“Eleanor and I really felt that this passionate friendship between Emma and Harriet, we really wanted to make that a big love story,” de Wilde said. Here, she’s a true foil for her very rich new BFF. Knightley, played by a delightful Johnny Flynn), but those of her newly-minted best friend Harriet Smith, who Catton and de Wilde expanded into a bigger, better role than the character usually is. That includes not just her own romantic prospects (including an unexpected suitor in the form of long-time family friend Mr. The “hubris of youth” explains away many of Emma’s missteps (that and, of course, her exorbitant wealth), including her dizzy obsession with matchmaking, which threatens to destroy nearly everyone and everything she loves. I wanted to poke fun at human nature and the hubris of youth.” … I think that Jane Austen was a really brilliant satirist, and I wanted to bring out the humor that I saw in the writing and physicalize it. “I do think that’s why ‘Clueless’ works so well, is because the American high school classes have some parallels with the c lass system in England, in that feeling that you’re trapped in a contained environment and there’s no way out. ![]() “I wanted it to feel very loyal to the period, and yet still sort of like a high school movie,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that these movies or TV shows should ever compete against each other, because I think what’s great is that they’re all these different people, they all find different truths in the book and the characters.”Īnd while de Wilde might not have purposely watched “Clueless” again during her prep period, it stuck with her and still stirred up ideas about the things she wanted to highlight in Austen’s novel. It’s a lesson that has further reaches than just this first film. “If you take what feels right to you about the story and about Emma, that’s the most interesting movie you could make, because it’s an offering from yourself with how you interpreted everything,” she said. ![]() … I like the good ones, I like the bad ones, I like to see what people decided was important about the story.”ĭe Wilde’s sense of what was important to her about not just Austen’s words, but the emotions they can stir in an audience, helped guide her interpretation of the classic story. “But I didn’t rewatch because it was important not to have a sort of recent effect on what I was doing, because the story is so amazing and there’s endless possibilities. “‘Clueless’ is my favorite version of ‘Emma,’ and I think Amy Heckerling is brilliant,” de Wilde said. Intent on paving her own way with the material, de Wilde said didn’t catch up on other “Emma” adaptations before undertaking the film, though she has already seen them all. The biggest difference: de Wilde’s bent towards digging deeper into the story’s many supporting characters, including a winning exploration of Emma’s hapless best friend Harriet Smith. Livened up with de Wilde’s keen eye and a sharp script from Man Booker Prize-winning author Eleanor Catton, the film will inevitably draw comparisons to other versions (the 1996 film starring Gwyneth Paltrow is a close corollary, but that film isn’t as biting or sexy as what de Wilde and Catton have crafted). Starring Anya Taylor-Joy as the heroine, the film is a mostly faithful take on the Regency-era story of a delightful heiress who dabbles in matchmaking, resulting in both wonderful and horrible pairings. ‘Emma’ Trailer: Indie Favorite Anya Taylor-Joy Makes Her Jane Austen Debut ![]() All that stuff to me is like Nerd Village, and I like to live in Nerd Village.” Turning “Emma” into another feature film - like most of Austen’s works, it’s been the subject of a number of adaptations over the years, from stage to screen and beyond - offered de Wilde a hell of a chance to decamp to said village. And yet she’s always been intrigued by the possibilities of language and, as she explains, “finding out what a word or sentence appeared to mean and then what it actually meant. I mean, I think my teachers found me charming, but I didn’t do my homework,” she said with a laugh during a recent interview with IndieWire. “I didn’t go to college, I was not a great student in high school. First-time filmmaker Autumn de Wilde might be new to the big screen, but the long-time music video director and photographer has always had a soft spot for the woman who inspired her first film, a lively take on Jane Austen’s classic novel “Emma.” A self-professed Anglophile who grew up fascinated by all British culture (her mom is English, that’s part of it, too), de Wilde wasn’t necessarily the best student, but she was always inspired by the possibilities of Austen’s funny and fleet prose.
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