Wherever you are right now and whatever you’re doing, we’ve seen some tough times lately. When things got tough were you like me - re-watching films, TikToks, and too-often scrolling Insta for dopamine-inducing images and scenes in search of some Wonderful?
It seems like many of us - as hashtags like #JaneAusten and #Emma2020 and #PrideandPrejudice show - are losing ourselves in Austenland: those Regency gowns and jewelry, those climactic dance scenes, and especially those swoon-worthy declarations of love, from Darcy’s “You have bewitched me” to Knightley’s wonderful “If I loved you less I might be able to talk about it more.”
Are you ready for love?
If so, to cheer us up, raise our dopamine levels, and make us swoon because we really need it, here’s my own Top Five pandemic-era dopamine raisers.
But don’t take my word for it! Please send your own favorite, and I’ll update this post with a crowdsourced edition.
Here we go:
Let’s get into it, with a backwards countdown on the most swoon-inducing, pulse-raising, show-stopping, heart-palpitating, earth-shattering scenes from Austenland:
5 - First Kiss - Emma 2020
What’s going on in this scene:
This is a near-final scene in Autumn de Wilde’s 2020 screen adaptation of Emma. Anya Taylor-Joy’s Emma and Johnny Flynn’s Knightley have earlier and hastily and rather confusingly declared their love, and now at Hartfield they will cleverly maneuver around Bill Nighy’s wonderful Mr. Woodhouse and the latter’s ubiquitous book-reading and his paranoia about cold drafts. And they will place themselves behind a hearth screen, for a fantastically swoony conversation about their future, culminating in a string of small kisses that goes on forever. In the background you’ll hear Isobel Waller-Bridge’s “unruly” orchestra.
Why we love this scene:
One of the sexiest aspects of this scene and also of Austen’s stories generally, I think, is the suspenseful negotiating and communication-building that happens in the process of falling in love. So in this scene you have a conversation about how Emma will leave her devoted father and where they’ll all live, and it’s a negotiation that takes up quite a few pages in the novel. But here it’s all reduced to one very simple series of questions and answers, resulting in Knightley’s answering a very-sexy “Yes” to each one, and hereby committing to doing whatever it is - even giving up his made-much-of independence - that will make Emma happy.
Swoon.
4 - The Poppy Field Kiss - Room With a View, 1985
What’s going on in this scene
Of course this is not a Jane Austen adaptation, but Emma 2020 director Autumn de Wilde cites the film as an influence, and she says she watched it multiple times when she was younger. So did I. And I know many of you are out there, especially during pandemic times, watching Autumn de Wilde’s own film multiple times, because you can’t get enough of the Regency dresses, the dances, the arguments, and the final kiss. And if that’s the case, it’s comforting to know that there’s nothing wrong with you and everything right about you, and you’re in good company of this brilliant director de Wilde.
Why we love this scene:
There are so many reasons - let me count the ways: The music for this scene, an aria from Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi,” begins building minutes ahead of time, so while Helen Bonham Carter’s Lucy Honeychurch is bored and wandering around, you know that something is about to happen. When Julian Sands’ George Emerson swoops her into a sweeping kiss. (Yes, looking at this in 2021 I realize: It’s a stolen kiss - this is not a guide to life, guys, it’s a fantasy - nevertheless do you find this Problematic? If so, let us know!). Then … then the music hits a high note and our emotions soar right on into the beyond.
Also, the costumes, the setting. They are wearing white in an Italian poppy field.
What more do we need?
3 - The Declaration of Love - Pride and Prejudice, 2005
What’s going on in this scene:
Of course it’s that longed-for moment that (almost) always arrives in Austen when our complicated, brilliant heroine and leading man, and their complicated, brilliant psyches finally come together and agree to understand each other. And this scene also is not without its final negotiation, as we have here Eliza and Darcy apologizing to each other for the misbehavior of their family members. This is a lot more important than it seems: It’s the unsuitability of their ill-matched families that have caused a lot of the “pride” and “prejudice” that has separated Elizabeth and Darcy up to now. So here they admit to an equality in their family’s characters (or lack thereof) and seem to acknowledge that the most important thing is their own characters, and how they feel about each other, that matters - banal Regency bullshit be damned.
And in Joe Wright’s 2005 film - the most Emo of all Austen adaptations - these two lose themselves, and lose us all, in the film’s gorgeous light-and-shade cinematography, and in a dramatic swirl of piano music that begins with high tentative piano notes that resolve themselves into a full-orchestrated, full-throated, thrilling sonic wall.
Which brings us to:
Why we love this scene:
Against that emotional orchestral backdrop, you have Keira Knightley’s Eliza and Matthew Macfadyen’s Darcy melting into each other. We’ve recently seen them shouting at each other in the rain, and then tentatively coming back together in baby steps, and this is the scene where they exhaustedly declare themselves for each other.
An Instagram favorite: Macfadyen’s interpretation of the lines that draws on Darcy’s shyness, as he stumbles in saying, “I love … I love …. I love you” - managing to be somehow both adorable and hot as hell. See if I’m wrong.
2 - Darcy vs. Elizabeth - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
What’s going on in this scene:
It’s that truly abominable first proposal scene where Darcy professes to love Elizabeth against his better judgement. And it’s here, in the novel, that he actually accuses her of bewitching him. She does not take it - in Austen, or in this rendition - lying down.
In every version she gives it right back, with eloquence. And this scene is no different, it just involves a few more weapons than Austen originally had envisioned.
Why we love this scene:
You’ll have your own reasons: The actual bodice ripping? The shit-starting groin kick? The book throwing?
My favorite line is: “She’s shy!”
My second favorite line is: “You’ve said quite enough,” which is what Darcy says to Elizabeth after she stabs him with a letter opener, before politely excusing himself and leaving.
Maybe the most awesome part of rewatching this scene is realizing that it’s all, or mostly, Austen’s actual language that is deployed here.
A reminder, if we needed one, that: Jane Austen is funny!
1 - Drumroll please … The wet-shirt walk from the lake at Pemberley - Pride and Prejudice, 1995 (What did you expect?)
What’s going on in this scene:
It’s easy to forget that this iconic scene is really about awkward embarrassment: Elizabeth and Darcy surprise each other at Pemberley, where neither of them is supposed to be. And the scene takes place after Darcy’s rude proposal that’s ended in mutual accusations, misunderstandings and insults. (See above.)
But, BBC series creator Andrew Davies has said that he did not intend this scene to be sexy. It was intended to give Darcy grounds for embarrassment to equal Elizabeth’s, who is actually at Pemberley, Darcy’s home, sort of as a tourist. This, for Elizabeth, might feel a little like being caught cyber-stalking someone you’ve recently shouted at but are secretly falling in love with.
Davies, who has adapted a number of Austen novels for the screen, seems to have pioneered the idea of taking Austen’s drawing-room dramas out of the house and outside, to place the characters in active, natural settings.
Another thing that’s going on here is Helen Fielding. Who is she? She was the author of the column “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” that ran anonymously in the UK newspaper The Independent in the 1990s, then became the book that then became the film. And in doing so Fielding catapulted this scene, which the Bridget Jones character is a little obsessed with - and with it Colin Firth - into icon status.
Why we love this scene:
First, English countryside.
Second, Colin Firth.
Third, Romantic Regency shirt, wet.
That’s all.
Feeling better, friends? What’s missing here? Remember I am a student, a mere budding learner, in all of this - so please tell me: What is the absolute best pandemic-busting dopamine-drumming scene you love?
Share below in the comments, for the edification of us all.
You can also share at @AustenConnect on Twitter, or reach out at AustenConnection@gmail.com
Stay well and happy and maybe even swoony,
Yours truly,
Plain Jane
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