posted
I have a horrid curse - a product of my spastic memory - that lets me recognize everyone I've ever seen in a movie, but not remember their names or where I've seen them before. Thus, just about every movie I see includes a two-day guessing game in which I am haunted with a familiar face that I just can't place. Sometimes, to help myself along, I picture that face in every time of period costume in existence as a trial-and-error method to determine which movie I've seen them in before.
This time, the movie was Hitchhiker's Guide and the actress was Anna Chancellor. (I always have to stay for the credits to get the name of the vexing face so I can research it later and ease my troubled mind). Throughout the entire film, I just knew I'd seen that pinched face with the funny butt chin before, and that it was in some sort of a mean role. A school teacher? A mean nanny? I couldn't figure it out.
Luckily, thanks to IMDB and their database of completely useless and totally therapeutic knowledge, I discovered that Ms. Chancellor is none other than Miss Caroline Bingley from the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice! The realization of this was quite refreshing, I assure you.
Also, and this is something I would have never guessed, IMDB informed me that "Her eight-times great aunt is author Jane Austen." Would you believe it? Caroline Bingley is Jane Austen's great grand niece! How fitting! It's like when Fanny Price hooks up with Mr. Darcy in The Importance of Being Earnest or when Mary Crawford hooks up with Mr. Darcy in Bridget Jones's Diary (which was weird enough as it was with Mr. Darcy playing Mr. Darcy) or when Mrs. Forster, that squinty ugly little thing that was so fond of Lydia, shows up as none other than Miss Moriah Bertram in Mansfield Park! The intimacy and frequent crossing of paths in the Jane Austen universe is very comforting to me. It's as if that friendly sort of cousin incest that we admire so much in our nobility had applied itself in the world of gentlemanly British filmmaking!
*sigh*
I can now sleep peacefully.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
It doesn't take all that many generations and shockingly few intermarriages between disparate population groups for everybody to be related to everybody.
For instance, I was annoyed when everyboy made such a big deal about Steve Young being a great great great grandson of Brigham Young. I'm one generationg closer! BUT he has the same last name, which implies a direct succession of Y chromosomes. While I obvious CANNOT have Brigham's Y chromosome. Which is probably why I also cannot grow Brigham's beard.
Fact is, we are all cousins, and closer than we probably think.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
Annie, that happens to me too. And watching movies with me is a very trying experience, because I guarantee you, I will always jump up in the middle of the movie with "That actor is soo familiar!! WHERE have I seen him before??" just when people are trying to concentrate.
Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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