Emma (1996) ✰ ✰ ✰
My choice for September’s Movie of the Month is a Jane Austen adaptation, Emma (1996). It is a comic film — with serious under-tones — which I saw second-run at the Wheaton theater in March of 1997. I have seen it several times since then and it continues to charm me, as well as my wife Barbara, who counts the film among her favorites.
It was an early success for lead actress Gwyneth Paltrow, just after Se7en and Hard Eight, and I am convinced that her graceful, sympathetic performance here presented her perfectly to the makers of Shakespeare in Love, who were looking for the same qualities for their Viola. Paltrow won a Best Actress Academy Award for Shakespeare in Love, and deservedly so, yet her work two years earlier in Emma is on the same high level.
As good as Paltrow is, I found myself even more impressed by an actor with whom I was previously unfamiliar, Mr. Jeremy Northam. As the incredibly understanding Mr. Knightley, Emma’s best friend, Northam is, dare I say, perfect. He seems born for the role, deftly defying period convention and yet embodying the finest characteristics of the era. He reminds me of a mild-mannered James Bond; I can easily visualize him in the role, saving the world and rescuing deluded damsels in distress such as Emma Woodhouse. For me, one of the great rewards of re-watching the movie is enjoying Jeremy Northam’s performance again and again.
Emma, for those of you who are not Austen-philes, is the tale of Emma Woodhouse (Paltrow), a single girl of just 20, who believes it her life’s work to match friends to one another in marriage, even while dismissing the matter of marriage for herself. This attitude differentiates the book from other Austen novels, which often center on the absolute need for women to secure their futures in marriage, but one can rest assured that by the end of the story the heroine will make a fine match as well.
It may be difficult for modern readers and viewers to relate to the situations, customs and class distinctions that populate this Austen tale, because things have changed so much in the two centuries since the book was written. The use of language, in particular, may dismay modern audiences accustomed to curtness, abbreviation and slang, and yet that flowing conversation constitutes the poetry of the age. What was “unwritten law” back then in terms of behavior and respect, particularly in terms regarding the social classes, may be difficult to comprehend now, but Austen, and the filmmaking team behind Emma, have realized those customs as adroitly as possible while taking care not to sacrifice the author’s intent to the effort of explaining the background. The result is a film that explores the world Jane Austen created without being slavish to the book, and which uses skilled cast members to bring that world to life in revealing ways that are not only comprehensible but rewarding. Director Douglas McGrath deserves a world of credit for making a movie that is not stodgy or old-fashioned but fresh, vivid and quite remarkable.
Because her governess (Greta Scacchi) marries a man at the beginning of the story to whom Emma had introduced her, Emma concludes that she should play Cupid for her friends and acquaintances. This is what leads her into meddling into their lives under the guise of guiding them to happiness. Of course, things never progress as Emma plans; she misreads romantic clues all the time, she dismisses her friends’ actual feelings as inferior to her own intentions, and in the midst of what she sees as her charitable efforts she remains thoughtless as to what people actually need. One of my favorite aspects of this tale is that Austen presents Emma as well-meaning but rather irresponsible, a young adult who not only doesn’t have all the answers, but who really has no right trying to provide her half-baked beliefs to everyone around her. It’s a nice change from modern “young adult” fiction, which so often insists that only the young who are not yet jaded to the way things are can change and save the world. That attitude is largely a commercial one that panders to a large yet specific audience, but it ignores the cold, hard truth that life experience counts for more than youthful vigor and hope.
Much of Emma’s attention is taken by her friend Harriet Smith (Toni Collette), whom she tries to tie to the local parson, Mr. Elton (Alan Cumming). Harriet is surprisingly amenable to Emma’s machinations, even though they never result in either romance or happiness for her. Yet their friendship endures, and Emma finally learns to let Harriet find her own way. I think this is the ultimate point of Austen’s tale — to allow people to live their own lives regardless of one’s own perspective or prejudices. It takes Emma a long time to realize that she is wrong regarding Harriet, regarding Mr. Elton, regarding Frank Churchill (Ewan McGregor), and even regarding Mr. Knightley. With each Cupidic failure she resolves not to meddle, but she just cannot help herself until the lesson is fully absorbed. And that does not occur until her own unrealized happiness is threatened when Harriet tells Emma that she has feelings for Mr. Knightley. Only then does Emma begin to comprehend her own true self, and see how her acts could have costly consequences.
All of this, of course, occurs very gradually. McGrath’s film takes its time to reveal the milieu, the characters and the structure of the story. The film is rather mild, as its characters rarely raise their voices or come into direct conflict with one another. Yet the method behind this genteel facade is two fold: to accentuate the charm and appeal of Austen’s idealized world, and more importantly, to utilize accretion to build toward the most crucial scenes. Moments and scenes accumulate to at least three dramatic climaxes throughout the story, and these climaxes provide the finest, most rewarding moments of the film.
The first occurs when Mr. Elton is finally able to express his romantic feelings for a woman — and those feelings are not directed at Harriet Smith. This is the first hint Emma receives that her matchmaking is misunderstood, and might have dangerous consequences, but she is too affronted at the moment to realize those things.
The second occurs after Emma’s understandable but unfortunate insult to chatty Miss Bates (Sophie Thompson). This is the first time that Emma is impossibly thoughtless and taints her own character. She realizes what she has done but carries on anyway, and it is up to Mr. Knightley to set her straight, in a scene that demonstrates why he is such a wonderful man. Of all the dialogue in this movie, it is sharpest and penetrating here, and with good reason. Yet Mr. Knightley delivers his reproach of Emma’s foul behavior with a tenderness and compassion that belies his words and displays his love for her, if only she could see his emotion through her tears of shame. For my money this is the film’s finest scene, at least dramatically. I also love their archery scene together, but for different reasons.
The third accumulative scene is, of course, the abrupt encounter near the end of the story in which Emma and Mr. Knightley finally, finally declare their true feelings for each other. After all that has gone before, this scene is not only cathartic, but also a relief because we are by then afraid that it might never arrive. Yes, this is the pattern and formula for most, if not all, romantic stories, but this one is beautifully staged and sensitively performed and wonderfully effective. Emma finally realizes what she should have known all along, and with a tender kiss her affirmation of happiness is secured and the story can conclude.
I mentioned the archery scene, one which I love because it is wry and funny, and which diffuses the underlying dialogue, in which Mr. Knightley urges Emma to stop her matchmaking efforts. It also seems unusual for a woman such as Emma to be participating in such an activity as archery, yet that only serves to make our heroine more contemporary and spirited. And the funniest moment in the film comes at the end of the archery scene, as Emma is so rattled by Mr. Knightley’s remarks that their silent audience begins to feel threatened by her errant aim. Through it all, Mr. Knightley never loses his humor or composure, knowing that Emma will continue to be obstinate and do what she pleases because she doesn’t foresee the consequences.
Emma is not a great film, like the 1940 or 2005 versions of Pride and Prejudice, or the 1995 Sense and Sensibility, but it is a darn good one. I should mention that the film was nominated for two Academy Awards, winning one. It lost Costume Design but won for Original Musical or Comedy Score, a rare example of a female composer (Rachel Portman) ever winning an Oscar. My major quibble is that the supporting characters like Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax (Polly Walker) lack the depth that Austen provides in the book, and because of that some of the plotting isn’t always as clear as it ought to be. The pervasive lightly comic tone tends to work against the film’s dramatic side at times, too; it could be balanced a little better. But overall there remains a great deal to enjoy in this movie, and I like it more than the other Austen adaptations I mentioned earlier in this paragraph. Even though it isn’t quite as good, there is something about this one that is more appealing to me, and I am happy to recommend it, either on its own, or as a grand introduction to the cinematic world of Jane Austen. I’m sure you will enjoy it. ✰ ✰ ✰. September 2014.
All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt. (Charles M. Schulz)
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