Meg:
Re your comment below:
> Just wondering...is anyone else frustrated that,
> with all the amazing writing available in the fan
> fiction nation, that film makers chose DCTP to put
> on screen...a book that, frankly, I found wanting
> in many areas? There are so many wonderful stories
> and writers whose works would make amazing
> films.....sigh.....
While, in general, I agree that DCTP was not Mrs. James's finest hour, the reasons that the networks decided to do a film adaptation of this seems obvious.
Let's remember that filmmaking and TV production are businesses. The point is to turn a profit, and that means minimizing risk whenever possible.
With that in mind, the first reason is simply that P.D. James is a name, a name that has delivered the goods on TV in the past. The series of movies based on her very fine police procedurals featuring poet/policeman Adam Dalgliesh, first with Roy Marsden on ITV, then later with Martin Shaw on BBC (all have been shown in the U.S. on PBS's Mystery!), have been solid, dependable ratings bait.
Second, the Dalgliesh novels, which have been appearing for more than half a century now, are among the best crime novels being written, expertly combining a realistic look at modern police work (Mrs. James had worked in the Police Department of the British Home Office, and she knows her stuff), with the kind of classic "upper-class whodunit" story more associated with Agatha Christie. What's this got to do with DCTP? Only this. She not only has a name; she's earned it. And the networks and booksellers know this.
Third, long before Persuasion and Sense & Sensibility were released to U.S. theatres, or P&P was shown on A&E, Mrs. James was singing the praises of Jane Austen to anyone who listened. It was Mrs. James who noted that, in structure, Emma was a classic mystery novel, with all the clues laid out, and the solution not explained until the end. She's been one of Miss Austen's greatest advocates.
Finally, like it or not, DCTP was a best-seller. The Three Colonels, Pride & Pyramids, Willoughby Returns, and other well-regarded Austen-based continuations were reasonably successful, and. arguably, did a better job of capturing Miss Austen's world than Mrs. James. But Jack Caldwell, Amanda Grange, and Jane Odiwe are not big names except in the fan fiction community, and none of their books made the best-seller list on the New York Times or Publishers Weekly.
Sorry, but facts are facts and business is business. Almost alone among writers of Austen-based fiction, Mrs. James was able to attract readers who were not in the fan fiction community.
JIM
Re your comment below:
> Just wondering...is anyone else frustrated that,
> with all the amazing writing available in the fan
> fiction nation, that film makers chose DCTP to put
> on screen...a book that, frankly, I found wanting
> in many areas? There are so many wonderful stories
> and writers whose works would make amazing
> films.....sigh.....
While, in general, I agree that DCTP was not Mrs. James's finest hour, the reasons that the networks decided to do a film adaptation of this seems obvious.
Let's remember that filmmaking and TV production are businesses. The point is to turn a profit, and that means minimizing risk whenever possible.
With that in mind, the first reason is simply that P.D. James is a name, a name that has delivered the goods on TV in the past. The series of movies based on her very fine police procedurals featuring poet/policeman Adam Dalgliesh, first with Roy Marsden on ITV, then later with Martin Shaw on BBC (all have been shown in the U.S. on PBS's Mystery!), have been solid, dependable ratings bait.
Second, the Dalgliesh novels, which have been appearing for more than half a century now, are among the best crime novels being written, expertly combining a realistic look at modern police work (Mrs. James had worked in the Police Department of the British Home Office, and she knows her stuff), with the kind of classic "upper-class whodunit" story more associated with Agatha Christie. What's this got to do with DCTP? Only this. She not only has a name; she's earned it. And the networks and booksellers know this.
Third, long before Persuasion and Sense & Sensibility were released to U.S. theatres, or P&P was shown on A&E, Mrs. James was singing the praises of Jane Austen to anyone who listened. It was Mrs. James who noted that, in structure, Emma was a classic mystery novel, with all the clues laid out, and the solution not explained until the end. She's been one of Miss Austen's greatest advocates.
Finally, like it or not, DCTP was a best-seller. The Three Colonels, Pride & Pyramids, Willoughby Returns, and other well-regarded Austen-based continuations were reasonably successful, and. arguably, did a better job of capturing Miss Austen's world than Mrs. James. But Jack Caldwell, Amanda Grange, and Jane Odiwe are not big names except in the fan fiction community, and none of their books made the best-seller list on the New York Times or Publishers Weekly.
Sorry, but facts are facts and business is business. Almost alone among writers of Austen-based fiction, Mrs. James was able to attract readers who were not in the fan fiction community.
JIM