“Dark clouds, metal flowers and the Brontë sisters”

Investors has a press release on the forthcoming release of the Jane Eyre 2011 soundtrack:

Sony Classical is delighted to announce the release of the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack of Focus Features' new film Jane Eyre, available March 8, 2011. Academy Award-winning composer Dario Marianelli (Atonement) has created a romantic and moving score, performed by violinist Jack Liebeck, as the perfect complement to the new movie version of the celebrated story. Jane Eyre opens in New York and Los Angeles on March 11, and expands to additional cities throughout March.
Dario Marianelli's Jane Eyre score heavily features a solo violin, recorded for the film by the 2010 Classical Brit Award-winning violinist Jack Liebeck. Marianelli is known for the gift of capturing the emotional and poignant elements of a story in his music. His score for Atonement earned him Golden Globe and Academy Awards, and his work on Pride & Prejudice was also Oscar-nominated. His other film credits as composer include Eat Pray Love, Agora, The Brave One, The Soloist, Everybody's Fine, and V for Vendetta.
In the bold new feature version of Jane Eyre, director Cary Joji Fukunaga (Focus' Sin Nombre) and screenwriter Moira Buffini (Tamara Drewe) infuse a contemporary immediacy into Charlotte Brontë's timeless, classic story. Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland), Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) star in the iconic lead roles of the romantic drama, the heroine of which continues to inspire new generations of devoted readers and viewers.
In the 19th Century-set story, Jane Eyre (played by Ms. Wasikowska) suddenly flees Thornfield Hall, the vast and isolated estate where she works as a governess for Adèle Varens, a child under the custody of Thornfield's brooding master, Edward Rochester (Mr. Fassbender). The imposing residence - and Rochester's own imposing nature - have sorely tested her resilience. With nowhere else to go, she is extended a helping hand by clergyman St. John Rivers (Jamie Bell of Focus' The Eagle) and his family. As she recuperates in the Rivers' Moor House and looks back upon the tumultuous events that led to her escape, Jane wonders if the past is ever truly past...For more information on the film, please visit www.JaneEyreTheMovie.com.

As for the other forthcoming Brontë movie, Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights, the Guardian echoes the rumour that it may be seen at Cannes.

The National Post discusses mashups and brings up another Brontë movie:

The thing is, too, that the mash-up can produce enduring art. As evidence, I submit the very first mash-up of zombies and literature: I Walked with a Zombie. One of Val Lewton’s legendary productions, this 1943 picture is not only one of the best, most poetic horror movies of the era, it’s also Jane Eyre transplanted to the West Indies, and the madwoman in the attic is now a zombie. One of those pre-Night of the Living Dead, non-flesh-eating zombies, mind you, but still, I think it counts. (David Annandale)

A columnist from The Rotunda defends the value of the classics in our day and age:

It's crazy how much our culture is defined by words. But not just any plain words- famous words. Take, for example, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and Mark Twain. Each a superior writer in their own right, but also timeless in an amazing way. [...]
Perhaps I owe my high school English teachers some credit. I was forced to read all of Shakespeare's works over the course of my four years at high school. I was pushed through "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë, picked up "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen at the urging of my 11th grade teacher, had the pleasure of listening to my 10th grade teacher read "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens to the class (and thoroughly enjoyed the novel as well), and sped through "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain my sophomore year. So in my own small way, I've been blessed by great teachers who wanted to educate me out of ignorance. But what about the rest of people my age who weren't blessed (or cursed?) by the English teachers who forced me not just to read, but to read classics that define, in their own way, the English world? [...]
The craziest part? Our world is still very much referenced to these old classics. I can't believe how many storylines in movies and shows and books today follow the same plotline of "Romeo and Juliet." (Katie Reilly)

For one thing, this blog and its contents serve to prove she has a point. And PopMatters, discussing the series Downton Abbey, seems to make a similar point as well:

Much has been made of his family background in and around grand houses such as the fictional Downton which informing his writing, but as with Gosford Park, it is the strong cast of characters which lift the tale above the realm of yet another crack at Wuthering Heights. (Maysa Hattab)

How many writers are mentioned in connection to the London Fashion Week? From Pimlico People:

The final SW1 showing was yesterday, 22 February. Roksanda Ilincic, who graduated from Central St Martins where she studied Womenswear, took up a lunchtime slot. When asked for the LFW website to name three things that inspired her for her autumn/winter collection she replied: “Dark clouds, metal flowers and the Brontë sisters.” (James Mass)

And Sports columnists also love their literary references. See the Guardian, for instance:

The greatest, saddest love story ever told is not Romeo and Juliet. It's not Heathcliff and Cathy. It's not Logan and Veronica. It's not even Alfie and Kat. It's South Africa and the cricket World Cup, and today we begin another chapter. When will they get it on? When will South Africa's upright, uptight underachievers finally find true love? (Rob Smyth)

So when The Atlantic Wire wonders on the subject of ebooks and their possibilities,

but is Wuthering Heights ready to go interactive? (Caitlin Dickson)

We must say that we totally think it is - Wuthering Heights can take on anything, can't it?

Well-known Brontëite Joyce Carol Oates tells the following anecdote to MacLeans:

Advice Oates didn’t include in the book, but wishes she had, is to say “yes” to invitations. That’s how she met neuroscientist and fellow Princeton professor Charles Gross in August 2008 at a dinner party. “A friend thought it would be nice for these two lonely people to get together,” she says, recalling their meeting fondly: “It wasn’t a Heathcliff, wild kind of thing. He brought the pizza.” (Anne Kingston)

The Spectator Book Blog reviews Thinking on Thresholds: The Poetics of Transitive Spaces, edited by Subha Mukherji.

The first essay of the book is by Gillian Beer who restricts her analysis to a physical threshold – the window. She plucks examples out of multiple sources, from the elegant verse of Herbert’s ‘The Elixir’, to the wild fury of Wuthering Heights and the restless tension of Mrs Dalloway. (Isabel Sutton)

Passion Drops posts about Jane Eyre, The Squeee discusses Jane Rochester by Kimberly A Bennett and Bookstains reviews Branwell Brontë’s Barber’s tale by Chris Firth

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights