1996 and to over 4,000 members in the autumn of 1997. Some newspapers like The Wall Street Journal explained this "Austen-mania" as a successful profit-driven move of the television and film industry, whereas others attributed Austen's enduring popularity and the escapist appeal of her conservative world.

While Jennifer Ehle refused to capitalise on the success of the serial and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon, the role of Mr. Darcy unexpectedly elevated Colin Firth to stardom. in a role that "officially turned him into a heart-throb", Radio Times included the serial in their list of "40 greatest TV programmes ever made" in 2003. In 2007, the UK Film Council declared Pride and Prejudice one of the television dramas that have become "virtual brochures" for Britain's history and culture. Lyme Hall, Cheshire, which had served as the exterior of Pemberley, experienced a tripling in its visitor numbers after the series' broadcast and is still a popular travel destination.

Lake scene

as Mr. Darcy after a swim in a lake is recognized as "one of the most unforgettable moments in British TV history". When he originally wrote the scene (it was not part of Austen's novel), he did not intend to highlight a sexual connection between Elizabeth and Darcy but create "an amusing moment in which Darcy tries to maintain his dignity while improperly dressed and sopping wet". A short underwater segment was filmed separately with Firth in a tank at Ealing Studios in west London. The sequence also appeared in Channel 4's Top 100 TV Moments in 1999, between the controversial programme Death on the Rock and the Gulf War. The New York Times compared the scene's indelibility to Marlon Brando's shouting "Stella!" in his undershirt in A Streetcar Named Desire, and Firth's future projects began alluding to it – screenwriter/director Richard Curtis added in-joke moments of Firth's characters falling into the water to Love Actually and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, and Firth's character from the 2007 film St Trinian's emerges from a fountain in a soaking wet shirt before meeting up with an old love. The creators of the 2008 ITV production Lost in Austen emulated the lake scene in their Pride and Prejudice reinterpretation through their modern-day heroine who cajoles Darcy into recreating the iconic moment for her.

Cheryl L. Nixon suggested in Jane Austen in Hollywood that Darcy's dive is a "revelation of his emotional capabilities", expressing a "Romantic bond with nature, a celebration of his home where he can 'strip down' to his essential self, a cleansing of social prejudices from his mind, or ... a rebirth of his love for Elizabeth". Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield summarised in the same book that the scene "tells us more about our current decade's obsession with physical perfection and acceptance of gratuitous nudity than it does about Austen's Darcy, but the image carves a new facet into the text".

Bridget Jones

The fictional journalist Bridget Jones – in reality the British author Helen Fielding of The Independent – wrote of her love of the serial in the paper's Bridget Jones's Diary column during the original British broadcast, Fielding loosely reworked the plot of Pride And Prejudice in her 1996 novelisation of the column, naming Bridget's uptight love interest "Mark Darcy" and describing him exactly like Colin Firth. Following a first meeting with Firth during his filming of Fever Pitch in 1996, Fielding asked Firth to collaborate in what would become a multi-page interview between Bridget Jones and Firth in her 1999 sequel novel, . Conducting the real interview with Firth in Rome, Fielding lapsed into Bridget Jones mode and obsessed over Darcy in his wet shirt for the fictional interview. Firth participated in the following editing process of what critics would consider "one of the funniest sequences in the diary's sequel". Both novels make various other references to the BBC serial.

Pride and Prejudice writer Andrew Davies collaborated on the screenplays for the 2001 and 2004 Bridget Jones films, in which Crispin Bonham-Carter (Mr. Bingley) and Lucy Robinson (Mrs. Hurst) appeared in minor roles. The self-referential in-joke between the projects convinced Colin Firth to accept the role of Mark Darcy, Film critic James Berardinelli would later state that Firth "plays this part [of Mark Darcy] exactly as he played the earlier role, making it evident that the two Darcys are essentially the same". The producers never found a way to incorporate the Jones-Firth interview in the second film, but shot a spoof interview with Firth as himself and Renée Zellweger staying in character as Bridget Jones after a day's wrap. The scene, which extended Bridget's Darcy obsession to cover Firth's lake scene in Love Actually, is available as a bonus feature on the DVD.

Other adaptations

For almost a decade, the 1995 TV serial was considered "so dominant, so universally adored, [that] it has lingered in the public consciousness as a cinematic standard". Comparing six major Pride and Prejudice adaptations in 2005, the Daily Mirror gave the only top marks of 9/10 to the 1995 serial ("what may be the ultimate adaptation") and the then-new 2005 film adaptation, leaving the other adaptations such as the 1940 film behind with six or fewer points. The 2005 film was "obviously [not as] daring or revisionist" as the 1995 adaptation, but the young age of the film's leads, Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, was mentioned favourably over the 1995 cast, as Jennifer Ehle had formerly been "a little too 'heavy' for the role". However, the president of the Jane Austen Society of North America noted in an otherwise positive review that the casting of the 2005 leads was "arguably a little more callow than Firth and Ehle" and that "Knightley is better looking than Lizzy should strictly be". ranged from praise to pleasant surprise and dislike. Several critics did not observe any significant impact of Macfadyen's Darcy in the following years. Garth Pearce of The Sunday Times noted in 2007 that "Colin Firth will forever be remembered as the perfect Mr. Darcy", and Gene Seymour stated in a 2008 Newsday article that Firth was "'universally acknowledged' as the definitive Mr. Darcy".

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Pride and Prejudice at bbc.co.uk

Pride and Prejudice video playlist at BBC Worldwide's YouTube channel

Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:BBC television dramas Category:Television programs based on Jane Austen novels Category:Peabody Award winning television programs Category:Films shot in Super 16 Category:Screenplays by Andrew Davies Category:1995 in British television