Topic > Langston's Additions - 790

Considered the most faithful film adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the 1995 BBC adaptation nevertheless takes liberties in adding scenes and dialogue. In most cases, the plot justifies these additional features. These scenes provide additional information about the characters that many readers may not discover. The added scenes and dialogue in BBC's Pride and Prejudice serve to enhance the viewer's understanding of the historical novel by further describing the relationships between the characters and fleshing out their personalities. This allows the audience to fully understand aspects of the story that only reading the story would provide. For starters, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice contains many complex relationships between characters that are often difficult to detail when adapting the novel into a film version. While directing the miniseries, Simon Langton adds scenes and dialogue to help the viewer understand these relationships. To demonstrate the chemistry that Miss Darcy and Lizzy share, Langton adds a scene where Lizzy helps Georgiana play the piano. She "insists" that Georgiana play even though she is too shy to play "in front of these people" (episode 5). When Caroline talks about Mr. Wickham, Lizzy supports Miss Darcy to show that she is not alone. At the end of the scene Lizzy and Mr. Darcy exchange a sympathetic look which he is grateful to her for doing. This additional scene shows that Lizzy and Georgiana have a strong relationship from the beginning and Mr. Darcy is grateful that Lizzy is there to help. Another added scene occurs when Langston shows Darcy's admiration for Lizzy while she is bathing and looking at Elizabeth from the window. While he may love Elizabeth, Darcy does not understand the problems between Wickham and Georgiana and that she will attempt to undermine Lizzy, regardless of the cause. In summary, Langston's addition of scenes and dialogue enhances the viewer's understanding of the characters by making their character changes and flaws more evident. While it is difficult to compress Austen's Pride and Prejudice into a film format, the 1995 BBC version is the most faithful. The director, Simon Langston, also takes the liberty of adding scenes that do not occur in the novel to enhance the viewer's understanding of the relationships between the characters. Extra dialogue is also added between the characters to help the audience understand their nature. In conclusion, Langston's miniseries integrates scenes and dialogue into the on-screen depiction so that the viewer can further understand a character's personality and relationships..