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Why I Love...classic adaptations

Gemma Arterton and Eddie Redmayne as Tess and Angel in Tess of the D'Urbervilles
  • Posted at 4:20pm
  • 18 September 2008
  • by JacquelineWheeler-RT
  • 6 comments

Big books, big budgets, big productions. Adaptations of classic novels are probably better placed than any other type of screen drama to succeed, and in the months leading up to Christmas, there are always a couple nestling in the schedules.

This is because the English autumn, with its ancient and peculiar festivals, darkening evenings and foreboding skies is the perfect season for indulging in a bit of heavyweight literary escapism - ever so slightly lightened, of course, by the skilful cutting and trimming that takes 1,000 pages from print to screen.

These epic dramas are tautly structured and austerely hued. They are directed with subtlety and discipline. Or that is how they work at their best. No need to jazz up Dickens with intrusive mood music. Bleak House contains enough fascinating material to fill twice the number of hours allotted to the 2005 BBC version.

But Andrew Davies made a neat job of condensing this vast, dark, poetic novel into 14 snappy, half-hour episodes that were utterly compelling. Dickens, who knew a thing or two about keeping an audience coming back for more, would have been hooked.

Davies, like all the best adapters, respects his source material and stays true to the book. When Jennifer Ehle played Elizabeth Bennet in the BBC's enduringly popular Pride and Prejudice, much of what she said came straight from the pages of the original novel. The audience had the pleasure of engaging with one of this country's best writers without the effort of reading a single footnote.

Literature for the masses or literature for the lazy, perhaps? Does it matter? While passion on TV is customarily denoted by heaving bodies, we were captivated by a love affair conducted through nothing more audacious than intelligent conversation. The closest we got to bodice-ripping was Colin Firth in a wet blouson.

Imaginative casting is central to the success of these classic dramatisations. Yes, Judi Dench always seems to get in there somewhere, but more often than not, the reliably strong regulars play alongside relative unknowns or up-and-coming actors who get their chance to shine as romantic leads or in minor character roles.

So rising star Gemma Arterton is a suitably fresh-faced heroine in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, with theatre actor Eddie Redmayne proving a talented newcomer to television as Angel Clare. And there can be real surprises, as we saw when Gillian Anderson gripped us with her enigmatic portrayal of Lady Dedlock in Bleak House.

Having said all this, there are some dramatisations that haven't worked for me at all, most recently Cranford. Too bitty, too twee, trying too hard. Maybe this was because it wasn't really an adaptation but an amalgam of various books by Elizabeth Gaskell and the story consequently lacked focus. Never mind, though - there was no disappointment on the visual front. There rarely is.

You may tire of that grumpy old mayor of Casterbridge, or wish Fanny Price would get a life, but who can resist those budget-busting costumes, sets and locations? Classic dramas are where we retreat into verdant landscapes that seem to stretch on forever, and drift through shadowy rooms only dimly illuminated by candlelight. I can't get enough of them.

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Comments

  • Posted on 31 August 2009
  • at 5:33pm
  • by John

I am gettting a bit fed up with classical adaptations a lorra lorra money spent. I have read a bit after having some time after being a 'factory rat ' for 15 years and going to University at 31. Thorthanger Abbey was the only Austen I read I know she is clever and subtle and it was a satire on Gothic novels and apparently according to one book The Naughty Bits In Jane Austen but I liked Mrs Gaskell who seem to address my experiences of unions and factory work. But please can we have more contemprorary repeats such as Bleasdale's 'Boys From The Blackstuff' or even black and white classics like the early Z cars. Being from Liverpool I would say that wouldn't I .How about an adaptation of 'Tuppence to Cross the Mersey'?

  • Posted on 26 August 2009
  • at 9:17pm
  • by alison

i love all the classics. im really looking forward to wuthering heights with Tom Hardy, it has got a stong cast in this adaption. ive got quite a few on dvd.

  • Posted on 01 October 2008
  • at 2:47pm
  • by Ionaclio

It is just the sheer escapism I love about these adaptations, although, I agree, that some can be grim. I loved Cranford. I also regret the passing of the Sunday adaptations of Children's Classics. I was brought up on these. Maybe this would not be to the taste of the some children, these days. Sad. Thanks for an excellent blog.

  • Posted on 24 September 2008
  • at 7:51pm
  • by Tess

Oh and I forgot - the description of the machines being served by the field workers (female) is about as socialist realistic as you can get. But that's in the book

  • Posted on 24 September 2008
  • at 7:49pm
  • by tess

The book is not 'laid out' though. A book and a TV adaptation are very different things. Hardy's Tess is not 'chocolate box' at all. It is exceedingly grim.

  • Posted on 22 September 2008
  • at 11:15am
  • by Jason

I think there is clearly a difference between good (ie. challenging) and bad (ie. safe) literary adaptations. The assumption that literary classics are more likely to make better TV is just that - an assumption. Personally, I think we should be grappling with contemporary issues in drama - and the best examples come from the social realist tradition (Boys from the Blackstuff, Hillsborough, even Prime Suspect), not seeking refuge in a cosy, romanticised version of history. At it's worst, you get the chocolate box heritage brigade like Merchant Ivory, and particularly at the BBC there has been a long tradition of middle class drama that used historical classics to "inform, educate and entertain" the ignorant masses - ie. they decide what's good for you, not you, and tough on you if you prefer Coronation Street! But I digress. The best literary adaptations take a novel and reinvent it (take Coppola's visionary version of Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now, or Truffaut's Jules et Jim, or even Clueless - Jane Austen's Emma in an American high school). I fail to see the point of the "faithful" adaptation. I can read the book, after all. Or maybe that's the point. People nowadays are too lazy to read the real thing and want it all laid out for them.

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