Jane Austen and Alexandre Dumas as philosophers of information?

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If you have watched The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), directed by Kevin Reynolds, and the more recent Pride and Prejudice (2005), directed by Joe Wright, you may have noticed that both revisit a classic in terms that are essentially informational.
Communication and the managements of information is what drives the plot, and what determines feelings and passions, actions and interactions.

Start with Dumas. Reynolds directs a film in which the whole plot is geared around the exchange of misinformation (Edmond Dantes [a sailor who then becomes the Count of Monte Cristo] is falsely accused of treason by his best friend Fernand through a letter), the acquisition of information by Dantes (not only cultural but also financial, through a "privileged" access to an excellent source, the Abbe' Faria) and Dantes' merciless use of his newly-acquired information to take revenge.
This exchange is the key to the film: "[Abbe' Faria] In return for your help, I offer you something priceless. [Edmond] My freedom? [Abbe' Faria] No, freedom can be taken away, as you well know. I offer you my knowledge."
If you compare this film to previous versions you will notice that drama, passions, intrigue, actions and adventures are all more prominent there than information, which plays a key role in Reynolds' reading of this classic. The part on the manipulation of information about the stock exchange, for example, betrays a post information-turn mind.

Watch now Austen's masterpiece. Of the recent films based on her novels (Emma, Sense and Sensibility) this is probably the least lightly-touched. There is a serious attempt at grasping some timeless human traits and the always-hard business of human relations. The entertaining, eye-pleasing, heart-warming aspects are not central. But in order to make the film "thick", Wright seems to be inclined to transform it into a sort of Gricean experiment, showing what happens when the exchange of information is hindered by wrong evaluations, lies, retinence, broken channels of communication, and misunderstandings. This is Jane Austen, so in the end all Gricean parameters are restored, but one can easily imagine how things might become tragic at every turn of the story.

Classics are open texts. They allow for a boundless number of interesting interpretations and have the unique, indexical capacity of being ethernally contemporary. So it's normal, to be expected and indeed intriguing to see Austen and Dumas nowadays read in terms of communication and information. The key seems to be the level of awarenesss that we may be able to exercise towards our roles as information agents when we start reading anything in terms of information. Of this, there seems to be a one-dimensional lack. It is the inevitable destiny of anyone who lives the Zeitgeist unreflectively.

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