More North & South raves
Jan. 19th, 2006 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousiePlaying havoc with my schedule, I managed to watch the first DVD of N&S, all 2 hours of it. My glee knows no bounds. I will love BBC forever for making perfect adaptations of my favorite books. Please, people who have seen it, do link me to your thoughts on N&S!
I adore Margaret. She is flawed (she is quick to speak without thinking, and she does have elitist attitudes), but she is a strong, intelligent, warm-hearted woman. One can see why Thornton fell for her head over heels, and I love him the more because he clearly likes a woman of strong will who is not afraid to express her opinion even if it contradicts his as at the dinner party where they exchange opinions and keep on doing it (a legacy of his mother, I think). When and if they get married, they’ll have one heck of an interesting marriage. What a contrast she is to his sister Fanny with her airs and faints and shallow weakness, who clearly seems to come from another family than John and his mother. I guess she takes after the father.
And Thornton? Who could have thought that a man with his cravat off could have looked so HOT. I wanted to pounce. I guess “undressed” is a relative term. I am severely in love (but then I was in the book as well). He is someone who can come across as harsh (he is certainly not full of milk of human kindness), but he is scrupulously honest with everyone including himself and unflinching at facing the world. He might scorn cajolery and flattery, but his scorn of any subterfuge is something I really like. What you see is what you get and if he gives you his word, you might rely upon it. He is intelligent and self-made (whatever Margaret’s opinions on that, I love it), but doesn’t want to neglect the “finer” things in life (I think he regrets his not-completed education very much even if he never articulates it. That is why he takes up with Mr. Hale). And he is very intense and that very quality is I think what both attracts (because there is no doubt that she is fascinated with him from their very first meeting) and repels (because she is not used to it. In her world, men veil everything behind proper words and flattery that is light and unmeaning. Witness her father’s friend’s manner. It’s much more extravagant than anything Thornton ever says to her but she isn’t offended by it because it’s clear it’s a formality) Margaret.
I really loved the end of Part I: Margaret’s voice-over saying that she’s seen hell and it’s white and the camera panning over the mill with the white cotton flying like snow and the dark silouette of Mr. Thornton walking back and forth (like the devil??? :P)
I love Margaret because she jumps in front of Thornton to protect him from the mob with her own body (one of my favorite scenes in the book as well) not out of passionate love (though I do think by that point she has unconscious feelings for him) but out of sense of responsibility (it’s her imperious “Go and protect your Irish” that got him outside to face the striking mob after all) and compassion (I do think she really would have done it for anyone, any other mill owner, or striker). I love that she puts her money where her mouth is when she goes out to protect Thornton. And of course, Fanny and Mrs. Thornton and the servants all assume she has done it because she loves him because otherwise, OMG how improper! Of course, the notion of sacrificing a man’s life (because there is no doubt it would have been bye-bye for Thornton if not for her interference) to maintain propriety is crazy to me, but oh well…And I love Thornton because he does NOT automatically assume that the fact that she saved him means she loves him.
But that scene with his mother when she convinces him that yes, Margaret loves him, and he is afraid to hope is rather painful to watch if you know what’s coming next. Because his first proposal scene? Makes Mr. Darcy’s first proposal scene seem a friendly walk in the park. Maybe it’s because Darcy’s proposal is insulting and Thornton’s isn’t (I can’t imagine anything insulting in a man telling a woman he loves her and wants to marry her), and maybe because Darcy did wrong Lizzy’s family and Thornton did not do anything to Margaret, but that proposal is totally angsty (and I love every moment of it). Because Margaret is so angry and Thornton is so hurt and they both say all sorts of things. She is wrong to insult him, but I think she does so because she thinks he offers for her out of obligation (because she hung around his neck to save him) and it must really hurt her because she does have feelings for him even if she doesn’t realize it yet, and then there is of course Bessie’s dying (not to mention her Mother’s) which has her emotionally on edge, and the fact that his intensity, as always, leaves her off-balance, and her class attitudes which must play a part. She tries to take it back but of course…
Guuuuh, can’t wait to get home and watch Part 2
I adore Margaret. She is flawed (she is quick to speak without thinking, and she does have elitist attitudes), but she is a strong, intelligent, warm-hearted woman. One can see why Thornton fell for her head over heels, and I love him the more because he clearly likes a woman of strong will who is not afraid to express her opinion even if it contradicts his as at the dinner party where they exchange opinions and keep on doing it (a legacy of his mother, I think). When and if they get married, they’ll have one heck of an interesting marriage. What a contrast she is to his sister Fanny with her airs and faints and shallow weakness, who clearly seems to come from another family than John and his mother. I guess she takes after the father.
And Thornton? Who could have thought that a man with his cravat off could have looked so HOT. I wanted to pounce. I guess “undressed” is a relative term. I am severely in love (but then I was in the book as well). He is someone who can come across as harsh (he is certainly not full of milk of human kindness), but he is scrupulously honest with everyone including himself and unflinching at facing the world. He might scorn cajolery and flattery, but his scorn of any subterfuge is something I really like. What you see is what you get and if he gives you his word, you might rely upon it. He is intelligent and self-made (whatever Margaret’s opinions on that, I love it), but doesn’t want to neglect the “finer” things in life (I think he regrets his not-completed education very much even if he never articulates it. That is why he takes up with Mr. Hale). And he is very intense and that very quality is I think what both attracts (because there is no doubt that she is fascinated with him from their very first meeting) and repels (because she is not used to it. In her world, men veil everything behind proper words and flattery that is light and unmeaning. Witness her father’s friend’s manner. It’s much more extravagant than anything Thornton ever says to her but she isn’t offended by it because it’s clear it’s a formality) Margaret.
I really loved the end of Part I: Margaret’s voice-over saying that she’s seen hell and it’s white and the camera panning over the mill with the white cotton flying like snow and the dark silouette of Mr. Thornton walking back and forth (like the devil??? :P)
I love Margaret because she jumps in front of Thornton to protect him from the mob with her own body (one of my favorite scenes in the book as well) not out of passionate love (though I do think by that point she has unconscious feelings for him) but out of sense of responsibility (it’s her imperious “Go and protect your Irish” that got him outside to face the striking mob after all) and compassion (I do think she really would have done it for anyone, any other mill owner, or striker). I love that she puts her money where her mouth is when she goes out to protect Thornton. And of course, Fanny and Mrs. Thornton and the servants all assume she has done it because she loves him because otherwise, OMG how improper! Of course, the notion of sacrificing a man’s life (because there is no doubt it would have been bye-bye for Thornton if not for her interference) to maintain propriety is crazy to me, but oh well…And I love Thornton because he does NOT automatically assume that the fact that she saved him means she loves him.
But that scene with his mother when she convinces him that yes, Margaret loves him, and he is afraid to hope is rather painful to watch if you know what’s coming next. Because his first proposal scene? Makes Mr. Darcy’s first proposal scene seem a friendly walk in the park. Maybe it’s because Darcy’s proposal is insulting and Thornton’s isn’t (I can’t imagine anything insulting in a man telling a woman he loves her and wants to marry her), and maybe because Darcy did wrong Lizzy’s family and Thornton did not do anything to Margaret, but that proposal is totally angsty (and I love every moment of it). Because Margaret is so angry and Thornton is so hurt and they both say all sorts of things. She is wrong to insult him, but I think she does so because she thinks he offers for her out of obligation (because she hung around his neck to save him) and it must really hurt her because she does have feelings for him even if she doesn’t realize it yet, and then there is of course Bessie’s dying (not to mention her Mother’s) which has her emotionally on edge, and the fact that his intensity, as always, leaves her off-balance, and her class attitudes which must play a part. She tries to take it back but of course…
Guuuuh, can’t wait to get home and watch Part 2
