"It is a truth universally acknowledged that every classic novel must be in want of a sexed-up adaptation. Ever since Colin Firth's Mr Darcy waded out of the lake in a wet shirt in the BBC's 1995 Pride and Prejudice adapted by Andrew Davies, we have expected the undercurrents of novels to be writ large on screen: the novel is dripping in sexual tension who knew? No one objects when Jane Austen's couples kiss on TV, although it never happens on the page."
"But we are reluctant to imagine more troubling historical realities, such as maternal mortality, or where the fortunes behind the big houses came from. As part of the 250th celebrations of Austen's birth, Davies shocked audiences at the Cliveden literary festival last week with revelations that he is working on versions of Emma and Mansfield Park that will include death, debauchery and slavery. Spoiler: Emma dies in childbirth."
"Elsewhere, another reboot favourite, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, has caused a stir with the release of the trailer for next year's hyper-eroticised film directed by Emerald Fennell (whose earlier hit Saltburn might be regarded as a risque take on Brideshead Revisited). The trailer contains much straining of stays and plausibility, but it is the ethnicity of Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, described in the novel as a dark-skinned gypsy, that has provoked a backlash."
Screen adaptations of classic novels increasingly emphasize sexual content and latent darkness, reshaping expectations set by celebrated moments like Colin Firth's wet-shirt scene. Adaptations by prominent screenwriters are introducing elements such as death, debauchery, and slavery into works like Emma and Mansfield Park, including an explicit maternal mortality plot. Scholarly debate over the role of empire and slavery in Mansfield Park continues, invoking figures from Edward Said to contemporary novelists. New trailers and casting choices, such as the hyper-eroticised Wuthering Heights and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, have sparked controversy about ethnicity, plausibility, and historical realism.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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