Screening Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in Transcultural Britain : Joe Wright’s Little England and Gurinder Chadha’s Global Village

Abstract

Throughout the 1990s, the long-standing tradition of' Austenmania' and 'Janeism' culminated in a large number of filmic adaptations of Jane Austen's novels, which inspired critics to coin inventive terms such as' Austen Powers' and 'Janespotting'. In the current decade, both literary and filmic rewritings of Austen's work have once again found large and enthusiastic audiences. Austen remains a cultural fetish, whose status is only loosely connected to her actual writings, as Claudia Johnson emphasises: "loving - or hating - her has typically implied meanings well beyond any encoded in her works" (1997: 212). In the following, I will focus on two of the more recent adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, which is not only acknowledged as the most popular narrative of Austen's oeuvre, but has also recently been elected the second-best loved book in the UK. Given the enormous popularity of Austen's novel to the present day, its cultural significance seems out of question. Questions that do arise, however, are: Why is the novel so popular? Which aspects make it attractive to the present day? The filmic adaptations of the novel can help to illuminate the issue, since they, for economic reasons, have to appeal to the tastes and interests of the majority of Austen fans as well as to those audiences who are unfamiliar with the novels. Directors Gurinder Chadha and Joe Wright and their teams worked almost simultaneously on adaptations of Austen's classic. Their films Bride and Prejudice and Pride and Prejudice, which were released in the UK within eleven months of each other in October 2004 and September 2005 respectively, give contrasting answers to questions regarding the novel's relevance for present-day cultural concerns.