Best Costume Drama/Film Adaptations

Must be the spring cleaning bug: I’m in a list-making frame of m. Am always in the market for a good, drool-worthy costume drama, and most of the them have the added bonus of being based on great classic literature… I like to think that it’s making me more intelligent to watch pretty women in pretty dresses perseverate over pretty men.

Yes? You too?

Brilliant.

Here then, in no particular order, but numbered anyway because it’s fun and organized, are the lists.

The Five Mini-Serieseses You NEED To See:

1. Pride and Prejudice (A & E, 1995). 300 minutes of total Jane Austen-inspired bliss. This is the adaptation without equal. No holes in the plot. No characters altered beyond recognition. Andrew Davies is worthy of all mini-series related praise.
2. North and South (BBC, 2004, 235 min). Based on a novel by Elizabeth Gaskill, this story covers the conflict between the rural south of England and the industrialized north, using the idealistic young Margaret Hale, the daughter of a clergyman, and the cotton mill owner John Thornton as foils. Eerie echoes of P & P in the plot, with less comedy and more of a social conscience. And, yes, a wee bit swoony too.
3. Wives and Daughters (BBC, 1999, 301 min). Andrew Davies strikes again, adapting a beautiful English countryside novel by Elizabeth Gaskill. Lady Harriet might be a supporting role, but she’s one of my great role models in life. I adore her… okay, and we named our cat after little Molly Gibson. We like her too.
4. Bleak House (BBC, 2005, 510 min). Charles Dickens’s masterpiece, brilliantly adapted and wonderfully cast. I lived in it. Go thou and do likewise.
5. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (BBC, 1996, 158 min). Although there are some plot changes here, and a wee bit of Hollywoodizing, the basic story is the same as in the book. I like all the Brontës, but for my two cents, Anne was every bit as much a genius as her sisters were. I don’t know why she got the crappiest PR.

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The Ones You Should Probably Also Watch If You Plan To Marry And/Or Raise A Tweedy Lover of Brit Lit

1. Far From the Madding Crowd (Granada, 1998, 216). Based on the classic by Thomas Hardy, this follows the book quite well and has a great cast. For those of you who like symbolism, you’ll enjoy the names and occupations of the characters… starting with the heroine, Bathsheba and her good shepherd admirer, Gabriel Oak. Have fun.
2. The Forsyte Saga (Granada, 2002, 423 min). John Galsworthy won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932, I like to think in large part for the books that have been adapted in this miniseries (though it might have been for the 50 some OTHER books he wrote before that year—merciful marshmallows). The story follows an extended family and a way of life from the high Victorian period into the roaring 20s (if you watch the sequel mini-series, anyway).
3. Daniel Deronda (BBC, 2002, 210 min). This is a more serious book by George Eliot, a fact that’s reflected in the style of the film as well. It raises interesting questions about the role of women in society, as well as showing Victorians grappling with ideas of legitimacy, power, the Jewish question, and other things.
4. Tess of the D’Urbervilles (LWT, 1998, 180 min). A true, unregenerate downer of a story. Life sucks for Tess. And you will spend a good chunk of the next day cussing out Angel. But, yeah, other than that, it’s great.
5. Ivanhoe (A&E, 1997, 270 min). I admit: there’s a lot of hacking people up, and it’s not my favorite story. But if you want to know the story of Sir Walter Scott’s best-known book and you don’t want to read it (um… who does?), this is it. I can also invite you to my annual I Hate Rowena costume party if you want…
6. Lorna Doone (BBC, 2000, 180 min). My brothers and I made fun of this one, but that didn’t mean we didn’t avidly watch the whole thing. There are some silly, hollywood moments, but what else is new?
7. The Way We Live Now (BBC, 2001, 300 min). Not my favorite of Trollope books, but it’s the best of his more recent adaptations, and it has a young Cillian Murphy, who is ALWAYS creepy, in my opinion.
8. Victoria & Albert (A & E, 2001, 200 min). This isn’t based on a novel, but instead follows the story of Queen Victoria’s youth, accession to the throne, marriage to Prince Albert, and eventual widowhood. It’s a fun, easy way to learn a smidge of history with your popcorn.

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Oldies But Still Goodies:

1. The Pallisers (BBC, 1974, 1100 minutes. Yes. 1,100 minutes). I adore Trollope, but I had a harder time with this because, let’s face it, it was made in the 70s and it’s a bit grainy and not very pretty and the sets aren’t brilliant. Sad for me. It does, however, follow the books quite well. Gold star on that count. As far as Trollope goes there is also
2. The Barchester Chronicles (BBC, 1982, 385 min). Another good but slightly dated version. There’s a young Alan Rickman, though, and that makes up for a lot of other shortcomings, do admit.
3. Middlemarch (BBC, 1994, 375). Not as flashy as some of the newer adaptations, but quite true to the book and well acted, in my opinion. I never developed a taste for Will Ladislaw, but you might. It’s one of the great classics of literature, so it wouldn’t kill you to know the story. And Rosamond is terrifying, so there’s that little bonus too.
4. Dorothy Sayers Mysteries (BBC, 1980s, often 3-4 episodes). The books are more fun, I think, but the movies do capture the characters quite well. I enjoyed them, and the Lord Peter in my head now looks like Edward Petherbridge, which must mean something.

There you have it. I even had to cut out the NON-Mini-Series lists, since this post was getting out of control long. Maybe later. May you all have a good spring, and may at least one weekend be devoted to art, culture, history, and COSTUME DRAMAS.

Huzzah!

More than ready for a day off

For seriousness, chicas and burly blokes, if One does not have a day away from the crazy barn, One shall also soon become totums insanitos… One also, apparently, talks like a drunk, crazy Aunt Lulu from Sarasota, but that’s beside the p.

I picked up a bunch of shifts while a coworker is away on vacay, and who knew that one of the shifts I happened to pick up would turn out to be utter poop? See? This is why your mother always told you to stay away from warm, brown, mouldering things on the ground. Not cool.

Best part: one of the RNs had to do an admission late in the shift and BEMOAN-ED the fact, grumping on and on about it, and it was a wee snag irritatering because, fact is, when an admission comes in the door, the RN isn’t working the floor anymore which means, yeah, WE are doing all his work as well as our own. So when you decide to throw a hissy fit, maybe don’t aim it at the person who’s already cleaning up your mess.

Just a thought.

As for the rest of life: all is good. Draft #2 is completed. One of my jobs for tomorrow is to get it printed off and in the hands of one of my 2-3 readers (Stephen) who’ve volunteered for the first round of opinion-giving (plot and characters now, language and style later).

I think I’m taking myself out for brekkers tomorrow with a notebook to start batting around ideas for the next book. I’m still in a writing mood, so I figure I might as well get started. There will be plenty of weeks when I DON’T feeling like writing anything. Might as well roll with it.

Also read the first few pages of Beloved by Toni Morrison (it’s next on my list of classics), but I just don’t feel up to it yet. Don’t tell anybody, but, um, it feels a little too conscious. Like NOW I WILL WRITE A DEEP AND MOVING TALE THAT WILL SEAL MY BID FOR THE NOBEL PRIZE. I dunno. Maybe it’s just all the rutting in the cemetery with the gravestone chiseler dude. Or the infanticide. Or the slavery issues. Or the ghost. Or the misery and poverty. Or the fact that all of those issues are in your face on the first two pages. Sort of a personal, gritty dare that I won’t be able to put the book down.

Yep, sorry Toni. I did.

I’m going to finish Trollope first.

… now I’m just sitting here. Listening to the frogs outside. Feeling all the aches in my body from work. Savoring the bliss of going to sleep in a few minutes. Thinking about tomorrow and how lovely it’ll be to not be at work. Trying to think of a killer opening sentence for the next book. Also trying to think of a plot.

Good stuff.