November 25–December 2, 1999
movie shorts
Mansfield Park
recommended
Patricia Rozema’s reworking of Jane Austen’s novel may not go down smoothly with Austen purists, but let them have their dishwater-dull 6-hour BBC affairs; I prefer a real movie, thank you very much. Mansfield isn’t a showy film, but Rozema’s not afraid to use a handheld camera when it’s best for the moment. Rozema’s apparently toughened up the novel’s priggish heroine, grafting on characteristics from Austen herself (including biographical data and lines from her letters and journals), but those who haven’t read the novel won’t notice a thing. Mansfield covers a lot of ground, from the social-class defying romance between the servant Fanny (Frances O’Connor) and her master’s son (Jonny Lee Miller) to the criticism of the patriarch’s (Harold Pinter) prosperous slave trade. Embeth Davidtz and Alessandro Nivola (both chameleonic American character actors) provide wicked fun as a brother sister team of con artist seducers. Without imposing herself upon Austen, Rozema has fused her own vision with the author’s and created a work which is both deeply personal and true to the original’s spirit.
(See Sam Adams’ interview with Patricia Rozema.)
