Making Sense: Jane Austen on the Screen

Yasmine Gooneratne

Published in H Antor & K L Cope (eds). Intercultural Encounters: Studies in English Literatures, Heidelberg, 1999. Also published in Sensibilities, the refereed journal of the Jane Austen Society of Australia Inc., #22, June 2001. Reproduced by kind permission of the author, Yasmine Gooneratne.

Tai and I don’t make sense. You and I make sense.¹

I thank you; but I assure you you are quite mistaken. Mr Elton and I are very good friends, and nothing more;’ and [Emma] walked on, amusing herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high pretensions to judgment are for ever falling into; and not very well pleased with her brother for imagining her blind and ignorant, and in want of counsel. He said no more.²

At the heart of every novel Jane Austen ever wrote are three linked concepts relating to the art of living: belief in the need to ‘make sense’ of the world into which one is born; belief in accommodating oneself to that world’s requirements without sacrificing intelligence, sensibility or honour; and conviction that an ability to accomplish the first two can (though often with difficulty) be learned.

The film-maker who translates an Austen novel to the cinema or TV screen cannot escape the pressure of these ideas, which were so deeply held by the author that every turn of plot and every scrap of dialogue in her novels are saturated with them. The temptation to escape ideas altogether must be strong in film-makers of our times – how else can we explain the huge quantities of films made and successfully distributed worldwide every year, whose directors cheerfully admit to abandoning the main themes of a difficult novel in favour of ‘developing’ (they do not say ‘exploiting’) one aspect of it, that aspect usually being an emphasis on sex or violence? Since Jane Austen’s novels famously refuse to dwell on ‘guilt or misery,’ the recent craze for making cinematic versions of her books is a phenomenon that must interest not only the heterogeneous audiences such versions are designed to attract, but that long established international community of single-minded literates, Jane Austen’s readers.

In this essay, which focuses on an unusual screen version of Emma titled Clueless, made in 1995, we might begin with some observations about that novel and its suitability to cinematic adaptation, particularly in comparison with Pride and Prejudice, Austen’s best-known and most popular book (now more popular than ever before, following the BBC TV adaptation starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth). Emma is Jane Austen’s longest novel (nearly a hundred pages longer than Pride and Prejudice). It was for many years the least popular among younger readers (due to the snobbishness of its heroine), but now rivals Pride and Prejudice in terms of book sales. This, say booksellers, is largely due to the success of its screen adaptation, Clueless, which has become something of a ‘teen cult’ movie and has spawned a TV series involving characters from the film.

With the exception of movies that focus on premeditated crime, popular films, as everyone knows, tend to emphasise action. Characters in films do not devote time to philosophising, they go places and do things, preferably on impulse, moved by passions that impel them towards lust, murder, self-sacrifice or joining the French Foreign Legion. The major characters of Pride and Prejudice and Emma do none of these things. The former, however, does offer a film-maker several changes of scene, and a large cast of varied characters. Elizabeth Bennet visits Hunsford, and later tours Derbyshire with her aunt and uncle Gardiner, Jane Bennet visits the Gardiners in London, while Lydia Bennet goes to Brighton, and elopes with George Wickham, causing both Mr Darcy and Mr Bennet to make hasty journeys to London to find her. Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Mr Collins travel from Hunsford to Longbourn, while the Bingleys move between Meryton, London and Derbyshire. In comparison, the characters of Emma are practically immobile. Elton, Frank Churchill and George Knightley make moves beyond Highbury, Elton to have Emma’s portrait of Harriet Smith framed and later, to find a wife; Churchill to buy a piano for Jane Fairfax; and Knightley to put Emma out of his mind. But we do not accompany any of them. The furthest Emma Woodhouse travels is on an expedition to nearby Box Hill. In short, Emma remains fixed in the ‘large and populous village’ of Highbury (Emma, 5) and its chief characters are the small group of people who are relations or friends of Emma Woodhouse and her father.

As regards any crisis events related, however distantly, to ‘sex and violence’ that contribute to the plot, Pride and Prejudice offers us one elopement (Lydia and Wickham), one near-elopement (Georgiana Darcy and Wickham), and three situations comparable to duels, in which Elizabeth confronts in turn Mr Collins, Mr Darcy, and Lady Catherine, while fending off side-attacks from Caroline Bingley and Mrs Bennet. In contrast, the only near-sexual event in Emma is Mr Elton’s proposal to Emma in the carriage, following the Westons’ dinner party, and the only ‘violent’ incidents are a cruelly witty remark made by Emma to Miss Bates, and Harriet’s meeting with the gypsies.

Since it has hardly any plot, and its characters hardly go anywhere, what use does Austen make of those extra hundred pages? The short answer to that is, that the plot, while hardly sensational, is extremely complicated, such complications being related, not to sensational events, but to errors and mistakes made by the heroine, while the ‘journeys’ undertaken by the characters, especially Emma herself, are not quick visits to specified locations, but journeys of the mind which take place over the period of a full year. They are part of the learning process which reflects Austen’s emphasis on moral education, and the reader is with Emma every step of the way, as she progresses along a twisting road each bend of which leads her towards maturity and better judgment of herself and of society.

As Dr Saw-Choo Teo has recently pointed out in a recent sociolinguistic analysis of the opening conversation between Mr and Mrs Bennet in Chapter 1 of Pride and Prejudice, the dialogue between selected characters undoubtedly provides the basis for one of Jane Austen’s many claims to pre-eminence as a writer of fiction.

Much of the power of Jane Austen’s story-telling lies in her ability to draw the reader into…becoming a participant in the events unravelling through the pages of her novel...It is the conversations that the novelist so skilfully inserts into the crucial points of the novel that invite you to step in and listen to what is happening.3

Yet, films are notorious for cutting out speech in favour of action, an exercise that is regarded as one of the most important skills to be developed by an aspiring screen writer. How does a screen-writer deal with Emma, a novel rich in dialogue, providing plenty of evidence that Jane Austen very carefully observed, listened to, thought about and recorded the relationships of people around her?

Chapter V of Emma provides an excellent example of Austen’s mature skill. Here Mr Knightley has a long and private discussion with Mrs Weston on a subject that concerns them both: the present and future welfare of her former pupil and his sister-in-law, Emma Woodhouse. This conversation  as a whole illustrates Mrs Weston’s tactful diplomacy, her respect for Knightley, her affection for her former employer, and her loyalty to Emma, based on genuine, if one-eyed, affection. It indicates Mr Knightley’s directness, his personal respect for Mrs Weston, his high standards of critical judgment (as regards Emma), and (an unconscious revelation, this) a long-standing and very deep affection and admiration for Emma. The fact that two persons of such integrity take opposed views on Emma while agreeing to love her and be concerned for her future happiness indicates that Emma’s is a complex character worthy of their concern, which will be explored by the reader and developed in the course of the novel (Emma, 31-6).

This example shows Austen’s remarkable ability to direct a conversation between two people in such a way that, while still seeming to ‘go nowhere’ in terms of place, she can explore her themes while advancing her plot and developing her characters. In comparison with Mr Knightley and Mrs Weston, who have complicated and unconfessed agendas (Mr Knightley loves Emma and secretly fears the advent of Churchill, while Mrs Weston secretly hopes Churchill and Emma will make a match of it when he does appear), Mr and Mrs Bennet of Pride and Prejudice are simple, one-note characters, he cynical, witty, irresponsible, and somewhat cruel, she mercenary, stupid and self-centred. While Austen herself knew Pride and Prejudice to be rapid in the pace of its events, with plenty of coming and going among its characters to provide a lively, changing scene, it is in detailed, leisurely exploration of complex character that the strength of Emma lies.

That exploration is effected through conversation, and here lies a problem for the film-maker who wants to translate Emma to the screen. It is not surprising that the 1996 Miramax International film version omits this important and beautifully detailed conversation between Mr Knightley and Mrs Weston in its entirety.⁴ Most of the book’s essence lies in speech, and it is lively action, not speech, that the 90-minute time-limit cinema requires and invariably emphasises. Also omitted are the monologues of Miss Bates and Mrs Elton. The Austen reader must regret this omission, since the Bates/Elton monologues are among the glories of the novel: Miss Bates because she sketches for us in a series of quick impressions the everyday life of a country town, while unconsciously scattering cunningly hidden clues to the secret relationship between Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill;⁵ Mrs Elton, because she provides an awful warning of what Emma could quite easily become if she doesn’t check herself: a control freak.

‘I am Lady Patroness, you know,’ Mrs Elton tells Mr Knightley.⁶ It is a line that reminds the reader of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, another loud-voiced, domineering specialist in attention-demanding monologue. Vol. 2, chapter 18, 275-82 has a good example of Mrs Elton in full flow. See also Vol. 3, chapter 6, 324 for Mrs Elton ‘in all her apparatus of happiness,’ picking strawberries at Donwell. Here Austen uses Mrs Elton’s characteristic habits of speech to describe the action and the weather.

As these remarks indicate, while Emma Woodhouse and her progress towards humility and good sense is the central concern of the book, she is surrounded by other figures who are developed fully in speech, thought and action, to become living personalities in their own right. Obviously, it is beyond any film-maker to use all such rich material. A conversation that is included in the Miramax International film, and is treated there to good effect, is the social exchange in Volume 1, chapter 6, 41-3, as Emma’s Highbury circle give their opinions on her picture of Harriet Smith. Also well done, within the limitations of cinema, is Mr Elton’s proposal to Emma in the carriage returning from Christmas dinner at the Westons’.

The relation of Clueless to Austen’s Emma is by no means apparent at first sight, since the film is set, not in Regency England, but in contemporary 1990s America. The world of the heroine, Cher Horowitz who delightfully resembles Emma Woodhouse in being ‘handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition’⁷ is not the country town of Highbury but Beverly Hills High. English Highbury-speak of the early 19th century has been replaced by American teenager-speak of our own day. Advising Tai on ways to increase her popularity, Cher informs Tai that her social status has already risen steeply ‘due to the fact that you hang with Dionne and I’.

The actors in Clueless play characters who replicate (with some additions and omissions) the principal characters of Austen’s novel, as follows: Alicia Silverstone (Cher Horowitz / Emma Woodhouse), Brittany Murphy (Tai / Harriet Smith), Paul Rudd (Josh / George Knightley), Dan Hedaya (Lawyer Horowitz / Mr Woodhouse), Justin Walker (Christian / Frank Churchill), and Jeremy Sisto (Elton / Rev Elton).

Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in Clueless, a modernised film adaptation of Emma. www.pemberley.com /alicia/gallery

Gwynneth Paltrow and Jeremy Northam in Miramax’s 1996 Emma. www.permberley.com

Despite this, the presence of sex and drugs on campus camouflages the connections well, and it is not until the film is well under way, and Cher undertakes to engineer a romance between two of her teachers, and follows up this supposed ‘success’ by undertaking a makeover of a dowdy friend, that the viewer perceives the plot’s link with Emma’s matchmaking between Mr Weston and Miss Taylor and her ‘education’ of Harriet Smith. Cher being 15 years old (and not 21), and her close companions being not her father’s contemporaries but her own High School classmates, lead to important differences as well, among which an important one is, that while Emma at 21 is not given to personal vanity, Cher at 15 glories in her own style and good looks, and spends some of her most fulfilling moments (and a lot of her father’s money) shopping for clothes and accessories in the mall.

On the other hand, while Emma shows genuine concern for the welfare of the Highbury poor, Cher too puts energy and compassion into collecting for the environment. Like Mr Woodhouse, Cher’s father appreciates her thoughtfulness and hard work on behalf of his health and comfort. The appearance of a ‘Knightley’ figure in the form of ‘Josh’, Cher’s protective step-brother, clinches our perception of a link between the two plots. Like Mr Knightley, Josh is not so blinded by his young relative’s charm that he cannot see her faults. Also like Knightley, he is not interested in dancing, but he wins Cher’s lasting admiration by coming to the aid of her dowdy friend Tai in her moment of humiliation.

The connections between the novel and its innovative and witty screen adaptation in terms of characterisation and action are close, and carefully developed. ‘Both of the main characters are spoiled, high class snobs who, after undergoing a crisis brought on by their own pride and [the] repression of their feelings, are transformed from callowness to mental and emotional maturity.’ The comment I have just quoted is taken from an admirably detailed essay by an undergraduate reading English in the USA that has been made available, like a considerable amount of material from a variety of ‘non-traditional’ sources, on the Internet.⁸

This fact alone might indicate some of the changes that are taking place in Jane Austen’s relationship with her ‘public.’ Once that public consisted of the small circle of her family, her friends, and a small band of literary admirers, from which point it extended and diversified rapidly, assisted by the enthusiasm of Kipling and the ‘Janeites.’ Through the tendency of readers to seek escape from the frightfulness of two world wars in her 18th century world of tranquillity and order, and the magisterial judgment of Leavis which awarded her a central place in ‘The Great Tradition’ of English literature, Jane Austen achieved the unusual distinction in the 1950s of becoming at once universally ‘popular’ and critically respected (not to say revered). In our own day there is hardly a TV channel that is entirely free of bonnets and breeches, and cinemas are filled to overflowing by people who have never in their entire lives read a novel, Jane Austen’s or anyone else’s, but flock to see movies adapted from her works.

Some people regard the current craze for making films based on Jane Austen’s novels as ample proof, if proof were needed, that you can’t keep a good woman down. Others query the implications of the so-called ‘revival’ for feminists in today’s context. Some argue that such marked public interest – which amounts to a kind of cult in some countries, reflects a nostalgia for the traditional family, and for family values. Others see a flight from prurience and violence: as the male party-goer in a Yorker cartoon says, ‘I’m reading a lot of Jane Austen these days, just to cleanse my palate.’ Some see the emotional power of the books, now given greater emphasis through translation to the screen in a period which has seen the cinema leave little to the imagination, as a sign of the author’s repressed and thinly veiled sexuality. (The late J.W. Taylor expressed this well when he implied in a cartoon that the novels we admire so much have been heavily censored. ‘We like the plot, Miss Austen,’ says a shocked looking publisher to a little lady with a sharp nose, a poke bonnet, and a dolly bag who sits primly before him. ‘We like the plot, but all this effing and blinding will have to go.’) Others argue that Austen’s women are lively, determined rebels who manage to tread the fine line between social conformity and private integrity, and that they represent positive feminine values, among them the responsibility to nurture, protect and defend friends and families.

The more cynical view is that Darcymania is merely the result of Hollywood hype, a constructed popular fantasy controlled by image makers. ‘Darcymania’ swept Britain (and later the world) a few years ago, with the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The audience that once fell in love with Olivier in the Hollywood version of that novel contained the mothers and grandmothers of the scores of young women who now, as Libby Greig put it in a recent piece for the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘quiver in their muslins’ before the passionately smouldering gaze of Colin Firth. Students tell me they find the films useful as extensions of the novels which happen to be current set texts: one can only hope they do not ever imagine that they can serve as substitutes for them! It is no surprise, these days, to read an article in The New Yorker that begins: ‘Currently, it seems, Jane Austen is hotter than Quentin Tarantino.’⁹

As I have suggested in this essay, the film versions of Jane Austen’s novels certainly have many good points, but even the best of them are, in the end, no substitute for the fiction. At the same time, there appears to be plenty of room for adaptations such as Clueless that translate the Austen concern for moral education into contemporary terms. It is possible to watch Clueless in much the same way that one reads Emma, many times over, each time finding something new to admire, some new detail that sharpens perception of some aspect of Austen’s fiction.

One very good thing that can be said for good Austen adaptations is, that the best among them lead people back to the novels. An enterprising bookseller in Colombo has been quick to grasp this important fact. Announcing an offer of 39% off the price of copies from a new stock of Sense and Sensibility, the ad reads:

LATEST BOOKS
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.
Published price Rs 237.50
Our price Rs 143.00
Read the book of the award-winning film.

Notes:

1. Elton to Cher Horowitz in Clueless (1995), produced by Scott Rudin and Robert Lawrence, written and directed by Amy Heckerling for Paramount Pictures, featuring Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz (Emma).

2. Jane Austen, Emma, eds., James Kinsley and David Lodge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 5. All subsequent references are to this edition.
3. Saw-Choo Teo, ‘The art of conversation in Pride & Prejudice,’ in Sensibilities 15, JASA, Dec 1997: 34 - 40.
4. Emma, written and directed by Douglas McGrath, a 1996 Miramax International film, featuring Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma Woodhouse, Toni Collette as Harriet Smith, Jeremy Northam as George Knightley, and Greta Scacchi as Mrs Weston.
5. See Emma, Vol. 2, chapter 9, 212-16, for a superb example of this technique.
6. Emma, Vol. 3, chapter 6, 320.
7. Emma, Vol. 1, Chapter 1, 3.
8. Jordie Margison, ‘Character Transformation in Emma and Clueless, December 3 1996, in Karen P. Some Reactions from Janeites.’ Clueless and Jane Austen’s Emma Website, 16 August 1996. See also: Internet Movie Database; Jane Austen Information page; Clueless. The Script written by Amy Heckerling, 1995 – Internet at pacey578@rocketmail.com; Stern, Lesley. ‘Emma in Los Angeles: Clueless as a remake of the book and the city.’ AHR,
9. Martin Amis, ‘Jane’s World,’ in the New Yorker, 8 January 1996, 31-5.