Emma: The hero’s naked truth
Eat your heart out Mr Darcy, Austen’s latest hero is revealing all, writes
Twenty-five years ago, Colin Firth’s wet shirt scene in Pride and Prejudice broke new ground for Jane Austen heroes.
A new Austen even further.
In the big-screen version of Emma, now showing in NZ cinemas, Mr Knightley is naked.
The character, played by Johnny Flynn, strips off during a scene in which his valet helps him to get dressed. The custodians of Austen’s legacy say the scene is “gratuitous” — and they mean that as a compliment.
“We left the screenings with smiles on our faces and agreed it was one of the best Emma adaptations we’d seen,” said Kathryn Sutherland, a trustee of Jane Austen’s House Museum.
“Any doubts that Mr Knightley is a sex symbol are banished in practical fashion: an early scene has him strip naked — quite gratuitously, but necessarily, of course.”
Flynn, 36, is an actor whose star is on the rise. Later this year he will play David Bowie in Stardust, a film adaptation goes about the singer’s early career, and he has been cast as Dickie Greenleaf in Ripley, a forthcoming television series based on the Patricia Highsmith novels and co-starring Andrew Scott.
He previously played William Dobbin in ITV’s Vanity Fair.
He is also a folk musician and recorded a song that plays over the end credits of Emma.
The film stars Anya Taylor-Joy as the eponymous heroine and features Bill Nighy as her hypochondriac father.
Autumn de Wilde, the film’s director, said she cast Flynn because he has great charisma.
“I love romantic movies and I get very tired of the way they’re cast,” she said.
“Johnny
Flynn reminds me of
Steve McQueen. He really rock’n’roll feeling to him.”
This is de Wilde’s first feature film after a career directing adverts and music videos. It has a striking aesthetic, with vivid colours not usually seen in Austen adaptations. However, according to the production’s costume designer, Kave Quinn, the rainbow palette is historically correct.
She said: “We are trying to incorporate the Georgian colours, which aren’t seen in many films. A very good example is Chippendale furniture. That was all painted in bright colours. It’s not the way you see it now because all the colours have faded.”
Sophie Reynolds, collections and interpretation manager at the Austen museum in Chawton, Hants, agreed.
“The look is heightened and quite theatrical but the colour palette certainly was very vibrant in Georgian times. “We worked with a historical wallpaper company to recreate some wallpaper in the house.
“It is bright, arsenic green. But on the walls in the house it looks absolutely perfect.”
The film aims to attract a young audience who may not have seen other Austen adaptations.
Reynolds said: “Certainly, Mr Knightley is much younger than the book suggests he is. But that helps a contemporary audience to understand it.” has a
Johnny Flynn reminds me of Steve McQueen. He really has a rock’n’roll feeling to him. Director Autumn de Wilde