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2 Balancing the Courtship Hero Masculine Emotional Display in Film Adaptations of Austen's Novels Cheryl L. Nixon 'Watcliing 5lusten 's :Men The exclamation, "I loved when Darcy stripped off some of his clothes and dove into the pond as he returned to Pemberley," started off a classroom discussion concerning the Andrew Davies BBC television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (1995). The student explained her enthusiasm by noting that although this scene does not appear in Austens novel, it serves to dramatize Austen's development of Darcys character. Darcy's swim provides a dramatic visual symbol of his emotional rebirth, as he forsakes pride and moves toward a more generous love of Elizabeth. The scene makes Darcy seem "more alive" and "more human." The class concluded that while the scene is an obvious addition, it maintains the thematic thrust of Austen's plot, translating her ideas concerning character transformation into a visual vocabulary. The same group of students, enrolled in an undergraduate seminar on Jane Austen I teach, held a remarkably similar view of the recent-and more revisionary-Emma Thompson film adaptation ofSense and Sensibility (1995). As with the BBCs Darcy, visually striking additions are made to the actions of Colonel Brandon. Brandon is given a dramatic rescue of the rain-soaked Marianne, a dramatic horseback ride to fetch Mrs. Dashwood to Marianne's sickbed, and a dramatic poetry reading Signaling his slow conquering of Marianne's heart, among several other added scenes. While, as a group of literary critics, the class was somewhat uneasy with the liberties taken with Austen's plot, as a group of moviegoers, the class was relieved to see Austens vision of Brandon so radically augmented. While Austen's Brandon did not seem to be a good match for the young, energetic, and emotional Marianne, Balancing the Courtship Hero 23 Thompson's Brandon is worthy of Marianne's love. The class consensus was clear: a "one-dimensional," "boring" Brandon had been transformed into a more "active," "desirable" one. While Austen's transformation of Darcy into a romantic hero needs only slight translation, her characterization of Brandon seems to need a complete reconfiguration. In both adaptations, however, the additions met with approval. Obviously, if my class is any indication, a "more alive" and "more active" version of Austen's heroes resonates with today's moviegoers. My class's opinions are in good company. Louis Menand, reviewing the recent spate of Austen films in the New York Review of Books offers a similar analysis of the cinematic revisions of Austen's men. His essay opens with the argument that the 1995 Pride and Prejudice adaptation fulfills its viewers' desires precisely because it contains a crucial "enhancement": "the glamorization of Mr. Darcy" (Menand 13). Noting that "nearly all of Davies's departures from the novel involve Darcy," Menand provides the compelling argument that the added scenes, the pool-diving scene being a primary example, give Darcy a physical presence that Austen has not (13). The film adaptation succeeds because it has given Darcy "a body" (13). Menand concludes, 'This is, in short, a P&P with extra Darcy" (13). Having proven the importance of the "erotically enhanced Darcy," Menand notes that the men in Sense and Sensibility must be similarly reformed (13). The "key to the ... success" of Thompson's adaptation is its revision of the "diffident sad sack Edward Ferrars ... and the stolid sad sack Colonel Brandon" (l4). Austen "neglected" to make the men "appealing" and thus did not write a "credible romance," but the movie wisely remedies this central fault (14). The film recognizes that "the chief problem with the book is the stupefying dullness of the men the Dashwood sisters eventually pair off with" (14). To echo Menand's earlier words, the film solves the novel's problems by giving the viewer extra Edward and extra Brandon. My class's conversations and Menand's film review come to the same conclusion: the recent film adaptations ofAusten are successful because they, quite literally, "flesh out" her male characters. It is imperative that the films reconfigure the novels' romance heroes. While the success of the current adaptations reveals a timeless love of Austen, they also reveal what we, the late twentieth-century audience, do not like about Austen-or at least what the filmmaker predicts the average filmgoer will not like about Austen. Most tellingly, it is what Austens heroines fall in love with that we do not like: the male hero. What was good enough for her...

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