What is the movie sense and sensibility about?
1995 period drama film directed by Ang Lee. Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 American period drama film directed by Ang Lee and based on Jane Austen's 1811 novel of the same name. Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay and stars as Elinor Dashwood, while Kate Winslet plays Elinor's younger sister Marianne.
Why is sense and Sensibility a classic?
Written By: Sense and Sensibility, novel by Jane Austen that was published anonymously in three volumes in 1811 and that became a classic. The satirical, comic work offers a vivid depiction of 19th-century middle-class life as it follows the romantic relationships of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Summary.
Who is Jane Austen's sense and sensibility based on?
Jane Austen.© North Wind Picture Archives. Sense and Sensibility tells the story of the impoverished Dashwood family, focusing on the sisters Elinor and Marianne, personifications of good sense (common sense) and sensibility (emotionality), respectively.
What are some examples of adaptations of sense and Sensibility?
Cited examples include Mrs Dalloway (1997), Mrs. Brown (1997), Shakespeare in Love (1998), and Bridget Jones's Diary (2001). [185] In 2008, Andrew Davies, the screenwriter of Pride and Prejudice, adapted Sense and Sensibility for television.
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What is the story Sense and Sensibility about?
Sense and Sensibility tells the story of the impoverished Dashwood family, focusing on the sisters Elinor and Marianne, personifications of good sense (common sense) and sensibility (emotionality), respectively.
What is the moral of the story Sense and Sensibility?
Thus, the moral lesson of the novel is that it is prudent to behave sensibly, but it is reckless or even dangerous to give up oneself to the excess of sensibility.
Is Sense and Sensibility A love story?
Sense And Sensibility: The Best Romantic Stories Collection (Love Story Novels)
What is the main conflict in Sense and Sensibility?
Sense and Sensibility has several major conflicts. While there are conflicts shaping the plot, the most major conflict in the novel is the overarching tension between practicality (sense) and romanticism (sensibility) as represented by Elinor's pragmatic approach and Marianne's aptitude to be led by her emotions.
What are three themes found in the novel Sense and Sensibility?
Love and Marriage.Character, Sense, and Sensibility.Women in Society.Society and Strategy.Wealth, Class, and Greed.
Is Sense and Sensibility sad?
Sense and Sensibility includes a sad story about two women who become pregnant out of wedlock. Also, characters drink wine and shoot game for sport.
Why is it called Sense and Sensibility?
It signaled good sense, or common sense. But in Austen's day, the word sensibility was different. It meant sensitivity or emotional receptivity. Throughout the novel, Austen couples the word sense with ideas of goodness, honor, and duty.
Does Sense and Sensibility have a happy ending?
17Sense and Sensibility does end on the double wedding of the sisters but the novel displays features that downplay the happy ending.
Who gets married at the end of Sense and Sensibility?
One of the reasons I love the 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility is the way it ended so romantically with the wedding of Marianne and Colonel Brandon.
What is the climax of Sense and Sensibility?
The romance between Edward and Elinor is, for many, the heart of Sense and Sensibility, and Edward's proposal serves as the climax of the 2008 MASTERPIECE adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. From the moment Edward arrives at the cottage, there is a palpable sense of suspense.
What happens at the end of Sense and Sensibility?
The sisters decide to live side-by-side together with their husbands at Delaford, thereby affirming the mutual respect and affection, which has kept them close throughout the entire novel. Ultimately, both sisters end up married to the novel's only second sons.
Who ends up with who in Sense and Sensibility?
Lucy Steele Jennings' cousin and a sly, selfish, and insecure young woman. She has been secretly engaged to Edward Ferrars for four years but she ultimately marries his brother, Robert, once Edward is disinherited.
Why did Austen write Sense and Sensibility?
Austen may have wanted anonymity not only because of her gender and a desire for privacy, but because of the more general atmosphere of repression pervading her era: her early writing of Sense and Sensibility coincided with the treason trial of Thomas Hardy and the proliferation of government censors as the Napoleonic ...
What is the point of view of the author in Sense and Sensibility?
Third Person (Omniscient) This is a textbook third person omniscient narrator – we have a privileged view inside the minds of most of the characters, and Austen's strong narratorial voice takes us in and out of the people that populate this novel.
What do the characters learn in the sense and sensibility?
Both Elinor and Marianne achieve happiness at the end of the novel, but they do so only by learning from one another: together they discover how to feel and express their sentiments fully while also retaining their dignity and self-control.
What are the main themes of Emma?
ThemesMarriage and Social Status. Emma is structured around a number of marriages recently consummated or anticipated, and, in each case, the match solidifies the participant's social status. ... The Confined Nature of Women's Existence. ... The Blinding Power of Imagination. ... The Obstacles to Open Expression.
When was Jane Austen's sense and sensibility published?from britannica.com
novel by Austen. Sense and Sensibility, novel by Jane Austen that was published anonymously in three volumes in 1811 and that became a classic. The satirical, comic work offers a vivid depiction of 19th-century middle-class life as it follows the romantic relationships of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood.
Who is Emma Thompson in sense and sensibility?from britannica.com
The satirical, comic work offers a vivid depiction of 19th-century middle-class life as it follows the romantic relationships of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Emma Thompson (left) and Kate Winslet in Sense and Sensibility (1995), directed by Ang Lee.
Was Sense and Sensibility a success?from britannica.com
Sense and Sensibility was a success upon publication, and it later was adapted for film, stage, and television. Among the most notable adaptations is the 1995 movie, which was directed by Ang Lee and starred Emma Thompson (Elinor), who won an Academy Award for her adapted screenplay; Kate Winslet (Marianne); Hugh Grant (Edward Ferrars); and Alan Rickman (Colonel Brandon). A critical and commercial success, the movie spurred a resurgence of interest in Austen’s novels.
Who wrote the music for sense and sensibility?
Composer Patrick Doyle, who had previously worked with his friend Emma Thompson in the films Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, and Dead Again, was hired to produce the music for Sense and Sensibility. Asked by the director to select existing music or compose new "gentle" melodies, Doyle wrote a score that reflected the film's events. He explained, "You had this middle-class English motif, and with the music you would have occasional outbursts of emotion." Doyle explains that the score "becomes a little more grown-up" as the story progresses to one of "maturity and an emotional catharsis." The score contains romantic elements and has been described by National Public Radio as a "restricted compass ... of emotion" with "instruments [that] blend together in a gentle sort of way". They also noted that as a reflection of the story, the score is a "little wistful ... and sentimental."
How much money did the movie Sense and Sensibility make?
Budget. $16 million. Box office. $135 million. Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 period drama film directed by Ang Lee and based on Jane Austen 's 1811 novel of the same name. Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay and stars as Elinor Dashwood, while Kate Winslet plays Elinor's younger sister Marianne.
Why did Doran want Sense and Sensibility?
From the beginning, Doran wanted Sense and Sensibility to appeal to both a core audience of Austen aficionados as well as younger viewers attracted to romantic comedy films. She felt that Lee's involvement prevented the film from becoming "just some little English movie" that appealed only to local audiences instead of to the wider world. Lee said,
What was Austen's first adaptation?
Legacy and influence. Following the theatrical release of Persuasion by a few months, Sense and Sensibility was one of the first English-language period adaptations of an Austen novel to be released in cinemas in over fifty years, the previous being the 1940 film Pride and Prejudice.
What was Ang Lee's first feature film outside of Asia?
Sense and Sensibility was Ang Lee 's first feature film outside of Asia.
Where was sense and sensibility filmed?
Filming commenced in mid-April 1995 at a number of locations in Devon, beginning with Saltram House (standing in for Norland Park), where Winslet and Jones shot the first scene of the production: when their characters read about Barton Cottage. As Saltram was a National Trust property, Schamus had to sign a contract before production began, and staff with the organisation remained on set to carefully monitor the filming. Production later returned to shoot several more scenes, finishing there on 29 April. The second location of filming, Flete House, stood in for part of Mrs. Jennings' London estate, where Edward first sees Elinor with Lucy. Representing Barton Cottage was a Flete Estate stone cottage, which Thompson called "one of the most beautiful spots we've ever seen."
What did Jarr Carr think of Austen's satire?
Jarr Carr of The Boston Globe thought that Lee "nail [ed] Austen's acute social observation and tangy satire," and viewed Thompson and Winslet's age discrepancy as a positive element that helped feed the dichotomy of sense and sensibility. The Radio Times ' David Parkinson was equally appreciative of Lee's direction, writing that he "avoid [s] the chocolate-box visuals that cheapen so many British costume dramas" and "brings a refreshing period realism to the tale of two sisters that allows Emma Thompson's respectful Oscar-winning script to flourish."
What is the sense and sensibility?from en.wikipedia.org
Sense and Sensibility, much like Austen's other fiction, has attracted a large body of criticism from many different critical approaches. Early reviews of Sense and Sensibility focused on the novel as providing lessons in conduct (which would be debated by many later critics), as well as reviewing the characters. The Norton Critical Edition of Sense and Sensibility, edited by Claudia Johnson, contains a number of reprinted early reviews in its supplementary material. An "Unsigned Review" in the February 1812 Critical Review praises Sense and Sensibility as well written with well supported and drawn characters, realistic, and with a "highly pleasing" plot in which "the whole is just long enough to interest the reader without fatiguing." This review praises Mrs. Dashwood, the mother of the Dashwood sisters, as well as Elinor, and claims that Marianne's extreme sensibility makes her miserable. It claims that Sense and Sensibility has a lesson and moral which is made clear through the plot and the characters. Another "Unsigned Review" from the May 1812 British Critic further emphasizes the novel's function as a type of conduct book. In this author's opinion, Austen's favouring of Elinor's temperament over Marianne's provides the lesson. The review claims that "the object of the work is to represent the effects on the conduct of life, of discreet quiet good sense on the one hand, and an overrefined and excessive susceptibility on the other." The review states that Sense and Sensibility contains "many sober and salutary maxims for the conduct of life" within a "very pleasing and entertaining narrative." W. F. Pollock's 1861 review from Frasier's Magazine, titled "British Novelists," becomes what editor Claudia Johnson terms an "early example of what would become the customary view of Sense and Sensibility." In addition to emphasizing the novel's morality, Pollock reviews the characters in catalogue-like fashion, praising and criticizing them in according to the notion that Austen favours Elinor's point of view and temperament. Pollock even praises Sir John Middleton and Mrs. Jennings, and comments on the humour of Mr. Palmer and his "silly wife." Pollock criticizes Sir John Dashwood's selfishness without mentioning Fanny's influence upon them. He also criticizes the Steele sisters for their vulgarity.
Who wrote the musical sense and sensibility?from en.wikipedia.org
Stage. 2013: Sense & Sensibility, the Musical (book and lyrics by Jeffrey Haddow and music by Neal Hampton) received its world premiere by the Denver Center Theatre Company in April 2013, as staged by Tony-nominated director Marcia Milgrom Dodge.
What is the most popular form of fiction in Austen's time?from en.wikipedia.org
One of the most popular forms of fiction in Austen's time was epistolary fiction. This is a style of writing in which all of the action, dialogue, and character interactions are reflected through letters sent from one or more of the characters. In her book Romantic Correspondence: Women, Politics, and the Fiction of Letters, Mary Favret explores Austen's fraught relationship with epistolary fiction, claiming that Austen "wrestled with epistolary form" in previous writings and, with the publication of Sense and Sensibility, "announced her victory over the constraints of the letter." Favret contends that Austen's version of the letter separates her from her "admired predecessor, Samuel Richardson " in that Austen's letters are "a misleading guide to the human heart which, in the best instances, is always changing and adapting." According to Favret, the character of Elinor Dashwood is an "anti-epistolary heroine" whose "inner world" of thoughts and feelings does not find "direct expression in the novel, although her point of view controls the story." Sense and Sensibility establishes what Favret calls a "new privacy" in the novel, which was constrained by previous notions of the romance of letters. This new privacy is a "less constraining mode of narration" in which Austen's narrator provides commentary on the action, rather than the characters themselves through the letters. Favret claims that in Sense and Sensibility, Austen wants to "recontextualize" the letter and bring it into a "new realism." Austen does so by imbuing the letter with dangerous power when Marianne writes to Willoughby; both their love and the letter "prove false." Additionally, Favret claims that Austen uses both of the sisters' letter writing to emphasize the contrasts in their personalities. When both of the sisters write letters upon arriving in London, Elinor's letter is the "dutiful letter of the 'sensible sister'" and Marianne writes a "vaguely illicit letter" reflecting her characterization as the "sensitive" sister. What is perhaps most striking about Favret's analysis is that she notes that the lovers who write to one another never unite with each other.
How was Jane Austen's sense and sensibility translated?from en.wikipedia.org
Montolieu had only the most basic knowledge of English, and her translations were more of "imitations" of Austen's novels as Montolieu had her assistants provide a summary of Austen's novels, which she then translated into an embellished French that often radically altered Austen's plots and characters. The "translation" of Sense and Sensibility by Montolieu changes entire scenes and characters, for example having Marianne call Willoughby an "angel" and an "Adonis" upon first meeting him, lines that are not in the English original. Likewise, the scene where Mrs. Dashwood criticizes her husband for planning to subsidise his widowed stepmother might be disadvantageous to "our little Harry", Mrs. Dashwood soon forgets about Harry and it is made apparent her objections are founded in greed; Montolieu altered the scene by having Mrs. Dashwood continuing to speak of "our little Harry" as the basis of her objections, completely changing her motives. When Elinor learns the Ferrars who married Lucy Steele is Robert, not Edward, Montolieu adds in a scene where Edward, the Dashwood sisters and their mother all break down in tears while clasping hands that was not in the original. Austen has the marriage of Robert Ferrars and Lucy Steele end well while Montolieu changes the marriage into a failure.
What are the issues in Jane Austen's sense and sensibility?from en.wikipedia.org
Ruoff's first two chapters deal extensively with the subject of wills and the discourse of inheritance. These topics reveal what Ruoff calls "the cultural fixation on priority of male birth." According to Ruoff, male birth is by far the dominant issue in these legal conversations. Ruoff observes that, within the linear family, the order of male birth decides issues of eligibility and merit. When Robert Ferrars becomes the his mother's heir, Edward is no longer appealing to his "opportunistic" fiancée Lucy, who quickly turns her attention to the foppish Robert and "entraps him" in order to secure the inheritance for herself. According to Ruoff, Lucy is specifically aiming for the heir because of the monetary advantage. William Galperin, in his book The History Austen, comments on the tendency of this system of patriarchal inheritance and earning as working to ensure the vulnerability of women. Because of this vulnerability, Galperin contends that Sense and Sensibility shows marriage as the only practical solution "against the insecurity of remaining an unmarried woman."
What does Elinor tell Marianne about Willoughby?from en.wikipedia.org
Marianne recovers from her illness, and Elinor tells her of Willoughby's visit. Marianne realizes she could never have been happy with Willoughby's immoral, erratic, and inconsiderate ways. She values Elinor's more moderated conduct with Edward and resolves to model herself after her courage and good sense. Edward later arrives and reveals that, after his disinheritance, Lucy jilted him in favour of his now wealthy younger brother, Robert. Elinor is overjoyed. Edward and Elinor marry, and later Marianne marries Colonel Brandon, having gradually come to love him. The two couples live as neighbours, with sisters and husbands in harmony with each other. Willoughby considers Marianne as his ideal but the narrator tells the reader not to suppose that he was never happy.
How old is Marianne Dashwood?from en.wikipedia.org
She is 16 years old at the beginning of the book. She is the object of the attentions of Colonel Brandon and Mr Willoughby. She is attracted to young, handsome, romantically spirited Willoughby and does not think much of the older, more reserved Colonel Brandon. Marianne undergoes the most development within the book, learning that her sensibilities have been selfish. She decides that her conduct should be more like that of her elder sister, Elinor.
Meet the Cast
Elinor Dashwood … Alika U. Spencer Marianne Dashwood … Jen Maggio Margaret Dashwood/Anne Steele … Alliana Lili Yang Mrs Dashwood … Cynthia Lagodzinski John Dashwood … Drew B.
Safety Requirements
Silicon Valley Shakespeare prioritizes the safety of our artists and patrons, and we are committed to doing our part to stop the spread of the coronavirus. In 2022, we are requiring all of our actors, designers, and other staff to be fully vaccinated.
Who directed the movie "Sense and Sensibility"?from britannica.com
Emma Thompson (left) and Kate Winslet in Sense and Sensibility (1995), directed by Ang Lee.
When was sense and sensibility first published?from supersummary.com
Sense and Sensibility, an 1811 novel by English author Jane Austen, was initially published anonymously. Centering on the Dashwood sisters--Elinor and Marianne--as they reach marrying age, and set in England between 1792 and 1797, the novel follows the sisters and their widowed mother to their new home. They move into a small cottage on the ...
What does Marianne tell Elinor about Willoughby?from supersummary.com
Marianne eventually recovers, and Elinor tells her of Willoughby’s visit. Marianne realizes she never could have been happy with Willoughby’s caddish ways. She admires Elinor and vows to model herself after her sister. Edward returns and reveals that Lucy ditched him after he was disinherited.
Why does Marianne become dangerously ill?from supersummary.com
Jennings takes Elinor and Marianne to the country to visit her second daughter, but Marianne is becoming dangerously ill due to her grief over Willoughby’s marriage.
What does Anne reveal about Lucy's engagement?from supersummary.com
Lucy is flattered, not seeing this as the slight to Elinor and Marianne it is. Always talkative, Anne reveals Lucy’s secret engagement to Edward. The sisters are evicted from the house, and Edward is ordered to break off the engagement. When he refuses, he is disinherited in favor of his brother.
What is the meaning of Jane Austen's sense and sensibility?from britannica.com
She significantly revised it in 1809. It was her first published novel, and she paid to have it published. Sense and Sensibility contained what would become Austen’s trademark features: insightful observation, astute characterization, and dazzling wit. There has long been debate whether Austen favoured one quality over the other—sense or sensibility—or whether she favored an equal dose of both as the best recipe for life.
When was Jane Austen's sense and sensibility published?from britannica.com
novel by Austen. Sense and Sensibility, novel by Jane Austen that was published anonymously in three volumes in 1811 and that became a classic. The satirical, comic work offers a vivid depiction of 19th-century middle-class life as it follows the romantic relationships of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood.
What is the sense and sensibility?from en.wikipedia.org
Sense and Sensibility, much like Austen's other fiction, has attracted a large body of criticism from many different critical approaches. Early reviews of Sense and Sensibility focused on the novel as providing lessons in conduct (which would be debated by many later critics), as well as reviewing the characters. The Norton Critical Edition of Sense and Sensibility, edited by Claudia Johnson, contains a number of reprinted early reviews in its supplementary material. An "Unsigned Review" in the February 1812 Critical Review praises Sense and Sensibility as well written with well supported and drawn characters, realistic, and with a "highly pleasing" plot in which "the whole is just long enough to interest the reader without fatiguing." This review praises Mrs. Dashwood, the mother of the Dashwood sisters, as well as Elinor, and claims that Marianne's extreme sensibility makes her miserable. It claims that Sense and Sensibility has a lesson and moral which is made clear through the plot and the characters. Another "Unsigned Review" from the May 1812 British Critic further emphasizes the novel's function as a type of conduct book. In this author's opinion, Austen's favouring of Elinor's temperament over Marianne's provides the lesson. The review claims that "the object of the work is to represent the effects on the conduct of life, of discreet quiet good sense on the one hand, and an overrefined and excessive susceptibility on the other." The review states that Sense and Sensibility contains "many sober and salutary maxims for the conduct of life" within a "very pleasing and entertaining narrative." W. F. Pollock's 1861 review from Frasier's Magazine, titled "British Novelists," becomes what editor Claudia Johnson terms an "early example of what would become the customary view of Sense and Sensibility." In addition to emphasizing the novel's morality, Pollock reviews the characters in catalogue-like fashion, praising and criticizing them in according to the notion that Austen favours Elinor's point of view and temperament. Pollock even praises Sir John Middleton and Mrs. Jennings, and comments on the humour of Mr. Palmer and his "silly wife." Pollock criticizes Sir John Dashwood's selfishness without mentioning Fanny's influence upon them. He also criticizes the Steele sisters for their vulgarity.
Who wrote the musical sense and sensibility?from en.wikipedia.org
Stage. 2013: Sense & Sensibility, the Musical (book and lyrics by Jeffrey Haddow and music by Neal Hampton) received its world premiere by the Denver Center Theatre Company in April 2013, as staged by Tony-nominated director Marcia Milgrom Dodge.
What is the most popular form of fiction in Austen's time?from en.wikipedia.org
One of the most popular forms of fiction in Austen's time was epistolary fiction. This is a style of writing in which all of the action, dialogue, and character interactions are reflected through letters sent from one or more of the characters. In her book Romantic Correspondence: Women, Politics, and the Fiction of Letters, Mary Favret explores Austen's fraught relationship with epistolary fiction, claiming that Austen "wrestled with epistolary form" in previous writings and, with the publication of Sense and Sensibility, "announced her victory over the constraints of the letter." Favret contends that Austen's version of the letter separates her from her "admired predecessor, Samuel Richardson " in that Austen's letters are "a misleading guide to the human heart which, in the best instances, is always changing and adapting." According to Favret, the character of Elinor Dashwood is an "anti-epistolary heroine" whose "inner world" of thoughts and feelings does not find "direct expression in the novel, although her point of view controls the story." Sense and Sensibility establishes what Favret calls a "new privacy" in the novel, which was constrained by previous notions of the romance of letters. This new privacy is a "less constraining mode of narration" in which Austen's narrator provides commentary on the action, rather than the characters themselves through the letters. Favret claims that in Sense and Sensibility, Austen wants to "recontextualize" the letter and bring it into a "new realism." Austen does so by imbuing the letter with dangerous power when Marianne writes to Willoughby; both their love and the letter "prove false." Additionally, Favret claims that Austen uses both of the sisters' letter writing to emphasize the contrasts in their personalities. When both of the sisters write letters upon arriving in London, Elinor's letter is the "dutiful letter of the 'sensible sister'" and Marianne writes a "vaguely illicit letter" reflecting her characterization as the "sensitive" sister. What is perhaps most striking about Favret's analysis is that she notes that the lovers who write to one another never unite with each other.
What are the issues in Jane Austen's sense and sensibility?from en.wikipedia.org
Ruoff's first two chapters deal extensively with the subject of wills and the discourse of inheritance. These topics reveal what Ruoff calls "the cultural fixation on priority of male birth." According to Ruoff, male birth is by far the dominant issue in these legal conversations. Ruoff observes that, within the linear family, the order of male birth decides issues of eligibility and merit. When Robert Ferrars becomes the his mother's heir, Edward is no longer appealing to his "opportunistic" fiancée Lucy, who quickly turns her attention to the foppish Robert and "entraps him" in order to secure the inheritance for herself. According to Ruoff, Lucy is specifically aiming for the heir because of the monetary advantage. William Galperin, in his book The History Austen, comments on the tendency of this system of patriarchal inheritance and earning as working to ensure the vulnerability of women. Because of this vulnerability, Galperin contends that Sense and Sensibility shows marriage as the only practical solution "against the insecurity of remaining an unmarried woman."
What does Elinor tell Marianne about Willoughby?from en.wikipedia.org
Marianne recovers from her illness, and Elinor tells her of Willoughby's visit. Marianne realizes she could never have been happy with Willoughby's immoral, erratic, and inconsiderate ways. She values Elinor's more moderated conduct with Edward and resolves to model herself after her courage and good sense. Edward later arrives and reveals that, after his disinheritance, Lucy jilted him in favour of his now wealthy younger brother, Robert. Elinor is overjoyed. Edward and Elinor marry, and later Marianne marries Colonel Brandon, having gradually come to love him. The two couples live as neighbours, with sisters and husbands in harmony with each other. Willoughby considers Marianne as his ideal but the narrator tells the reader not to suppose that he was never happy.
How old is Marianne Dashwood?from en.wikipedia.org
She is 16 years old at the beginning of the book. She is the object of the attentions of Colonel Brandon and Mr Willoughby. She is attracted to young, handsome, romantically spirited Willoughby and does not think much of the older, more reserved Colonel Brandon. Marianne undergoes the most development within the book, learning that her sensibilities have been selfish. She decides that her conduct should be more like that of her elder sister, Elinor.
What does "sensibility" mean in Austen's book?from en.wikipedia.org
Elinor is described as a character with great "sense" (although Marianne, too, is described as having sense), and Marianne is identified as having a great deal of "sensibility" (although Elinor, too, feels deeply, without expressing it as openly). By changing the title, Austen added "philosophical depth" to what began as a sketch of two characters.
Overview
Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 period drama film directed by Ang Lee and based on Jane Austen's 1811 novel of the same name. Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay and stars as Elinor Dashwood, while Kate Winslet plays Elinor's younger sister Marianne. The story follows the Dashwood sisters, members of a wealthy English family of landed gentry, as they must deal with circumstances …
Plot
When Mr. Dashwood dies, his wife and three daughters — Elinor, Marianne and Margaret — are left with an inheritance of only £500 a year; the bulk of his estate, Norland Park, is left to his son John from a previous marriage. John and his greedy, snobbish wife Fanny immediately install themselves in the large house; Fanny invites her brother Edward Ferrars to stay with them. She frets about the budding friendship between Edward and Elinor, believing he can do better, and d…
Cast
• Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood
• Kate Winslet as Marianne Dashwood
• Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon
• Imogen Stubbs as Lucy Steele
Production
In 1989, Lindsay Doran, the new president of production company Mirage Enterprises, was on a company retreat brainstorming potential film ideas when she suggested the Jane Austen novel Sense and Sensibility to her colleagues. It had been adapted twice, most recently in a 1981 television serial. Doran was a longtime fan of the novel, and had vowed in her youth to adapt it if she ever en…
Themes and analysis
Scholar Louise Flavin has noted that Thompson's screenplay contains significant alterations to the characters of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood: in the novel, the former embodies "sense", i.e. "sensible" in our terms, and the latter, "sensibility", i.e. "sensitivity" in our terms. Audience members are meant to view self-restrained Elinor as the person in need of reform, rather than her impassioned sister. To heighten the contrast between them, Marianne and Willoughby's relation…
Marketing and release
In the United States, Sony and Columbia Pictures released Sense and Sensibility on a slow schedule compared to mainstream films, first premiering it on 13 December 1995. Believing that a limited release would position the film both as an "exclusive quality picture" and increase its chances of winning Academy Awards, Columbia dictated that its first weekend involve only seventy cinemas in the US; it opened in eleventh place in terms of box office takings and earne…
Reception
Sense and Sensibility received overwhelmingly positive reviews from film critics, and was included on more than a hundred top-ten of the year lists. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 97% approval rating based on 64 reviews, with an average rating of 8.00/10. The website's consensus reads, "Sense and Sensibility is an uncommonly deft, very funny Jane Austen adaptation, marked by Emma Thompson's finely tuned performance." On Metacritic, the film has an average score o…
Legacy and influence
Following the theatrical release of Persuasion by a few months, Sense and Sensibility was one of the first English-language period adaptations of an Austen novel to be released in cinemas in over fifty years, the previous being the 1940 film Pride and Prejudice. The year 1995 saw a resurgence of popularity for Austen's works, as Sense and Sensibility and the serial Pride and Prejudice both rocketed to critical and financial success. The two adaptations helped draw more attention to th…