Xinlei Zhang

PowerPoint Exercise
Xinlei Zhang
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
BASIC INFORMATION
•
Pride & Prejudice is a 2005 British-American romantic
drama directed by Joe Wright and based on Jane Austen's
1813 novel of the same name. The film depicts five sisters from
an English family of landed gentry as they deal with issues of
marriage, morality and misconceptions. Keira Knightley stars in
the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet, while Matthew
Macfadyen plays her romantic interest Mr Darcy. Produced
by Working Title Films in association with StudioCanal, the film
was released on 16 September 2005 in the United Kingdom and
Ireland and on 11 November in the United States.
•
Plot
Cast
Production
Major theme and analysis
PLOT
• The story charts the emotional development of the protagonist, Elizabeth

Bennet, who learns the error of making hasty judgments and comes to
appreciate the difference between the superficial and the essential. The comedy
of the writing lies in the depiction of manners, education, marriage, and money
during the British Regency period.
CAST
• Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet • Simon Woods as Mr Charles Bingley

• Matthew Macfadyen as Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy • Tamzin Merchant as Georgiana Darcy
• Brenda Blethyn as Mrs Bennet • Claudie Blakley as Charlotte Lucas
• Donald Sutherland as Mr Bennet • Kelly Reilly as Caroline Bingley

• Rupert Friend as Mr George Wickham
• Tom Hollander as Mr William Collins
• Rosamund Stephen as Anne de Bourgh
• Rosamund Pike as Jane Bennet
• Cornelius Booth as Colonel Fitzwilliam
• Carey Mulligan as Catherine (Kitty) Bennet
• Penelope Wilton as Mrs Gardiner
• Jena Malone as Lydia Bennet
• Peter Wight as Mr Gardiner
• Talulah Riley as Mary Bennet
• Meg Wynn Owen as Mrs Reynolds
• Judi Dench as Lady Catherine de Bourgh • Sinead Matthews as Betsy
PRODUCTION
• In contrast to the five-hour BBC adaptation, Wright compressed his film into two hours and
nine minutes of screen time.He remarked that the film is "obviously about Elizabeth and Darcy,
following them and anything that detracts or diverts you from that story is what you have to
cut". Some of the most notable changes from the original book include time compression of
several major sequences, including the departure of Wickham and the militia, Elizabeth's visit to
Rosings Park and Hunsford Parsonage, Elizabeth's visit to Pemberley, Lydia's elopement and
subsequent crisis; the elimination of several supporting characters, including Mr and Mrs Hurst,
Mr and Mrs Phillips, Lady and Maria Lucas, Mrs Younge, several of Lydia's friends (including
Colonel and Mrs Forster) and various military officers and townspeople, and the elimination of
several sections in which characters reflect or converse on events that have recently occurred—
for example, Elizabeth's chapter-long change of mind after reading Darcy's letter.
MAJOR THEME AND ANALYSIS
• Romanticism and realism

• Film, literary, and Austen scholars noted the appearance of romance and romanticism within Pride & Prejudice, especially in
comparison to previous adaptations. Sarah Ailwood marked the film as "an essentially Romantic interpretation of Austen's novel",
citing as evidence Wright's attention to nature as a means to "position Elizabeth and Darcy as Romantic figures ... Wright's Pride
& Prejudice takes as its central focus Austen's concern with exploring the nature of the Romantic self and the possibilities for
women and men to achieve individual self-fulfillment within an oppressive patriarchal social and economic order." Likewise,
Catherine Stewart-Beer of Oxford Brookes University called Elizabeth's presence on the Derbyshire cliff a "stunning, magical
evocation of Wright's strong stylistic brand of Postmodern Romanticism", but found this less like Austen and more reminiscent
of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights.In her analysis, University of Provence scholar Lydia Martin concluded that the "Romantic
bias of the film is shown through the shifts in the characters' relationships, the soundtrack and the treatment of landscape".
• Realism is a prominent aspect of the film, a theme confirmed by Wright in interviews as well as the DVD audio commentary.In a
2007 article, Ursinus College film studies professor Carole Dole argued that Pride & Prejudice is "a hybrid that embraces both an
irreverent realism to which younger audiences are accustomed (and which reflects the director's realist aesthetic) and the
classic heritage film's reverence for country houses, attractive landscapes and authentic period detail". Such "irreverent realism"
included the depiction of Longbourn as a working farm complete with chickens, cattle and pigs; as Dole explains, "The
agricultural realities of 1790s England are equally evident in the enclosed yard with barn and hay where Lizzie twirls barefoot
over the mud on a rope swing". Referring to recent adaptations such as 1999's gritty Mansfield Park, Dole cited Pride &
Prejudice as evidence that the heritage film is still around but has "been transformed into a more flexible genre". Jessica Durgan
agreed with this assessment, writing that the film "simultaneously reject[s] and embrac[es] heritage to attract a larger audience".
•

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PowerPoint Exercise

• The story charts the emotional development of the protagonist, Elizabeth

• Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet • Simon Woods as Mr Charles Bingley

• Brenda Blethyn as Mrs Bennet • Claudie Blakley as Charlotte Lucas

• Donald Sutherland as Mr Bennet • Kelly Reilly as Caroline Bingley

• Romanticism and realism

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