Five years ago, Elizabeth B. (not Bennet FYI) decided the Superbowl was not her forte and Jane Austen movies were. She held a party, forwent the Superbowl and watched a Jane Austen movie instead. Five years later, Elizabeth is my youth leader, and I was invited to come. But wait! I like football. I watch the Superbowl. Do I love Austen more? Lucky for me, Austenbowl was held before the Superbowl. It was a double feature of the 1995 and 2007 Persuasion, neither of which I had seen before. All in all, it was a wonderful time, with everything from cucumber salad to chili to cookies.
I'm not the type to tear-up during movies; in the most heart wrenching moments, my tear-ducts are dry, but I almost, almost cried during the 2007 Persuasion when I saw a window. Yep, you read that right. You see, I used to live in a beautiful, huge, three-story house from the 1890s. It was an old house with old crown molding, old wood floors, and old windows. We called the windows waterfall windows because looking through them was like looking through a waterfall, or seeing a reflections on a pond. Images seem to ripple across the window.
It is the opening moments of Persuasion. Anne, our protagonist, is scurrying about preparing her home for a move. In the midst of the hustle and bustle, you can feel that Anne is sad, and that moving was not her desire. With all that she has to do, she still takes a second and pauses at a window, looks out for a moment at her world. A carriage trots past and flutters in the distorted panes of the waterfall window. And then the moment is gone, and Anne is on her way again. This moment caught me. No one else in the room thought anything of it, but I knew that Anne felt the way I did, leaving a home she loved, internally sorrowful yet moving on.
Here it is. The window appears at 1:30, but the build up comes before.
Susan Rice
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