{"id":20152,"date":"2020-03-31T23:04:54","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T23:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=20152"},"modified":"2020-08-20T17:25:36","modified_gmt":"2020-08-20T17:25:36","slug":"perfection-comes-at-a-price-in-latest-adaptation-of-austens-emma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/perfection-comes-at-a-price-in-latest-adaptation-of-austens-emma\/","title":{"rendered":"Perfection comes at a price in latest adaptation of Austen&#8217;s &#8216;Emma&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/inger-s-b-brodey-999423\">Inger S. B. Brodey<\/a>, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-north-carolina-at-chapel-hill-1353\">University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The latest film adaptation of Jane Austen\u2019s classic \u201cEmma\u201d is a visual feast of color, pattern and texture.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also a bit too perfect.<\/p>\n<p>The colors are too vibrant, the skin too clear, the homes too opulent, the landscapes too gorgeous, the fabrics without any stain or wear. Every frame of director <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm2127315\/\">Autumn de Wilde<\/a>\u2019s version feels like a still-life painting or Instagram-ready photograph.<\/p>\n<p>Perfection features explicitly in both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qsOwj0PR5Sk\">de Wilde\u2019s film<\/a>, which has been given an early digital release as theaters close due to coronavirus concerns, and Austen\u2019s novel. In making Emma too perfect, the film becomes Emma\u2019s fantasy of her own life rather than Austen\u2019s more balanced portrayal of her heroine\u2019s many faults.<\/p>\n<p>As <a href=\"https:\/\/englishcomplit.unc.edu\/faculty-directory\/inger-s-b-brodey\/\">an Austen scholar<\/a>, I know that the author herself had a tense relationship with perfection. \u201cPerfection,\u201d she wrote in one of her letters, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/42078\/42078-h\/42078-h.htm\">makes me sick and wicked<\/a>.\u201d While writing Emma, Austen wrote that she was creating a heroine \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mollands.net\/etexts\/jeal_memoir\/mem10.html\">whom no one but myself will much like<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And, in truth, readers often find Emma\u2019s general snobbery and cruel treatment of her friend Harriet difficult to forgive.<\/p>\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qsOwj0PR5Sk?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Trailer for Emma.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Fearful symmetry<\/h2>\n<p>Emma\u2019s social superiority in de Wilde\u2019s film is conveyed visually. Hardly a scene passes where Emma does not claim center stage. She is generally framed by perfectly symmetrical glittering candelabras or colorfully fringed symmetrical curtains, if not actually by the two halves of her name as in the opening titles.<\/p>\n<p>Her perfect mastery of the family estate Hartfield expresses itself everywhere. Servants enter and leave in pairs, puppet-like, moving in choreographed synchrony. Emma\u2019s invisible hand extends with tyrannical accuracy over the domestic scenes, and there is little relief from the perfection that she craves. Even her matchmaking stems from her own contrivances: \u201cThere is such symmetry between us,\u201d she remarks about herself and potential suitor Frank, suggesting that her decisions are guided by aesthetics rather than feeling.<\/p>\n<p>The perfection built up to surround Emma in the film is external. It evokes the worshipful, cowed sense that her friend Harriet feels on her first visit to Hartfield. The viewer of Emma remains an outsider, like Harriet, a spectator of the sumptuous visual displays.<\/p>\n<h2>An imperfect insult<\/h2>\n<p>In the novel, Emma\u2019s failings are plentiful.<\/p>\n<p>In one scene in both film and book, Emma insults her old and impoverished friend Miss Bates at a picnic. In the awkward moment after the insult, a fellow guest offers a riddle: What two letters spell perfection? The answer, as any Austen reader knows, is M.A. \u2013 pronounced \u201cEmm-a\u201d \u2013 an ill-timed compliment to the heroine, who has just demonstrated how imperfect she can be. The script stays remarkably true to the novel in this scene, but the response by Emma\u2019s suitor, George Knightley is different. In the novel, he remarks that \u201cperfection should not have come so soon.\u201d In the film he says, \u201cWho can improve upon perfection?\u201d The distinction is subtle, but important: The film\u2019s Mr. Knightley seems more disposed than Austen\u2019s to attribute perfection to Emma.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise de Wilde\u2019s film minimizes Emma\u2019s reckless toying with her friend\u2019s heart. Emma still browbeats Harriet into rejecting the suitor she loves. Yet in the film, their friendship is stronger and persists in a way not possible in the novel. By the end, de Wilde\u2019s Emma cares enough about Harriet to reject Mr. Knightley\u2019s proposal. The novel\u2019s Emma could not indulge in such \u201cgenerosity run mad,\u201d and the friendship subsequently subsides.<\/p>\n<h2>Morals or macaroons<\/h2>\n<p>The film constantly distracts us from moral lessons or deeper human connections, focusing instead on macaroons, hair ornaments, waistcoats and other tokens of superficial beauty. De Wilde\u2019s Emma sacrifices complex personality and playfulness of spirit to the subtle tyranny of synchrony, symmetry and surface order, which Emma uses to her advantage.<\/p>\n<p>Even when given the chance to explore Emma\u2019s failings, the film version hesitates. The novel provides a potent rival for Emma in Jane Fairfax. In the book, when the two face off in dueling piano performances, Jane\u2019s playing and singing are \u201cinfinitely superior\u201d to Emma\u2019s. Yet the film translates this superiority into harsh, virtuoso piano skills that startle the audience out of their pleasant somnolescence. Jane\u2019s skill at Mozart\u2019s Sonata in F shocks and amuses but isn\u2019t pleasing enough in the film to mortify us on Emma\u2019s account. De Wilde allows Emma to reign supreme.<\/p>\n<p>Given the way Emma has been developed to embody soft tyranny and perfection, it is all the more striking when at the climax \u2014 the moment of Mr. Knightley\u2019s proposal \u2014 de Wilde disrupts Emma\u2019s visual and external perfection. When Mr. Knightley asks Emma to marry him, we all hold our breath. In the book, Austen doesn\u2019t allow us to hear Emma\u2019s acceptance. \u201cWhat did she say?\u201d taunts the narrator, \u201cJust what she ought, of course. A lady always does.\u201d At the moment when we readers most crave sincerity and direct expression from Emma, when we want her to just be a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart, she remains \u201ca lady\u201d and seems to conform to social conventions in superficially perfect expressions.<\/p>\n<p>De Wilde uses a striking visual choice to humanize this moment. We\u2019re all curious \u2013 waiting to hear Emma say \u201cjust what she ought.\u201d Instead, we\u2019re greeted by an exceedingly ill-timed nosebleed.<\/p>\n<h2>Nosebleeds and nudity<\/h2>\n<p>The brilliance of the proposal scene nosebleed is that it highlights the relationship between Emma as \u201clady\u201d and Emma as \u201cwoman.\u201d In this key moment, Emma\u2019s humanity bleeds through her perfectly coiffed, ironed and embroidered facade. The brilliant red trail of blood stands out in remarkable contrast to the virginal, delicate white fabrics and blossoms surrounding her and Mr. Knightley. Their intimacy does not advance through words but instead through physical contact. A closeup of a gloved hand gives way in a subsequent scene to a thinly laced glove and skin on skin at the marriage altar.<\/p>\n<p>De Wilde\u2019s other bold move is to include nudity in the film. Mr. Knightley is introduced in the buff, and we also see Emma\u2019s bare bottom warming at the hearth. De Wilde uses nudity and nosebleeds to create chinks in Emma\u2019s armor.<\/p>\n<p>Austen informs us that Emma \u201cwas not loth to be first.\u201d De Wilde indulges Emma in her wish for preeminence. The film begins as Emma, head lying on a silk-trimmed pillow, just opens her eyes; the film ends as her lace-covered eyes close upon the audience. Emma\u2019s vision literally brackets the film itself.<\/p>\n<p>As the period in the title suggests, Emma is a sentence unto herself. She is alpha and omega to this film adaptation. None may question her absolute dominion. And yet, perhaps, perfection should not have come quite so soon or quite as completely. With such perfections, only broad visual strokes, such as nosebleeds and nudity, can bring her down to human proportions.<\/p>\n<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/us\/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&amp;utm_medium=inline-link&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter-text&amp;utm_content=deepknowledge\">Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter<\/a>.]<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/134279\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/republishing-guidelines --><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/inger-s-b-brodey-999423\">Inger S. B. Brodey<\/a>, Associate Professor, English and Comparative Literature, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-north-carolina-at-chapel-hill-1353\">University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>This article is republished from <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/perfection-comes-at-a-price-in-latest-adaptation-of-austens-emma-134279\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inger S. B. Brodey, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The latest film adaptation of Jane Austen\u2019s classic \u201cEmma\u201d is a visual feast of color, pattern and texture. It\u2019s also a bit too perfect. The colors are too vibrant, the skin too clear, the homes too opulent, the landscapes too gorgeous, the fabrics without [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":20154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,7],"tags":[837,2383,335,7849,1740],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20152"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20152"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21754,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20152\/revisions\/21754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}