The VERY* Official Netflix Persuasion Survey. *Not actually a true random sample or statistically viable, but fun. 12 friends in Michigan watched the film Persuasion. Their ages spanned 6 decades. Afterwards, they rated the film. Average rating on a scale of 1-5: 4.33. Everyone either "liked it" or "loved it".

Review of Netflix’s Persuasion (with Survey Data)

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I love adaptations, and I love Jane Austen. So I had to watch Netflix’s new adaptation of Persuasion, starring Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis, and Henry Golding. I decided to make a movie night of it and invited a bunch of friends over. We watched the film. There was much laughter. The credits rolled. And then I handed out surveys.

Yes, surveys.

You come to a girls night at my house, and you may end up taking a survey.

What was most interesting to me was actually the qualitative results–what people liked and disliked from a film standpoint–but first, let’s look at overall impressions.

Overall Impressions/Quantitative Results: Enjoyment Factor

The VERY* Official Netflix Persuasion Survey. *Not actually a true random sample or statistically viable, but fun. 12 friends in Michigan watched the film Persuasion. Their ages spanned 6 decades. Afterwards, they rated the film. Average rating on a scale of 1-5: 4.33. Everyone either "liked it" or "loved it".

I minored in film in college, and I did a masters in English. I love movies, and I love books. And I feel like they’re very different things. But in terms of a movie that’s worth watching, you need to know if it’s enjoyable or not. That’s a fundamental part of the film viewing experience.

I gave everyone a scale of 1 to 5 and asked them how much they enjoyed the film.

ENTERTAINMENT VALUE On a scale of 1-5, how entertaining did you find the film? 1 (It was terrible & I can’t believe Kathy convinced me to watch this) 2 (disliked) 3 (it was fine) 4 (I liked it) 5 (I loved it)

And as you saw from the first graphic in this post, people liked the movie. We had an average of 4.33 stars. And everyone either liked it or loved it.

I also wanted to see whether or not someone’s enjoyment of the film was influenced by how much they feel like a Jane Austen fan. Now, there is no official rubric for what makes someone a true Jane Austen fan (though a rather hilarious character in the film Austenland attempts to define a true fan). So I simply let people judge for themselves.

Would you consider yourself a Jane Austen fan?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Sort of

Note that I included a “sort of” category. To me, I see people who rated themselves as “sort of” Jane Austen fans as casual fans or those who might have engaged with mostly 1 or 2 of her books. But I didn’t put a description–I wanted people to put themselves wherever they felt most comfortable.

And here’s the results, with the averages of how they rated the film:

Enjoyment of film vs. whether or not a Jane Austen Fan. All 12 people answered the question, "Would you consider yourself a Jane Austen fan?" Not a fan (2 people): 4. Sort of a fan (5 people): 4.4. Austen fan (5 people): 4.4.

In general, those that either consider themselves Jane Austen fans, or “sort of” Jane Austen fans, rated the movie higher than those who didn’t.

One lady loves Jane Austen, and Persuasion is her favorite novel. She has watched (and owns) other adaptations. And she gave the film 5 stars.

The Qualitative Results: Filmic Choices

Then came the qualitative questions. I asked what, from a film technique standpoint, people thought worked well, and what didn’t work as well for them.

Survey Results: What Worked Well in Netflix’s Persuasion

There was a wide range of responses. One person, a self-professed Jane Austen fan, wrote:

“I felt like the breaking of the fourth wall was a wink and a nod to the humor of the author herself.”

Several other people also commented on how they liked the breaking the fourth wall and Anne’s direct dialogue with the camera/viewer.

The cliffs scene was a favorite, someone else really liked the dialogue, and people generally liked the emotions that were conveyed:

“I thought it captured well [the] regret, sorrow, and second chances.”

There were people who mentioned really liking:

  • The music
  • The costumes
  • The dialogue
  • That the storyline was clear
  • Mary’s character/the humor she added to the story

One person, a Jane Austen fan, wrote:

“The Elliots were all true to Austen’s characters.”

I felt the same. Mary, Elizabeth, Sir Walter, the Musgroves–they managed to capture some of the essence of Austen’s characters.

One person who was not a Jane Austen fan wrote:

“I liked that I could understand it all. Older English mixed with modern. Some other movies I get lost sometimes cause of the language.”

For her, the modern references and metaphors (“I can never trust a 10”) really helped make the film more accessible.

I’ll close with one last positive comment:

“I loved all of it.”

Survey Results: What Didn’t Work a Well in Netflix’s Persuasion

First, I went to film school. What “doesn’t work” is a very subjective thing. And it’s almost more useful to consider what the goals of the film were and how well it achieved those goals.

However, I decided to spare my guests a 30-minute lecture on how to judge a film’s merit, and instead just asked on the survey “What didn’t work as well for you?”

Here were a few of the responses:

“I thought Anne drank too much.”

This is a definite shift to a book. Anne may or may not be an alcoholic in the movie.

Another person comment on the modern references:

“The modern language/references were occasionally jarring against the 1800s visuals.”

This is interesting because I only had two people comment on the modern languages/references. One person positively, and one person semi-negatively.

I’m someone who loves historical things. I put hundreds of hours into making my Jane Austen-inspired novels historically accurate, and I tried to make the language match Austen’s. But I thought this film was cohesive in being a bit ahistoric–not completely accurate costumes, some modern languages and references, the very uncomfortable octopus sucking scene, the frowny face drawn by Mary on her forlorn note. So even though it’s not how I’ve approached my own Austen adaptations, the modern languages/references worked.

Most people didn’t have any complaints. I got a lot of no responses on this final question, and several that read:

“No major criticisms.”

And

“Nothing, it was fun.”

Some Positive Results

One person commented on her survey:

“Now I want to read it.”

There were several other people who verbally expressed the same sentiment. And if a film makes you want to read Jane Austen, I always see that as a good thing.

Several other people (including people who had given the film a “4: I liked it”) plan to rewatch it, some of them with their husbands.

My Own Personal Thoughts

I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I love the original novel. I love Jane Austen’s use of language. I love the nuance. I love the friendship with Mrs. Smith and that entire subplot (which was not included in the film). I like Jane Austen’s subtle commentaries on the war, on politics, on rhetoric, on education, on the role of the social sphere in a woman’s life. And these are all good, beautiful things that were not in the film.

But I thought it was a really good adaptation.

Fresh? Yes.

Interpreting characters a little differently? For sure.

Taking a new vision to Austen? Yes.

I think it’s useful to note that the director, Carrie Cracknell, is largely a theatre director. I feel like theatre-goers expect a wider range of adaptations than film-viewers, and so this adaptation may surprise some viewers. But generally, I think people will enjoy it.

Hardcore Jane Austen fandom does have a solid contingent of purists that can be rather judgmental on anything that does not fit their conceptions of what a Jane Austen adaptation should look like.  If you’re looking for complete accuracy for the novel, you’re going to be disappointed. However, that’s not what makes an adaptation interesting to me.

There’s a great film theory article by Richard Stam called “Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation.”  He talks about how “fidelity” and the moral language we use to judge film adaptations can actually get in our way as film viewers. He posits that a film may be choosing an essence of the original and putting that into a new genre. But an adaptation is not pure transference–Stam talks about how an adaptation can be:

  • Translation
  • Reading
  • Dialogization
  • Cannibalization
  • Transmutation
  • Transfiguration
  • Signifying

He spends a great number of pages going into each of these things–so if you want to read about how an adaptation can be a dialogue with the original, or a transmutation, check out his article.

(I do want to point out that there have also been some very racist critiques of Persuasion. Which is honestly very sad to me. I personally think color blind cast is amazing. Also, despite the white-ness of many Austen adaptations, Regency England was actually quite a diverse place, and that were people of many races at all levels of society.)

Netflix’s Persuasion is a film that I plan to rewatch. Despite loving the novel Persuasion, I’ve never actually seen the other film adaptations, and now I’m interested in watching them–broadening my horizons and such.

Now Go Forth and Watch!

Despite my survey being so VERY official (and not statistically significant), I think it’s fair to recommend that you go watch Netflix’s Persuasion and judge the film for yourself.

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Warning!! Watch for ZomBees

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Watch for ZombeesSometimes graffiti just makes life better.

A couple of weeks ago, we were driving on I-17 and at a rest stop saw this lovely sign: “WARNING!!! WATCH FOR ZOMBEES.”

I can picture zombie bees rising out of this trash can and attacking. I think it would make a great movie. We’ll call it THEM!

Okay, the name THEM! is actually taken. It’s an awesome 1954 film about giant man-eating ants. Here’s the trailer for the film. Then go watch this epic sci fi film and tell me that we should adapt it to feature zombie ants, or zombees as I prefer to call them.

The Compulsion to Take your Own Piece of a Place: A Visit to Las Vegas

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I remember going on vacations with my parents and younger siblings to historical sites–Gettysburg, Bunker Hill, Nauvoo, and others. I would always want to take something with me, like a rock from Gettysburg. I wanted something tangible, substantial, something that would create resonance and connection to the place and its events even when I was gone. My parents would tell me that if everyone took a rock from Gettysburg there would no be no rocks left. Thus, the invention of the souvenir shop: you can take something that feels significant and create connection even though whatever it is you bought was probably made in China. The place is preserved, the economy is stimulated, and you go home happy.

I went to Las Vegas a few weeks ago to see Phantom of the Opera, and even though I’m not a Vegas type of girl (I don’t gamble, drink, or go to “adult entertainment”), when touring I still wanted to bring something back with me. I really didn’t buy anything, besides a bottle of water. But I did bring something back with me: videos. Yes, I know, I could search on YouTube and there are plenty of videos of Las Vegas. And there are movies, like Ocean’s 11, that memorialize it. But just as you want your own rock or your own t-shirt, I wanted my own videos.

First, the Venetian was all decked out for the Chinese New Year, so I had to get a shot of a dragon I  saw:

Second, I loved the fountain show at the Bellagio, so I cut together a few of my favorite parts:

Pictures and video are the new thing to take away from a place. We take them, trying to personally capture a location’s essence. Especially in the 18th century, and continuing on today, there were fears that perhaps photography could actually steal a piece of someone’s soul, or at least damage it. It’s an interesting thought, because we do change our experiences of things by mediating them.

Here’s a few books that I’ve enjoyed on the history and theories of photography and film that consider how the camera has changed our lives:

In truth, that’s my personally collected bibliography of cool film and photography books. I am officially a geek.

5 Things to Consider When Choosing a Documentary Video Camera

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The more I’ve worked on my year-long video blog/documentary project Days of Film, the more I realize that your video camera truly impacts the type of shot you can get, especially when you’re doing documentary. And a lot more goes into it than whether or not your camera can shoot in HD.

5 Things You Should Consider When Choosing a Documentary Video Camera

1. Cameras impact people’s behavior.

When you see a camera, your experience at a place or an event changes. Even in some of the early film clips I’ve seen, over a century ago, when people know they’re being filmed they smile and wave. If people know you’re doing a project they can attempt to go about whatever it is they normally do with as little change in behavior as possible—but the awareness of the camera is always there.

For this documentary project, it has been useful to have a small, unobtrusive camera. I’m trying to capture little snippets of life, and my camera looks like any average, little camera. I could be a tourist, a mom filming her kids, the average person who sees something cool and happens to be able to capture it on a camera that’s higher quality that a cell phone. Shots like these people jumping on trampolines or the splitting of wood are made much easier when people don’t turn their heads at the arrival of a large camera. My father-in-law would’ve been fine with me filming him chopping wood if I had asked him in advance (he was afterwards) but it was nice to capture the moment unadulterated by the awareness of the camera.

 

 

2. Every camera falls somewhere on the scale of portability

On the most portable end of the scale are phone cameras, and since people carry their phones everywhere, they can be documentarians at any moment.

I prefer a camera that sacrifices some portability for quality. However, my video camera is still small enough that (because I’m working on this project) almost every time that I’ve left the house this year I’ve brought my camera with me.

I even managed to fit my camera through a fence in a parking garage, stick my arm through, and then open the camera so I could film lights at Trolley Square without a fence in front of them. (The desire for a shot outweighed my fear that I would drop my camera fifty feet onto the pavement below.)

 

3. Not all cameras can capture fleeting moments with little setup

In some types of documentary filmmaking, things will happen—and only happen once—which you need to be able to capture well without having to make a lot of decisions about white balance, focus, etc.

I typically leave my camera in “Easy” mode, which automates the settings. I’ve been really happy with my camera’s automatic settings, which typically get really good coloring and lighting. (The only place that I’ve found that my camera’s auto settings really don’t cut it is in certain sections of the aquarium, because of the special lighting.)

Thus, when bison randomly decide to walk across the road, I can shoot and point, without worrying that my shot won’t turn out. I also have my camera set so that way it only uses the optical zoom. I don’t want to accidentally zoom too far and end up using the digital zoom and decreasing the quality of the shot.

 

4. It’s really nice to have manual controls

While I’m a huge fan of really good automatic settings, it can also be really useful to have manual controls. For one, if your camera will let you control things like white balance, it’s much more likely to be a higher quality camera and get better shots when it’s on auto.

And, sometimes, you have time to change the settings. This is particularly useful for interviews, scenery shots that aren’t going away (I took at least five shots of the above geyser), and things that you’re initiating (like the can opener) or that will happen multiple times.

 

5. The camera you choose will impact where your documentary can go later

I will never shoot a doc on a phone camera, simply because the quality just isn’t there. My camera is a very high level consumer camera (pro-sumer, maybe) but it’s not a professional camera like many of my friends own (I’m not at the point where I’m willing to spend thousands of dollars on a camera), and it’s certainly no RED. (The RED may be a camera that makes you salivate, but the fact that they shot the new Pirates movie on it means that you probably don’t need that level of camera for a documentary.)

The thing to remember is that the label HD is no guarantee that you’ve got a good camera. Some things are HD because they capture a huge pixel count, but if the pixels are crappy…well, it will still look bad. There’s lots of places you can read up on HD specs, what High Definition really means, etc., and I’m no expert on it, so you’ll have to read on that elsewhere.

When I look at a camera, I want something that doesn’t limit me to posting my videos online. You want your videos to look good if you burn them to DVD or Blu-ray, and ideally, it needs to be good enough that your images will still look good on a big screen at a film festival.

The nice about documentary is that expectations are different than if you’re making a feature fiction film.

How to attract undue attention while making a documentary: walk around with a giant steadicam stabilizing system. (Photo credit: dfritzon.)

With a documentary film, a little shakiness is okay. A little lower quality, imperfect lighting, and some imperfections can even add to the authenticity (though if you’re doing seated interviews, people expect it to look a little better).

I’ve been really happy with my video camera—for now, it meets what I’m looking for on the balance between size, cost, portability, and quality. In case you’re interested, it’s a Canon Vixia HF100.

So that’s what I’ve been thinking about. In other news, with the completion of September, I’m now 3/4 the way done with the project, and have less than 100 videos to go.

Here’s some of my favorite shots from the month of September:

1. Videos of my Yellowstone trip. All of them. Leaving the state was a good idea.

2. A paraglider at the State Fair.

3. Changing a light bulb.

4. A gold light (this, in my opinion, is one of the prettiest, most whimsical shots I’ve taken).