"Humility & Impartiality"

I thought I'd better get something on here about my recent experience with a new movie (perhaps a new "favorite" movie). (Forgive my convoluted writing style in advance.)

1.) Having heard excellent reviews from one friend who had recently seen it, 2.) having also at least two good friends wanting to see it, and 3.) it having arrived at the dollar theater in Provo, I decided to go see the latest Pride & Prejudice Monday. And see it again. Monday. Yay! :)

Anyways, the things I have to say about it at the moment include the following: the music was just beautiful. It was mostly Romantic-period style piano music, with strings added as necessary. (While hearing Mary play near the opening, I had the distinct--though unexplainable--feeling that it was in fact a man playing (call me "proud" or "prejudiced" . . .); it is, in fact, a man named Jean-Yves Thibaudet, whose music I now deeply respect and love). But anyways, the music added the perfect atmosphere, for my taste.

Also, still on the music, the dance scenes and the music itself served to portray extremely effectively the differences in the two socio-economic classes involved. In the A&E version (though I did only see it once), I didn't get nearly the same sense of the differences in propriety, dress, manners, etc., that were made clear in this version--and which are so essential to comprehension of the plot (especially in regards to others' disapproval of Bingley's attraction to Jane). While the distinction in the reality of the time may or may not have been so clear, it was done effectively in the movie, for my tastes.

The same goes for the portrayal of the family. There were plenty of times where the Bennett family came across as positively idiotic--completely out of place when among the upper class society. But that's how families are. Not everyone's family completely and accurately represents each individual, and even when they do, we are obliged to accept the families of those we love (at least in this kind of situation).

I also appreciated how the characters were realistic, to me--not overly stylized. Though few women would be prone to be charmed by Collins the man, few viewers could claim he was so over-the-top as to become an unbelievable character (in fact, some people may even know a person or two like him . . .). The same goes for the main characters. While they were certainly proud as well as prejudiced, they were much, much more. They said and did things that would fit their general characterizations, but they were never so stiff as to seem to have no desire to do otherwise; in other words, they were only as self-assured as any real person would be, in my opinion.