Mansfield Park (1999)

Mansfield Park (1999) was written and directed by Patricia Rozema. It's based on Jane Austen's novel. Frances O'Connor stars as Fanny Price, the protagonist of the novel. Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are considered Jane Austen's two best works. Mansfield Park is down a rung on the ladder along with Persuasion and Emma. However, Jane Austen may well be the world's greatest English-language novelist, so even her less dazzling novels are read, and re-read, to this day.The film version rises and falls on the character of Fanny Price, the poor relation who is sent to rich relatives who live at Mansfield Park. The plot revolves around Fanny, and Frances O'Connor brings her alive. (At age 32, O'Connor was chronologically too old for the part, but she has a very vital, youthful quality, and she looks perfect in the role.) Not only does O'Connor do great work, but the supporting cast is excellent, and the production values are high.However, a controversy arises because director Rozema has chosen to subtly shift the characters and the sense of the novel to add incidents from Austen's own life, and to include a moral discussion about slavery. (The slave trade in England was outlawed in 1808, but slavery itself was not outlawed until 1833.)As cited in Wikipedia, "The result is a film that retains the core character evolution and series of events of Jane Austen's novel, but in other ways, some critics claim, stresses its themes and ideas differently. The plot changes the moral message of Austen's novel, and makes the story a critique of slavery rather than a conservative critique of the "modern." In the novel Fanny's passivity and moral stance are seen as virtues but these aspects of her character are missing from the film." I refer you to the complete article in Wikipedia, but this paragraph is the core of it.The question for me becomes, "Can scriptwriter Rozema improve on Jane Austen? Should director Rozema allow her to do this?" That's not an easy question, and I don't have an easy answer.This film was made for the large screen. We saw it on the small screen, and it worked pretty well. Whether it is or isn't what Jane Austen had in mine, it's a very good movie, and worth seeking out.

England, 1806. The photography and production design are exquisite. What a far cry this is from Hollywood's remakes of the classics in the 30s and 40s, with everything shot in black and white on a studio sound stage. Majestic landscapes in full bloom. And what must it be like to live in Cornwall and bear the brunt of all those westerly gales? Mendocino County write large.The performances are top notch as well. I don't know how closely the characters resemble Jane Austen's, never having read the novel, but independent of her text they can stand on their own two feet. And not just the performances but the casting. As Fanny Price, Frances O'Connor looks and acts like a properly British Jessica Harper. Embeth Davidz is paralyzing cool and pragmatic. I can't figure out just who plays Fanny's mother in Portsmouth but she's emblematic of the poor around the world, pinched and weathered. I had no idea that Harold Pinter was an actor as well as a writer.I can't say that the plot is gripping. Well, I guess it is, in a way. The problem is that it's so similar to other lavish soap operas in which everybody is in love with the wrong person for reasons of affection or social status -- vide, "Far From the Madding Crowd," "Gone With The Wind," and on and on. Dickens worked such themes into his novels as well, but he added a dash of social commentary, of engagement with the world outside the mansion. And he played recklessly with the English language: "Oh, JOY! What a reversal of desolation." Austen seems sedate by comparison.Patricia Rozema is a winning director, hitting all the right notes. No fancy directorial fireworks, no razzle dazzle, and the stylistic touches come at just the right places, as in the epilogue, in which characters freeze into tableaux just long enough for a summary of their fates.

Well, if you like to see half-naked bosoms (now called by more common names) with great frequency, here's your chance. The actors are quite attractive and right for their roles, but they're not given any substantial roles by the vapid and totally distorted script. It was made for people with very short attention spans, which is understandable. The world and the web are so full of distractions that very few probably have the patience to read Austen's novel, her most complex and longest and, in many literary critics' views, her greatest. Far inferior to Colin Firth's and Barbara Ehle's Pride and Prejudice or Emma Thompson's (scriptwriter) version of Sense and Sensibility. Kate Beckinsale and Mark Strong also produce fine characterizations in their performances in Emma.

I have always wanted to watch this movie as it stars Frances O'Connor, and because I adore her. But, 5 minutes into the movie it became insufferable. Only the movie's title is Mansfield Park, nothing else even reminds of the novel. Frances O'Connor's character Fanny was nothing like the Fanny in the novel and it actually bears resemblances to Jane Austen's own character and Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice instead.I don't think I might have enjoyed the movie even if I hadn't read the novel. it seems like this was an attempt to create a movie like the Sense and Sensibility from 1995, which was a fabulous adaptation, regardless of slight changes from the source. But Mansfield Park is mere torture of the audience with a bunch of obnoxious characters. God knows how this movie has a ranking of 7 stars here. I actually used to trust the IMDb ratings!