Read Jane Eyre 2011 Production Notes

Focus Features Jane Eyre website has just been updated with the Jane Eyre Production Notes which contain very interesting comments, new pictures of the cast and clues about the upcoming premiere of Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre. Keep in mind these are just extracts. The complete text is worthwhile.

Producer Alison Owen, an Academy Award nominee and Emmy Award winner, offers, "If you say to someone, ‘What’s the definitive film version of Jane Eyre?’ no one really has an answer. Having made a number of movies from or about women’s fiction, I wondered, ‘Why not?’" (...)
"It’s a book we already knew had an enormous fan base, so the responsibility was also a major consideration. We wanted to move this interpretation forward into the 21st Century whilst maintaining the story’s haunting beauty." (...)
Owen adds, "It’s timely in that Charlotte Brontë, seen as ‘the darker sister’ when compared to Emily and Anne Brontë, is being rediscovered much like Jane Austen was nearly 20 years ago.  (????)
"As a producer, I make sure to have general meetings with my favorite writers all the time; right after I’d thought about Jane Eyre, I was meeting with Moira Buffini. I happened to mention it and it turned out to be one of Moira’s favorite books, if not her favorite."
Buffini seized on the chance to adapt the book, and she and Owen quickly outlined their vision for a full-on big-screen approach to the story. They knew it had to differ from adaptations that had gone before. Buffini’s approach was to draw out the gothic elements of the story, and make them engines of the piece.
"Moira wanted to make it dark and spooky on an intensely romantic journey. That was her take, which I wholly supported," recalls Owen.
Further, as the novel would be adapted into a two-hour movie, Owen found that "what was brilliant about the script Moira delivered was the structure she’d chosen. The book is quite difficult in some ways to translate to film. Everyone remembers the sections of Jane’s childhood, of Jane being a governess at Thornfield and falling in love with Mr. Rochester, and then bolting.
"But from then on, there’s another set of characters introduced – the Rivers family. You can do that in a novel, but it’s harder to do two-thirds of the way through a movie. Moira’s stroke of genius was that instead of abbreviating or losing this part entirely, which previous adaptations have done, she put it right at the beginning – and turned the novel’s early sections of the young Jane at Lowood and her initial days at Thornfield into flashbacks. Therefore, midway through the third act, we catch up with Jane and you get the emotional punch of being in real time at the end as she comes to terms with everyone and everything."
Buffini comments, "I hope this will please the many who love the book; while we may not be faithful to the original structure, our version does include every key stage of Jane’s story. Giving the complete picture was also meant to help the uninitiated – those coming to this story for the first time – to understand and identify with Jane all the more." 

On Cary Fukunaga's work:

Fukunaga notes, "I knew I was taking on a story that is a period film and a romance with elements of horror. Walking the line among these tones would be difficult, because it’s easier to default to one or the other. I wanted to maintain consistency in the style of telling the story."
He offers, "Where Jane Eyre is similar to Sin Nombre is in its exploration of the mysteries of human relationships, especially familial ones. Jane hasn’t had a family her whole life and is in search of one, not to mention a place to call home. But every time she becomes close to someone, they are taken away from her.
"Another similar theme is that a female protagonist is on a journey and finds someone she can relate to, who has suffered loss like she has, as she is plunged into complex situations and emotions. With secrets from the past emerging, will she once again lose someone close to her?"

About Jane Eyre's photography (and the used references like Days of Heaven or The Shining!):

They [Adriano Goldman and Cary Fukunaga] decided, says Fukunaga, that their approach to Jane Eyre "was to be more traditional [than Sin Nombre’s shooting style]. For one thing, on this movie we had trained actors. We never considered going digital; this was always going to be filmed in 35mm.
"The next question was, which shooting format? 2:35/1 is the obvious choice for an historical film. But what are important in Jane Eyre are the relationships; Rochester and Jane’s pivots on tête-à-tête conversations, and there is tension underneath. So we flirted with going 1:33/1, which would certainly have put the focus on the characters. But we felt that the way to go was 1:85/1, which is old-school yet still gives you a lot of screen space."
Fukunaga comments, "Both Adriano and I both like improvisation much more than storyboarding everything and over-planning. There was a moment in the first week of shooting Jane Eyre, where we were running out of time – so we just said, ‘Let’s shoot this handheld.’ It looked great; it’s a beautiful scene. (...)
The cinematographer remarks that the classic Days of Heaven "was a base reference for us. Not so much because of its style or framing – we didn’t want to copy anybody – but because of the mood it created for its characters."
Given the story’s mysteries in and around a large residence, another classic film became a reference; Goldman notes, "Thornfield put us in mind of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining."

 About locations and Production designer Will Hughes-Jones's work:

Hunkering down at Haddon enabled the Jane Eyre crew to better recreate the specific period in which the story is set. Hughes-Jones comments, "Haddon was a predominantly blank canvas that could become our Thornfield. It is actually mostly empty, so we had to furnish the rooms we wanted to use; putting curtains up in a room with more than two dozen windows, or filling up a room to become a store room of furniture."
"Cary’s concept for Thornfield, and the production, was to be as true to the book as we could make it. He wanted it to feel very dark, very masculine, with lots of wood and stone as a contrast to Gateshead, where Jane is early on in her life."
The production designer had to make sure to keep the timeline straight because, he notes, "The screenplay adaptation that Moira has written keeps you not quite knowing what’s going to happen next, because you go backwards and forwards through time and Jane’s memories. This is also extremely clever because Jane is in jeopardy from page one, so there is tension and you fear for her from the start."
Fukunaga adds, "The original novel featured many spooky elements, from early Victorian gothic atmospheres to outright spiritual presences; I liked the imagery and was excited by the idea of pushing that side of the story further than in previous adaptations – not full-blown horror, but a definite vibe."
Hughes-Jones elaborates, "We didn’t always look to obvious period references; often, we would identify visuals that we wanted, and only then make sure that they were period-appropriate. The term ‘gothic’ is often misunderstood. We are quantifying it as more of a genre for the telling of the story, rather than in terms of the gothic revival in Victorian architecture – ornate and spiky details, which we tried to avoid, because it was not right for the period.

The film has a historical advisor, no less than Jenny Uglow:

Weather and locations are just part of making the past present in filming a period drama. Costumes, language, and manners must mesh perfectly. To ensure accuracy, historical advisor Jenny Uglow, OBE, was on hand to answer any and all questions about the period.
Fukunaga received a BA in history, and has been "passionate about it since I was a kid – especially the 19th Century." Accordingly, he would pepper Uglow with questions about "random things; what sorts of parlor games people would play, at what times the servants would eat, what kind of food was eaten in the main household and in what style it was served. All the heads of our departments tried to make Jane Eyre as realistic as possible. It goes to a level that most people won’t notice or appreciate, but having that is a help to me."

The accent of the actors:

Dialect coach Jill McCullough worked with Wasikowska and Fassbender to get the accents accurate, taking them respectively "from Australian and Irish to Yorkshire. What’s interesting is that, back then, the upper class had broader accents than what is generally heard in period films; posh characters being depicted usually speak with RP – ‘received pronunciation’ – accents. But we’re having Rochester speak in an ‘unusual’ way that is more historically accurate."

Costume designer Michael O'Connor's work:

Calculating the dates when Jane’s story takes place has remained open to interpretation, so O’Connor had to pinpoint them. He muses, "The book was published in 1847, but Brontë seems to be writing of the 1830s and there is a spirit of an age even slightly earlier. Cary was quite tempted to go for the Regency period [1795 to 1837], when there was much social chronicling. We decided on the early 1830s for the young Jane, and the early 1840s for the teenaged Jane, which was noteworthy because that was when photography started. Up until then, there were images of people painted in costume.
"We looked at the work of painters like Franz Winterhalter and, in particular, a wonderful untrained British illustrator named Mary Ellen Best. Their works are romantic and beautiful. Then you would see a photograph around the same date showing the real clothes and think, ‘That looks like it doesn't fit quite so well as in the painting…’"
Fukunaga, as part of the contemporary perspective being applied to the conception and telling of the story, introduced O’Connor to the work of American photographer Alec Soth, as well as that of Dutch photographer Hellen van Meene, as a reference template for desired moods and tones.
The director reports, "With all creative departments, I normally use photographic references rather than ones from film or other mediums. I find that a photograph can very quickly communicate all that we are trying to accomplish in one frozen moment, and Van Meene’s photos were particularly relevant to what we were trying to accomplish visually with our movie."
"They’re incredibly beautiful shots," marvels O’Connor. "These are really clean images with strong colors; in some cases they are washed-out, yet with one strong color. Stylistically, they translated for parts of the movie; I kept them up on a wall to refer to.

And of course, the actors. Mia Wasikowska:

"It’s an honor to portray Jane. What I love about her character is, despite all the hardship that she faces throughout her life, she has this innate sense of self-respect and an incredible ability to do what's right by herself as an individual. I believe that is key for people, especially women, to remember; it’s important to do what's fulfilling for you as an individual, even when it can be easier to do what's comfortable."

Michael Fassbender:

"I play Rochester primarily as a Byronic hero. He’s quite jaded, yet he is sensitive and has a good heart. He’s in touch with his sensuality and humor. He’s traveled, and some things happened along his journeys which have stayed with him." (...)
"He’s somebody who is quite opposed to aristocratic judgments. He doesn’t mind crossing boundaries through perceived social handicaps. He doesn’t mind that Jane is a governess, or that for him to be with a governess would be frowned upon."
The actor sees the relationship as "Rochester’s last hope, really. He sees Jane when everyone else looks past her, and she inspires him, bringing him back to a point in his life where he was more pure and overtly better-natured, not as cynical and arrogant. When Jane responds to him in a way that doesn’t kowtow to his beliefs and that challenges him, he sees a real fire within her that she’s been suppressing. That intrigues him. The audience should be invested in the prospect that these two people can heal each other and nourish each other."

Judi Dench:

Getting Dench to play Thornfield’s housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax, was a coup for the production. It was a personal letter from Cary Joji Fukunaga that persuaded her to take the role. "When she said ‘yes,’ it made the process even more exciting," he notes. "Especially since we were bringing on someone who amounts to a cultural institution in the U.K. She is the epitome of gravitas and the mere idea – or, rather, fear – of working with her on-set made the challenge and joy of the project that much greater. What can you really say to someone who’s made more films with more talented collaborators than I could ever hope to in a lifetime?"
The Oscar winner cites having read the novel "when Charlotte Brontë had just written it" and laughs before reminiscing, "I read it at school, I think. I’ve always thought it was a wonderful story. It stayed with me."

Jamie Bell:

My take on St. John is that he is emotionally repressed. I believe that he considers it a weakness to express emotions. He makes choices out of pragmatism, rather than emotion; he is the antithesis of Rochester. "Charlotte Brontë describes him in the novel as ‘as inexorable as Death,’ and that pretty much nails it. While the story to me is about a woman searching for her own self-respect and individuality in a world with barriers, Moira Buffini’s screenplay brings all of the novel’s themes and undercurrents together as Jane comes to the precipice of decisions about her life."

And much, much (and we mean much) other fascinating stuff to be read here.

Categories: Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV