Jane Eyre enters into its fifth weekend (I)

Jane Eyre reviews for the weekend.

Positive

Winnipeg Uptown Magazine gives the film 4 1/2 stars:

This movie is, on one level, a lurid potboiler spun from fantastic cloth. But it’s so exquisitely, magnificently crafted, it never plays as less than credible (even if Fassbender can’t quite sell every single maudlin line).
It’s a tribute to this modern re-telling that these characters feel so authentic — their needs so urgent and real. This Jane Eyre is among the most spellbinding of recent films. (Kenton Smith)

The Globe:

It is not often that movies and books get along. Several books have been made into movies and many times it has not worked. This time, it did. (Bryanna Boyle)

Artvoice:

Fukunaga seems to have worked carefully. His film has a sense of restraint; it doesn’t underscore the material’s melodramatic potential most of the time, but there’s an emotional undercurrent running through it that erupts now and then. His pacing and editing don’t create the greatest degree of tension possible, but he has opted for a steadier, more thoughtful approach, one that builds feeling more slowly. He’s shot much of the film in natural light and Adriano Goldman’s photography has a subdued color range that lends a further sense of suppressed emotion (although now and then Fukunaga and Goldman give us starkly dramatic compositions). (George Sax)

Too bad that review also includes the following gaffes:

... she’s taken in by a country parson, St. Jean Rivers (Jeremy Bell, looking rather younger than the book’s character) (George Sax)

It's of course St. John Rivers And Jamie Bell.

Mostly positive

The Quad gives it a B+:

The latest Jane Eyre doesn’t add anything relatively new or unexpected to the Brontëan canon, but it’s a handsomely melancholy adaptation of the Gothic classic, strengthened by solid performances from its cast, particularly its lead. (Chree Izzo)

A Contracorriente Films has acquired the distribution rights for Jane Eyre in Spain and will release it next autumn.

Jane Eyre 2011 is also reviewed by Fassinating Fassbender, Après Moi, Dating Duchess, So High Above the Ground and Simplyjessica's Blog.

Shared Experience's revival of Polly Teale's Brontë is also the subject of a couple of reviews:

The London Evening Standard gives it 3 stars out of 5:

It's a nimble and for the most part unsentimental piece, far removed from the clichés of costume drama. [...]
The sisters are sharply distinguished. This may not be psychologically subtle but it is dramatically effective. Kristin Atherton's Charlotte is steely yet, beneath her stiff exterior, soulful. Elizabeth Crarer's Emily is boyish in appearance but emotionally tortured, commenting at one point that "The world is broken" and at another that she writes to "exist beyond myself". Flora Nicholson's Anne seems pinched, tense and skittish. The interactions between the three are precise and convincing.
As their disreputable brother, Branwell, Mark Edel-Hunt combines a morbid lack of discipline with puerile spite, and Stephen Finegold brings gravitas to their father Patrick. These two also play characters from the novels, as does Frances McNamee, who's especially striking as a red-garbed Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre.
The staging is skilful and vivid, there is conviction in the performances, and Teale's script displays emotional intelligence. Yet we never truly believe in the extraordinary literary powers of the three sisters.
At times the symbolism feels laboured, and some of the links drawn between life and art are hard to digest. The episodic production is also too long: although it has real substance, it could do with being more condensed. (Henry Hitchings)

The Arts Desk says,

Tone is a problem in Nancy Meckler’s revised production (returning the original actresses to their roles). In trying to trace the Gothic brutality of Wuthering Heights back to Haworth, Meckler insists on excess and anger until no character simply walks across the room or turns away, but instead is flung bodily into furniture, or dashes in a frenzy from place to place. It’s all rather highly strung, a drama of fits and starts where everything is always bursting out or chafing against, charged without the fulfilment of satisfying narrative release. The deaths of Anne and Emily are perfunctory affairs, while Charlotte’s courtship and marriage is played for comedy.
As the rigid, dominating Charlotte, Kristin Atherton compels and repulses in equal measure. Stalked by Bertha Mason (Frances McNamee, pictured right also playing Cathy), she struggles plausibly with her physical and moral instincts, offering an anchoring point for Elizabeth Crarer’s delicately underplayed Emily and Flora Nicholson’s pliant Anne. The family dynamic is at its most vivid in the scenes of adulthood, but childhood flashbacks offer the glorious visuals of youthful adventure tales: brother and sister voyage on the kitchen table, heavy skirts becoming billowing waves, breaking in a froth of white petticoats. (Alexandra Coghlan)

And now for a funny loop of references. The Arts Desk also reviews The Crimson Petal and the White (BBC Two):

Poisonous whispers of everything from Jane Eyre to Gaslight swirl unhealthily around the Rackham household. (Adam Sweeting)

While the Western Mail revies a local production of Gaslight at the Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold:

Echoes of Jane Eyre and The Woman in White abound. (Gail Cooper)

The Skinny reviews Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf:

Such as references to Sigmund Freud’s Essentials of Psycho-analysis, the poetry of William Empson, and a delightful homage to Charlotte Brontë – 'Reader, I ate him.' – perhaps? The Last Werewolf is an intelligent, thoughtful read that never forgets to excite and entertain. (Paul F Cockburn)

The Calgary Herald and many others post the following about tonight's episode of The Vampire Diaries:

Isobel's arrival, like some ghostly spectre from a Charlotte Brontë Gothic novel, immediately has Mystic residents beside themselves with anxiety. (Alex Strachan)

The Tennessean reports that,

on March 5, Jessica Stephens made the state finals of the Poetry OutLoud contest at Austin Peay State University’ Center of Excellence in the Creative Arts.
She performed Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” in Round I and Emily Brontë’s “Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee” in Round II. (Brian Sullivan)

My Friend Amy interviews writer Stephanie Cowell, who shows her Brontëiteness:

What have been some of your greatest inspirations in writing?
Every time I read another marvelous novel I am inspired. I had an odd combination of inspiring writers as a child. I adored The Secret Garden and A Little Princess and of course the Brontë sisters. I remember finishing Wuthering Heights and immediately starting it again. I read it one summer while we stayed by the sea, and always associated it with the waves.

Finally, we would like to bring your attention to a brand-new blog connected to the Brontës: The Jane Eyre Miscellany, whose name is pretty self-explanatory. Do pay a visit to it!

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Theatre, Websites