Jane Eyre enters into its fifth weekend (III) ~ BrontëBlog

Let's start with some new reviews for Jane Eyre 2011.

Box Office (April 7): $3,988,760

Positive

Grand Rapids Press:

Wasikowska’s witchcraft is full-strength, however, in “Jane Eyre,” a compelling retelling of the venerable Charlotte Brontë novel that pushes Wasikowska to the forefront of nearly every scene.
“You have rather the look of another world about you” Jane is told by an admirer, and the same is true of the actress playing her.
Director Cary Joji Fukunaga and screenwriter Moira Buffini don’t undersell the story’s spookiness, which is a plus in Wasikowska’s case: She’s at her most beguiling when she’s fighting off the shivers. (James Sanford)

Providence Journal:

Director Cary Fukunaga began his career as a cinematographer and “Jane Eyre” certainly is moodily atmospheric, although it’s often so dark one wonders how people avoided bumping into each other in the early 19th century. Of course, all that darkness makes one edgy about those loud cries coming from somewhere in the far reaches of Thornfield Hall, giving rise to wonder about the tales of a woman who “walks by night” through the halls and, as one report says, can even walk through walls.
But “Jane Eyre” never quite rises to the occasion of creeping one out. Snoozing one out until its raging final half hour is more like it. (Michael Janusonis)

Cincinnati City Beat (B+):

There's something to savor in every frame of this lush film. The alchemy of its ensemble performances present a tart dose of melancholy romance. Only those young at heart need apply. (Cole Smithey)

The Wichita Eagle:

This new interpretation by director Cary Fukunaga is a typically elegant one, with picturesque settings and impeccable costumes.
It’s a period piece done right and respectfully, but without being too stately or fussy. It feels downright fresh. (Rod Pocowatchit)

Mostly Positive

The Paly Voice has a rather confusing review:

For viewers who have not read the book prior to watching the movie, the ending might be hard to understand.
Although it is necessary to keep in mind that when a novel is turned into a movie there are inevitably going to be scenes that are taken out, those scenes should not be ones that are crucial to understanding the story line .
Also there were several scenes that seemed unnecessary to the overall plot of the movie and are rather time consuming.
While Jane Eyre cannot be called a sappy romance, it also cannot be listed as a heart pounding drama. Rather it seems to find itself nestled in between these two categories.
Connoisseurs of Charlotte Brontë would find this to be worth their while, and overall if one knows what to expect the movie does not disappoint. (Abha Sharma)

Movies.com:

There are two kinds of British period movies. For lack of cleverer names, I'll call them Good Enough and Way Better Than Good Enough. Good Enough is the one you're having a perfectly pleasant Sunday afternoon watching, but then realize that it's got nothing more up its sleeve than putting all the money on the screen. Costumes, hats, huge ancient homes, Lords and Ladies and their servants and their tea and their whispered scandals. That's good enough. The other kind is the one that pushes through the vintage eye candy and almost makes you forget that it's the eleventeenth adaptation of a 150-year-old novel because every performance and emotion and camera move feels modern and relevant and alive right now. That's this one. It's not warm, it's not fuzzy, it's not cuddly, but its plenty seriously heartbreaking and it's got the feeling of a classic already. (Dave White)

Mostly negative

Short Ends and Leader (PopMatters):

If all of this seems like a massive burden on the back of Fukunaga and his cast…well, it is. It’s the yoke anyone who brings the traditional back to the fore must carry. The same could be - and will be - said whenever Shakespeare is again thrust before the cameras, or if yet another shot at one young lady’s adventures in Wonderland (or Oz) are ever attempted. We seen this all before - not better, but at least as good. While it may not be fair to disrespect a film for being forged out of well worn facets, this latest Jane Eyre can’t help but suffer. It’s not a failure, it’s just not a revelation worthy of a revisit. (Bill Gibron)

Negative

Newsday:

If the motion-picture industry had existed in 1847, the year Charlotte Brontë's novel appeared, it might have produced an adaptation much like this one. (Rafer Guzman)

The Albany Times-Union presents the film, SheFinds has a $50 Movie Theater Gift Card, Jane Austen Today posts a negative review of the movie, Dead White Guys is a bit (but just a bit) more positive, An Acomplished Young Lady and Sarah Seltzer have a bloggy conversation about the movie. More reviews: andy wolverton, Banon's Roar!, This Movie Guy, and Still there are Songs, PrincessSomewhere85's Blog, Crackle, Kimberly Has a Blog?, Rachel Lohrman, For Cinephiles by a Cinefille, Mary's Movie Reviews, Reflectionary, Crimespree Magazine, Ahead on Our Way and Soundtrack Express reviews Dario Marianelli's music.

The writer Elvira Lindo publishes a highly recommended article in El País (Spain) about the film in particular and Jane Eyre in general. Worthwhile if you can understand Spanish:

Veo la nueva versión que de Jane Eyre se ha llevado al cine y pienso en cuál es la razón por la cual ese personaje, Jane, mantiene su valor inalterable en el siglo XXI, visto ahora por una mujer dueña, en la medida en la que una puede poseerla, de su propia vida. Es posible que esta sea la versión que más me ha gustado. Esa jovencísima actriz, Mia Wasikowska, sabe darle al personaje esa cualidad de pureza y determinación contenida que tiene. Aunque siempre se pone el ejemplo de aquella versión que protagonizaran Orson Welles y Joan Fontaine, a Fontaine siempre la he visto como una señora elegante, antigua y sufriente con la que me es muy difícil identificarme. Una vez y otra y otra, las que hagan falta, vuelvo a ver la misma historia. La de una Cenicienta que no es tal, porque la pobre chica finalmente no se casa con un príncipe azul, sino que rescata a un hombre destrozado. Vence el amor, pero también la valentía, la generosidad, la falta de codicia. Valores que nunca caducan. En esta sala del Upper West estoy tan entregada a las palabras de Jane como cuando tenía 13 años. Solo de vez en cuando me perturban las risas del público, que es capaz de soltar la carcajada en cuanto se da el más ligero comentario sexual o de puro deseo. Risitas incontenibles, nerviosas, que sirven de vía de escape para la vergüenza que provoca el sexo y a las que jamás me acostumbraré. Una vez que logro superar la molestia vuelvo a concentrarme en los pasos de Jane. Me pregunto cuántas veces en la vida una mujer se ve forzada a ser Jane Eyre, a defenderse del atropello, de la falta de respeto, de la condescendencia, y cuánto hay que agradecerle su ejemplo de valentía y arrojo, aun cuando la realidad está en su contra desde el nacimiento. Me gusta también que las películas no edulcoren el pasado, envolviéndolo con una pátina de belleza que convierte en entrañable la miseria de los pobres. En esta ocasión sentimos el frío de Jane; la incomodidad de los grandes espacios; la sordidez de esos castillos, tan bellos por fuera, tan lúgubres dentro; el mortal aburrimiento de un invierno eterno, de los días sin luz, de la vida iluminada por velas; la falta de sensualidad; el desprecio de clase; la soledad de la vida en un campo tan bello como atemorizante; la falta de consideración que despertaban aquellas jóvenes institutrices encargadas de desasnar a los niños de los ricos. (Translation)

Stardoe's Colors posts a nice selection of Jane Eyre 2011 palettes.

*******

Financial Times publishes a lukewarm review of the current revival of Polly Teale's Brontë by the Shared Experience Company:

The opening requires some effort in attunement: establishing the piece’s style and the baseline of biographical information results in some unsubtleties. However, one comes to accept the episodes in which Emily interacts with Cathy from Wuthering Heights. The company of six work hard, with the non-sister players each taking multiple roles. Mark Edel-Hunt, for instance, in one of Branwell Brontë’s drunken scenes pre-echoes almost slurred-verbatim a moment from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall that he later enacts with Flora Nicholson as Anne and/or her protagonist. In the circumstances, it feels as if faint or even moderate praise is damning – but more than moderate praise would be excessive. (Ian Shuttleworth)

theatreowl on the contrary is much more enthusiastic. Exeunt Magazine says:

Nancy Meckler’s production has an episodic, almost bitty quality, which intensifies towards the end as tragic death follows quickly after tragic death requiring frequent fades to black. There are so many scene shifts in the second half that Anne’s demise barely registers; there’s a cough and the sound of the waves at Scarborough and suddenly she’s gone. Kristin Atherton’s performance complies with Teale’s reading of Charlotte as a woman wonderfully unwilling to be meek and still, but also at times pinched and rigid and full of self-disgust; steely too and selfish, especially in her relations with Emily. (Charlotte’s brief flicker of a marriage to her father’s curate is also dealt with in a rather off-handed manner).
Elizabeth Crarer gives a remarkably controlled performance as the wilful and slippery Emily, the most unknowable of the sisters, and Flora Nicholson successfully conveys Anne’s warmth, calm and practicality, though her character is somewhat edged out, her inner life less fully explored. Mark Edel-Hunt is suitably brash and boyish as Branwell, sunk by the pressures inherent in being the only son. It’s hard to know what, if anything, Meckler is saying in casing Stephen Finegold not just as the dour Brontë patriarch, but also as Charlotte’s eventual husband and her married tutor, M. Heger, the object of her affection.
Ruth Sutcliffe’s minimal set consists of a black back wall and a single door. While this can’t fully convey the sense of isolation and the power of the surrounding moors, the blackness instead becomes a canvas for the girls’ imaginings. Yet while the performances are particularly strong and the production contains a number of resonant moments, a distance remains; the sisters remain remote figures against the black. (Natasha Tripney)

MinnPost publishes a summary of last Monday's panel discussion "'Wuthering Heights': Is this love?," at the Loft Literary Center, moderated by Sarah T. Williams:

"It's like 'Gone With the Wind,' " posited panelist Diana Postlethwaite, chair of the St. Olaf English department and Brontë scholar. "The romance is turbulent and torrid. It's the irresolution of the story that audiences find attractive. ... People have a fascination with lovers who don't get together -- or take forever to get together. There's suspense in dragging out the tug of war before the climactic point."
Postlethwaite pointed to the wild popularity of Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" saga as evidence of this fascination with forbidden love.
" 'Twilight' really mirrors "Wuthering Heights," said Postlethwaite. (...)
"There's a sense of intrigue with transgressive, forbidden love," said panelist Eric Simonson, stage director of Minnesota Opera's upcoming production of "Wuthering Heights."
The "inevitability" Bella speaks of, the fatalistic mythic love -- this is what captures readers. Try as they might to fight against a shared, tragic fate, the couple eventually succumbs to consumption.
Although readers discern Heathcliff and Catherine's relationship is doomed, the couple's tempestuous journey is thrilling, and ironically suspenseful.
"These characters are so melodramatic, so unrestrained," said panelist Sara Hoppe, co-owner and psychologist at Grove Psychotherapy in Minneapolis. "I think it's exciting for readers to live vicariously through them; they act on impulses people normally suppress."
The universe -- and, indeed, the reader -- will Catherine and Heathcliff together, despite the fact that, as Eric Solomon stated in a 1959 article in Nineteenth-Century Fiction, "It is impossible to imagine such a stormy, undisciplined pair as Cathy and Heathcliff ever settling down to a normal life of domesticity."
The attraction pulling Heathcliff and Catherine together is as undeniable, beautiful and ruthless as nature itself -- a theme Simonson said is brought out in the opera production through the imaging and backdrops of projection designer Wendall K. Harrington. (...) (Audra Otto)

The Orange Country Register interviews Maryrose Wood, author of the child book series The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place:

For author Maryrose Wood, inspiration for "The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place," her children's book series about a Victorian-era governess and her three wild, young charges, came from the unlikely combination of two classic works of literature and comedy.
"I had been a huge fan of 'Jane Eyre' when I was a teen," says Wood, who comes to Orange County to sign "The Hidden Gallery," the second in the Incorrigibles' series, on Wednesday, April 13. "So the notion of a governess was an idea I loved. I don't know how the idea of Jane Eyre as the governess got connected to children raised by wolves, but it did." (...)
And, of course, with Miss Lumley on the job, even though she is not much older than the children, young readers can take comfort in knowing that a most determined caretaker is always going do the right thing, a concept Wood says she took from "Jane Eyre."
"It's an idea that I return to often in 'The Incorrigibles,' this notion of pluck, and that there's a sense of inner integrity and this sense of self worth," Wood says of one of the reasons that character of Jane Eyre appealed to her so much. ""She had this strong sense of righteousness in a positive way, and she never questioned the need to be true to herself, and I just found that inspiring." (Peter Larsen)

The Philippine Daily Enquirer interviews Russell Brand, who will be the star of the remake of Arthur :

Duty, responsibility, loyalty—these are the qualities of a man and these are good qualities. For me, it’s important that “Arthur” was a fairy story, a story about a prince, a prince without a kingdom as Heathcliff is described in “Wuthering Heights.” (Ruben V. Nepales)

Nisha Jamvwa begins her column in The Deccan Chronicle like this:

I was 15 when “he” crossed the firmament of my romantic dreams. Tall, intense, brooding, silent, Heathcliffe [sic] (no less), out of the pages of Wuthering Heights.

Caitlin Moran in The Times examines Jack Bauer's character in 24:

Indeed, once it started obsessively researching Bauer’s character, it discovered that Bauer’s back story includes a degree in English literature from UCLA. So when he’d finished a hard day’s work biting out a terrorist’s jugular vein, he could come home to the Gallery and have a lovely conversation about how the scene where Cathy goes mad in Wuthering Heights is badly paced.

The Boston Globe recalls the anecdote of how the recently-deceased photographer Paul McMahon met his partner, the artist Ralph Hodgdon, in the fifities:

He was 22 and living in New York City when he met Hodgdon, then 20, while the artist was sketching in Central Park. Mr. McMahon was on his way from one party to another. He never made the second party. The pair began talking and went to see “Wuthering Heights’’ together. (J.M. Lawrence)

The Webster-Kirkwood Times announces a future local production of The Secret Garden:

Unlock the magic behind "The Secret Garden" as Frances Hodgson Burnett's treasured Victorian novel comes to life in this award-winning musical adaptation. In the grand tradition of such literary masterpieces as "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights," three lonely children are forever changed as they learn to trust each other while finding refuge in the restoring of The Secret Garden.

ABC's The Bookshow reviews The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt:

This ambitious approach is mostly stimulating and enjoyable, as is the novel overall, but there's just a bit too much winking at the reader, of italics and upper case for eye-rolling emphasis, of throwing Mia's story up in the air and pointing out the parallels with everything from Wuthering Heights to Kierkegaard's abandonment of his fiancee. As they say in Mia's hometown of New York, 'enough already'! (Patricia Maunder)

The possibility of Hailee Steinfeld starring in a new film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet is commented by ScreenRant:

However, with the right people working in front of and behind the camera, even the most commonly retold of tales can still be moving and engaging (see the recent film version of Jane Eyre for a good example of that). (Sandy Schaefer)

Arizona Daily Star presents a local production of Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep:

When Arizona Theatre Company staged "Irma Vep" in 1999, we put this quiz together to see if readers could match up the famous lines and characters with the Charles Ludlam version. The playwright, who died in 1987, borrowed heavily from the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Daphne du Maurier, Emily Brontë - even Shakespeare. (...)
8 There are moors, mists and ghosts. "They cling to their dead a long time at Mandacrest," says Lady Hillcrest (the living one). What book, and later movie, influenced this setting, who was the author, and what character uttered close to the same line? For an extra bonus, who starred in the movie and who directed? (Hint: the male star was the same as in No. 7.)
9 The following is a direct quote from what novel? (Hint: same tome as in No. 8.) "Come to the glass, and I'll show you what you should wish. Do you mark those two lines between your eyes? And those thick brows that instead of rising, arched, sink in the middle? And that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's spies? . . . Don't get the expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are its desert, and yet hates all the world, as well as the kicker, for what it suffers."
10 In "Irma Vep," Lady Hillcrest says to Nicodemus, a groundskeeper at Mandacrest: "Sometimes I feel that I am Nicodemus. That Nicodemus and I are one and the same person." The line - but with a different name - was lifted from what book/movie? What name was spoken in place of Nicodemus, and who spoke the lines? (Hint: We've been here before.) (...)
8. "Wuthering Heights," by Emily Brontë. William Wyler directed the movie. Heathcliff spoke nearly the same line. Olivier played Heathcliff; Merle Oberon was his obsession (and vice versa), Cathy.
9. A servant says the same lines to Heathcliff in "Wuthering Heights."
10. Cathy, speaking about Heathcliff. (Kathleen Allen)

By the Book reviews The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen who defines herself as:

I am a fiction editor and novelist who loves all things Jane—Jane Eyre and Jane Austen.

Jornal do Brasil interviews the writer Kézia Lobo:

Cite 5 livros que você considera ser indispensável .
A Bíblia, O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes de Emily Brontë, A Trilogia O Senhor dos Anéis de Tolkien e Orgulho e Preconceito de Jane Austen. (Translation)

El Litoral (Argentina) once more makes the Ted Hughes-Heathcliff standard comment:

Como hombre, irradiaba dinamismo. Quizá por ser oriundo de Yorkshire, el condado de Cumbres borrascosas, se lo ha identificado con el hosco aunque apasionado Heathcliff. Claro que la comparación era más física que emocional. (Translation)

Página 12 (Argentina) features the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey:

Los visitantes suelen detenerse sobre todo frente al memorial conjunto de las hermanas Brontë, la tumba de Ben Jonson, el sepulcro de Charles Dickens –que no quiso un funeral imponente sino una sencilla ceremonia privada–, o las placas que recuerdan entre otros a T. S. Eliot, Jane Austen o Henry James. (Graciela Cutuli) (Translation)

It seems that the opera rock Cumbres Borrascosas by Hernán Espinosa will be performed again (after the frustrated premiered some years ago) as La Mañana de Córdoba (Argentina) informs:

La comedia musical “Cumbres Borrascosas”, dirigida por Hernán Espinosa, -que no pudo estrenarse hace algunos años atrás como consecuencia del incendio sufrido por el Teatro Comedia de nuestra ciudad- fue recientemente seleccionada para ser parte de la grilla oficial del Primer Festival Latinoamericano de Teatro Musical que se realizará en Buenos Aires durante el mes de mayo.
“Es una gran noticia, sobre todo por lo que nos pasó con ‘Cumbres Borrascosas’. Ahora la vamos a estrenar primero en Buenos Aires que en Córdoba”, explica el director. (Translation)

It looks like that the castings of the French version of X Factor are high-quality. One of the contenders says in France Soir:

Barbara : « Sur la première étape du casting, nous avons pu interpréter It’s now Christmas, de Bernard Hermann, tiré de l’Opéra Hurlevent. Mais on a dû piocher ensuite dans une liste de titres qui n’étaient pas dans notre registre. Dommage qu’ils ne laissent pas plus de place à l’originalité. » (Ingrid Bernard and Gaëlle Guitard) (Translation)

NZZ (Switzerland) talks about the Morgan Library Diaries exhibition :

«Es gibt in diesem Haus nur eine einzige Person, die es wert ist, gemocht zu werden» – die in Brüssel vereinsamende junge Charlotte Brontë schrieb ihre Beobachtungen in den zierlichsten Buchstaben auf die Rückseiten eines Atlasses. (Andrea Köhler) (Translation)