Film Adaptations - Northanger Abbey

Discuss & compare the film adaptations of this novel.

I've only seen one - it was a BBC adaptation and I couldn't stand it! The Catherine was just plain goofy and you want to find the heroine at least somewhat attractive. I'm dying for a new adaptation.

I've never seen an adaptation of this one. It's the sort that has the potential to be extremely awful or extremely funny...

The one (recent) ITV adaptation that did work was Northanger Abbey. Interestingly, it was adapted by Andrew Davies who was responsible for many of the BBC classics, including Pride and Prejudice. It doesn't stick to the novel but it does manage to capture the 'feel' of it.

I can't wait to see those ITVs! Well, I'll wait till January, but that's it! Even if they are rubbish...gives me an excuse to rant.

Reminder: The ITV/Masterpiece Theatre version is on PBS tonight! I can't wait! Northanger Abbey was the first Austen I read. It was for a college class and I really wasn't into until the end, which I loved. I have been waiting for a good adaptation. Hopefully this will be it!

I just saw the ITV movie tonight and loved it! I thought it was delightful. Granted, it was all new to me (the only Jane Austen book I haven't read (but it's on my TBR list!) and enjoyed it very much. Tilney was wonderful, Catherine was adorable and all the other characters were suitably evil or annoying. And the kiss at the end! *swoon* How satisfying after that disappointing finale from ITV's Persuasion last week!

I just saw it too, and like ktleyed, it was all new to me too. I found it a very enjoyable hour and a half. I'd watch it again.

It's just, just over here (in California), and I agree that it's much more enjoyable than Persuasion. Nice casting--I really did like Catherine and Tilney, too.

CAN one read too many novels? I suppose the answer is yes, if you're young and impressionable and let your imagination run away with you! ^___^

Tolerable in my estimation, but bear in mind that Northanger Abbey is my least favorite of all of Austen's novels. The adaptation was cute and kudos to Davies for his adaption, but I still didn't find it compelling.

Saw the adaptation last night, and I must say that I was disappointed. It seemed so rushed, and I had absolutely no sense of the build-up of Catherine's suspicions at the Abbey. The overall atmosphere was completely different from that of the book.

I liked the movie last night. I agree with the feeling that it was rushed, or maybe there were just too many settings. I like these stories better when the long walks are truely long. I wanted to feel the cool dampness of being in an Abbey, to wander the rooms not jump from room to staircase to outside. I loved the mother's room, a perfect mausoleum, one of my fav parts of the show, entering where she was forbidden to go. I also really liked when they had dinner the first night at the Abbey and Henry gave the most reassuring smile. That is what came through from the book to the movie for me. He could look at her and make her feel better.

I enjoyed very much. It was nice casting and it captured the flavor of the novel with perhaps more of a nod to the humor than to the gothic. I will agree that it was rushed the transition from Bath to Northanger seemed very quite sudden as did her suspicions at the Abbey but on the whole since I hadn't seen an adaptation I was glad to see one.

Given whateveryone has said about the Persuasion adaptation I am not sorry I missed that especially since the one from the 1990s was lovely.

I enjoyed this adaptation of NA for the most part, though I have some serious reservations. First for the good things:

• The cast was excellent! Catherine, Tilney, Isabella, and Eleanor were perfect for their roles, and played them very well indeed.

• For the most part, the story, characters, and humor were kept intact.

• I enjoyed the glimpses we saw of Catherine's family life. The children were very funny — and it reminded me very much of dealing with my own siblings in a situation like that :-P

• Henry's and Catherine's kiss at the end was so humorously sweet (though it did perhaps get a bit too long and passionate).

For the criticisms:

• The inclusion of such highly inappropriate content from books such as The Monk was really jarring. Also some of Catherine's daydreams were far too explicit.

• I did not see the bathtub scene, but it sounds like gratuitous garbage. Andrew Davies' evident desire to add that kind of innuendo to classic stories is really rather sad, because the screenplay would have been very good without it.

• The ending felt very rushed. There was not nearly enough explanation of why General Tilney really made Catherine leave. You could almost miss it if you didn't know the story.

and {SPOILER}...

• Also, why did John Thorpe just fall out of the story? I also thought that James' and Isabella's breakup wasn't given as much screentime as it deserved.

Overall, I'm glad we have it on tape but I wouldn't buy it.

I agree with you, wisewoman, with the exceptions that 1) I can't compare the movie to the book (haven't read it), and 2) I can't compare Catherine's siblings to mine (I have none).

Edited to add: Third exception: I didn't tape it.

I liked it, too, but I am not sure if I am going to buy it. It was definately superior to the 1980's version I saw last year. Maybe a little less learing would be my main criticism. I enjoyed it and I thought it followed the book very well. No catharsys for me at the end, though.

Wisewoman:

I also wondered about John Thorpe. I thought he was the best at being bad.

#17 - Oooh, I thought the best at being bad, was the older brother! He was so awful!

Yes, I thought John Thorpe was just irritating! Sometimes I can't forgive Catherine for going off with him instead of waiting for the Tinleys. It was hard for me to watch that part and I hate reading it in the book.

mess 19

Catherine had no choice. John lied and when they saw Henry and his sister it was John who made the carriage go faster. She was definitely abducted in my eyes. When he finally stopped to persuade her into staying with him for the day I guess she should have jumped off and stormed away. I guess it was her youth that made her inability to fight back against a bully.

and mess 18, yes, yes the older brother was a chip off the old father, cold and heartless. But he picked on the girl who was looking for something. I think he saw her as far game. She was the one who acted so worldly when she may not have been so. He avoided Catherine and I don't think he would have cared that his younger brother was interested in her. Maybe he stayed away if the father ordered him to, but I don't think he saw her as a challenge. He seemed like the type who liked friskier kittens. Catherine would have played by the rules anyone could tell that, Isabella, just by the way she flirted with her eyes and gave sharp retorts definitely acted like a more experienced player. Not that she deserved what she got, or did she?

I've gotta say that I really liked the movie last night. Northanger Abbey, though enjoyable, has always felt like the weakest of Austen's completed novels to me. Some of the characterizations just never came through quite as well, maybe, and I never really felt like I was there in Bath.

So I was very much attracted to the clearly delineated characters of this movie, as well as the vibrancy of Bath's social scene.

Oh, and did you notice? They had the BEST hats.

Of course anyone's personal response is perfectly okay, but here's how I'd answer some of the criticism:

that the tawdry bits from The Monk were too salacious - Well, realistically, probably yes. (Though there may be all kinds of anachronisms in all the Austen movies that I never notice because I'm not an expert.) But I think that just saying the name of the book wouldn't impart to most modern viewers exactly how shocking novels in general, and this novel in particular, were considered in polite society. So they included something obviously and deliberately "dirty" to make Isabella's character clear, as well as the very girlish nature of her friendship with Catherine. Since it wasn't dwelled upon, I didn't feel like it took away from the story at all.

the rushed second half - I could have easily stood another half (or even full) hour of this movie, so maybe this criticism has some merit. But I was glad that so much time was spent on development in the first half of the movie, so if I had to make decisions based on the length as it was, I'd keep everything the same. I wouldn't have minded a bit more spookiness or development of Catherine's over-active imagination, though.

I feel silly for having no idea what you're talking about with "the bathtub" scene. But I did miss the first few minutes of the movie.

Mr. Tilney was absolutely perfect, I thought, both in his lines and his person. Sarcasm that could mellow to charm... And how his archness was so much tempered when he was in the presence of Catherine's obvious naivete.

As regards the mood of the thing... Well, NA was intended as a farce upon the Gothic horror novels that were popular in Austen's time, so the movie had to walk a pretty fine line between creating the gothic atmosphere and exposing it as ridiculous. I thought that was accomplished pretty well by the scenes of Catherine's imaginings. They were a silly girl's fantasies, and could have easily gone too far over the top, but didn't.

I really can't remember how the Jim Thorpe thing played out in the novel after Catherine went to NA, so I'm not really competent to decide whether he should have come back into the movie. But I didn't miss him when he was gone, and I felt like he was made sufficiently nasty to demonstrate the sort of refined evil that could prey on a young girl in a fast-and-loose party society.

I don't know that I'll buy the thing, but I definitely wouldn't mind watching it a few more times.

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Oh, and did you notice? They had the BEST hats.

Oh, I second that!

I was a little jarred by the "vampire" references. This wasn't in the book, surely? Varney the Vampire wasn't published until the mid-nineteenth century, and Dracula was another half-century after that. I'm not sure that vampires were part of the horror vernacular in Austen's time.

Y'know, chamekke, in that scene with the vampire reference, I got so charmed by the whole "oh you're teasing me now" bit that I forgot. But I think you're right. "Vampire" did seem out of place. I thought maybe it's just because I don't know anything about vampire literature.

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As for vampires, I'm going to check the novel. If she did not have them, then I do not like the addition, because she would have known about them. There were many stories, not gothic novel-type, and recordings of mass hysteria of the myth being real. Since this was about poking fun at gothic novels and not taking things too seriously I could see why it was added. Just for me, I don't like changing the authors words that much.

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A search of an e-text of the novel finds "no results" for the words "vampire" or "vampyre".

That does not mean that the concept wasn't familiar to Austen. Although John Polidori's The Vampyre, probably the first English vampire tale, wasn't published until 1819 (after Austen's death), he didn't think up vampires all on his own. Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge both used vampires or vampire imagery in poems, and there was certainly a vampire tradition, literary as well as folkloric, on the continent.

AnnaClaire wrote: I agree with you, wisewoman, with the exceptions that 1) I can't compare the movie to the book (haven't read it), and 2) I can't compare Catherine's siblings to mine (I have none).

1.) You must read the book; it's a scream!

2.) I have four younger siblings, and all of them were incorrigible spies!!! Be thankful :-P

Xiguli wrote: I feel silly for having no idea what you're talking about with "the bathtub" scene. But I did miss the first few minutes of the movie.

I haven't seen it myself, but I believe the full version of the movie is somewhere on YouTube (?). PBS cut certain parts of these presentations to make them fit in the timeframe (and maybe also to make them more palatable to a family viewing?). In any case, I gather there is a bathtub scene in which Tilney is present dressed in his clergyman's outfit. Since he never wears that anywhere else, and indeed that aspect of his life was almost entirely ignored in the film, I wonder why they would choose to have him appear dressed like that in a scene in which (I gather from various comments) he is somewhat of the bad guy.

It wasn't so much the reference to the book The Monk as it was the lascivious passages they had Catherine read — especially the one she is reading in bed with a voiceover. Trash! I think Austen would be horrified.

Xiguli wrote: I don't know that I'll buy the thing, but I definitely wouldn't mind watching it a few more times.

That's why we taped it :-)

#21- Oh, and did you notice? They had the BEST hats.

---------------

Yes, I did notice that. The one that Catherine wore with the blue ribbons was especially adorable.

Oh yes they have the best hats. I want Catherine's hat with the blue ribbons and her little blue velvet jacket.

Xiguli - I'd agree with you. The monk doesn't seem nearly as shocking by modern standards. In some ways I think they were a film makers cheat. They were used not only to make the story seem more racy perhaps but it was her gothic fantasies that were supposed to make us understand her leap to believing Mrs. Tilney was murdered rather than the ambiance of the Abbey and the behavior of Mr. Tilney leading her to those conclusions.

But on the whole I still really enjoyed it. It is lighter than other Austen because it is mocking the gothic form but I don't consider it lesser.

I suspect I will have a much harder time next week with Mansfield Park as Fanny always seemed so trod upon.

Re The Monk
I don't think JA would have been horrified at all - we know she read and enjoyed it (I think in one letter she called the best novel since Tom Jones); and she has John Thorpe praise it in NA. People read Gothic novels for the shocking passages, not in spite of them.

In the book, when driving towards the abbey, Tilney teased Catherine with a Gothic Satire about what will happen when she gets there - the mysterious maid who will lead her to her room, the secret passages and doors she'll explore and more...it really is wonderful and a shame it was reduced to a few sullen lines in the recent movie. This can be found in places online and is well worth the read. I believe it's even just referred to as Tilney's Gothic Satire.
It was an easy, short, smooth read to break things up between my reading Emma and starting Pride and Prejudice. Actually, I read it twice in a row, I loved it so much.
There is an interview with the man who produced, or directed, the newer Northanger Abbey on the PBS website right now and he explains why he added those "daydream" sequences. He talks a lot about the different films he's adapted for the PBS series.
And that ending kiss ... loved it!!

I have the BBC version on tape; it must be 15-20 years old. Peter Firth is Mr. Tilney (I think he's on that BBC show MI-5 now) and Catherine is played by an actress-something Bell, she did night-time soap operas afterwards. Anyway, it's a great production and the whole horrible Thorpe clan is represented, including a snaggle-toothed mother who's painted up like a Kabuki prostitute.
Added bonus, Robert Hardy (Fudge from Harry Potter) plays Colonel Tilney and he's absolutely menacing.

I finally saw this in it's entirety thanks to a friend lending me her DVD. I have to say I enjoyed it. As to whether it is accurate or not, I can't tell you because it's been so long since I've read the book. I liked it far better than the previously released production which I thought was horrid.

Of the newest productions shown on PBS, this one and S&S were my favorite and I felt worth buying. The rest of the new ones - bah!

I love the new adaptation! The older BBC one was good, but didn't catch the sentiment of the novel, nor Catherine's complete naivete. I think Davies tried, like he always does, to up the sex appeal, but it worked here, making it more like the gothic novels it is parodying. I thought it was good to have the voice overs of the text, because most modern audiences would not get the allusion to the Mysteries of Udolpho or The Monk. It gives the audience a clue into what the characters are talking about with such great passion. Davies may have messed up A Room with a View, but he succeeded greatly with this adaptation.

I watched the new adaptation again the other night, to follow up my recent reread of the novel. It's far from perfect, but enjoyable. The cast is wonderful, and where they stick to the book it is more than acceptable. I just could have done with another thirty minutes added to the timeframe, and less of the sexual overtones. I'm sorry, people, but there's a huge difference between Udolpho and The Monk! The latter is not something a Jane Austen heroine would ever touch, although a Jane Austen villain might (remember, Thorpe has read it in the novel). And some of the other changes don't make much sense either, as when Thorpe appears in the background early, or all the hints other people that something's wrong with the Tilney family.

Of course, the old BBC adaptation looks much worse. Is it even worth watching? They seem to have missed the entire point of the novel.

I too watched it the other night for the first time, having recently reread the novel. Enjoyed it, but was sad to see so many things missed or rushed over. My daughter enjoyed it immensely, never having read the book. I think would enjoy a longer version of it, too.

I love both of the film adaptations, but it's actually the older, BBC version that is closest to the subtext of the novel, particularly Robert Hardy's performance as General (not Colonel) Tilney--he is fantastic!

#37 - Maybe I'll see if I can track that one down.

I suppose I can't really comment until I've seen it, but how are totally out-of-character lines (like Tilney's "The white rose has withered ... "), random added characters like the freaky French lady, etc., make the old Northanger a faithful adaptation? It just looks scary to me.

The freaky French lady comes from, if memory serves me right at the moment, The Mysteries of Udolpho, which is the principal subtext of Northanger Abbey, and so it is very far from a "random" insertion.

In the film, which Tilney says 'the white rose has withered?" The General or Henry? If Henry, then why would it be out of character for him to say that, when he already says "And though the love of a hyacinth may be rather domestic, who can tell, the sentiment once raised, but you may in time come to love a rose?" in the novel?

I happened to come across a passage in the novel which supports the inclusion of other characters in the film adaptations, in Chapter 24:

"No summons, however, arrived; and at last, on seeing a carriage drive up to the abbey, she was emboldened to descend and meet him under the protection of visitors. The breakfast–room was gay with company; and she was named to them by the general as the friend of his daughter, in a complimentary style, which so well concealed his resentful ire, as to make her feel secure at least of life for the present."

So we know there were several visitors and the atmosphere was gay. I will try to remember the other source I have read for that exotic marchioness.