Cranford (2007) BBC Mini-series

[Laura]

Another of the great shows we've watched and watched again is Cranford. Highly recommended to those who are getting into the BBC Dickens series.

Cranford is a British television series directed by Simon Curtis and Steve Hudson. The teleplay by Heidi Thomas was adapted from three novellas by Elizabeth Gaskell published between 1849 and 1858: Cranford, My Lady Ludlow, and Mr Harrison's Confessions. (The Last Generation in England was also used as a source.)

The series was transmitted in five parts in the UK by BBC One in November and December 2007. In the United States, it was broadcast in three episodes by PBS as part of its Masterpiece Theatre series in May 2008. ...

et in the early 1840s in the fictional village of Cranford in the county of Cheshire in North West England, the story focuses primarily on the town's single and widowed middle class female inhabitants who are comfortable with their traditional way of life and place great store in propriety and maintaining an appearance of gentility....


British Academy Television Awards
Won Best Actress - Eileen Atkins
Won Best Production Design
Won Best Sound Fiction/Entertainment
Nominated Audience Award for Television
Nominated Best Actress - Judi Dench
Nominated Best Costume Design
Nominated Best Drama Serial
Nominated Best Editing (Fiction/Entertainment)
Nominated Best Make Up & Hair Design
Nominated Best Original Television Music
Nominated Best Writer - Heidi Thomas

Broadcasting Press Guild Awards
Won Best Drama Series
Won Best Actor - Philip Glenister
Won Best Actress - Eileen Atkins
Won Writer's Award - Heidi Thomas
Nominated Best Actor - Michael Gambon
Nominated Best Actress - Judi Dench

Golden Globe Awards
Nominated Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television
Nominated Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries or a Motion Picture Made for Television - Judi Dench
Nominated Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries, or Motion Picture Made for Television - Eileen Atkins

Primetime Emmy Awards
Won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie - Eileen Atkins
Won Outstanding Hairstyling for a Miniseries or Movie
Nominated Outstanding Miniseries
Nominated Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie - Judi Dench
Nominated Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie, or Dramatic Special - Heidi Thomas
Nominated Outstanding Art Direction for a Miniseries or Movie
Nominated Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special
Nominated Outstanding Costumes for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special

Television Critics Association Award
Nominated Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries, and Specials

You WILL laugh out loud, cry, groan, and run the gamut of the rest of the emotional repertoire throughout.

HIGHLY recommended.

 

[caballero reyes]

I found this part and I liked it but do not understand the dialogues well. Excellent job of acting and amazing editing. I hope to see complete later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQnI_rX4YS8

 

[Laura]

I found this part and I liked it but do not understand the dialogues well. Excellent job of acting and amazing editing. I hope to see complete later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQnI_rX4YS8

You need to get the DVDs with subtitles.

 

[Scottie]

Yeah, for non-native English speakers especially, it can be very hard to understand the accents in some of these series.

For this reason, and also because they are totally awesome, I highly recommend buying them. You might say that it's a good investment!

Series like Bleak House and Cranford actually make me happy that TV and movies exist - unlike much of the garbage that Hollywood churns out.

 

[Lirpa]

I am watching this series right now! It is very, very good. I have a hard time hearing so I do use the subtitle option on all movies that I watch.

 

[Laura]

It's also difficult for many who speak "Amurrikan" to understand British English. Added to my hearing loss, I prefer subtitles too so I don't miss anything.

 

[Adaryn]

I love British TV adaptations, they're the best. I laughed out loud, and also cried a few times watching Cranford. Miss Pole ("my father was a man, I think I know the sex"!)'s the best
From the same author, I also recommend the 1999 BBC adaptation of Wives and Daughters:

It focuses on Molly Gibson (Justine Waddell), the daughter of the town doctor, and the changes that occur in her life after her widowed father chooses to remarry. The union brings into her once-quiet life an ever-proper stepmother (Francesca Annis) who is 'too vain and shallow to care for anything beyond her improved social status'.[3] Also a flirtatious stepsister, Cynthia (Keeley Hawes), while a friendship with the local squire brings about an unexpected romance.[1] A New York Times review of the series in 2001 said 'The entire cast gets the characters right.'[4]

And while we're at it, I also highly recommend the (yet again) BBC adaptation of North and South, from the same author:

It follows the story of Margaret Hale (Daniela Denby-Ashe), a young woman from southern England who has to move to the North after her father decides to leave the clergy. The family struggles to adjust itself to the industrial town's customs, especially after meeting the Thorntons, a proud family of cotton mill owners who seem to despise their social inferiors. The story explores the issues of class and gender, as Margaret's sympathy for the town mill workers clashes with her growing attraction to John Thornton (Richard Armitage).

A few other adaptations (non exhaustive list) that are a must watch: Jane Eyre (2006, BBC), Pride and Prejudice (1995, BBC), Persuasion (2006, ITV), Emma (2009, BBC), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1998, London Weekend Television's three-hour mini-series ), and Middlemarch (1994) based on a George Eliot novel:

Subtitled "A Study of Provincial Life," the novel is set in the fictitious Midlands town of Middlemarch, thought to be based on Coventry,[1] during the period 1830–32. It has multiple plots with a large cast of characters, and in addition to its distinct though interlocking narratives it pursues a number of underlying themes, including the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism and self-interest, religion and hypocrisy, political reform, and education.

I also really liked Daniel Deronda's 2009 BBC adaptation, except for the heavily Zionist spin - but we can forgive Eliot for that, since she was writing in the XIXth C. The character study is great, especially that of Gwendolyn and her very psychopathic husband.

Set in Victorian London, Gwendolen Harleth is drawn to Daniel Deronda, a selfless and intelligent gentleman of unknown parentage, but her own desperate need for financial security may destroy her chance at happiness.

 

[Lirpa]

Here are some more BBC movies that I have enjoyed watching and recommend:

Wives and Daughters
Daniel Deronda
The Way We Live Now
Upstairs, Downstairs (the new one)
Brideshead Revisited
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
He Knew He was Right
Spies of Warsaw
Call the Midwife
The Hour

Other enjoyable movies:

Chicken with Plums
Hysteria (Hugh Dancy)

(post edit...oops, I see after ready Adaryn's post that some of my recommendations are repeats)

 

[H-KQGE]

Here are some more BBC movies that I have enjoyed watching and recommend:

Wives and Daughters
Daniel Deronda
The Way We Live Now
Upstairs, Downstairs (the new one)
Brideshead Revisited
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
He Knew He was Right
Spies of Warsaw
Call the Midwife
The Hour

Other enjoyable movies:

Chicken with Plums
Hysteria (Hugh Dancy)

(post edit...oops, I see after ready Adaryn's post that some of my recommendations are repeats)

I loved The Hour. The characters, the actors, the pacing... a modern classic. And they went & cancelled it. Thanks BBC.

 

[loreta]

Thanks for that! I love to see that type of series and I love to live, for awhile, in another epoch where things seemed different, a bit. The Victorian epoch I love!

I remember a very good British series I saw when young and it is since then that I am in love of British movies and series: The Forsyte Saga based on the novel of John Galsworthy, an author that Virginia Woolf thought was bad, a style that she always criticized. ;)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGKF60F_heg

Series like Bleak House and Cranford actually make me happy that TV and movies exist - unlike much of the garbage that Hollywood churns out.

I agree totally with you.

 

[ashu]

Series like Bleak House and Cranford actually make me happy that TV and movies exist - unlike much of the garbage that Hollywood churns out.

I agree totally with you.

What an interesting series. I have watched episode 1 of Cranford already and love all the drama and gems like 'speculation is the enemy of calm' as delivered by Miss Jenkyn's.

 

[paralleloscope]

I'm very happy to have found these quality person / period dramas posted lately, something I earlier would have avoided having been conditioned to hollywood standards. Had a few years mainly attracted to alternative/ art movies but got fed up with the pretentiousness and wiseacring that can tend to rule in those circles of creativity. Then I returned to mainly watching blockbusters as they seemed to be the only ones that waxed in epic ways, such as heroic portrayals and multiple layers of universal human conflicts.

But little did I know since I have never really been into the classics or fiction literature, and seeing these BBC adaptions has shown me something I've been missing and think is missing in movies nowadays in general; The everyday selfless hero/heroines that defeat the ponerized values thrown at them by sticking to their conscience. Of course there are hollywood variation of the same, but it seems adapted to 'postmodern' values, whether to make it realistic or just as an effect of degenerated producers and screenwriters, probably a mix?

Bleak House, Our mutual friend, Cranford, and Wives and Daughters have offered a truly positive dissociation and an emotional outlet much needed, so many times richer than the best of hollywood productions.

 

[cubbie]

I love Cranford! The humor is subtle but hilarious. I needed subtitles when I watched it a few years back.

Check out the Christmas Special too, the overall tone is darker - still an enjoyable watch.

 

[Ollie]

Series like Bleak House and Cranford actually make me happy that TV and movies exist - unlike much of the garbage that Hollywood churns out.

I agree totally with you.

What an interesting series. I have watched episode 1 of Cranford already and love all the drama and gems like 'speculation is the enemy of calm' as delivered by Miss Jenkyn's.

Totally agree, just finished watching the first three episodes, a rich vein of positive dissociation.

 

[Ollie]

Just completed the set, what a tearjerker the last episode was. Absolutely delightful watching.

Thank you Laura.