Mansfield Park (BBC 1986)

Captain’s Log, Supplemental

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Jane Austen miniseries

I love Jane Austen. She’s my favorite classic writer, and I even bought audiobooks of her novels and listen to them again and again.

I also love Amazon.com and visit my Gold Box every day (not that I buy that often). One day I had a deal for the entire set of DVDs of miniseries produced by BBC of Jane Austen’s novels.

No, I didn’t buy the set—but it made me curious, and so I put the miniseries on my Netflix queue. The miniseries are all rather old.

I just finished Mansfield Park. I’m quite divided on it.

Costumes: score 4. They were mostly really rather nice, appropriate to the character’s background and income, and not too flamboyant, although there were several places the women’s headgear was just way over the top.

Acting: score 4. I liked the actors quite a bit. I think they each played their parts very well, although there were a few moments in the later episodes where the actress who played Fanny seemed a bit out of character.

Camera/filming: score 2. I didn’t give it a 1 because there were a few scenes near the end of the miniseries that were rather well shot. On a whole, it was awful. The very first scene shows the camera panning in, and the shot jostles around like it’s being done on a home camcorder. Other scenes where the characters are walking or in a carriage are horrendous. I got terribly sick watching it. It gets better in later episodes, but the poor quality astounded me. How does BBC get away with such poor camera direction? This was appalling.

Musical score: score 3. Low budget, but well-performed with a minimum of instruments.

Script: score 4. To be honest, I wavered between a 3 and a 4 because the ending is even less romantic than the way it ends in Jane Austen’s novel. However, the whole has very good dialogue—mostly taken from the novel, but structured well in the scenes. The acting direction is also rather nice.

That gives an average score of 3.4 out of 5.

I heard from other reviewers that others of the miniseries are better done, so I’m still persevering in watching them all.

I think I must really be a Jane Austen nut to do this. I don’t know why I love her novels so much! My favorite is Persuasion, so I’m hoping that miniseries is better done.

I read in reviews that none of these compare to the 1995 BBC/A&E version of Pride and Prejudice. LOVE that miniseries. I have the DVDs and play them way too often.

(On a side note, I enjoyed watching this version of Mansfield Park while knitting, partly because I could look at my knitting so I didn’t get motion sickness when the camera started jostling in certain scenes. Right now, I’m working on socks for Heather. I made them crew-length so hopefully she can wear it with her cowboy boots if she wants to.)