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Posted by Allison Sparks on October 17, 1996 at 17:19:51:
I am profiling Colin Firth (P&P's "Mr.Darcy") for a "Magazine
Writing" course (and for possible publication). To this end,
I am seeking quotes regarding Colin Firth and/or his portrayal
of Mr.Darcy (I am trying to convey "public opinion" about
Mr.Firth). I would appreciate any opinions - that you might post
in response to this - regarding Mr. Firth. Thank you, Allison
Follow Ups:
Posted by Marsha on October 17, 1996 at 17:21:23:
: : Is it in the making... or somewhere else that Crispin B-C was first thought of for Wickhams part?
: : Ann2
:
: ___________________
: Yes, he was originally going to read for Wickham. That would have been wierd!
: (It's in his interview on the A&E sight)
: Ann
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I think he would have been very good a s Wickham, with that artless, open manner of his.
Marsha
Posted by Marsha on October 17, 1996 at 17:26:49:
: :
: : In P&P0 the men were all just as handsome as the next I think that was one good thing about that movie. Mr. Bingley,Darcy and Wickham they were all attractive.
: : Donna
:
: ___________________
: I agree, this would have been better. Though perhaps then we wouldn't have this wonderful obsession with Mr. Darcy. Handsome or no, Adrian Lukis does play Wickham too smarmily from the get-go. There -- I've done it. I've actually admitted to a flaw in this production. (I even like Alison Steadman's shrieking...)
: Mary H
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When i first saw P&P2, even though I read the book before, I could imagine how someone might be captivated by Wickham: he is goodlooking, and as they say, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and while he might not be as handsome as Darcy, since his manners are superior, he will 'become handsomer & handsomer' because of his manner. Also, I think Lukis showed something Austen calls 'softness of manner' perfectly: if you know this is deceptive, you see (like Lizzy later) enough in it to disgust and weary, but at first it might be quite attractive: especially if one is not handsome enough to tempt a handsome, rich, and SINGLE gentleman form Derbyshire.
Marsha
Posted by Grace on October 17, 1996 at 17:29:11:
: : : : : Aaahhhh!
: : : : : Cheryl
: : : :
: : : : ___________________
: : : :
: : : : Or as Kitty and Lydia would put it, "Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!"
: : : : Mary H
: : :
: : : ___________________
: : : When I saw all these posts I thought you were all going to give me a hard time because I hadn't looked closely enough and they were daisies or something!
: : : Hilary
: : Apart from how cute Darcy looks striding through the buttercups - I did wonder how many takes they had to do of this scene and whether they had to bring on special 'buttercup groomers' to have them looking 'unstrode through'
: : Pity Darcy wasn't even less formally attired - didn't they have speedos in those days!!
: : Cheers
: : Rose
: :
: : ___________________
:
: ___________________
: why this reminds me of a perivous thread concerning Darcys attire.
: I think I'll reread it.
: Mich
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: Oh, no!
: Grace
Follow Ups:
Posted by Marsha on October 17, 1996 at 17:32:24:
:
: : Mary, I, too, like Mr. Bennett and, though after hearing arguments to support the mean-spirited cases I ended up agreeing, I viewed him today again and just believe that he could SOMETIMES be mean (like many of us are capable of being), but that he was, in fact, not a mean-spirited person. If he were truly mean-spirited, it would spill out everywhere, even towards Lizzy.
: I have known people who married poorly but who eked out small pleasures anyway from certain aspects of the ill-chosen partners. Some of the people like to "get the other one going," and the perfect way to do that is to tease them. That is what I think Mr. Bennett does.
: Even though he regrets his choice of marriage partners, I believe he had actually developed an affection for her
: born out of years together. (People can actually come to find comfort, as it were, in a partner's frailties or idiosyncrasies, as could be argued Mr. Bennett did in hearing Mrs. B freak out for one reason or another. I think he would have been very shocked, perhaps even disappointed, if her reaction had not been as anticipated.)
: Tommye
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I think he is not mean-spirited, he just doesn't think most pratical things of enough importance: for him it is not important enough to announce Mr C. before hand.
Marsha
p.s. I am FRANTICALLY busy trying to catch up on all the threads!
Posted by Marsha on October 17, 1996 at 17:40:11:
: : Of course, he would lose the only two
: : people in his family fully capable of intelligent conversation or of understanding his droll remarks. Ewww. Just imagine
: : what their table conversations would resemble?
: : Tommye
:
: ___________________
: I know what you mean, Tommye. I would not want to have every meal with Mrs. Bennet moaning about missing her girls while scheming to fix up the remaining two, Mary spouting platitudes about forbearance and suffering, and Kitty pining for the return of the ____shire militia and prattling about bonnets. I would probably retire to my library, too.
: Cheryl
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I thouhgt he probably meant that 'God was good' not in the sense Mrs B did-not rich but good husbands, and he was again commenting on her inadequatcy and mean understanding
Marsha
Posted by Saman on October 17, 1996 at 17:41:53:
: :
: I ordered mine from Jane Austen Books about a month ago and received it in a week. I also ordered it for a friend from Blackwell Publishing in London on the internet. Info on these two along with the ISBN # is contained in the Colin Firth FAQ on the web which you can click on from this BB
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Thanks for that info - I found the ISBN in the FAQ and rang my local bookshop - they were most impressed that I could quote the number for them. Now all I have to do is wait for 2 weeks while they order it in :)
Saman.
Posted by Mich on October 17, 1996 at 17:45:37:
: : We understand wanting wealth in the family but this woman is obsessed!
: Mrs. Bennet drives me nuts, too. I have very little time for her.
: But for another perspective, here are a few bits from Fay Weldon's book "Letters to Alice on first reading JA":
: In JA's time you had to be able to afford to marry (dowry).'For this reason, and a variety of others, only 30% of women married'. Women 'lived well only by their husbands' favour'. The notion of marrying for love was quite new. The 'sense of sexual sin ran high: the fear of pregnancy was great - you might well estimate that half the nations women remained virgins all their lives'. (The average age of puberty was 18-20; marriage 25-28.)
: 'So to marry was a great prize. It was a woman's aim. No wonder JA's heroines were so absorbed by the matter. It is the stuff of our women's magazines but it was the stuff of their life, their very existence. No wonder Mrs. B, driven half-mad by anxiety for her 5 unmarried daughters, knowing they would be unprovided for when her husband died, as indeed would she, made a fool of herself in public, husband hunting on her girls' behalf. Politeness warred, as always, with desperation. Enough to give anyone the vapours!'
: 'Women survived ..by being pleasing and charming..or having a good,strong working back...' Writing and governessing were less usual possibilities.
: Once you were married property and children belonged to your husband. 'If the choice at child birth was between the mother or child, the mother was the one to go.' 'Between 1650 and 1850 there were only 250 divorces in England'. Although there were exceptions 'you put up with the sex life you had, and were not on the whole ..expected to enjoy it...Contraception was both wicked and illegal...Abstinence was the decent person's protection against pregnancy'
: 'The fact that there were 70,000 prostitutes in London in 1801 out of a female population of some 475,000 indicates that your husband at least would not be virginal on marriage. He would quite possibly be diseased. VD was common, and often nastily fatal.' (Lets exempt Darcy from these ones, what do you say?)
: You were 'likely to carry 1 child successfully to term every 2 years until menopause... 50%of all babies would die before they were 2... Every death would be the same misery it is today'
: 'Your own chances of dying in childbirth were not negligible and increased with every pregnancy. After 15 pregnancies (which meant something like 6 babies brought to term and safely delivered) your chances of dying were (Marie Stopes later claimed) one in two. Mrs. B, giving birth to Mary, must have been worried indeed. Her nerves were bad: she was considered ridiculous, poor thing, for saying so. (I take a very tender view of Mrs. b, more tender than her creator does. But I am looking at a society from the outside in, not the inside out.)'
: Depressing stuff really - the 1990's aren't so bad huh? I don't know how much of this tenderness for Mrs. B came out in Weldon's P&P1. I hadn't read this account then, and I didn't care much for the production anyway.
: Hilary
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Do you know what the average life span of man and woman was?
Just curious
Mich
Follow Ups:
Posted by Rebecca on October 17, 1996 at 17:59:00:
: I think there is equal negitivity on both sides. While on the inside he may be admiring how attractively her eyes are brightened by the exercise, the feedback that he gives her is quite condescending and disapproving. ("On foot?") He does not offer to take her to Jane, but forces her to ask. Quite ungentlemanly of him. (Bingley or Col. Fitzwilliam - or even Wickham - would have insisted on personally leading her to Jane.) His behavior reinforces her first impression of him, and her responses reflect this. (...your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish distain for the feelings of others...) Both are equally caught up in their own pride and prejudices.
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Good points both of you. I always thought that one of the nice things about these Netherfield scenes is how unashamedly Darcy stares at Elizabeth -- it is almost too rude here and in the breakfast parlor. I think he just gets caught up in looking and forgets other things. Yes, he really is not as polished as he ought to be socially.
Rebecca
Posted by Rebecca on October 17, 1996 at 18:03:10:
: Apart from how cute Darcy looks striding through the buttercups - I did wonder how many takes they had to do of this scene and whether they had to bring on special 'buttercup groomers' to have them looking 'unstrode through'
: Pity Darcy wasn't even less formally attired - didn't they have speedos in those days!!
: Cheers
: Rose
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More's the pity the producers weren't more authentic. He would have jumped in the pond naked most likely, but would have put on some clothes to walk back to the house.
Rebecca
Follow Ups:
Posted by Marsha on October 17, 1996 at 18:08:45:
: ___________________
: Oh yes, he definitely would want to look his best for Lizzy (especially since I think one of his motives for visiting Elizabeth was to propose to her again). What I was really trying to say was that I don't think he was the type of person to spend hours in front of the mirror. He certainly didn't spend hours on combing his hair -- throughout the film it had a "scrunched" look, which became him rather well!
: Bernie
:
: ___________________
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I've read in some books that the messed-up hair was general during the period: and indeed, done on purpose: it took a long time to achieve a sufficient state of peculiar messiness/carelesness
Marsha
Follow Ups:
Posted by Rebecca on October 17, 1996 at 18:18:31:
: I didn't originally notice the connection, but now that you mention it... I always thought that Darcy was about to commit suicide in the pond at Pemberley. In the book, however, there is no mention made of his swimming at all prior to his meeting with Elizabeth. I simply figured he didn't have the guts to go through with his suicide attempt after he dove in.
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Commit Suicide!! Darcy!! I don't believe it-- he's too proud to commit suicide.
Rebecca
Posted by debbie on October 17, 1996 at 18:26:55:
: I find it interesting that before almost every meeting which tends to revise Lizzie's opinion of Darcy, or vice versa, Darcy is washing - at least, in P&P2. I do not, I confess, know if this is the case in the book.
: There is one instance where this is not the case - the Lucas party at which he decides she has fine eyes and is more than merely tolerable.
: But before he sees her playing with the dog, he's bathing. Before he hands her the letter, he's washing up. Before he meets her in the garden at Pemberly, he's swimming. The first one is where his own prejudice cracks. The second two signify the cracking of her prejudice, and the time when she suddenly, she desires his good opinion.
: Why should these events be connected with water?
Inadequate 19th-century English plumbing precludes a brisk cold shower.
Follow Ups:
Posted by Kali on October 17, 1996 at 18:41:19:
: : :Why should these events be connected with water?
: :
: : ___________________
: :
: : : Are you sure you want to plunge into this?
: ____
: Grace - Wonderful play on words above. I think that all the water symbolism is intentional and flip flop between thinking that a) he is cleansing himself of his old ways or b) he is quenching his thirst for Lizzie. I read a great quote (I might have even seen it here) that was I think - "Water, Water everywhere and not a drop of Lizzie."
___________________
Or, perhaps even that he is trying to wash her out of his system - who mentioned cold shower?
- K
Posted by marsha on October 17, 1996 at 18:48:21:
:
: If you're Mary then I must be the obnoxious Mr Collins. But HOW ghastly! The very man made me quake when I watched the series. I agree with your sentiments re Mr Collins. Now the "piety scene", I think this is one of the few moments when someone thought beneath him viz. Mary, broke through his thick countenance and suggested what a fool he was. Lizzy's subtle and sometimes downright bald statements never really hit home. As to Lady C well Mr C had groomed himself to be her doormat, of course mistaking cringing for humility. Lady C no doubt required this of people so she was very taken aback by Lizzy's forthright utterances. Even Darcy deferred to Lady C, preferring to not being in her company as much as possible.
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When is the piety scene?
Marsha
Posted by Kali on October 17, 1996 at 18:52:03:
: : I can't help thinking that JA would have loved the 2 scenes of
: : Lizzie and Darcy's unexpected meetings in the garden; the first
: : at Netherfield, the second at Pemberly. I have been thinking about
: : how they relate.
: : The first doesn't happen in the book. Like when Darcy later is
: : 'less formally attired', Lizzie is muddy, her hair a bit out of
: : place, and glowing from the exercise. Making it a direct meeting
: : in the garden neatly forshadows the other meeting:
: : Seeing Lizzie like this excites Darcy, even to his discomfort, and
: : it makes us able to make similar assumptions on behalf of Lizzie's
: : feelings when she sees him striding through those buttercups at
: : Pemberly, 'less formally attired'.
: : Hilary
:
: ___________________
: Yes, I agree. Austen would have loved those scenes, especially the Pemberley one. In the book's Pemberley meeting, Darcy isn't described nearly as vividly. We learn that he has just dismounted from his horse, that he appears surprised to see Lizzy, that the face of each is overspread with the deepest blush. Austen leaves it to our imagination how his person must have appeared to Lizzy during that meeting.
: To have him striding through those buttercups was a stroke of genius. They'll have to rewrite all those fairy tales. Prince Charming doesn't come riding up on a white horse after all. He comes striding through the buttercups.
: -Arnessa.
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Isn't film great? It brings across a viscerality books just can't match.
- K
Posted by Rose on October 17, 1996 at 19:00:58:
: I am profiling Colin Firth (P&P's "Mr.Darcy") for a "Magazine
: Writing" course (and for possible publication). To this end,
: I am seeking quotes regarding Colin Firth and/or his portrayal
: of Mr.Darcy (I am trying to convey "public opinion" about
: Mr.Firth). I would appreciate any opinions - that you might post
: in response to this - regarding Mr. Firth. Thank you, Allison
Hi Allison,
I'd say that Colin Firth as Mr Darcy showed a modern day emotional approach to a role full of sexual tension. Where he couldn't say what he wanted and looked almost tortured at times. Those long lingering looks of his were just wonderful and I found myself feeling very sorry for him. Even though he was a proud and arrogant man, Darcy got more than he deserved from a proud and prejudiced Elizabeth.
I'd like to see Colin Firth in a role where he wasn't so gorgeous - "Hunchback of Notre Dame" perhaps - just to see whether he can put out the same amount of emotion without the sex appeal.
Good luck with the article.
Cheers
Rose
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Follow Ups:
Posted by Marie on October 17, 1996 at 19:02:12:
: . . . Gregory Peck in most things (To Kill a Mockingbird may be my favorite movie of all time)
: Amy
I haven't been able to get to this BB in quite a while now, but this evening I managed to get on, and what do I find but a thread that includes Gregory Peck. At one point in my life I thought I'd gone beyond crushes, but then I saw Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday and felt my stomach go flip flop once again and realized that I was wrong. (There may be a point at which one gets beyond crushes, but I had not, and have not, yet reached it if there is.) Gregory Peck was so incredibly good looking, it was amazing to me. He is truly a man of whom it can be said that he was beautiful.
___________________
Follow Ups:
Posted by Rose on October 17, 1996 at 19:06:42:
: : Apart from how cute Darcy looks striding through the buttercups - I did wonder how many takes they had to do of this scene and whether they had to bring on special 'buttercup groomers' to have them looking 'unstrode through'
: : Pity Darcy wasn't even less formally attired - didn't they have speedos in those days!!
: : Cheers
: : Rose
: ___________________
: More's the pity the producers weren't more authentic. He would have jumped in the pond naked most likely, but would have put on some clothes to walk back to the house.
: Rebecca
Probably would have been an R16 in that case! I can't imagine an Austin's novel showing anyone naked...
Sigh!!
Rose
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Follow Ups:
Posted by Pamela on October 17, 1996 at 19:08:00:
I just saw that a new Jane Eyre movie has been made starring William Hurt. Anyone know anything about it?
Is it playing yet?
Follow Ups:
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