Spoilers herein.
Most people don't need much to justify their time in front of a screen. For them, this has two elements as an excuse: pretty good and convincing sets (except the war) and the remarkable face of Jenny Seagrove. Jenny isn't quite up to making her role believable in the large: what with sexual problems, revenge, passion-then-problems, incest, final emptiness. But she is fine in the small, especially at the beginning few hours where she isn?t a wasted human being, and someone we root for.
Her face is very appealing, in fact is precisely half way between Nichole Kidman and Liv Tyler.
I found two things remarkable here: the first is that most women (and there are many) have red hair or are often lit so that their hair is red. I think this is not an accident, and only part can be explained by familial relationships.
The other wonder full thing is: why do we have this new genre of generational scope? I know whey we have the "mini-series" -- because it is a balance of costs, rewards and the attention span of viewers. But in the past, Austen?s time -- we would have focused on one set of characters and had room for development, not three generations and no room at all.
The reason is the power of genre. Genre is a shorthand that allows the writer to assume with confidence that the viewer will assume certain things. Austen's Britain was a rigid class society, and every reader could be assumed to know and bring to the story elements that would otherwise have taken dozens of volumes to prepare. American audiences, the target of this project and the book, have no such benefit. As this is Pseudo-Austen (or more precisely pseudo-Bronte), it still has to have the superficial trappings: set in England, involve class struggle. But it has to invent the context pretty much from scratch, so we have to wade through all the stuff that Bronte's audience would know: the privilege, the sneering at servants, the sexual and economic
exploitation and on and on. We have to SEE a father sacrifice his life for a Fairley. We have to SEE a Fairley attempt a rape. We have to SEE a Fairley brutalizing workers... and on and on.
The problem is that we have to do so much work as viewers to advance the story. Too much. And by the end, the writers haven?t worked as hard. There is a crisis of sorts, and a resolution of sorts, but it is not related to all the work we have done.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.
Most people don't need much to justify their time in front of a screen. For them, this has two elements as an excuse: pretty good and convincing sets (except the war) and the remarkable face of Jenny Seagrove. Jenny isn't quite up to making her role believable in the large: what with sexual problems, revenge, passion-then-problems, incest, final emptiness. But she is fine in the small, especially at the beginning few hours where she isn?t a wasted human being, and someone we root for.
Her face is very appealing, in fact is precisely half way between Nichole Kidman and Liv Tyler.
I found two things remarkable here: the first is that most women (and there are many) have red hair or are often lit so that their hair is red. I think this is not an accident, and only part can be explained by familial relationships.
The other wonder full thing is: why do we have this new genre of generational scope? I know whey we have the "mini-series" -- because it is a balance of costs, rewards and the attention span of viewers. But in the past, Austen?s time -- we would have focused on one set of characters and had room for development, not three generations and no room at all.
The reason is the power of genre. Genre is a shorthand that allows the writer to assume with confidence that the viewer will assume certain things. Austen's Britain was a rigid class society, and every reader could be assumed to know and bring to the story elements that would otherwise have taken dozens of volumes to prepare. American audiences, the target of this project and the book, have no such benefit. As this is Pseudo-Austen (or more precisely pseudo-Bronte), it still has to have the superficial trappings: set in England, involve class struggle. But it has to invent the context pretty much from scratch, so we have to wade through all the stuff that Bronte's audience would know: the privilege, the sneering at servants, the sexual and economic
exploitation and on and on. We have to SEE a father sacrifice his life for a Fairley. We have to SEE a Fairley attempt a rape. We have to SEE a Fairley brutalizing workers... and on and on.
The problem is that we have to do so much work as viewers to advance the story. Too much. And by the end, the writers haven?t worked as hard. There is a crisis of sorts, and a resolution of sorts, but it is not related to all the work we have done.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.