Perspectives on Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen’s House
by Jane Austen’s House staff: Amelia, Jessica, Julia, Rebecca and Sophie.On a cold winter morning at the end of 2024, five of the girls of Jane Austen’s House gathered for a delightful chat about Pride and Prejudice (1995). We had all watched it again in preparation (hardly a chore!) and equipped ourselves with steaming cups of coffee, ready to sit down and discuss why this adaptation is so brilliant, and why we love it so much…
First up, we agreed that the casting is phenomenal. Colin Firth just is Mr. Darcy, Jennifer Ehle transformed herself beyond recognition to play Elizabeth, but above all we love Alison Steadman as Mrs Bennet – she’s completely brilliant and hilarious!
We remembered where we were when we first watched it – staying up to watch it live (age 11), first watching the VHS box set at a friend’s house, or watching the clip of Mr Darcy emerging from the lake on YouTube.
We decided that the pace is important. With six hour-long episodes, there was time to go through all the important scenes and conversations in the novel – whereas the 2005 film adaptation (which we also love!) had to really chop and crop the story to make it fit into 2 hours.
We pretty much all had the experience of reading the novel, having watched the TV adaptation, and finding that we already knew it by heart – so much of the dialogue in the adaptation had been lifted straight from the book.
We think it benefited from having very little to be compared to… today Jane Austen adaptations often suffer from their producers trying to fit them into a specific mould, or from trying to do something new and different. P&P could afford to be true to the story without worrying about what the competition was doing.
We all agreed that we love the restraint of this adaptation. It is thought of as a romance but in fact it is very demure. Lizzy and Darcy don’t kiss at all until the last few seconds (as opposed to later Jane Austen adaptations which are, one of us pointed out, full of snogging).
We discussed the brilliance of its use of subtext. It’s all about mannerisms and there are so many close-ups of their faces, showing you their emotions, rather than it all being said out loud.
[NB. This is true. The way TV and film is made has changed because we’re always on our phones at the same time – known as second screening – so today characters have to say what’s happening out loud because a lot of the audience won’t be looking at the screen and picking up on things like facial expression and body language.]
We finished by sharing some of our favourite moments, from Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s visit to Longbourn to Mrs. Bennet’s delighted reaction to the news that Lydia is getting married, and the evening at Pemberley when Lizzy and Darcy gaze at each other across the room and are clearly falling in love (not such a subtle moment perhaps, but one that we love!).