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Mansfield Park
May. 31st, 2008 08:32 pmI’ve been working lately writing little textbook introductions to various works of literature, currently Mansfield Park. The brief includes in this case an overview of the various film adaptations. If you wish to watch a film of it, view the 1983 BBC production. Below, however, is a slightly expanded version of my remarks on the post-modernist 1999 version:
One knows reason and art have been left behind upon hearing the line, “Don’t be so old-fashioned! It’s 1806 for heaven’s sake!’
Patricia Rozema filmed this version of Mansfield Park for theatrical release in 1999. Rozema abandons any attempt to adapt the novel in favor of a post-modernist critique. The character of Fanny Price is done away with and virtually replaced with Jane Austen herself (an amateur writer when Fanny’s age), or, rather, with a modern woman playing the part of Jane Austen, complaining against the necessity of marriage as a form of slavery from a feminist viewpoint. The main story becomes that of the rebellion of the Bertram brothers against their father. Sir Thomas (played by the Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter) is a monster who leers in a perverted fashion at Fanny and who rapes and tortures his slaves while in Antigua. Upon his return, he entertains the family one evening with a long lecture on slave breeding. Rozsema imagines herself clever for citing 18th century bibliography over whether or not ‘mulattos’ could breed or were sterile like mules. Edmund seeks to become a clergyman so he can escape dependence on his father, while Tom becomes an alcoholic to dull the moral turmoil of knowing his father is a slave owner and the dread of becoming one himself upon his inheritance. Rozema emphasizes elements of nineteenth century culture not present in the book, but of post-modern interest: Lady Bertram is an opium addict; the relationship between Fanny and Mary Crawford is filled with Sapphic tension (Rozema is a Lesbian and her lover has been romantically and legally entangled with Courtney Love), etc. The minimalist soundtrack and hackneyed steady-cam based cinematography prevent the development of any illusion the action takes place anywhere and at any time other than on a twenty-first century television screen (even had one seen it in the theater). Worst of all, the entire moral force of Rozema’s critique of the evils of the ancient régime (there’s unexplored intellectual territory!) is thrown away at the end when the film stops abruptly and something like a Saturday-morning cartoon starts. In an ending modeled on American Graffiti, Fanny as narrator tells us what happens to each of the characters in later years while we view them engaged in cheap slapstick routines (there is some wrestling over a muffin at the breakfast table, for instance). The worst of this, and it may be one of the worst 30 seconds of film I’ve ever seen, is when Fanny assures us that Sir Thomas, whom we have seen personally raping and murdering through the eyes of his son Tom, will now for no apparent reason act like a father from a 1950s sit-com and will give up being a sadistic slave plantation owner and instead pursue an honorable trade as a tobacco trader—yes, that is supposed to be a clever one-line joke.
One knows reason and art have been left behind upon hearing the line, “Don’t be so old-fashioned! It’s 1806 for heaven’s sake!’
Patricia Rozema filmed this version of Mansfield Park for theatrical release in 1999. Rozema abandons any attempt to adapt the novel in favor of a post-modernist critique. The character of Fanny Price is done away with and virtually replaced with Jane Austen herself (an amateur writer when Fanny’s age), or, rather, with a modern woman playing the part of Jane Austen, complaining against the necessity of marriage as a form of slavery from a feminist viewpoint. The main story becomes that of the rebellion of the Bertram brothers against their father. Sir Thomas (played by the Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter) is a monster who leers in a perverted fashion at Fanny and who rapes and tortures his slaves while in Antigua. Upon his return, he entertains the family one evening with a long lecture on slave breeding. Rozsema imagines herself clever for citing 18th century bibliography over whether or not ‘mulattos’ could breed or were sterile like mules. Edmund seeks to become a clergyman so he can escape dependence on his father, while Tom becomes an alcoholic to dull the moral turmoil of knowing his father is a slave owner and the dread of becoming one himself upon his inheritance. Rozema emphasizes elements of nineteenth century culture not present in the book, but of post-modern interest: Lady Bertram is an opium addict; the relationship between Fanny and Mary Crawford is filled with Sapphic tension (Rozema is a Lesbian and her lover has been romantically and legally entangled with Courtney Love), etc. The minimalist soundtrack and hackneyed steady-cam based cinematography prevent the development of any illusion the action takes place anywhere and at any time other than on a twenty-first century television screen (even had one seen it in the theater). Worst of all, the entire moral force of Rozema’s critique of the evils of the ancient régime (there’s unexplored intellectual territory!) is thrown away at the end when the film stops abruptly and something like a Saturday-morning cartoon starts. In an ending modeled on American Graffiti, Fanny as narrator tells us what happens to each of the characters in later years while we view them engaged in cheap slapstick routines (there is some wrestling over a muffin at the breakfast table, for instance). The worst of this, and it may be one of the worst 30 seconds of film I’ve ever seen, is when Fanny assures us that Sir Thomas, whom we have seen personally raping and murdering through the eyes of his son Tom, will now for no apparent reason act like a father from a 1950s sit-com and will give up being a sadistic slave plantation owner and instead pursue an honorable trade as a tobacco trader—yes, that is supposed to be a clever one-line joke.
