On Sunday, PBS and Masterpiece Theater Classic premiered the most recent Jane Austen adaptation, this time of Austen’s fourth published novel, Emma. This represents the fourth time Emma has been made into a television mini-series or movie – fifth if you count Clueless as a legitimate adaptation.
Emma is, by Austen’s own admittance, not always the favorite. Before writing the novel, Austen wrote: “I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like.” Unlike other Austen heroines (such as Lizzie Bennett, Anne Elliot and the Dashwood sisters), Emma has no financial concerns – she doesn’t need to marry well to ensure security; rather, she is wealthy in her own right and thus her cares seems more trivial and silly than the others’.
The reader’s (or, in this case, viewer’s) sympathy doesn’t extend as far because we have less reasons to root for her. That Emma is also spoiled and somewhat vain doesn’t help her cause. And while she is certainly well-meaning, she lacks the foresight and awareness of how her actions affect those around her. Still, while Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility may have more outspoken fans, Emma is considered by some to be Austen’s masterpiece, due to the depth and detail in her characterizations and commentaries on the social world of Highbury.
This new television mini-series adaptation is the latest in a series of “reboots” by the BBC and PBS. In 2007 (2008 in the United States), the BBC and Masterpiece Theater/PBS debuted new versions of Sense & Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey (leaving out Emma, and, of course, Pride & Prejudice, the producers no doubt thinking that 13 various television series and films was enough). As to why Emma was re-adapted now and not then, I can only guess.
As, perhaps, a sign of the times, Masterpiece PBS and several prominent Austen bloggers (including Austenprose and Jane Austen’s World) hosted a Twitter party during the East Coast viewing of the mini-series. Fans could tweet their reactions while Masterpiece and the Janeite bloggers provided behind-the-scenes info and Austen and Emma trivia. Austenprose also offered an Austen-inspired quiz, with winners receiving the Jane Austen action figure (which, alas, I did not win and I still do not have, despite my not-so-subtle hints at Christmas time).
The mini-series will continue this Sunday (January 31st) and will conclude on Sunday, February 7th.
[Photo Credit: PBS.org]
