I basically went out for dinner with Jane Eyre

After discovering that new take on Jane Eyre from Sri Lanka, we have come across a funny anecdote in the Sunday Herald concerning Samantha Morton when she played the main character in the 1997 adaptation:

"She has a different way of working and is totally immersed in the work," says Kay Mellor, scriptwriter of Band Of Gold - the ITV series that made Morton famous for playing a drug-addicted teenage prostitute - and of a 1997 adaptation of Jane Eyre in which Morton played the lead. "Where other actors come in and out of character, and have a laugh and relax, I'm not sure Samantha would," adds Mellor. "I don't know if she still does that, but when she was doing Band Of Gold she instinctively kept in character most of the time. I took her outfor dinner when she was playing Jane Eyre, and I basically went out for dinner with Jane Eyre. It was quite weird, really." (Peter Ross)

The Guardian reviews the retrospective on Cornelia Parker - Never Endings - that can be seen at the IKON Gallery, Birmingham until 18 November. Tim Adams - the reviewer - considers Parker's art 'hit-and-miss'. The retrospective includes some of her Brontëan Abstracts:

It is not only Cornelia Parker's exploded shed that sends her work spinning off in every direction. How would you hold these recent adventures of hers together apart from with invisible wires: a filmed interview with Noam Chomsky about American barbarism; the dress worn by Mia Farrow in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby; a tape recording of an inconclusive seance with the Brontes at Haworth; rocks and stones taken from beneath the Leaning Tower of Pisa? Jonathan Watkins, the director of the Ikon Gallery which houses this retrospective of her work of the last decade has a go: Parker, he suggests, is 'engaging with subjects that loom large in popular imagination, universal triggers perhaps of a collective unconscious'. Well, sort of. [...]
She is happy at times to borrow this atmosphere of spookiness from other, more conventional places, which diminishes the surprise. The Bronte room here, with its hyper-magnified photographs of the nib of Charlotte's pen and the surface of Branwell's wallet, is a case in point. Haworth represents readymade ghostliness and Parker's intervention doesn't make it any more spectral.

Personally, we like what we've seen of Cornelia Parker's work and we like her innovative ideas, but we understand she's not everyone's cup of trea. Still, Brontëites in the area which didn't get to see Brontëan Abstracts at the Brontë Parsonage Museum now have a chance of judging for themselves.

A Brontëite (?) appears in the Deccan Herald: poet Brian Mendonca.

After doing an MPhil on Charlotte Bronte at the University of Pune, I did my Doctorate on ‘Insanity in the English Gothic novel’ from CIEFL, Hyderabad.

Now for a few reviews - all of them linked somehow to Wuthering Heights/Emily Brontë:

Rosa de Fuego reviews Cumbres Borrascosas - Wuthering Heights in Spanish. That Movie Critic Show reviews (in a podcast) Wuthering Heights 1939 and I'm in a Jess Franco State of Mind has published a lengthy, highly interesting post on Abismos de Pasión, Luis Buñuel's take on Wuthering Heights.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has an article on a book called The End of the Alphabet by C.S. Richardson:

Richardson also infuses Ambrose and Zipper with certain endearing characteristics - he cannot stand Wuthering Heights, while it's her favorite book. (Elizabeth Fox)

That could be fun indeed.

The State reviews Trespass by Valerie Martin. A book we have already mentioned several times in the past in connection with Wuthering Heights as well:

Chloe Dale is an artist preparing to illustrate “Wuthering Heights” and intrigued by the compelling and troublesome Heathcliff, whom she has decided must be a gypsy. (Claudia Smith Brinson)

And finally Amanda McCabe reviews Shaggy Muses on Risky Regencies.

Categories: Art-Exhbitions, Books, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights