BEVERLY HILLS, Nov. 1, 1999 — Jane Austen fans have had plenty of big-screen adaptations to enjoy in the past few years: “Persuasion,” “Emma,” “Sense and Sensibility” — and let’s not forget “Clueless,” which was, like, adapted from “Emma.” Austen also flourishes in the cable-television miniseries, where each of her books has been adapted at least once.
But moviegoers and literary fans alike will find something different about Miramax’s version of “Mansfield Park,” which opens Thursday in New York and Los Angeles. Writer/director Patricia Rozema decided to take some liberties with the central figure, Fanny Price, by mixing the author’s own personality into the character.
The end result is a hybrid; instead of a passive dreamer, we have a bold, spunky heroine, played by Frances O’Connor (“Love and Other Catastrophes”) who triumphs over social barriers to find love. And, likewise, her flip-flopped personality affects the characterizations of the others. Austenites may embrace or revile this change, but O’Connor, who says she wasn’t initially a Jane Austen fan, says she grew excited at the thought of altering the book’s character.
“It just made it much more interesting because I think the character in the novel … is fantastic, but she’s slightly insipid from a modern kind of perspective,” the Australian actress says. “So, I think the thing of combining Jane Austen with her — suddenly this character is incredibly witty and intelligent, bright and ambitious to herself and very authentic and real. She’s not there for show. She’s just very happy to be herself.”
Fanny is shipped off at an early age to live with her much richer relatives, the Bertrams, in Mansfield Park. She is raised in wealth but is still treated as inferior to her cousins. Trouble brews when the estate encounters the brother-and-sister pair of Henry Crawford (Alessandro Nivola) and Mary Crawford (Embeth Davidtz), who charm their way into the social circle. Mary wins the heart of Fanny’s cousin, confidant and true love Edmund (Jonny Lee Miller), while Henry pursues Fanny, the only woman who doesn’t swoon when he enters the room.
“It’s always sort of more funny to play the rake,” says Nivola, who played Nicolas Cage‘s younger brother in “Face/Off” and a morally ambiguous schemer in “Best Laid Plans.” “It was a gift of a role. It was also really different from the things I had done before. It was much more of an extraverted type who really loved his life and wasn’t so sullen as some of the parts I had played previously.”
His character’s motives with Fanny — whether he genuinely loves her or if she merely poses a challenge — are left for interpretation, but Nivola says Henry’s willingness to marry Fanny despite her poor background sheds favorable light.
“I set out to play it that initially he was just sort of taken aback by the fact that she wouldn’t have him, and by her strength of character and lack of interest in all of these superficial societal values,” the actor says. “And then later on, I think I play that he really felt somehow inspired by her and a little bit ashamed of himself and embarrassed for acting the way he did … in front of her with other women.
“Usually the cads in Jane Austen seduce a woman and refuse to marry her because she’s poor, and he proposes to a woman who has no money and he’s a rich aristocrat. So there’s no explanation for that except that he falls for her.”
Some liberty is also taken with Mary Crawford, played by Davidtz, who saw her career break out with “Schindler’s List,” where she played a Jewish maid, and continue with “Gingerbread Man” and “Fallen.” Interested in playing a bold, outspoken character who “looks fabulous,” Davidtz and director Rozema created a character whose villainous tendencies weren’t as clear-cut as the book’s description.
“She’s probably painted in a more negative light in the novel,” Davidtz says. “She digs her own grave, she walks right into it. … [But] we did it in such a way that was very loving. It wasn’t like she was ever sitting there scheming.”
Davidtz also sympathizes with Mary, saying her character wouldn’t be considered a villain in modern society. “I think she just says things or acts upon things that one really shouldn’t say or do,” she says. “So I feel like she’s good, but she speaks her mind. And that makes her, at that time, a bad person.”
