Editor's note

Need a little break? Looking for a laugh?

Producer Autumn de Wilde’s film adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic comedic novel “Emma” is available to stream this weekend.

Austen scholar Inger S.B. Brodey of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill calls the new film “a visual feast of color, pattern and texture” and analyzes how this latest reimagining develops a title character who “was not loth to be first.” But could this latest Emma be perhaps a bit too perfect?

Emily Costello

Deputy Editor

Emma up front and center in new adaptation of classic novel. Focus Features

Perfection comes at a price in latest adaptation of Austen’s ‘Emma’

Inger S. B. Brodey, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Through careful framing and dialogue, Autumn de Wilde's movie portrays Emma as the embodiment of perfection, rather than less-than-faultless heroine of Austen's book.

Octavia Spencer, left, stars in this rags-to-riches tale, along with Blair Underwood. Amanda Matlovich/Netflix

Netflix’s ‘Self-Made’ miniseries about Madam C.J. Walker leaves out the mark she made through generosity

Tyrone McKinley Freeman, IUPUI

The founder of a black hair-care empire supported the NAACP and the Tuskegee Institute, helped preserve Frederick Douglass's home. She also tried to used her prominence to stop lynching.

Two Marines in the Marine Corps’ 5th Division cemetery on Iwo Jima pay their respects to a fallen comrade. United States Marine Corps Film Repository, USMC 101863 (16mm film frame)

Historic Iwo Jima footage shows individual Marines amid the larger battle

Greg Wilsbacher, University of South Carolina

Films of the battle for Iwo Jima, being digitized 75 years after they were made, offer connections and lessons for Americans of today.