Emma (2020)

This post contains spoilers and possibly controversial opinions. Proceed at your own risk.

I finally watched the 2020 Emma. Obviously, I’ve been wanting to watch it all year, but lacking buy in from the family (I kind of burned them out on streamed Austen musicals early in the pandemic), it took this long to follow through. My patience did save me five franks, as the cost of the film has reduced since its digital release, but I had to scramble all year to not read about it, that my impressions might remain untainted. 

For the most part, I loved it. It's funny, which I very much appreciate. It's also perfectly gorgeous. I could go on about the clothing for ages. That great coat Knightley wears at the very beginning ... wow! And those scenes where they show the characters dressing: no, they’re not canon, but they are manna for costume geeks. I could write an entire post about the clothing, but Karolina Żebrowska pretty much echoes all my thoughts, while providing a wonderful tutorial on the function of costumes in film:

I thought the cast was extremely strong, though few performances were enough to topple my previous preferences (find them here). Some were reminiscent of previous versions of the characters. Mr. Woodhouse (Bill Nighy) was portrayed with a nervous energy I found very interesting and highly akin to my favorite Mr. Woodhouse, Donald Eccles, from the 1972 version. Similarly, this Miss Bates (Miranda Hart) invoked strong memories of Sophie Thompson in 1996. The Eltons (Josh O'Conner and Tanya Reynolds) were perfectly abominable, as they should be.

Anya Taylor-Joy is a phenomenal actress and definitely makes the character of Emma Woodhouse her own. I personally prefer a more sympathetic portrayal, but that's probably because I take criticism of Miss Woodhouse rather personally, finding her as relatable as I do. I reserve the right to be partial and prejudiced on such subjects.

My prejudices were set against Johnny Flynn as Mr. Knightley, but he soon toppled them. I think his performance is probably my new favorite depiction of the character. Mia Goth also stood out as Harriet Smith (the only better I have seen is Dani Marcus in the streaming musical version, my review for which was sadly lost in the AA purge).

But even when I enjoy an adaptation, it is the things that I don’t like which tend to weigh on my mind. I suppose it is the curse of the Janeite. For example, am I the only one left wondering what happened to poor Mrs. Hughes, and when/how Mr. Knighltey stole Mrs. Reynolds away from Pemberley?

I really disliked the portrayal of John and Isabella Knightley (Oliver Chris and Chloe Pirrie) as so incredibly quarrelsome and unhappy. That is not how I read their relationship in the book, and the fact that none of their closest relatives seem at all concerned by their obvious distress is heartless, reflecting poorly on all of them. As indicated above, I think Emma is mostly portrayed pretty harshly until the very end of the film, when some quick work is done to redeem her. Prior to that, we only see only fleeting glimpses of her humanity. I don’t think this was necessary or appropriate. I need to back up a bit to explain why.

Knightley’s realization that he loves Emma the night of the ball at the Crown is amply supported by the text. I even rather enjoyed his romantic struggle being more developed, but I strongly feel Emma needs to remain oblivious to her own feelings for a while longer. If she already knows she loves him and has even that vaguest reason to suspect that Mr. Knightley returns that love, then she is in the position of once again manipulating Harriet. She is supposed to have already learned this lesson. Under such circumstances, Harriet’s anger upon discovering the "mixup" is justified, but it's out of keeping with the behavior the character. This assertive transformation feels more like Tai (Britney Murphy) from Clueless than either the cannon Harriet or the one portrayed thus far in the film. More importantly, her accusations rob Emma of the opportunity for the self-realization so detrimental to her development. Instead, our heroine is sent to pay penance to Mr. Martin (playing matchmaker still!) in order to redeem herself. Why bother with all of this? As said above, it feels unnecessary. The only explanation seems to be hatred for the character. Just because Austen predicted that most people wouldn't like Emma Woodhouse, that does not justify this endless butchering of her character. Austen herself very much liked Miss Woodhouse. I wish fans would make more of an attempt to see her virtues.

And while we're altering the storyline anyway, how about updating Austen's one blatantly racist scene? We don't often dwell in the Janeite community on how offensive her portrayal of a menacing Romani presence in the neighbourhood is, but considering the current atmosphere, oughtn't we? I believe the scene could be portrayed on film quite in keeping with cannon, without whitewashing Austen's legacy, and yet free from incessant repetitions of a discriminatory word (they use it more frequently in the film than in the novel) and the perpetuation of uncontextualized racism. I think it's important to call the filmmakers out on this point. Badly done!

Back on lighter ground, I think Johnny Flynn delivered the “I cannot make speeches” speech to perfection. That he then, instead of a reply, got a nosebleed was a bit bewildering. I burst out laughing. Yes, it was cinematically beautiful, and yes, I have now read a bevy of explanations for both the planned and spontaneous aspects of the moment, but it kind of ruined what should have been an amazingly romantic moment for me. First of all, it was jarring, but it also strikes me as strange that Mr. Knightley, the one who claims to not be able to summon the correct words, has complete agency over the entire love declaration while Emma is left wordless on the subject, her blood sufficient confirmation of her feelings. Oy. It's not exactly a liberating portrayal. When a film is written and directed by women, one hopes that the resulting product will be free from such stuff. Instead, this adaptation has in it a current of female v female vindictiveness running through it, a force which always undermines our struggle. One imagines the writer saw her school bully in the heroine. The resemblance might be striking, but I still don't think Austen would approve. It strikes me as a transgression of "the duty of woman by woman" (Emma, Ch. 27).

Like all Austen adaptations, I will watch this one many times, my feelings about it will develop and grow, and the experience will add a new layer to my reading of the novel. This is why all the adaptations are worthwhile watching, even those that make me have a tantrum (looking at you, MP ‘99). Gotta relish comparative literature! It’s always broadening. I'm aching with anticipation for not one but TWO upcoming Persuasion adaptations. Surely one will finally get it right? I won't hold my breath, but still, there is hope!

"Epistle from Mrs. Yonge to Her Husband" by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Portrait of Lady Mary Pierrepont
by Godfrey Kneller

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (née Pierrepont - 1689-1762), the rebellious protofeminist that pioneered smallpox inoculation in England. Though largely known for her Turkish Embassy Letters (published posthumously and without her family's consent - like Austen, Lady Mary was also the victim of familial censorship, both through burned letters and image cultivation), written while her husband was ambassador to Constantinople, she also wrote a great deal of poetry. Her audience was her social circle, but some of these made it into print. In lieu of a proper post, I thought I'd share one of her poems with you, remarkably modern in its notions of gender, but be warned: modern audiences making a study of her will be confronted with a great deal of racism in her prose, as really ought to be expected from any 18th century Englishman traveling almost anywhere outside of their home country. Such content will not be reproduced by me here, though I feel obligated to call it out. 

The following poem teases my Janeite head, causing plot bunnies to explode. It is inspired by a scandalous court case from 1724, when Sir William Yonge filed for divorce from his wife, Mary, on grounds of adultery. He discovered that she had taken a lover, one Colonel Norton (who he also successfully sued for damages), and though they were already separated, and despite his many well-documented affairs, he used it as grounds for divorce. In accordance with the laws of the time, the courts found in his favor, bestowing Mary's dowery and the bulk of her fortune upon him in compensation. What happened to Mary Yonge (née Heathcote) after being deprived of her social status and wealth? Maybe she decided to disguise her name and set herself up in one of the few professions accessible to ladies at the time, and become a companion to some wealthier lady in need? I know the idea that Mr. Darcy could possibly have hired an infamous divorcee as a companion to his beloved sister is pretty farfetched (and history records that she remarried immediately after the divorce), but my brain keeps toying with the idea, nonetheless. Regardless, it is very possible Austen knew of the court case, and maybe the name did have some nefarious connections for her when she chose it. What it much more certain is that Austen would not have read the following verse, written from Mary Yonge's perspective, as it wasn't published until 1972. I'm not going to provide a lot of context, except that both the "patron" and "the man you fear" are probably Sir Robert Walpole, and that the blanked out names in the last line are Churchill (General John Churchill) and Lowther (Anthony Lowther), both rumoured to have had affairs (the former with Lady Walpole). 

Epistle from Mrs. Yonge to Her Husband (1724)

Think not this paper comes with vain pretense
To move your pity, or to mourn th’ offense.
Too well I know that hard obdurate heart;
No softening mercy there will take my part,
Nor can a woman’s arguments prevail,
When even your patron’s wise example fails.
But this last privilege I still retain;
Th’ oppressed and injured always may complain.
    Too, too severely laws of honor bind
The weak submissive sex of womankind.
If sighs have gained or force compelled our hand,
Deceived by art, or urged by stern command,
Whatever motive binds the fatal tie,
The judging world expects our constancy.
    Just heaven! (for sure in heaven does justice reign,
Though tricks below that sacred name profane)
To you appealing I submit my cause.
Nor fear a judgment from impartial laws.
All bargains but conditional are made;
The purchase void, the creditor unpaid;
Defrauded servants are from service free;
A wounded slave regains his liberty.
For wives ill used no remedy remains,
To daily racks condemned, and to eternal chains.
    From whence is this unjust distinction grown?
Are we not formed with passions like your own?
Nature with equal fire our souls endued,
Our minds as haughty, and as warm our blood;
O’er the wide world your pleasures you pursue,
The change is justified by something new;
But we must sigh in silence—and be true.
Our sex’s weakness you expose and blame
(Of every prattling fop the common theme),
Yet from this weakness you suppose is due
Sublimer virtue than your Cato knew.
Had heaven designed us trials so severe,
It would have formed our tempers then to bear.
    And I have borne (oh what have I not borne!)
The pang of jealousy, the insults of scorn.
Wearied at length, I from your sight remove,
And place my future hopes in secret love.
In the gay bloom of glowing youth retired,
I quit the woman’s joy to be admired,
With that small pension your hard heart allows,
Renounce your fortune, and release your vows.
To custom (though unjust) so much is due;
I hide my frailty from the public view.
My conscience clear, yet sensible of shame,
My life I hazard, to preserve my fame.
And I prefer this low inglorious state
To vile dependence on the thing I hate—
But you pursue me to this last retreat.
Dragged into light, my tender crime is shown
And every circumstance of fondness known.
Beneath the shelter of the law you stand,
And urge my ruin with a cruel hand,
While to my fault thus rigidly severe,
Tamely submissive to the man you fear.
    This wretched outcast, this abandoned wife,
Has yet this joy to sweeten shameful life:
By your mean conduct, infamously loose,
You are at once my accuser and excuse.
Let me be damned by the censorious prude
(Stupidly dull, or spiritually lewd),
My hapless case will surely pity find
From every just and reasonable mind.
When to the final sentence I submit,
The lips condemn me, but their souls aquit.
    No more my husband, to your pleasures go,
The sweets of your recovered freedom know.
Go: court the brittle friendship of the great,

Smile at his board, or at his levee wait;
And when dismissed, to madam’s toilet fly,
More than her chambermaids, or glasses, lie,
Tell her how young she looks, how heavenly fair,
Admire the lilies and the roses there.
Your high ambition may be gratified,
Some cousin of her own be made your bride,
And you the father of a glorious race
Endowed with Ch——l’s strength and Low——r’s face. 

The Rise and Fall of the Empire(waist)

Dancing dress featuring
 Grecian elements, 1809.

Though this post was composed a few years ago, I can't help but think it has more resonance today, when more and more people are thinking about the politicization of women's bodies. Fashion always has been an expression of a society's state, and monumental shifts in clothing styles inevitably occur in times of massive change. We have yet to see the lasting results of our current upheaval, but fashion already has reflected it, and future historians will analyze our clothing to better understand who we are as a people, what we value, and why we behave the way we do. Enjoy.

The Empire waist gown, the most defining element of women’s fashion during the Regency Era, has political implications far beyond what most Austen fans and period reenactors realize. In truth, it was revolutionary: a sartorial celebration of the times. “Empire” refers to the one built by Napoleon and is the name given in France to this period of history. High-waisted, loose gowns began to be worn in elite French fashion circles prior to the Revolution, largely in response to the philosophies put forth by Jean-Jaques Rousseau, an advocate for society’s return to more a natural state (often premised on idyllic notions of the peasantry), and whose ideas permeate Romantic thought. Yet this uncorseted look that shocked so many was not de rigueur until after the Revolution, when it became a reflection of the values of the new French state: simple fabrics and lines were far more egalitarian than complex court dress, their unrestrictive shapes were literally liberating, and the overall look was evocative of ancient Athens, where Democracy was born. Structured gowns became as passé as the wigs that went with them.

Full dress (Spring, 1799)
in the Grecian style. 

The earliest examples of this look from the late 18th century still feature trains, but with the beginning of the 19th century the silhouette straightens, emphasizing a woman’s true shape. Thin fabrics left little to the imagination. The English took their initial cues on this new look from the French, but as contact between the two countries diminished over decades of war, the Empire look began to take on a distinctly English flare. Tight fitted spencers and redingotes, while marvels of tailoring, acted to bring the liberated look a bit more in control, as well as providing some much-needed warmth. Many ladies also found that to achieve the desired silhouette, they still required a great deal of confining undergarments. Tudor and military embellishments further increased the structure of the gowns. Notions of simplicity in women’s clothing were soon abandoned, and ornamentation became just as ostentatious as ever. The death of Napoleon in 1821 coincides nicely with the beginning of the waistline’s gradual journey back to, well, the waist (it took less time in France). It wasn’t until the early 1830’s that women’s fashion began to take on truly Victorian dimensions in England, returning to the tight corsets and voluminous skirts of the previous century.

1807 gowns featuring Greek and Roman styling.
Left: Full dress and walking dress. Right: Full dress.

Evening dresses from 1816 (left) and 1819 (right) feature
helmet-like headdresses reminiscent of Athena’s,
the Greek goddess of war.

One need not be an historian to know that the Victorian Era was a period of rigid social conservatism. It is tempting to read the fall of the waistline as a rejection of revolution, but feminist historians are quick to point out that Rousseau’s philosophies and the fashions they inspired were far from liberating. Boys and girls of the era dressed in miniature versions of the gowns grown ladies wore. Boys were “breached” and allowed to grow into men, but girls were kept in a perpetual state of infancy. In Emile, Rousseau’s treatise on education, he describes a vision of womanhood rather chilling to the modern reader. The vast bulk of the book describes the education of Emile, his fictitious pupil, and only contemplates the education of girls in Book Five: Marriage. Here he describes the ideal mate for Emile, one Sophie, and the education she ought to receive to keep her as natural a woman as possible:

Morning and evening dress (1818)
showing military influences.

As I see it, the special functions of women, their inclinations and their duties, combine to suggest the kind of education they require. Men and women are made for each other but they differ in their measure of dependence on each other. We could get on better without women than women could get on without us. To play their part in life they must have our willing help, and for that they must earn our esteem. By the very law of nature women are at the mercy of men’s judgments both for themselves and for their children. It is not enough that they should be estimable: they must be esteemed. It is not enough that they should be wise: their wisdom must be recognized. Their honor does not rest on their conduct but on their reputation. Hence the kind of education they get should by the very opposite of men’s in this respect. Public opinion is the tomb of a man’s virtue but the throne of a woman’s. 

Walking dress demonstrating both Tudor &
military influence, 1821 (left) and 1822 (right).

His words, though rather infuriating, perfectly describe the reality in which Jane Austen lived and wrote. Recall what Mary Bennet has to say on the subject:

“Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable — that one false step involves her in endless ruin — that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful, — and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.”

Elizabeth might find such a statement annoying under the circumstances, but Mary correctly conveys the realities of their world. If Wickham did not marry Lydia, the entire Bennet family would have been tarnished by her actions, throwing their very survival into doubt. All this from a lack of active patriarchal protection. Women were entirely at the mercy of public opinion, yet at the same time fashion exposed their bodies in ways unheard of in Europe for centuries past. They were taught to court and relish masculine attention, just like Lydia Bennet, but then were punished for indulging in it. What a double edged sword!

The falling waistline. Left: Walking and dinner dress (1822).
Right: Evening dress (Winter, 1826).

Even if Rousseau was not an advocate for any real form of female liberation, his notions undoubtedly influenced philosophers who were, like Mary Wollstonecraft. The ideals of freedom and liberty that marked the period would gradually spread their wings and slowly encompass more and more of the globe, a process that remains hard-fought and ongoing. One truth that can be universally acknowledged is that after a few decades of Victorian austerity, corsets again fell out of fashion, hemlines raised, and a new era of women’s fashion was born. With it came suffrage, women in the work place, and birth control. Pretty revolutionary, wouldn’t you say?

Boy and girls fashions, 1834. The younger boys, like the
three on the far left, are still wearing skirts resembling those
of the girl the same age (second figure from the right).
The older boy standing behind her has been breached.

This post owes a great debt to Fashion in the Time of Jane Austen by Sarah Jane Downing, an excellent overview of the subject from Shire Library that I highly recommend.

The images featured are from the Claremont Colleges Digital Library: http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/.