North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell Part 1 - BBC Miniseries and Score

My original post was an epic as long as a bale of cloth, as the Chinese saying goes.  Really too daunting, nobody would read hehe.

I've split it into a three-part feature, and this is Part 1.
Part 1 - BBC Miniseries and Score
Part 2 - Book
Part 3 - Differences Between the Miniseries and Book

They're still long posts I fear, a sign of my current obsession with North and South :p

I adore classic or period books and dramas/movies, and I adore Jane Austen.  A few years back, I bought Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (dramatisation with Colin Firth) from Amazon and North & South came up on the page of recommended items you're directed to after you put something in your cart.  I took a look at it; it sounded interesting and had great reviews, so I put it on my wish list, then forgot about it.  And it sat there for years till, running out of Jane Austen stuff, I noticed it again and bought it.  And wow.  Wow!  I wish I had bought it the first time I saw it, and watched it sooner!

If you love Pride and Prejudice or enjoy Victorian literature, you have to get this!  You might wonder whether to read the book first or watch the miniseries first.  From my own experience and what I've read from others, I think you will enjoy the miniseries more if you watch it first, and read the book second.  My enjoyment in the book was in no way lessened by doing that.  Of course, either one stands well on its own, so it's not a must to both read the book and watch the miniseries.

STORY OUTLINE

North and South, a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, is a sort of Pride and Prejudice that goes deeper into social issues, class conflict between labourers and capitalists, and industrial North vs middle-class South of England with a romantic love story winding through it all.  Not so much the light-hearted witty satires revolving around the middle and upper classes that Jane Austen wrrote, though there is certainly plenty of pride and prejudice in North and South.  And while Mrs Gaskell gives the worker a face and a voice, lower classes were always on the periphery in Ms Austen's books, with the exception of Mansfield Park's Fanny Price and her birth family, who were very poor, but Fanny lived with her rich relatives.

Margaret Hale (Daniela Denby-Ashe), a middle-class Southerner, is forced to leave her beloved Helstone and move with her parents to the Northern city of Milton when her pastor father resigns from the Church on conscientious grounds which were never fully explained in either book or series, to become a private tutor far from the memories of his pain.  She meets powerful cotton mill owner John Thornton (the dark and brooding Richard Armitage), her father's student, who is attracted to her middle-class air, graceful beauty and strong personality, despite her coldness towards him.

Lonely and out of her comfort zone in an unfamiliar and strange environment, Margaret is prejudiced against the city, its people and Thornton.  He holds the typical "master's" view at that time of workers as simply "hands" to work, while she makes friends with the workers, sees their struggles, sufferings and hears their concerns, and is unafraid to voice her opinion that the "master" should care about his workers' welfare, that dialogue would help promote understanding and peace between the two, and lead to a better life for all.  Monumental life-changing events unfold amidst misunderstandings, and Margaret and Thornton both start to reassess their prejudices.

MINSERIES

With its outstanding production values, the BBC miniseries impresses with its ensemble cast, cinematography, artistic direction, and soundtrack.

All-powerful and stern, with a hot temper that can erupt like a flaming volcano, yet at his core John Thornton has a softness, a kindness, and the best of intentions.  He is a lonely, vulnerable man who has worked hard and fought alone for too many years.  Richard Armitage is all that and more.  Tall, dark and well-built, his intense deep-set eyes pierce through your very soul from under those dark, forbidding brows, like angry, low-hanging storm clouds, and only a slight smile breaking through at rare moments.  He walks into a room and all eyes are drawn.

There are numerous shots of Richard striding about in his purposeful way, and one of my favourite scenes is at the end of Episode 2, when Richard strides (walk just doesn't seem the right word for Richard) across the floor of the cotton mill, HIS mill, with the deceptive softness of the deadly cotton fluff floating weightlessly about the hardness of his proud, unrelenting countenance.

And what a sexy voice Richard has!  Deep and commanding when snapping out orders or showing his temper, and caressingly low when expressing his tender side.  He swallows his words a bit and speaks a little fast, but those are teeny, endearing flaws.  Not the most handsome, perfect-featured man, yet Richard's Mr John Thornton is absolutely swoon-inducing.  Which woman did not fall in love with Mr Thornton after watching North & South???  Right after this aired in 2004, a whole legion of women enlisted in the Armitage Army, his fan club.  As you can tell, I'm so in love with his alpha-male Mr Thornton, my favourite type of leading man, not in real life mind you.

(I'm not quite sure I like this video above as much as the others... I like the music from The Last of the Mohicans of course, and it sort of goes well with Thornton, yet sort of seems to celtic for him as well....)

I was charmed by the spirited Daniela Denby-Ashe too, with her large "speaking eyes," and was especially enchanted with her luminous face in that last shot, but undeniably Richard outshines her.  If I were to be picky, I might say that Mrs Gaskell's Margaret Hale was tall, unconventionally attractive, had a "full, yet lithe figure," while Daniela is not tall nor lithe enough, though certainly an unconventional beauty full of figure, fire and haughtiness.  And her speaking voice is very clear and pretty.

The other two characters not looking quite right in the series was Edith (though I think there was not much opportunity for the actor playing Edith to flesh her out more) , who was meant to be the conventional small soft feminine prettiness to contrast with Margaret, and Mr Bell, who was a big man in the book, but otherwise the tall and sparse Brian Protheroe captured the essence of Mr Bell wonderfully.  I really shouldn't pick on such little things which hardly had any significance in the miniseries, so perhaps you should ignore that ;p  All the actors, even the ones with smaller roles, were wonderful, and I particularly liked Fanny (she was amusing), Mrs Thornton, Dixon, and Frederick for being handsome.

I cannot praise the cinematography and artistic direction enough.  Simply stunning.  I've watched a few period miniseries, most of them filmed in the 1990s, and none can compare.  Visually, this looks as good as the Jane Austen movies Emma (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Pride and Prejudice (Keira Knightley), but is of course darker in both story and look.  You can see (and hear in the commentaries) how much effort they put in to make it look authentic, to create a different feel for Milton, Helstone and London, the little touches that went in to make the beautiful sets and settings realistic, adjusting the colours and lighting to convey cheer or moodiness.

(Note that the video below contains dialogue and spoilers, but it's a good one.)

Costumes were superb.  Thornton was always in clothes blacker than the deepest of nights, cutting an imposing figure among a sea of grey-garbed workers, and standing out among the other selfish mill owners, none of whom had his intelligence, decisiveness, striking good looks, nor that midnight black cloth it seems.  Margaret had beautiful gowns too, though I don't quite like the one time she was in a green formal gown with the corset-enhanced pushed up breasts almost being squished out of the low neckline look.

I love this production.  I watched it before reading the book, and was lost in Milton for four hours.  I'm gonna go more into details now, some spoilers, highlight the blank space below if you want to read.

The sad fate of the working class moved me so, not understanding why, not having things explained to them, struggling to stay afloat in the sea of poverty and starvation with no shore in sight, and the early deaths of Bessy and Boucher (they mentioned in the commentary that the life expectancy in industrial cities at that time was late 20s!)  And I felt Mr Thornton's despair as well, with all the disappointments and difficulties he has to face, which comes across strongest when in his despair and complete exhaustion, he is lying with his head on the table, alone in his office.  This moment echoed an earlier one where Margaret, lonely and unhappy, is also head down on her table, dreaming or thinking morbid, lonely thoughts which she so wished to share with her cousin Edith.

My other favourite scenes:
-  At the end of Episode 2 as mentioned above, with Margaret's lyrical though depressed thoughts voiced over her collapsed form, fading into her "hell," personified by the mill, the snow-white cotton, and the striding Mr Thornton.
-  The proposal scene, full of fireworks.  The very slightly longer proposal scene which is found in the deleted scenes section in the DVD is better though, the fruits thing makes sense and explains what Thornton later did, and you don't see Margaret magically zapping from the window to the middle of the room as a few lines were edited out in the final version used.
-  And of course the last scene with Mr Thornton looking so tenderly at the anxious Margaret, finally something going right for him and an impossible dream coming true, his eyes glowing with love and shy affection in hers.

SOUNDTRACK

What a sad sad thing it is that they did not see fit to release the soundtrack!  If you surf around, you will see many fans lamenting that fact.  I really don't see why, when my copy of BBC's Wives and Daughters (another Elizabeth Gaskell adaptation) includes its soundtrack, but I was not as enamoured with that one.  North and South has such fantastic orchestral music that enhances and adds to its mood, as a good score should.  I found two sites with most of the music.  Tracks on both sites are lifted from the series and are therefore short.  On one site the music tracks include dialogue, monologue or sounds from the scenes, while the other has all the non-music sounds edited out.

I've included all the tracks from the latter site (except one with dialogue, don't ask me why it was included on that site) and two from the former, I Believe I've Seen Hell (my favourite scene) and No Thanks, just because I like the speeches there, and I wanted to have a track with Richard's voice :p  Spoiler warning: I Believe I've Seen Hell doesn't give much away, but No Thanks does, so don't listen to No Thanks if you don't want spoilers.  If any track doesn't load, skip to the next one and try it again later.

Images from http://justperioddrama.com/zenphoto/North%20and%20South%202004/

Score can be downloaded from

http://justperioddrama.com/NorthandSouth/Music/North%20and%20South%20Music%20by%20Martin%20Phipps.htm

http://www.aqsd91.dsl.pipex.com/north_&_south.htm (with dialogue and background noises)