page_title: Persuasion (1995 film)
section_title: Conception and adaptation
hierarchical_section_title: Persuasion (1995 film) / Production / Conception and adaptation
caption_attribution_description: English: First edition of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Persuasion
context_page_description: Persuasion is a 1995 period drama film directed by Roger Michell and based on Jane Austen's 1817 novel of the same name. In her theatrical film debut, the British actress Amanda Root stars as protagonist Anne Elliot, while Ciarán Hinds plays her romantic interest, Captain Frederick Wentworth. The film is set in 19th century England, eight years after Anne was persuaded by others to reject Wentworth's proposal of marriage. Persuasion follows the two as they become reacquainted with each other, while supporting characters threaten to interfere.
  The film was adapted by the writer Nick Dear, who considered the story more mature than Austen's other novels. He characterised it as one of realism and truthfulness, particularly in telling the story of two people separated and then reunited. As Austen's narrative style conveys Anne's thoughts internally, Dear and Root felt compelled to express the character's emotions using comparatively little dialogue. Persuasion was shot in chronological order, allowing the actress to portray Anne's development from being downtrodden to happy and blossoming.
context_section_description: The filming of Persuasion coincided with a sudden resurgence of Jane Austen adaptations, as it was one of six such productions released during the mid-1990s. The media dubbed the phenomenon "Austenmania". While it was common for a successful adaptation to lead to the production of others, this surge in Austen's popularity involved many simultaneous projects—Persuasion's production, for instance, coincided with the TV serial Pride and Prejudice and the feature film Sense and Sensibility. Despite the surge, film scholar Andrew Higson and others argue that there is little evidence that the various producers—who were employed by different companies—communicated when conceiving their adaptations.
  The idea for a film version of the 1817 Austen novel Persuasion began with the English producer Fiona Finlay, who had wanted to create an adaptation for several years. The novel had last been adapted by ITV in a 1971 serial starring Ann Firbank. Finlay felt that the "very romantic" story was one "everyone can relate to. There's something very touching about long-lost love". She approached the writer Nick Dear about adapting it for television; Finlay had enjoyed his contributions to theatre, particularly his play about William Hogarth, The Art of Success. Dear first suggested they try one of Austen's other works—either Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice—but agreed to adapt Persuasion after reading it. Dear considered the novel—the author's last completed work—a maturer story than the others.
  Dear later wrote that Persuasion was superficially "a love story in the Cinderella mould" but it was also one of "realism and truthfulness", particularly in telling the story of two people separated and then reunited. He spent two years working on a script, and found this task difficult for several reasons. First, he needed to find a structure that would be faithful to the novel. Second, his protagonist barely spoke for the first half, and "therefore can't motor the action along as a central character conventionally does". Adapting Austen's wit was another challenge; much could not be used "because it's almost all in the author's voice telling us about characters, with a certain wit or lightness that came from the characters themselves. It's a craft job, interpreting the novel for oneself and then finding a film language for it".
  An experienced theatre and serial director, Roger Michell was chosen to direct Persuasion, in what was to be his first feature film. As a young child, Michell had been an admirer of Austen's, which set him apart from his male classmates. "I was the only boy in my class who took Austen as a special paper", he said. His attraction to Persuasion was based on his belief that it was Austen's most emotional and poignant novel, as well as her most autobiographical.  He described the work as an "erotic love story which is full of sexual yearning". While directing, Michell sought to emphasise contrasts in Austen's story, seen for instance between "the chilly formality of Kellynch Hall and the warm, wet feel of Uppercross". The Royal Navy was another point of interest, as officers like Wentworth would often have returned to society wealthy and full of stories. The director wished to depict the integration of cultures, as naval officers came back with "an informality of behaviour and language which was in marked contrast to what was there before".
caption: Original cover of Persuasion
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