Desert Online General Trading LLC
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Desert Online General Trading LLC
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Product Description Three BBC miniseries adapted from Mary Gaskells classic novels. Cranford, a market town in the North West of England, is a place governed by etiquette, custom and above all, an intricate network of ladies. It seems that life has always been conducted according to their social rules, but Cranford is on the cusp of change… North & South follows Margaret Hale, the daughter of a middle-cl ass parson who uproots the family from rural southern England to start a new life in Milton - a northern mill town in the throes of the industrial revolution. Wives and Daughters is set in a richly portrayed society well-st ocked with eccentric nobles and gossipy villagers. The well-ordered world of 17-year-old Molly Gibson becomes complicated when her father, a respected country doctor, remarries after many years of widowhood.Bonus Content:Cranford The Making of Featurette (30”)North and South Commentary on Episodes 1 and 4 by Kate Bartlett, Brian Percival and Sandy Welch Spe cially recorded interview with Richard Armitage (11”) Deleted scenes (1 2”) Production notesWives and Daughters The Making of Wives and Daug hters (22”) Who the Dickens is Mrs. Gaskell? (50”) .com Cranford Adapted from Elizabeth Gaskell's novels, the five-episode miniseries Cranford focuses on female characters in the 19th-century British town to thematically contemplate encroaching modernity in rural England. With the camera roving house to house, each drama within the grander story is constructed of scenes featuring dialogue between several gossipy ladies obsessed with moral code, romantic ideas about courtship, and social occasions. Three main characters, the ever-appropriate Deborah Jenkyns (Eileen Atkins), her sweet sister, Matilda (Judi Dench), and their younger, more savvy relative, Miss Smith (Lisa Dillon), continuously weigh in on situations, providing a dependable view when other ladies, like the nosey Miss Pole (Imelda Staunton) are too judgmental. In fine period dress, the women of Cranford remind the viewer of how little action was needed in their small-town lives to provide unceasing entertainment. The series'most intriguing aspect lies not in the ample female conversation but rather in its display of earlier technologies and ways of life. Part One, for example, quickly launches a main narrative thread that runs throughout the series, namely the arrival and assimilation of London doctor, Frank Harrison (Simon Woods), into village society. Dr. Harrison's medical practices, such as his refusal to amputate a man's arm because it's broken, are all the more radical because they are so fundamental by today's standards. In subsequent episodes, he recommends Miss Smith get spectacles to cure her headaches, and saves his love's life by cooling her fever after conservative doctor, Dr. Morgan (John Bowe), recommends the old school practice of burying her in blankets in front of a raging fire. In Part Two, Lady Ludlow (Francesca Annis) throws a garden party at her estate, treating all the women in their fancy hats to a new novelty: ice cream. This scene foreshadows Ludlow's future concern at a railroad plan involving her land that would connect Cranford to Manchester, symbolizing the ruin of this idyllic setting. In fact, fluffy and clever as some scenes are, death and rebirth assert themselves in each showing, both physically and idealistically. Part Four shows an auctioning off of a deceased man's antiques, and focuses on issues of class and women's education, as Mr. Carter teaches a peasant boy to read while his assistant fumes at her trappings as a seamstress. Part Five ushers in a new period of medical emergencies, securing Dr. Harrison's shaky position in town. In total, Cranford offers a powerful, if sentimental, look at how death begets life, love, and passion. --Trinie Dalton North & South North & South is a splendid, four-hour adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's 19th century novel about an unlikely, and somewhat star-crossed, love between a middle-class young woman from England's cultivated south and an intemperate if misunderstood industrialist in a hardscrabble, northern city. Daniela Denby-Ashe plays Margaret Hale, forthright and strong-willed daughter of a former vicar (Tim Pigott-Smith) who relocates his family from a pastoral village outside London to unforgiving, largely illiterate Milton, a factory town where John Thornton (Richard Armitage) and his mother (Sinead Cusack), survivors of poverty, rule their cotton mill with an iron hand. Thornton befriends Margaret's father but incurs her wrath for his severity with his workers. What she doesn't notice is Thornton's core sense of responsibility for his employees' welfare. On the other hand, he misinterprets some of Margaret's own actions and intentions. Equally stubborn, the two drag out their obvious attraction over many painful months and events. North & South's two leads are both very good, though Armitage's brooding, penetrating performance may very well be considered a classic one day. There are other wonders in the cast: Cusack and Pigott-Smith are superb, and Brendan Coyle is memorable as a firebrand union organizer who ultimately becomes an ally to a softening Thornton. The miniseries script by Sandy Welch is a persuasive mix of historical context and character study. Brian Percival's direction is full of moments that linger in the imagination, such as the winter-dream look of a busy cotton mill, with thousands of snowy fibers floating in the air. --Tom Keogh
K**R
Series set for good price
This set was in great condition. We enjoyed watching commercial-free series. So fantastic.
A**R
Great
Love this collection.
S**Y
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
I love all of these adaptations so much! I watch them over and over and over. I've bought this collection to gift to others 4 or 5 times and the recipients have also loved them. There is one (can't remember if it's Wives & Daughters or North & South) that unfortunately doesn't have subtitles available, so that would be more difficult to watch for those who are deaf/hearing impaired.Cranford: Will have you alternately laughing and wanting to cry as the residents of all classes of Cranford live out loves, disappointments, intrigues, and victories.Wives & Daughters: Centers around Molly Gibson, a sweet young woman of integrity and virtue, whose routine life is thrown into chaos when she gains a stepmother and stepsister, and the sons of the local squire return home.North & South: Richard Armitage. That is all you need to know.
L**A
Time To Discover Austen/Bronte/Dickens/Eliot-Like Novelist Gaskell !
British costume dramas are my fave rave books & films, and as one actor in these Bonus Features rightly summed up novelist Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell, that Victorian yet modern novelist brings a feast of Jane Austen-like honest dry humorous observations on the British castes; the vividly passionate emotion & drama & romance of a half-Irish wild-moor Bronte; and the enlightened humanitarianism awareness & broad-brush epic with detail of Charles Dickens.Though lacking the spiritual depth of Anthony Trollope but the actors comment Gaskell's characters the most realistic they've played, because of well-researched detail and characters not melodramatically exaggerated "black and white" stereotypical and judged, but modernly psychiatrically understandable and each in some way sympathetic.Cranford is like other fave pre-Industrial Revolution British small towns magnifying folks memorably in "Lark Rise to Candleford"; Trollope's "Barchester Chronicles"; and also famous 'George' Eliot's "Middlemarch." Cranford is especially moving I think for mature ladies--per usual with Dame Judi Dench--and makes me shudder with gratitude not living in the unenlightened times of the horrors of mainstream medicine ignoring herbal lore.North & South is younger romance in the dramatic setting of the fledgling grand scale and hardships of the Industrial Revolution.Wives & Daughters actually centers around an endearingly good man pulling them all together to go round like spokes to his hub.This set of her books is a vehicle for top parts for actors I particulary liked:CRANFORD: the amazing lad; Francesca Annis ("Wives & Daughters"); Dame Judi Dench ("As Time Goes By")WIVES & DAUGHTERS: Rosamond Pike ("Pride & Prejudice"), Keely Hawes ("MI-5," "The Durells in Corfu"), Tom Hollander, Anthony Howell ("Foyles War", he's a British Gregory Peck)NORTH & SOUTH: ♣ Sinead Cusack, ♣ Brendan Coyle ("Downton Abbey"). If you too like Tim Pigott-Smith, this may be one of his last, now deceased. I've never liked Anna Maxwell Martin cast way above her natural station in "Bleak House," "Death Comes To Pemberley," and d"South Riding". But finally here she is perfectly and memorably cast.The Bonus Features are well articulated and include an evocatively on-location biography of Gaskell, an independent cuckolding wife of a parson, a mother, a feminist, a devotee of Italy, and the first penner of soap operas of the daily lives of neighbors & community she'd be pleased to see the vision of her books & life fulfilled by modern times and the modern filming style of North & South.
K**R
Lovely visit to the English countryside
If slasher flicks, high-speed car chases, and forensic evidence make-up effects are not entertaining you, let me suggest you spend a few hours visiting the pleasant village of Cranford, England, circa mid-19th Century. The people are mostly pleasant; the scenery is soft and lovely; the manners (usually) impeccable. Judi Dench was my primary reason for seeking out this series. In "Cranford," Dame Judi is, as always, well worth my attention, but she has a supporting cast that deserves ample compliments.The story is taken from a series of novels that portray the lilves and events of the women and men of a lovely bucolic English village, prior to the intrusion of the railroad or the Industrial Revolution. The characters featured include some very poor, some quite rich, and (mostly) a cross section of the middle class of the time and place.As usual, Dame Judi gives a charming and nuanced performance of a spinster of a certain age, living with her morally correct sister. Sister sets the household standards, presumably to the most minute detail. For intance, one does not consume oranges by sucking them! At least not in the company of the other members of the household (one may retire to one's bedroom to pursue such mannerless activity, if one truly MUST, but the older sister's code is quite clear, and the consumption of oranges is only one of the items for which she has established protocol). Sister's self-assurance validates a framework for her fellow inhabitants to pursue their lives. One need not question whether an anticipated action is "right" or "wrong." One knows! And, if not, Sister will provide a ready answer on the matter.The actresses and actors in the supporting roles bring to life the good, the bad, the gentle, and the rock-bound traditionalist landed gentry. England may be about to change, but the residents of Cranford are not about to fling themselves into modernity willy-nilly. The plot is not played out at lightning speed. There are no cliff-hanging moments. Rather, it's a lovely portrait of a lot of people whom you will probably come to like.As was probably true for the novels upon which "Cranford" is based, I suspect this series (approximately 6 hours) will appeal more to women than to men. Think of Jane Austen without the sharp edginess in the women characters. The costumes are well done; the cinematography makes the viewer want to book a flight to England, where the scenery always seems to be bathed in a soft golden light.
L**R
Very Enjoyable if you like period dramas
Well acted & beautifully shot stories from Elizabeth Gaskell. A brilliant, though less well-known writer. If you like period dramas & romance you’ll like these. Grittier than Austen but with good characterisation & realistic stories.
R**S
Excelentes miniseries.
El paquete llegó en buen estado, la serie "wives ando daughters" no tiene subtítulos. Las otras dos traen subtítulos en inglés.Amé la serie " North ando South", que decir del protagonista masculino, bastante atractivo. Las series son muy al estílo Jane Austen para quienes aman las novelas románticas.
U**E
Excelente puesta en escena de las obras de Elizabeth Gaskell
Gaskell, Novelista menos conocida en España puesto que ha sido eclipsada por su antecesora Jane Austen y las múltiples versiones fílmicas que se han realizado de su obra, es llevada al mundo de las miniseries en este paquete, con estupendas actuaciones. Única pega para los amantes del doblaje: no hay subtítulos en español, ni por supuesto, doblaje, pero todos los discos pueden verse subtitulados en inglés. Relación calidad - precio: 10.
A**A
収録全3作品とも面白い
エリザベス・ギャスケルの作品でドラマ化されたものセットです。BBC放送で収録作品はWives And Daughters (1999)North And South (2004)Cranford (2007)です。どの作品も面白かったですが、私はNorth And SouthCranfordWives And Daughtersの順に面白かったです。特にNorth And Southは他のイギリスドラマと比較してもかなり好きな作品です。6枚組と7枚組がありますが、イギリスのアマゾンで見るとどちらも2008年発売で6枚組はイギリス版でリージョン2で収録時間が17時間31分、7枚組はアメリカ版でリージョン1で収録時間が13時間48分になってます。どちらも収録作品は一緒なので収録時間の情報がどちらかが間違っているのでは思います。日本はDVDのリージョンは2ですが、テレビの放送方式がヨーロッパとことなるので普通のプレーヤーでは再生できません。私はパソコンで再生して全話とも無事に見ることが出来ました。英語字幕もすべての作品に付いていました。3作品、別で買うよりも何故か安く、どの作品も面白いのでオススメです。North And South、北と南Cranford、クランフォードと日本語版もあります。
J**S
Great DVD set.
I had seen these programmes before and loved them so purchased the DVD set. They were even better than I remembered. Highly recommend.
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