Editing Sense and Sensibility (film) (section)

== Themes and analysis ==
=== Changes from source material ===
Scholar Louise Flavin has noted that Thompson's screenplay contains significant alterations to the characters of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood: in the novel, the former embodies "sense", i.e. "sensible" in our terms, and the latter, "sensibility", i.e. "sensitivity" in our terms.  Audience members are meant to view self-restrained Elinor as the person in need of reform, rather than her impassioned sister.{{sfn|Flavin|2004|pp=42–3, 46}}{{sfn|Dole|2001|pp=51–3}} To heighten the contrast between them, Marianne and Willoughby's relationship includes an "erotic" invented scene in which the latter requests a lock of her hair – a direct contrast to Elinor's "reserved relationship" with Edward.{{sfn|Stovel|2011}} Lee also distinguishes them through imagery – Marianne is often seen with musical instruments, near open windows, and outside, while Elinor is pictured in door frames.{{sfn|Kohler-Ryan|Palmer|2013|p=56}} Another character altered for modern viewers is Margaret Dashwood, who conveys "the frustrations that a girl of our times might feel at the limitations facing her as a woman in the early nineteenth century."{{sfn|Parrill|2002|p=11}} Thompson uses Margaret for [[exposition (narrative)|exposition]] in order to detail contemporary attitudes and customs. For instance, Elinor explains to a curious Margaret – and by extension, the audience – why their half-brother inherits the Dashwood estate.{{sfn|Parrill|2002|p=11}} Margaret's altered storyline, giving her an interest in fencing and geography, also allows audience members to see the "feminine" side of Edward and Brandon, as they become [[father figure|father or brother figures]] to her.{{sfn|Stovel|2011}}{{sfn|Flavin|2004|p=44}}{{sfn|Nixon|2001|pp=36–37}} The film omits the characters of Lady Middleton and her children, as well as that of Ann Steele, Lucy's sister.{{sfn|Flavin|2004|pp=44–45}}
{{Quote box
 | quote="The changes that Emma Thompson's screenplay makes to the male characters, if anything, allow them to be less culpable, more likeable, and certainly less sexist or patriarchal."
 | source  = —Austen scholar Devoney Looser{{sfn|Looser|1996}}
 | width   = 27em
 | align   = right
 | bgcolor = #FFFFF0
}}
When adapting the characters for film, Thompson found that in the novel, "Edward and Brandon are quite shadowy and absent for long periods," and that "making the male characters effective was one of the biggest problems. Willoughby is really the only male who springs out in three dimensions."{{sfn|Thompson|1995|p=269}} Several major male characters in ''Sense and Sensibility'' were consequently altered significantly from the novel in an effort to appeal to contemporary audiences.{{sfn|Parrill|2002|p=7}} Grant's Edward and Rickman's Brandon are "ideal" modern males who display an obvious love of children as well as "pleasing manners", especially when contrasted with Palmer.{{sfn|Looser|1996}} Thompson's script both expanded and omitted scenes from Edward's storyline, including the deletion of an early scene in which Elinor assumes that a lock of hair found in Edward's possession is hers, when it belongs to Lucy. He was made more fully realised and honourable than in the novel to increase his appeal to viewers.{{sfn|Stovel|2011}}{{sfn|Flavin|2004|p=43}} To gradually show viewers why Brandon is worthy of Marianne's love, Thompson's screenplay has his storyline mirroring Willoughby's; they are similar in appearance, share a love of music and poetry, and rescue Marianne in the rain while on horseback.{{sfn|Stovel|2011}}{{sfn|Jones|2005|p=102}}{{sfn|Nixon|2001|pp=35–36}}

=== Class ===
Thompson viewed the novel as a story of "love and money," noting that some people needed one more than the other.{{sfn|Thompson|1995|p=255}} During the writing process, executive producer [[Sydney Pollack]] stressed that the film be understandable to modern audiences, and that it be made clear why the Dashwood sisters could not just obtain a job.{{sfn|Stempel|2000|p=249}} "I'm from [[Indiana]]; if I get it, everyone gets it," he said.{{sfn|Thompson|1995|p=265}} Thompson believed that Austen was just as comprehensible in a different century, "You don't think people are still concerned with marriage, money, romance, finding a partner?"<ref name=dailybeastlunch /><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-25029680.html |title=Hollywood reeling over Jane Austen's novels |first=Jack |last=Kroll |work=[[Los Angeles Daily News]] |date=13 December 1995 |access-date=27 August 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921054108/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-25029680.html |archive-date=21 September 2013  }}</ref> She was keen to emphasise the realism of the Dashwoods' predicament in her screenplay,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-12-10-ca-12297-story.html |title=Emma Thompson, sensibly: The levelheaded actress turns screenwriter with her adaptation of Jane Austen's 'Sense and Sensibility.' |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=10 December 1995 |first=Jon |last=Stuart |access-date=26 April 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921053740/http://articles.latimes.com/1995-12-10/entertainment/ca-12297_1_emma-thompson |archive-date=21 September 2013 }}</ref> and inserted scenes to make the differences in wealth more apparent to modern audiences. Thompson made the Dashwood family richer than in the book and added elements to help contrast their early wealth with their later financial predicament; for instance, because it might have been confusing to viewers that one could be poor and still have servants, Elinor is made to address a large group of servants at Norland Park early in the film for viewers to remember when they see their few staff at Barton Cottage.{{sfn|Thompson|Doran|1995|loc=5:40–6:25}} Lee also sought to emphasise social class and the limitations it placed on the protagonists.{{sfn|Kohler-Ryan|Palmer|2013|p=41}} Lee conveys this in part when Willoughby publicly rejects Marianne; he returns to a more lavishly furnished room, a symbol of the wealth she has lost.{{sfn|Scholz|2013|p=133}}{{sfn|McRae|2013|p=35}} "Family dramas," he stated, "are all about conflict, about family obligations versus free will."{{sfn|McRae|2013|p=36}}

The film's theme of class has attracted much scholarly attention. Carole Dole noted that class constitutes an important element in Austen's stories and is "impossible" to avoid when adapting her novels. According to Dole, Lee's film contains an "ambiguous treatment of class values" that stresses social differences but "underplays the consequences of the class distinctions so important in the novel";{{sfn|Dole|2001|pp=59–63}} for instance, Edward's story ends upon his proposal to Elinor, with no attention paid to how they will live on his small annual income from the [[vicarage]].{{sfn|Dole|2001|p=63}} Louise Flavin believed that Lee used the houses to represent their occupants' class and character: the Dashwood sisters' decline in eligibility is represented through the contrast between the spacious rooms of Norland Park and those of the isolated, cramped Barton Cottage.{{sfn|Flavin|2004|p=49}} James Thompson criticised what he described as the anaesthetised "mélange of disconnected picture postcard-gift-calendar-perfect scenes," in which little connection is made between "individual subjects and the land that supports them."{{sfn|Thompson|2003|pp=24–5}} Andrew Higson argued that while ''Sense and Sensibility'' includes commentary on sex and gender, it fails to pursue issues of class. Thompson's script, he wrote, displays a "sense of impoverishment [but is] confined to the still privileged lifestyle of the disinherited Dashwoods. The broader class system is pretty much taken for granted."{{sfn|Higson|2011|p=150}} The ending visual image of flying gold coins, depicted during Marianne's wedding, has also drawn attention; Marsha McCreadie noted that it serves as a "visual wrap-up and emblem of the merger between money and marriage."{{sfn|McCreadie|2006|p=75}}

=== Gender ===
Gender has been seen as another major theme of the film, often intersecting with class. Penny Gay observed that Elinor's early dialogue with Edward about "feel[ing] idle and useless ... [with] no hope whatsoever of any occupation" reflected Thompson's background as a "middle class, [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]]-educated feminist."{{sfn|Gay|2003|pp=92–3}} Conversely, Dole wrote that Thompson's version of Elinor "has a surprising anti-feminist element to it," as she appears more dependent on men than the original character; the film presents her as repressed, resulting in her emotional breakdown with Edward.{{sfn|Dole|2001|pp=55–6}} Linda Troost opined that Lee's production prominently features "radical feminist and economic issues" while "paradoxically endorsing the conservative concept of marriage as a woman's goal in life."{{sfn|Troost|2007|pp=82–83}} Despite this "mixed political agenda," Troost believed that the film's faithfulness to the traditional [[heritage film]] genre is evident through its use of locations, costumes, and attention to details, all of which also emphasize class and status.{{sfn|Troost|2007|p=83}} Gay and Julianne Pidduck stated that gender differences are expressed by showing the female characters indoors, while their male counterparts are depicted outside confidently moving throughout the countryside.{{sfn|Gay|2003|p=93}}{{sfn|Pidduck|2000|p=123}} Nora Stovel observed that Thompson "emphasises Austen's feminist satire on Regency gender economics," drawing attention not only to the financial plight of the Dashwoods but also to eighteenth-century women in general.{{sfn|Stovel|2011}}