The beating heart of the film

ABC's Limelight Magazine (Australia) analyses Dario Marianelli's soundtrack for Jane Eyre 2011. Particularly the contribution of the violinist Jack Liebeck:

Liebeck explains the easy connection he found working with Marianelli on the soundtrack. “It was like a meeting of the minds in a way, and his music was just right for my kind of playing.
“Dario and I met up and we got on really well. He showed me some of the music that he’d written for the film and I sort of just grinned at him and said, ‘It’s right up my alley.’”
In particular Liebeck enjoyed the creative license Marianelli gave him as a performer, a freer approach than what is afforded him on the concert platform. “He gave me the music and said ‘Right. But don’t play it anything like this’. I had to almost improvise around the passages that were written down for me, because he wanted that spontaneous feel with the music. So it was quite a challenge.”
Another challenge new to the 31-year-old was the rapid turnaround required when preparing a film score; with final drafts and corrections coming into the studio just as he was about to play, “you don’t have much time to learn the music!” he laughs.
The restrained romanticism of the solo violin, sensitively underscored by chamber orchestra, forms the “beating heart” of the film – a musical representation of Jane’s vulnerability, Rochester’s demons and the burgeoning passions between the two protagonists. Liebeck felt the music as a direct link to the emotional extremes of Charlotte Brontë novel.
“The violin goes between being very, very passionate and also being simple. It was wonderful to watch Dario work because he really feels the story in his music.” (Jenni Mills)

The film (or the DVD release) is reviewed by a few sites today:

A somber, passionate, powerfully involving adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s oft-filmed classic.(...) He sets the mood right, though — the sense of dark, fateful passions at work in every scene — and he proves himself as capable of elegance here as he was with grittiness in “Sin Nombre.” Best of all, Wasikowska (“Alice in Wonderland,” “The Kids Are All Right”) is an ideal Jane: quiet, but indomitable and more than equal to contending romantically with the arrogant, embittered Mr. Rochester (Fassbender). Extras include commentary by Fukunaga.(Bruce Ingram in Chicago Sun-Times)

Big Picture Big Sound takes special notice of the extras of the DVD/Blue-Ray:

Purists may pooh-pooh the movie version of Jane Eyre. After all, filmmakers had to take a few liberties to fit everything into the 121-minute runtime. They did so quite nicely, though. Mia and Michael also make for a beautiful couple, despite what they say on film (really?). It doesn't really matter what they say, however; they're hot enough to sell ice to the Eskimos. However, it's not just the way they look (remember, they aren't supposed to be a good looking pair), but that these two performances are pretty wonderful. (...)
The highlight of this release's extras is the in-depth commentary, courtesy of director Cary Fukunaga. Also, almost 17 minutes of deleted scenes should delight most fans of the book and the film. Besides those two items, the rest of the featurettes included with Jane Eyre are surprisingly short. "A Look Inside Jane Eyre" is really just that -- a look. It's actually more like an extended trailer, with scenes from the movie and a few comments from the cast and Fukunaga. At under four minutes, it pretty much says nothing, as do the two minutes dedicated to the music from the movie. Finally, "The Mysterious Light of Jane Eyre" isn't really all that mysterious, considering they sum everything up in under two minutes. (Rachel Cericola)

And About.com:

The movie tells the same story as the novel, but Brontë's narrative structure is drastically altered: the film relates almost the entire tale in flashback and focuses more on the relationship between Jane and Rochester, abridging the book's other parts. In terms of visuals, music and sound effects, this is very much a 21st-century movie, although its dialogue has a formality somewhat like the novel's. The film's settings are visually arresting and the naturalistic acting is convincing throughout, allowing viewers to become immersed in a timeless romantic drama.
Bonus Materials
The Jane Eyre DVD provides an audio commentary by director Cary Fukunaga, who mainly discusses technical aspects of making the film. He says they shot mostly in Derbyshire, about three hours out of London. He identifies some of the locations, including Haddon Hall, the finest surviving medieval manor house. He is hilarious when he imitates Orson Welles calling the name of the title character in the 1943 adaptation of Jane Eyre. And in mentioning that he chose to omit the novel's epilogue-like final chapter, he quotes the book's best-known sentence: "Reader, I married him."
The DVD contains nine deleted scenes with a total runtime of almost 17 minutes. In "Badminton in the Garden," we learn more about the little French-speaking girl said to be Rochester's ward. Another interesting deleted scene — a scene which seems significant in the novel — is "Bertha Rips Wedding Veil in Jane's Room." It's unclear why Fukunaga deleted these scenes, but it seems likely he did it as part of his grand scheme to tailor the story to 21st-century sensibilities. (Ivana Redwine)

There is a similarly fearlessness in other aspects of the production, with cinematographer Adrian Goldman (Sin Nombre) allowing some of the gloomy interior scenes to drop into near pitch black before bringing them slowly back by the flicker of candlelight. All this sets the mood for the ghost story that Jane Eyre seems to be when it isn’t a love story. This is the film’s least convincing element, particularly the final revelation, which is something that maybe worked in novel form but on screen seems to come completely left of field. In the end, lovers of the book won’t care and the Jane Eyre virgins out there, if they exist, might find themselves pleasantly surprised, and surprisingly wet-eyed. (Sean Rom in Trespass Magazine)

Mercifully short reviews posts about the movie and Period Drama Blog does a survey of different Jane Eyre adaptations.

We have a new Brontëite in town - Barry Wightman tells about his love of Jane Eyre (and remembers how some time ago he also enjoyed Wuthering Heights on a flight) on WUWM's Lake Effect. The book has also been read and loved by Jennifer's Loveshack! We cannot say the same about the Chinese YA writer Liu Jiayue who says on Qingdao(nese):

If you were on a desert island and could only have one book,which one would you want?
I’d like to have Pride and Prejudice. This is the book I’m reading recently and it’s rather interesting. But I don’t like books such as Wuthering Heights, it’s just too tedious. (Sunsa)

The Irish Times has an article about the seaside town of Kilkee and mentions Charlotte Brontë's honeymoon visit in 1854:

The town takes its name from Cill Chaoi, Caoidhe’s Church, and by the end of the 18th century when sea-bathing became a popular pastime, there were regular steam vessels operating on a daily basis between Limerick and Kilkee, giving rise to “the Kilkee Season”, and which drew many famous people of the day to the town. Among them were Charlotte Brontë, Rider Haggard, and the poet Alfred Tennyson. (Bob Montgomery)

Salt Lake City Week asks

If Salt Lake City builds a new theater, what play or musical would you want to see open it? (...)
Becca Andrus: Equus or Jane Eyre would be amazing! Death of a Salesman would be another top choice.

WWD shows how the fashion model Coco Rocha is a bit confused about who plays what and where:

“Oh, yeah, ‘Princess Diaries’ is one of my favorites,” [James] Conran offered of Hathaway’s résumé, rolling his eyes.
“I was a big fan when it came out,” Rocha said. “I’ve made him watch it a few times. I’m a girly girl. And I loved ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ You know, I’ve seen every ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ so of course I love Anne Hathaway. Oh, she wasn’t in that. ‘Jane Eyre?’” (Alessandra Codinha)

Broadway World announces an upcoming production of Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep in Creede, CO; a local Lee County student who read Wuthering Heights in summer in News-Express; Störstoff is looking for a heroine (Jane Eyre is not exactly the type); A Day in the Life reviews Jane Eyre 1949.

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