Regency Reader Question
Hello Anne, I’ve really started loving your site/blog! 😎 I just found out about it, and I think it’s wonderful and insightful, please keep up your great work. Anyways, I just wanted to drop a quick question by. My wife and I binged watched the 1995 and the 2005 Pride & Prejudice film adaptations last weekend. Which do you think is more historically accurate, the 1995 tv series or the 2005 movie?
| Source of Question | Just curious |
| Additional comments |
Thanks for the question, Craig, and for being a Regency Reader! I also appreciate your kind words!
I couldn’t keep this one to myself. Sharing a poll on Twitter, I asked readers, writers, and historians what their take was on the 1995 Pride and Prejudice vs. the 2005 Pride and Prejudice historical accuracy question.
Overwhelmingly, 1995 Pride and Prejudice was selected as the more historically accurate adaptation.
One reader credited to the length of the 1995 mini series, versus a feature film, to making a more accurate portrayal of the book which may also influence the accuracy. The mini series definitely takes the tone and pacing to a bit more of a measured level, and is one thing fans love about the 1995 Pride and Prejudice.
I think the costumes for both are exquisite and fairly accurate (although the last scene in the 2005 P & P where Darcy is exposing his chest would’ve never happened). I found a blog post that goes in deep to declare 1995 the historically accurate winner. The main argument here is 1995 stuck with the muted color palette for unmarried females while 2005 took some artistic license by selecting darker hues for the unmarried women.
2005 takes a bit more liberties with the dialogue, too, making a bit more obvious to modern audiences what would have been obvious with Austen’s more restrained dialogue represented in 1995’s version.
Locations for both were incredible, albeit a different take. I have seen some argue 2005 is a bit more accurate with their location choices.
I am always a firm believer works of art (books, movies, tv, paintings) tell us more of a story of the current people/culture than being a true representation of history, so my final thought is that both versions are predicated on assumptions, well researched but assumptions nonetheless, on what the Regency era looked and felt like. There is necessarily some modern bias built into that. Take, for instance, the actors. Academics take issue with the looks of the characters from all modern adaptations, suggesting they would have looked very different than Colin Firth, for example: ‘Real’ Mr Darcy was nothing like Colin Firth, academics say – BBC News.
But clearly, folks feel 1995 P&P takes the cake.
Honestly, I like them both but for different reasons, in the same way I can appreciate the numerous versions of Emma or Sense and Sensibility for their unique perspectives. The 2005 probably gives us a more figurative representation and 1995 more literal. What I mean is, the 2005 makes the emotions a bit more on the nose or visceral whereas the 1995 version shows more restraint in all things, that would probably be more consistent with the actual era.
But just as Shakespeare continues to be loved and broadly interpreted, placed in a variety of milieu to breathe life into age old human struggles and make them relevant to today’s audience, so does Jane Austen.
