[sensation]

Showing my age here, but I preferred the 1980 version of Pride and Prejudice to the 1995 one. It seemed to catch the atmosphere of the Regency era and so the story made more sense than the more modern take on it that the 1995 version provided. I haven't seen this latest version, but if it's going farther down that road, I'm not sure I want to. I really disliked the 1995 version of Persuasion - it sort of got to the point where I was thinking "what on earth are they going to screw up next?" as the movie unfolded.

I loved the 1967 Forsyte Saga but was less impressed with the recent version. When I was in London a couple of years ago I went to one of the afternoon interviews at the National Theatre, where Margaret Tyzack (who played Winifred in the 1967 Forsyte Saga) was being interviewed, and she said something which I think goes some way to explaining why I'm finding some of these modern versions of classics to be rather shallow. She said that when they were filming The Forsyte Saga, they'd cast well-known actors and actresses in the roles of the old uncles and aunts - people of the calibre of Fay Compton - and the younger actors really looked up to them as masters of their profession and wanted to learn from them; however, nowadays the older actors are ignored by the younger ones in this sort of situation, and it's all about recognition, fame, and TV exposure. She said - as have other older actors - that nowadays the young actors don't have the background in repertory theatre that the older ones did, but just want to know how to act in films and TV, so they don't have as much interest in getting deeply into a role and exploring it in the way that trained stage actors do.