00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers.
00:05Lovely to speak to Patrick Hargood, who is the Cinema Education Officer at the Chichester Cinema.
00:11And you are planning something very special for this year's Chichester International Film Festival
00:16to mark the 250th anniversary since Jane Austen's birth.
00:20You are doing a talk which will tie in with a number of screenings.
00:24Now your talk, charades and consequences, the fine art of filming Austen.
00:30It's going to be in the cinema August 21st at 2.30.
00:33It is an art then, there is an art to filming Jane Austen.
00:37Do some people get it wrong? Do some people get it right?
00:40I think she's been very well filmed on the whole.
00:44I think if Jane were alive today, she would probably be very amused by some of the films.
00:49And I think that they have generally been some excellent versions of her work.
00:56One might think it was easy to turn her books into films because they contain such sparkling dialogue.
01:06But what I think is very difficult to catch, perhaps, is the tone of her work.
01:12And the sort of ironic, the kind of slightly undermining the powerful and self-important people that you find in her novels.
01:26And I think something really interesting is that you are a massive Jane Austen fan,
01:30but you're absolutely not precious in that because you are happy for filmmakers to have quite some considerable latitude in translating her to the screen.
01:38And why is that? Well, I think because in two major respects, in one, a film is a film and it's a different medium from a novel.
01:46And you can't just it's impossible to just transfer a novel into a film.
01:52There's too much material into novels. So you have to edit.
01:54But you also have to be alive to the fact that film, I think, is primarily a visual medium.
02:00And there is kind of editing and camera angles and all sorts of things.
02:05And then the performances of the actors. And I think that you have to appreciate that it is a different way of telling a story.
02:14And I also think that filmmakers now are addressing the current order.
02:19They're not addressing a Regency audience. These books were written in the Regency period in the early 19th century.
02:25But this is a 21st century audience. And I think it's perfectly fair to make changes and to put a new perspective on the books.
02:38Absolutely. And Patrick, you'll also be addressing something, even a mystery, aren't you?
02:41And you're not going to tell me all the answers now because you're saving that.
02:45But the fact is that for half a century, more than half a century, no Austen adaptations.
02:49And then, well, that's probably the wrong word, but a slew. That's probably the wrong word, too.
02:56But a number, a number.
02:58That's right. I mean, from 1940, there was the MGM film with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson.
03:05Then nothing apart from a few BBC tea time, Sunday tea time adaptations for 55 years.
03:12And then suddenly it was almost like everyone had the same idea at the same time.
03:17Four major adaptations in 1995, followed by two versions of Emma the following year.
03:23And since then, she's gone from kind of neglect to a sort of almost overwhelming satiety.
03:30And there's been adaptations pretty well multiple every year since.
03:36And you have plenty of theories. Why that's...
03:39I had a theory, I asked.
03:40Why that clutch of them?
03:42But you're going to keep those theories for your talk,
03:45Charades and Construences, The Fine Art of Filming, Austen,
03:49August 21st, 2.30pm at Chichester Cinema at New Park.
03:52Patrick, lovely to speak to you. Thank you.
03:55Thank you very much, Phil. Thank you.
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