Sense and Sensibility: comparison of movie and novel.
...acter and not as abrasive as she is depicted in the novel. Lee has the benefit of using music in the flim to create moods and emotions without words. Austen uses her descriptive words to set up places and events whereas Lee constantly uses music and visual effects and words are not necessary. When Marianne goes to Willoughby’s house on a grey rainy day and all you can see is her tiny figure on a huge hill weeping for him it is obvious Lee only needs these images to evoke the sympathy of the audience, whereas Austen does not have the luxury of this ability and she can only use her words to craft the sombre mood. Austen ends her novel in the same style as she starts it; she foregrounds the relationship of Elinor and Marianne. Lee concludes her film with the marriage of Colonel Brandon and Marianne and in direct opposite to Austen, Lee emphasizes Willoughby's sorrow. Austen tells us that Willoughby ‘lived to exert, and frequently to enjoy himself,' Lee, however, ends the film with Willoughby on a white horse, watching as Brandon tosses coins into the air. As the film is concluding he slowly pulls the horse around and moves off in the opposite direction. In the novel, Austen writes very little about her male characters in comparison to the depth she goes into with her female characters, she shows her male characters shadowy and absent for long periods of time. However, Lee directs a film that is constantly celebrating romance so therefore she has no choice but to include the male characters a lot more than the novel does. Austen intended Colonel Brandon to be more of a silent character than he was in the film; whereas Lee portrays Brandon as quiet yet mysterious which is far more exciting and enthralling than a man who, ‘with a readiness that seemed to speak the occasion, and the service prearranged in his mind ... offered himself as the messenger who should fetch Mrs. Dashwood.’ Lee creates the impression that Brandon is the perfect romantic hero for Marianne; she revises the no...