6 Days Until Jane Eyre 2011 (I)

The New York Times publishes an article about Jane Eyre 2011 and the previous Janes:

So far there have been at least 18 film versions, going back to a 1910 silent movie, and 9 made-for-television “Janes” — so many that they sometimes seem to quote from one another as much as from the novel. Several, including the current one, were even filmed on the same location: Haddon Hall, an ancient, battlemented manor house in wind-swept Derbyshire that gets pressed into service whenever British filmmakers need someplace old and dank looking. (...)
If there has never been a definitive movie “Jane Eyre,” there has never been a truly rotten one. Even the sentimental 1996 Franco Zeffirelli version, with William Hurt embarrassingly miscast as a Rochester more nearly a mild eccentric than a brooding, Byronic type, has its moments. A couple of the movies have lingered a little on the sultry, Creole ancestry of Rochester’s first wife, Bertha Mason, and on a theme of colonial exploitation, but so far the one truly ground-breaking version is John Duigan’s 1993 film of “Wide Sargasso Sea,” the Jean Rhys novel that tells the story from the point of view of Bertha, the madwoman locked in the attic.
So why another “Jane Eyre,” then, with so many perfectly serviceable ones already available on DVD or download? The simplest answer is that movies get remade all the time, and the great 19th-century novelists — Austen and the Brontë sisters especially — have proved to be an inexhaustible and almost foolproof resource. (...)
In the case of “Jane Eyre,” as Alison Owen, who was the producer and driving force behind the new one, pointed out recently, there is also a simple, pragmatic reason: As period costume dramas go, “Jane” is relatively cheap to make.
“It’s set in a house in the middle of a moor,” she explained. “Jane Austen can be quite expensive. You need horses, carriages, houses, gowns. But on the whole ‘Jane Eyre’ is much more starkly peopled than most period movies. You don’t need swaths of costumes. And scenery costs nothing. Point a camera at those moors, and it looks like a David Lean film.”
But a deeper reason for wanting to make the movie, she went on, was simply her affection for the novel, and just about everyone involved in the production, which stars Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender, felt much the same way. “Jane Eyre” came out in 1847, a little more than 30 years after “Pride and Prejudice,” and yet as Mr. Fukunaga pointed out, a world of difference separates the two books.
“Jane Austen is like ‘Gossip Girl,’ and Charlotte and Emily were like Goth twins,” he said. “It’s a totally different sensibility. The emotional world that Charlotte inhabited is much darker and more dangerous.”
It’s also a world that modern readers may more readily identify with. The story of an orphan who becomes a governess, sticks up for herself and finds true love in a spooky, haunted-seeming mansion, all the while pouring her heart out on the page in prose that is lush, romantic, almost hypnotic, “Jane Eyre,” is both a Gothic horror story and arguably the first and most satisfying chick-lit novel.
“It’s been my favorite book since I was 11 or so, and I’ve always felt that it has been under-served by the movies.” Ms. Owen said. “One reason is that Jane has so often been cast as an older woman, not a girl. But it’s not written from that viewpoint, which is why it so appeals to young girls. It makes a huge difference to have someone in the part who is pre-womanhood. Mia was 19 when we made this, which is exactly Jane’s age.”
Moira Buffini, who wrote the screenplay, recalled recently that when she heard Ms. Owen was remaking “Jane Eyre,” she immediately said to herself, “Oh, my God.” She went on: “It was instinctive. I just chased the job.” (Read more) (Charles McGrath)

Interviews:
Michael Fassbender on ComingSoon:

Obviously, "Jane Eyre" is a classic piece of fiction so when somebody sent you the script, you must have known at least the title. Did you have any sort of connection to the book at all?
Michael Fassbender: Yeah, I had read the book I think six years ago or so, because I was involved in perhaps doing this thing called "Wide Sargasso Sea," which is the idea of what would have happened in Jamaica before the Brontë novel. It wasn't Brontë who wrote it, but (Jean Rhys') take of what would happen in Jamaica and Rochester as a young man and what happened with Bertha the wife and all that. I read that and I read "Jane Eyre" at the time, and obviously I read it again once they offered me Rochester this time around. My sister and my mother were big fans when I was a child and when I was in my teens as well, they were always talking about it because my sister was reading it. That was the reason why I wanted to do it, so they could take a look. (...)
CS: Rochester is almost as an iconic character as Jane Eyre herself, especially to the women who read the book who must have great expectations of what Rochester would be like.
Fassbender: Yeah, that's the thing, and I did watch all the previous versions as well, a lot of them I could get my hands on.
CS: Wasn't Orson Welles one of them?
Fassbender: Yeah, I watched that and at one point, I was supposed to be doing "Wuthering Heights," about three years ago I think it was now, so I watched Laurence Olivier do his "Wuthering Heights," and I was like, "Woah, it's so overdramatic," and the same with Orson Welles, it's like (doing his impression of Welles) "Jaaane... Jaaaaaaaane...!" I think Toby Stephens was my favorite - he did it for ITV, [it was BBC] ]one of the British channels, it was a six-parter [four-parter in fact] for television. Then I threw it all away and then I sort of concentrated on what was in the book and what was in the script. By treating him as the Byronic hero, which Brontë wrote him like, that gave me all I needed and then I thought, "Okay, he seems a bit bipolar as well." His moods sort of swing and it's because of all the sh*t that's going on in his head and the fact that (SPOILERS!!!!!) he's got this woman locked upstairs in the attic that's always with him in a way that's almost like he's carrying a weight with him as well.
CS: It must be tough, because he's supposed to be the perfect romantic lead but he does have all these secrets and flaws, which slowly start to come out as Jane gets to know him.
Fassbender: Definitely flawed, yeah, and at the beginning, and you think, "God, this guy is an ***hole." He's sort of manipulative and cruel and charming and you realize that he's just been putting up all these fronts and layers and protections. I mean, as a young man, this sh*t happened to him, and he started off his life I always imagined bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to have a go at life and then BANG! He gets knocked on his *** and so, because of that, he doesn't trust people, he doesn't trust relationships. He's been burned. So when Jane comes into the house, she just starts peeling away one layer after the other and in the end, she sort of heals him.
CS: When I talked to Mia and Cary a couple of days ago, they were saying they both had books with copious notes in them and had been referring back to the book and having all these meetings to discuss it. Did you have to go back to the book a lot yourself for reference?
Fassbender: Yeah, I don't really take a lot of notes. I've noticed that my scripts are usually quite empty of notes to be honest. I've scribbled down a few things, but I read the script over and over again a couple hundred times, it must have been. That's the only way I kind of prepare, I just sort of read it and read it and read it, till you're absolutely sick of it, and then you read it again. Then when I'm on set, it's sort of in my skin, so I can then go anywhere I want with it and feel free to allow things to happen, as opposed to making sure I'm hitting all the points.
CS: The words from the novel especially for your character are great, some of the lines he says you kind of want to keep them in your head to use as pick-up lines.
Fassbender: "Right, that would be a good one! That's a first date line!" (laughs)
CS: Exactly, but you can only use those lines as long as the woman hasn't read "Jane Eyre" and know where you stole them from. But was it Cary who wanted to make sure that some of Rochester's best lines from the book remained in the film?
Fassbender: Yes, I mean I didn't change the script. It was so well written and it's finding those little moments in the book. You've got a book and how do you condense it into a script and that's the really fine art there, so everything that's in there, every sentence, is there for a reason, because it's been filtered down to what is absolutely necessary to have. That's why I was saying that there was a precision that I wanted to find with him, so that I'm not just brush-stroking over stuff, that it's more finite and sort of detailed.
CS: Were you able to use anything from the other script you had read that involved the character?
Fassbender: "Wide Sargasso Sea"? That's one way of going about it, and I tended to not go that way. The whole idea... I mean, I did often think, "Oh, God, poor Bertha. She might have just been a horny lady. She might have just enjoyed sex and back then, it's like 'Whoa, you're enjoying this sh*t, you must have the devil in you or you must be crazy.'" So there is that take on it, but I kind of went along the lines that she was insane and it was a hereditary thing, her mother before her had mental problems, so that's kind of the line I took. (Edward Douglas)

Michael Fassbender on The Globe and Mail:

“Rochester’s a classic Byronic hero,” Fassbender said, rubbing his unshaven chin. “The shady past, the intelligence, the passion and courage, the destructiveness and self-destructiveness. He toys with Jane, because he’s trying to test her, figure her out. He’s intrigued by the purity of her. And the surety of her. But there’s a real cruelty to him as well. Which I really enjoyed, to have as part of his character. People do that to each other.” His teeth flashed as he chuckled. “But it was important for me to also convey his yearning and his utter fear of losing her,” he continued. “When she goes, that’s it, his life is over.”
The scene where Jane tells Rochester she’s leaving took seven hours to film. “I remember looking into Mia’s eyes all that time,” Fassbender said, “and thinking, ‘Oh my God, that’s what it looked like.’ I recognized the look from breaking up with girlfriends. I could see all of that in her eyes. And that was when the camera was on me. So I tried to do the same for her. It’s those little moments where you go somewhere else, where acting is at its best. But they’re rare.” (...)
Fassbender already knows how to dish like a star, though, spicing up his work anecdotes with just enough personal detail. He’s not being a bad boy on purpose – he’s just innately mischievous. Discussing Jane Eyre, he did a cheeky imitation of Orson Welles’s Rochester – “Jane! Jaaaane!” he wailed, in Welles’s booming tremolo – and admitted to feeling for Rochester’s mad wife. “Back in those days, she might have just been randy,” he said. “You know: If she likes to have sex, she must have the devil in her.” He grinned. “I’d burn the effing house down, too, if I was locked up in that room.” (Did I mention it was a tad hot in the suite?)  (...)
Then, just before my time was up (and just as I was thinking I’d have to open a window to get some air), Fassbender mentioned family. “My mum and my sister are big fans of the novel [Jane Eyre],” he said. “That’s kind of the starting reason I wanted to do it. I haven’t seen the film yet. I wait until the premieres, to achieve maximum nervousness. But I’m keen to see what they think of it. They’ll be honest with me.” (Johanna Schneller)

Michael Fassbender on Entertainment Weekly:

''I think about these things obviously. I'd be lying if I said I didn't. But I don't dwell on it. Because what am I going to do? Obviously I don’t see myself in that sort of light. I just see myself as someone who goes to work and tries to tell stories. Everything else is irrelevant. I just hope that I told that story well and that I did justice to Rochester.''

The Jane Eyre movie Facebook quotes Mia Wasikowska talking about her character:

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…it’s important to do what's fulfilling for ...you as an individual, even when it can be easier to do what's comfortable.

Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender on PopEater. NextMovie lists hot young actors/actresses including Imogen Poots and Kaya Scodelario (Cathy on Wuthering Heights 2011). Anglophenia posts about Mia Wasikowska. The Seattle Times compares the movie to Jane Eyre 2006. The Fan Carpet has a few images of Mia and Cary Fukunaga at a Los Angeles screening a few days ago. SMU Daily Campus gives free tickets at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas (more information here). And, last but not least, a New York Times slideshow about Jane Eyre versions/derivatives.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV