when you have no other topic to talk about.

Oh man. Today, I feel like talking about some of my favorite films of all time as well as my favorite fictional characters in film history ever. I'm currently back in my 2009 fever on (500) Days of Summer, and I don't know... Sometimes these sort of fevers, they don't happen only after you've been exposed to it, but they also happen when you've revisited the pages after having them being put down for a while... Well, with the exception of this particular following title that heads the whole post, in which I've been doomed to suffer till the end of time.

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

You have no idea how this movie has affected my life. Lol. So I write stories too, right, and ever since I saw Pride and Prejudice, and read the novel, all of the stories in my head (stage: pre-writing) have sort of become Pride and Prejudice-oriented, Darcy-Elizabeth oriented more like. I have in my head characters named Cameron and Zoey, and Tommy and Audrey, both with similar storylines, and they're all growing from Darcy and Elizabeth's characters and love story. Omg. I even thought about making an exclusive collection of stories dedicated to the chronicles of Pride and Prejudice, but that would be too freaky. What else could I do?

How do you explain that immense satisfaction when a high and mighty character such as Mr. Darcy submits to his suppressed although 'ardent' feelings towards the supposedly 'inferior' Elizabeth Bennet? Why do we love it so much? Why am I crazy about his love confession to Elizabeth? I want that sort of thing to happen to every heroine I create in my head. And most especially, to me. Hargh.

So, yeah, I saw the movie before I read the novel, but I loved them both, differently. I was introduced to the world of Jane Austen through that movie, and reading the book was a completely different thing from watching it. I'm able to appreciate the brightside of both 2005 film and the novel, unlike some hardcore Austen fans who much preferred the 1995 BBC miniseries and hated the film. I've watched the BBC miniseries, and I loved it as well, but I can't lie that I love the 2005 film much more, Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice. It's more...I don't know, impactful, immediate, believable, and relatable to modern relationships today, and most importantly, direct and dramatic, haha. The BBC miniseries was truer to the book alright, so it made sense that it was more...literate and old school, but it wasn't dramatic, wasn't it? I mean, let's appreciate Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice as a movie alone, with its own screenplay, with his own way of bringing the characters to screen, tangent from the book. It's already a masterpiece, isn't it? I mean, the direction, the cinematography, the score, the picturesqueness, and the scene where Darcy confesses on that rainy, thunderous day. But hey, I was born in 1991, so. :)

Pride and Prejudice BBC Miniseries - 1995

As much as I love Colin Firth's Darcy, I fell for Macfadyen's Darcy more. I don't know... maybe it's because I saw his Darcy first, followed by the book Darcy, and the Firth Darcy. Maybe it's because I like his hair and his eyes better and his voice better. Maybe it's because the sort of fierce look on him the moment he first walked into that ballroom, and that same impression we held on to through the entire movie. You could detect concealed agony in him just by looking at him in that state, like how he addressed himself to Elizabeth. And again, most fans say that Firth's Darcy was truer to the book. But you gotta believe me when I say I really do love Colin Firth, so, it's a tough call between the two, really.

I loved that the movie contained no vulgar or sexual content at all in the presentation of Darcy and Elizabeth's love story. Of course we all know that Jane Austen's book itself contained no such content whatsoever, and I thank her for that, and for Joe Wright for keeping it clean, elegant, and charming as it is. I loved the cinematography and the original score as well...God it was magical and it all totally bewitched me. I think I was fifteen or sixteen when I first saw the movie so you can imagine how great the movie impacted my life as I stated earlier, lol. Perhaps I'm being a little dramatic, but I'm still twenty years old, so...that's still allowed. Heee :D

I loved Elizabeth Bennet. I think Elizabeth mothered most of the modern female characters we see today. I first saw her as this intelligent, free-spirited, lively, courteous, yet fearless woman of the 19th century who would've fit in most well in the 21st century for all we know, and despite her flaws (being rather quick to judge, as we see in the book and movie, especially the book, but of course the flaw of her character is redeemed in the end), she was truly an inspiration for me. She's what I've never been able to be yet what I've always wanted to be. I have to admit Keira Knightley created a sort of different image of Elizabeth from the Elizabeth I imagined in my mind's eye when I read the book, but I can't tell which version I loved the most. I mean, they respectively have their own values, each of them. Keira had Elizabeth a more modern version of the book, but I didn't mind. It's understandable to try to be relevant to the current era, for the sake of, showbiz, commercials, contemporary audience, perhaps, I don't know, but it worked out fine for me. Then again, this may be perhaps because I saw the movie before reading the book, but still, I really think people have got to relax a bit. It wasn't as if Joe Wright was undervaluing or disrespecting the book -in my opinion. Jennifer Ehle was also splendid as Elizabeth, and I loved her too, and again I can't crown the better Elizabeth, because Joe Wright meant Keira Knightley to be the more modern version, if you can call it that.

Favorite scene? Does anyone seriously need to question that? :D Okay, there are three: 1. Darcy's first love confession, 2. Darcy's second love confession, 3. Darcy's secret love confession by the way he looks at Elizabeth at that scene with Georgiana. The end. ;)

To be continued on the next post.

(500) Days of Summer [2009]

:)