Brontë's Bubbles and Heathcliff's Desire

Reviews of Jane Eyre 2011 keep on being published.

NewsTime (South Africa) takes a look at previous adaptations of the novel (mentioniong also other adaptations of classics such as William Wyler's Wuthering Heights or Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, for instance) in order to focus on this one:

Cary Fukunaga’s latest film is definitely superior to Franco Zeffirelli’s eminently forgettable version (I seem to remember Anna Paquin as Jane and William Hurt as the dullest of Mr Rochesters), and an early ’seventies, plodding Classic-Comics version with an over-the-top George C. Scott as Rochester and a luminous and rather affecting Susannah York as Jane. However, Fukunaga does seem to see Charlotte Brontë as Mrs Radcliffe – or, perhaps, even as Stephen King or Stephenie Meyer – for the film italicizes “Jane Eyre’s” Gothic elements in a tiresome manner. Despite the occasional sunlit walk, and a rather chocolate-boxy shot of pink blossom, the beauties of Thornfield are muted and relentlessly sepia-tinged. Indeed, this “Jane Eyre” can best be described as fuliginous in both settings and lighting. Even when Mr Rochester entertains the Ingrams and other patrician guests, there is no light “pouring down” on “silver and glass”; and every level of Thornfield looks like the sinister Bluebeard’s passage of the third storey. At times, we seem to be in Poe terrain, not far from the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir!
Such relentless Gothicization of a novel that uses the Gothic with subtlety reaches its nadir when St John Rivers establishes Jane in her own little cottage and gives her the post of village teacher. In the novel, her “white-washed” dwelling is set in “quiet fields”. In Fukunaga’s film, it seems to be placed in “that reservoir of frost and snow” about which the young Jane reads in “Bewick’s History of British Birds”. In extreme long shot, the cottage resembles an ice-encrusted igloo, and one rather expects to hear the bellow of a hunted walrus. Such over-emphasis on deprivation and darkness is silly, and, oddly, when Gothic horror would be appropriate, the film fumbles. Bertha Mason is simply a raven-haired, slatternly J. Lo type: no clothed hyena she. It could be argued that Brontë should pity Bertha Mason more, but she does give the character real ferocity and menace. Fukunaga should realize that making Bertha dull does not humanize her.
The film’s non-chronological opening -- Jane’s flight from Thornfield, after she has rejected Mr Rochester’s bigamous marriage-proposal, and her torment on the “spreading moor” (“Want came to me, pale and bare”) -- is effective enough, and the reminiscent style in which the film is narrated is very apt indeed, for the novel, of course, consists of the reminiscences of the wiser, now contented, adult Jane. Fukunaga’s editing is often very dramatic and skilful, if not very subtle. There is a staccato cut to a flashback of Miss Scatcherd beating Helen Burns’s neck with a bundle of twigs, and the adult Jane wryly comments on the thoroughness of the education provided at Lowood. Jane’s collapse in the Red Room is filmed in vertiginous, spiralling overhead shot, which then dissolves into the swirls of Mr Brocklehurst’s tea. Such editing undeniably has power. But a little of it goes a long way... [...]
Jane and Rochester remain, and they are both unusual and impressive. Severe of eye, thin-lipped, and willowy, Mia Wasikowska has something of the austere, ethereal quality of the young Mia Farrow, and she delivers Jane’s most celebrated, ringing outbursts (“Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?”) with just the right anger and ardour. However, the wit and tenderness of the character are not sufficiently emphasized by the script, so one has to declare this a very successful depiction of part of Jane Eyre’s nature. Michael Fassbender’s Rochester is really superb, though. He understates the Byronic self-disgust, thus rendering it all the more effective, and he has a dry, almost throwaway quality in his early exchanges with Jane that reveals his awakening interest in her in a very believable manner. Reader and viewer, she was undoubtedly right to marry him.
By far the best adaptation of “Jane Eyre” remains the BBC’s 1983 television version, in which Zelah Clarke plays Jane as the impassioned intellectual she is, and Timothy Dalton, for all his almost improbable, cleft-chinned beauty, is a perfect Rochester. However, this series has the advantage of many episodes. As an inevitably much abridged version, Fukunaga’s film will do pretty well, but it does caricature Brontë’s work. There is more sense in “Jane Eyre” than our Stephenie-Meyer world seems willing to concede. A union of – dare one say it? – sense and sensibility makes “Jane Eyre” the great novel it is, and a really superb film would capture that union. (Digby Ricci)

The Florida Times-Union gives it 3.5 stars out of 4:

It all hinges, though, on Mia Wasikowska ("Alice in Wonderland" and "The Kids Are All Right") as Bronte's "poor, obscure, plain and little" heroine. This Jane is buttoned up, prim and not one to spill about her emotions, but Wasikowska imbues her with remarkable life and fire: What a performance this is. (Matt Soergel)

The Financial Mail (South Africa) is not so thrilled about the movie:

Wasikowska’s Jane is certainly closer to Brontë’s heroine than some object of vampire lust from the Twilight saga. The overall gothic tang — actually referred to in the dialogue — sets up expectations that cannot be met. The mystery of why and how Jane can hear Rochester calling across time and space for her mercy is just that — a mystery. A stronger rendition — and there have been such before — would make clearer the profound soul-seeking for “full love” of the main characters, which I think we could accept. Alas, Wasikowska and Fassbender too often give the screen impression of not actually wanting to touch each other. This really is poor casting, and the story lacks that shock of the unexpected that has kept it in print for well over a century. (Peter Wilhelm)

Insider Media Limited comments on the boost in tourism that the film could trigger:

The Peak District is aiming to cash in on a tourism windfall after the surroundings were used to film several blockbusters. David James, chief executive of tourism board Visit Peak District & Derbyshire, told Insider the region was "looking forward to the additional boost" that the new film version of Jane Eyre - filmed at Haddon Hall and Chatsworth - is set to bring businesses across the region.
In 2010, the value of tourism in Derbyshire was rated at more than £1.5bn, as 36 million tourists visited the county. This figure could be surpassed following visits from crews filming the latest Harry Potter instalment, The Duchess and Pride and Prejudice. [...]
Although no exact figures have been released estimating the economic benefits that film tourism brings to the area, local businesses said they are already cashing in from their proximity to the blockbuster spot.
Ian Hardman's business, the East Lodge Hotel and Restaurant in Rowsley, is one of the closest accommodation providers to Chatsworth House. He told Insider the 'Hollywood effect' had already garnered interest from film fans across the world. (Stephanie Bartup)

And we don't really know whether this could help boost tourism, but as Forbes Fast Track reports, 'London Looks To Victorians For Lessons In Modern Luxury'. The Bathhouse apparently offers

plush velvet carpets and marbled mosaic floors the backdrop for risqué burlesque shows and indulgences such as Indian Empress cocktails (gin, champagne and fresh lemon) and Brontë’s Bubbles (with champagne, gin and fresh violets). (Sally Howard)

A look at their current menu also reveals another Brontë-influenced cocktail:

Heathcliff's Desire
-Rum-Mint-Lime-
'I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.' Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

There are more Brontë things to see, such as Shared Experience's revival of Polly Teale's Brontë, which is reviewed today by the Bristol Evening Post:

Living fully up to their name, Shared Experience combine succinct writing, tense direction – by Nancy Meckler – and skilful acting to tell the story of the Yorkshire family which stunned the 19th century literary world when it was revealed that the sensational novels the public were buying were written by women.
The production, with the oppressive gloom and repressed passion cleverly conveyed by Ruth Sutcliffe's set and Chahine Yavroyan's lighting, recalls the all too short lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne by bringing their fictional creations to life in their Haworth parsonage.
At least a passing knowledge of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights is necessary to appreciate fully the play's early exchanges but once the real and imagined characters interact the pace quickens and any confusion clears.
There are pleasing performances from all members of the six-strong cast. Kristin Atherton is suitably bossy and overbearing as Charlotte, the eldest of the trio, constantly at odds with the wild, feisty Emily well played by Elizabeth Crarer.
Mark Edel-Hunt crumbles visibly as Branwell the drunken, dissolute, brother whose failure destroys and yet in some ways inspires the girls and Stephen Finegold displays great versatility as both the family father and the fawning curate who eventually becomes Charlotte's husband in the final year of her life.
There are times when the close intimacy of the work might have been better suited to a smaller, studio theatre but overall the result is appealing and spirited. (Alan King)

The Evening Times comments briefly on the play as well.

The Southport Visiter reviews LipService's Withering Looks:

To mark their silver anniversary, the pair have revived Withering Looks, based on a novel you may recall by Emily Brontë.
While Anne has popped out for a cup of sugar, the two remaining Brontë sisters are left to consider the mystery of their neighbour Mr Moorcock of Ravaged Heath House and the alarming sounds of laughter emanating from his attic.
Then there are the sounds of lost souls wandering over the cold and lonely Yorkshire moors and the dilemma facing Cathy as she must choose a potential suitor from a pool of two – will it be Heathcliff, or David Niven?
Performed mostly in crinolines and bonnets (although the occasional frock coat is hinted at) with much sitting and staring out of rain-lashed windows, LipService have garnered such impressive reviews in their first 25 years that an evening full of giggles and smirks is practically guaranteed.
This show in particular has taken the Critics Award for Comedy at the Edinburgh Festival and seems a ripe choice for a celebratory revival of theatre that might just be daft enough to make you pick up the text that inspired it all.
You’ll come away smiling – but we can’t guarantee what your English literature teacher would have made of it all. (Jamie McLoughlin)

The Herald Scotland invites readers to 'meet the Brontës, our first science fiction writers' in connection ot the British Library exhibition Out of this World: Science Fiction but not as you know it.

A few years ago I visited Haworth, the cobbled Yorkshire village that was home to the Brontë family.
It was a revelation. The moors the Brontë parsonage backed onto were just as you’d have imagined: romantically bleak, disturbed by nothing but the piping of curlews and, if one was a troubled young artist, miserable, savage thoughts.
It was the view from the front door that was startling. Beyond the garden lay Haworth’s graveyard, a carpet of headstones above overfilled graves whose decomposing occupants were poisoning the town’s water supply, thereby creating more residents for this dank resting place. Beyond that was the smoky village, an industrial hive more like something from Hard Times than the rural fastness depicted in Wuthering Heights.
It’s maybe no surprise, then, that the Brontë children, Branwell, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, put their imaginations to work to escape from their surroundings. The result was a precocious collection of fiction and poetry about fantastical countries called Angria and Gondal. These sagas were written in miniscule print as if to suggest that the authors were not the children but Branwell’s toy soldiers, who had inspired the stories in the first place. Gathered under the title the Glass Town Federation, these match-box sized books came with maps and illustrations and were bound in thread as if for proper publication.
Mostly they revolved around fictional characters, but occasionally real people would appear, among them the Duke of Wellington. It is this intrusion of reality on fantasy which has led these juvenilia to be included in an exhibition, Out of this World: Science Fiction but not as you know it, which opened yesterday at the British Library in London. According to guest curator Andy Sawyer, from the University of Liverpool: “The Brontës are well known authors with no apparent association with science fiction but their tiny manuscript books, held at the British Library, are one of the first examples of fan fiction, using favourite characters and settings in the same way as science fiction and fantasy fans now play in the detailed imaginary ‘universes’ of Star Trek or Harry Potter. While the sense of fantasy is strong, there are teasing examples of what might be called the beginnings of science fiction.”
It’s a big leap to call these diversions science fiction, but Sawyer may have a point. The parallel universes the young Brontes created certainly matched those of Jonathan Swift or Mary Shelley for swagger. And if anything distinguishes science fiction, it’s the brio authors bring to it. Where is the sci-fi equivalent of kitchen-sink realism, mums-lit or the misery memoir? The impulse behind this genre is to escape banality and embrace a world very different from our own, however terrifying – or, indeed, particularly if it is terrifying.
Whereas modern science fiction can act as cautionary tale, social commentary or thriller, with licence to bend the laws of physics this way and that, for the young Brontës, Gondal and Angria were simply a way to explore alluring possibilities thrown up by their fertile imaginations. Childhood, after all, is a time when fantasy fiction better matches one’s sense of how the world works than dull fact and everyday events. At that age, the world is truly inexplicable, ungovernable, and liable to startle or shock at a moment’s notice. Is there any child who has never wondered what sort of creatures live under their bed, or if aliens have abducted their parents and replaced them with idiots? Would you really have been surprised as a youngster if your dog had talked to you?
The Brontës’ early passion for fantasy sadly faded as soon as real life became more urgent and demanding. When one considers how unhappy they must have been as, one by one, the family died, it’s remarkable they did not immerse themselves in perpetual fantasy. But perhaps fiction was escape and solace enough. It was certainly more comfort than the rest of the townsfolk had. (Rosemary Goring)

À propos of that, the Deccan Chronicle comments of the importance of daydreaming:

Daydreaming can release creativity. “There wouldn’t be any art if dreaming was banned!” exclaims Mia D’Souza, an undergraduate agriculture student.
“No Mozart, no da Vinci, no Van Gogh, no Shakespeare, no Brontë sisters, the world would have been denied these greats if they didn’t dream and didn’t know how to portray the dreams. Songs, books, paintings — they are all but impressions of one’s daydreams aren’t they?” she asks rhetorically. (Amogha Kannan)

The Marysville Globe discusses pseudonyms (mentioning Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell) and The Irish Times asks several writers about how they feel when they finish a book. Roddy Doyle says,

“The idea of rewriting a book for a new edition is just silly. Would Emily Brontë have done it? ‘OMG! Here comes Heathcliff!’” (Alan O'Riordan)

The Economist's Free Exchange writes about a trip to Vietnam where

You can even pick up a translation of Jên Ero’ by Challote Brontë.

We don't know what The Stir would make on translations seeing how against ebooks they seem to be:

3. I like my books without glaring spelling errors, thanks very much. There's something about this new technology that makes us produce and consume at warp speed. These e-Books are getting churned out so quickly that a lot of them seem to get lost in the editing shuffle. I'm not interested in reading Jane Eyre filled with typos and grammatical mistakes. That's like an English major's worst nightmare. (Maressa Brown)

Erm... this is like sad news but printed books also very often include typos and mistakes.

Express Night Out includes April Lindner's Jane on list of 'Young Adult Books for Burgeoning Readers' and the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch reviews Sheila Kohler's new book, Love Child, and considers her previous book, Becoming Jane Eyre,

a fascinating, imagined portrait of how author Charlotte Brontë may have written her classic. (Jane Henderson)

Writer Kim Newman writes on FearNet:

I love some novels which take other novels as their source material: Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea (the backstory of Mrs Rochester from Jane Eyre)

The Liverpool Echo seems to have found a newly-minted Brontëite:

“I’ve just picked up Wuthering Heights, I’ve never read that before,” reveals [actress] Cathy Tyson.
“Don’t tell me,” she adds when I mention I studied it for A level. “I don’t want to know what the end is!” (Catherine Jones)

Oh Hi Movie and B.A.D. Reviews post about Jane Eyre 2011. Literature in Letters is reading Shirley and comments on chapters XVIII-XXIV. Out of the Paintbox features Charlotte Brontë as an artist. And finally The Adventures of a Brit. Lit. Mom posts about a recent trip to Haworth, with pictures.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Books, Brontëites, Humour, Jane Eyre, Juvenilia, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre, Weirdo, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights