I went to the cinema by myself for the first time yesterday. I really wanted to see the new adaptation of Little Women, a book I read and re-read frequently as young teenager. And continued to re-read, if less frequently, through my later teens and twenties.
It might be time for another re-read soon, come to think of it.
I really wanted to see it but my husband, lovely though he is, wasn’t quite so inspired at the prospect. Granted, he has seen the 1994 adaptation at least once in my company, and while he enjoyed it well enough he didn’t particularly feel the need to revisit the story (especially at the cost of cinema tickets these days!) So off I trotted on my own.
Now for my guilty confession.
I went to see the new adaptation of Little Women yesterday. Then I came home and almost immediately stuck on my DVD of the 1994 adaptation of Little Women…
I think I can honestly say that I enjoyed the new version… well enough. But it definitely left my unsatisfied. I’ve been pondering on exactly why that was, and it is incredibly hard to pin down.
I liked the casting for all the characters (in spite of Jo being blonde) and there were some really gorgeous visuals. There is one scene of Jo and Beth on the beach, just after Beth has vocalised, possibly for the first time, that she knows that she is dying, and is more at peace with the prospect than her Jo is. The sisters are embracing, and crying, and the shot frames them at the centre of the screen, on a windy beach with the sand blowing towards the camera, and behind it, presumably, the sea. And this really did convey a feeling of the fleetingness of life, of the inevitability of Beth’s coming demise, and of Jo’s powerlessness in the face of it. And as for the costuming! It was gorgeous! There was a lot of fantastic knitwear going on, and I really loved Jo’s ongoing tomboyish aesthetic. I also really appreciated the book printing and binding sequence – that was lovely to see. I just wish Jo had looked more … content at the end of it.
Because that is part of my dissatisfaction. The ending. It leaves it ambiguous as to whether Jo marries Friedrich Bhaer or not. Maybe I’m just a traditionalist, who wants her happy ending, or a purist who thinks the book must be perfectly adhered to?
Only I know I’m not really either of these things. I like quirky endings. Someday I should tell you about what I wanted the ending of Arya’s arc in Game of Thrones to be! And I truly believe that the best adaptations are those that convey the spirit of the original, even if they play a little fast and loose with the details. Like Disney’s 1996 adaptation of The Three Musketeers! Which, incidentally I had recorded from TV on a video directly after the 1994 Little Women – that was one well worn video!
Besides, there were scenes in the new adaptation that are lifted almost word for word from the novel that didn’t make it into my beloved 1994 version that I really liked – particularly the ‘meet the family’ scene that occurs before Jo and Friedrich really have a chance to reunite alone. But that also contains one of my gripes – why is Freidrich suddenly a musician, but Laurie has had that core element of his character ripped away? Laurie’s passion for music should match Beth’s, and rival Jo’s ambitions as a writer and Amy’s artistic dreams. It’s one of the things that makes both Jo and Laurie’s friendship and Amy and Laurie as a couple make sense; they all understand what that kind of calling is.
While I’m on the topic of things that have been cut, I have a bone to pick with both adaptations at once! Where are Franz and Emil? The fact that Freidrich Bhaer is raising his dead sister’s sons is a critical element of who he is in the books. The new version kind of knows this – he even says, “It is a very hard thing to lose a sister” without ever giving any indication that he knows what he is talking about! It’s really jarring if you know the background from the books.
It may be clear by now that I like Freidrich Bhaer. I like him and Jo together – and I love the courtship that the 1994 adaptation gives them, and his concern that she is not entirely happy with what she is writing. I do think it a little rich that he is somewhat disparaging of Jo’s scandalous melodramas and then takes her to an opera though… Mind you, I’m not entirely sure what to imagine of Jo’s published stories – one would assume they were of the ‘penny dreadful’ variety, but can’t say that that is a genre I am particularly familiar with. I’m not sure that I would like them myself – from what I have gleaned they would be all action and very little character – but I respect the hell out of Jo for making money with her talents to care for her sister. Or I would, if she wasn’t a fictional character.
I still haven’t quite caught the reason that the new version didn’t quite click for me. It was well made. I just like the 1994 version more. I’ve always appreciated that it had two actors play Amy – she is so young at the beginning that a woman old enough to play a married lady by the end of the film looks little absurd in the role. But that isn’t really a big enough problem to explain my reaction.
Mind you, I also find it hard to identify exactly what I love so much about Little Women in the first place. It isn’t particularly grand and exciting, it is just about.. growing up. Although it is about growing up your way, not the way that society tells you you should – maybe that is part of the appeal. And I like all four sisters – I think they each represent different elements of what so many of us go through in adolescence. Beth is content to be at home, to enjoy the simple things and not have to deal with the outside world. Jo wants adventure, and to have control over her own life. Amy wants nice things, to be well-off and not have to worry about money. Meg wants to love and be loved, and have a family. I don’t think we have to be just one of the March girls; we all have our inner Beth’s, Amy’s and Meg’s as well as our Jo. And challenge in life, like in the March household, is to balance those different desires the best that we can.
A Trifle Bazaar 