Pride & Prejudice, Q&A with director Joe Wright

We got free tickets, all four of us, to see a preview of the soon to be released new movie version of Pride & Prejudice (the release date here in the States is November 18; click here to see the dates in other countries). What made this pre-release event particularly special was that it was attended by the director, Joe Wright, and he did a fifteen minute Q&A afterwards. He was quite young; I would hazard he looks like he's about twenty-four or so? (That's a total guess, I'll admit--you'll see a number of pictures of him here.) Here is an interview of him done by the Guardian. I took furious notes, and here is my rough transcript, subject, of course, to any transcription errors due to the fact that I couldn't write quite fast enough. I do believe I caught the gist, however.

( Question and Answer session with director Joe Wright )

Anyway, I do recommend the movie. When you know every frame of the A&E Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehl version as I do, it does feel truncated, not as in depth, but it was well acted and (mostly) true to the book. I do have some quibbles about period details, but we did enjoy it thoroughly, all of us (the people in the row in front of us said that they enjoyed it even more because of all the laughing that my girls did). So: see it when it comes out! (I would have preferred it to see it with the non-American ending though.)

I got Joe Wright's autograph. See here and closeup here.

Edited to add: I must add a caveat for those who will see it and complain, "But you said it was true to the book!" Yes, there were some decisions that were puzzling--Lady Catherine DeB. comes in the middle of the night and scolds Lizzie in her nightgown! (I mean Lizzie in her nightgown, not Lady C.) And I winced at the way the proposal scene was played: Darcy would never have gone to get Mr. Bennett's consent in such a state of deshabille! But there were nice touches throughout that really worked, at least for me. And I think they did a good job in scripting it to streamline the story to bring it under the proper running time: after all the A&E version was six hours, but we don't have that kind of time in a movie theater. Will discuss at length when more of you have had a chance to see it.

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Quiz re: faith

Gacked from jeanineers:

You fit in with: Spiritualism Your ideals are mostly spiritual, but in an individualistic way. While spirituality is very important in your life, organized religion itself may not be for you. It is best for you to seek these things on your own terms. 80% spiritual. 40% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Weird. I'm not at all sure about the results. I thought that it was rather Procrustean, trying to force either 'yes' or 'no' answers and they certainly have a different understanding of Christianity than I do--but the way they map the various faiths is interesting and worth discussion.

Edited to add: And here is just one obvious "duh" about the underlying assumptions which shows how poorly this quiz is designed.

Does the designer really think that none of these religions could possibly overlap???