Quarter of century of the Sense and Sensibility

I think that everyone understands that in this case we are not talking about the novel by British writer Jane Austen, but about the film adaptation of this novel, made by the Chinese film director Ang Lee at the American film studio Columbia Pictures.

Ang Lee's "Sense and Sensibility" premiered in Beverly Hills, California, USA on December 4, 1995.

Jane Austen's novel "Sense and Sensibility" was released back in 1811 and until 1995 was filmed several times. At least twice, in 1971 and 1981, the British company BBC created television series based on this novel. In the late 80s, American filmmakers, and specifically a certain Lindsay Doran, decided to create their own screen version of the novel.

Lindsay Doran grew up in a cinematic family: dad is a producer, mom is the head of Department in the Columbia Pictures film studio, and in 1989 she herself became president of the Mirage Enterprises film company, which was created in 1985 by the famous filmmaker Sidney Pollack. Well, the first thing that Lindsay Doran decided to do, using her official position, was to create a film based on the work of her most beloved writer, Jane Austen.

The idea of ​​a film adaptation of the novel "Sense and Sensibility" possessed Lindsay Doran long before she became the head of the film company, and therefore, long before 1989, she was looking for a possible screenwriter. This task, with all the apparent lightness, is far from so simple, since an adequate script based on a novel of the early 19th century, recognized as a classic in the 20th century, can only be created, as Doran believed, by a person who is equally good at humor, satire, melodrama, who has the soul of the 19th century and the literary style of the 20th century. And Doran found such a screenwriter in the person of actress Emma Thompson. Who until that moment had never written a script. But, however, she tried her hand at creating comedy sketches, which caught the eye of Doran. And, it had to happen, Emma Thompson was also a fan of Jane Austen's creativity.

Emma Thompson did not immediately accept the offer to act as a screenwriter for a film based on her favorite literary work. She suggested at first to start with something simpler. But in the end she agreed. Perhaps not immediately realizing what she agreed to. In short, the script took Emma Thompson four and a half years of her life, during which she wrote 13 versions of the script, each of which consisted of an average of 350 handwritten sheets.

After a version of the script was created, equally satisfying both Lindsay Doran and Emma Thompson herself, it became clear that the Mirage Enterprises film studio alone would not "lift" this project. Lindsay Doran began to approach various film companies with a proposal to participate in co-financing the production of the picture. But most film companies rejected this offer, mainly due to the complete unknown of the scriptwriter. Finally, Columbia Pictures executive director Amy Pascal has expressed interest in making the film from a screenplay by Emma Thompson.

After that, the question arose about the director of the future film. And again, Lindsay Doran showed an absolute non-standard thinking: she offered to direct the film to a Chinese, or rather, Taiwanese, director Ang Li. Doran had two motives for this decision. First, she liked Ang Lee's film "Xi yan 喜宴 (The Wedding Banquet)", which was released in 1993. And the second, more important one, was that Doran did not want the film to be understood and accepted exclusively by Anglomaniacs, but would receive recognition from the whole international audience.

As Ang Lee later admitted, Doran's proposal literally dumbfounded him: he had no idea about England in the 19th century, he had never read Jane Austen's novels. But when he read the script to about half, he realized "that all along he had been trying to do Jane Austen without knowing it". However, before filming began, Ang Lee spent half a year in England to immerse himself in English culture and English humor. And the shooting itself took much less time - only 65 days.

A few weeks after its premiere, in early 1996, the film received 6 Golden Globe nominations, of which it won two: Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Screenplay. In the Best Director nomination, Ang Lee lost to Mel Gibson, the director of the film "Braveheart".

A little later, "Sense and Sensibility" received 7 Oscar nominations, but won only one - again for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published. In the Best Picture, "Sense and Sensibility" was again bypassed by Mel Gibson's "Braveheart" .

In the same 1996 Ang Lee's film "Sense and Sensibility" received 12 nominations for the British BAFTA Award. Of these, the film won three, including Best Picture and two female lead roles by Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. That is, British film academics were not embarrassed by the fact that Emma Thompson, 36 at that time, played the role of a girl who, according to the script, is 19 years old. Ang Lee also received a nomination for this award as a director, but the British film academics considered more worthy of the award from Michael Radford, director of the Italian film "Il postino (The Postman)".

And another victory Ang Lee's film won in that 1996 at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it was awarded the main prize - the Golden Bear. By the way, the famous Soviet and Russian director and actor Nikita Mikhalkov was the chairman of the jury at that film festival.

Film critics for the most part greeted Ang Lee's film with great enthusiasm. But the guru of American film critic Roger Ebert gave the film only 2.5 stars out of 4 possible, explaining his assessment that the film did not satisfy him with something. Russian film critic Sergei Kudryavtsev said that "Sense and Sensibility" is a cheerful, touching soul, nourishing the mind and just a perfectly made movie" and gave the film a pretty high mark - 8.5.

The following figures indicate the high appraisal of Ang Lee's film by moviegoers: with a budget of $ 16 million, worldwide box office receipts amounted to $ 135 million. 63% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave the film ratings from 8 to 10.

With that said, Ang Lee's "Sense and Sensibility" is rated 8.997 by FilmGourmand, placing it 159th in the Golden Thousand.