That is indeed JLM who played Mr K in the 2009 miniseries of Emma. But he never said those words. Only our Mr Knightley says them. It's not a direct quote from Jane Austen. Douglas McGrath, screenwriter/director of the 1996 movie, wrote those words. They're a clever modification (and distillation) of Austen's original words turned into lines of dialogue for the love scene in the movie.
McGrath took a line of Mr K's dialogue from the book, "Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?" and blended it with a phrase from the narrator's description of Mr K's thoughts and feelings a few pages later, "he had ridden home through the rain." The whole scene is like that; indeed, the whole movie is.
In his declaration of love, JLM's Mr K actually uses words that are closer to Austen's original. Screenwriter Sandy Welch took lines of dialogue from the book like "I cannot make speeches, Emma" and "If I loved you less I might be able to talk about it more." Hers is a faithful and beautiful adaptation of the scene, but not the swoonily romantic moment that McGrath gives JN & GP.
And of course, it is preposterous that anyone else would ever play Mr Knightley. Jeremy's is the definitive Mr Knightley.
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'”
-- C.S. Lewis
Responses