Overwhelming Humanity, Charged Emotion and... Erotic Potential

More (mostly) Australian reviews of Jane Eyre 2011. A negative one by the Sydney Morning Herald / Brisbane Times:

Regrettably, the latest in the never-ending quest for the perfect screen adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's signature classic - it's been remade more than Pride and Prejudice - is a stilted, dry, unimaginative affair designed purely to please fans but not to win over any new ones. Mia Wasikowska is the emotionally stunted heroine who must overcome the strictures of her time and assert her right to freedom from conventions that would prefer she remain socially and morally inert. As far as polite, undemanding, unadventurous, slavishly faithful book-to-film enterprises go, this Jane Eyre is hard to fault: the scenery is pretty; the costumes are pretty; Michael Fassbender (as Rochester) is pretty; even Wasikowska is pretty, though she's supposed to be a plain-looking proto-feminist. But the direction by Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre) is real by-the-numbers rote; there's scant spark to the performances or the cinematography, leaving very little to engage those who haven't already decided to love the movie before going in. Select. (Jim Schembri)

News.com.au:

Director Cary Fukunara and screenwriter Moira Buffini have very skilfully truncated Brontë's hefty novel without losing any of its essential force.
The shifting ground beneath Jane and Rochester's rocky relationship is expertly handled by Wasikowska and Fassbender, who click on levels beyond those found in regulation costume drama.
Like its implacable heroine, this impeccable version of Jane Eyre will not rest until certain truths are dispensed, certain lies are dismissed, and certainty as a whole is achieved. (Leigh Paatsch)

ABC (Brisbane) (the casting is obviously wrong, it's Rise of the Planet of the Apes):

The story is a little too compact at times but the exquisite performance of Australian Mia Wasikowska (Alice In Wonderland) makes this film stand out. Through her timid demeanour, she beautifully illustrates the tortured, fragile nature of her character. Those who have experienced the perils of unrequited love will know exactly how she feels.
With its striking set decoration and costumes, director Cary Fukunaga has crafted a worthy adaptation of Brontë's novel. This will be enjoyed by those with a fondness for period piece romances. (Matthew Toomey)

The Morton Report talks about the film and other "real housewives of Old England":

Jane (born: 1847)
Jane Eyre would so flop on reality TV. For starters, she's thoughtful and penniless, but what a backstory! Hated by her mean aunt and bullied by a cruel cousin, she finally meets kind friend when she's dispatched to an orphanage, only to see her best friend die young. No matter the adversity, you won't see Jane Eyre bawling in public. Director Cary Fukunaga creates a sense of place and draws understated performances by Wasikowska and Fassbender. Earlier versions paired Charlotte Gainsbourg with William Hurt, while the black and white oldie cast Orson Welles as Rochester opposite Joan Fontaine.
Cathy (born: 1847)
Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights heroine married the wrong person and we all know how painful that can be. Cathy gives birth and dies. Handsome Heathcliff, left behind, is haunted by her ghost. Kate Bush explained it best years ago when she sang “Wuthering Heights” on her The Kick Inside album. Juliette Binoche fired up the tragic chemistry with Ralph Fiennes in 1992's Wuthering Heights, while Laurence Olivier went dark as Heathcliffe (sic) opposite Merle Oberon in the 1939 melodrama. (Hugh Hart)

Newcastle Herald (Australia):

Handsomely filmed, elegantly acted and shrewdly re-constructed from the book using flashbacks to weave together the sprawling story, this Jane Eyre savours Brontë’s brooding undercurrent of angst while retaining its essential romantic heart.
Wasikowska makes a perfect Jane, a heroine the author famously described as “plain and small”.
The actress adopts a minimalist approach. Her pale skin, tight-lipped frown, watchful stare and severely parted hair, together with mostly drab outfits, make for muted emotion.
There is simple elegance in her method although, as invigorating as her exchanges with Fassbender are, Wasikowska’s portrayal is in danger of appearing inert at times.
This means the erotic potential of that initial fireside exchange never flames as vividly as you would hope.
Fassbender, the German-born Irish actor last seen levitating submarines in X-Men: First Class, makes a captivating heartbreaker, swinging with ease between menace, vulnerability and melancholy.
Director Cary Joji Fukunaga (in his second feature after the engrossing Sin Nombre) makes the most of marvellous backdrops and settings.
And his interior scenes chill just so, as creaking floorboards and howling wind outside bring the goosebumps.
This Jane Eyre is not a radical re-do or a provocative re-think, rather a well-appointed revival. (James Joyce)

DVDVeredict says about the DVD release:

The DVD is solid, Universal providing a standard def presentation that honors the film's classy look. There's a decent amount of bonus features too, most prominently a commentary with Fukunaga. It's an acceptable track, answering many of the questions you'd want a filmmaker to assess when they tackle such a weighty adaptation. A few deleted scenes don't really expand on the movie at large, but a set of featurettes included are definitely worth a peek. I could've done without the one which masturbates over the movie's unremarkable soundtrack, but on the whole these are appropriate bedfellows for the superior commentary. (...) Jane Eyre is competent and perfectly watchable, though far from one of 2011's best films. (Daniel Kelly)

The Christian Science Monitor, Lafayette Journal  & Courier and the South Philly Review recommend the DVD. The film is also mentioned in the St George & Sutherland Shire Leader and reviewed on Cinema Autopsy and Nocturnal Book Reviews.

The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch reports another performance by Frédéric Chaslin of his Gypsy Dance piano suite (adapted from his own opera) at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival:

Wednesday, August 3, 2011 / 12 noon
Location: St. Francis Auditorium, Santa Fe
Program: MOZART Quintet for Piano & Winds, K.452CHASLIN “Gypsy Dance” from the opera Wuthering Heights
POULENC Sextet for Piano & Winds
Artists: Frédéric Chaslin, Bart Feller, Gabrielle Finck, Robert Ingliss, Todd Levy, Theodore Soluri
The middle work was Chaslin alone, in every sense, as he soloed in the “Gypsy Dance” from his opera “Wuthering Heights,” a technically challenging, engaging piece, exceptionally well played. (Sarah Bryan Miller)

The Santa Fe Reporter says:

With the composer at the piano, Chaslin’s exuberant “Gypsy Dance” from his 2010 opera, Wuthering Heights, recalled every many-splendored Hungarian rhapsody you’ve ever heard. (John Stege)

Whatsonstage is excited about the upcoming premiere in Salford of the play We Are Three Sisters by Blake Morrison:

Northern Broadsides are touring the UK in the Autumn with Blake Morrison’s play We are Three Sisters which arrives at the Lowry next month.
Against the backdrop of a dark, remote northern town, three remarkable young women live their lives brightly. Haworth 1840s; in a gloomy parsonage where there are neither curtains nor comforts, Charlotte, Anne and Emily Brontë light up their world with outspoken wit, aspirations, dreams and ideas. And throughout their confined lives intensely lived…. they write.
Anyone who has read a Brontë novel cannot fail to be stirred by their overwhelming humanity, charged emotion and brooding, prescient unease with the status quo.

You can check this preview video on YouTube:

Interviews with the creators and cast of the forthcoming Northern Broadsides production "We Are Three Sisters", following the read-through at the Brontë Sisters home in Haworth. Music by Conrad Nelson.b

In a recurring reference, Australian Stage mentions the Brontës as one of the inspirations of Chekhov's Three Sisters (which is one of the main references of We Are Three Sisters):

Inspired by the plight of the Brontë sisters, Anton Chekhov’s play Three Sisters is about the decay of the privileged class and the search for significance.(Stephen Davenport)

Foyles reviews Nom de plume by Carmela Ciuraru:

That [Anne] Rice deliberately dropped her male sounding name [Howard] for something distinctly more feminine tells how far the literary world has come since Ellis, Acton and Currier Bell, aka Emily, Anne and Charlotte Brontë thought up their pen names merely in order to be published. Of course they are now known by their actual names, unlike perhaps the most famous female-male pseudonym - George Eliot. Although writing in the Victorian era when female novelists were accepted, Mary Ann Evans chose to stick to her pen name as she felt she was more likely to be taken seriously as a male writer. (Rachel)

Women24 looks for the hottest fiction couples:

From Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, to Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester, and Scarlett and Rhett from Gone with the Wind… These romantic reads (regardless of whether or not they're contemporary or classics) have proven that it's all about the characters, not just the story. (Tammy February)

Tomorrow's Prom is devoted to film music and The Telegraph highlights the pieces by Bernard Herrmann:

Excerpts from these and two other great Herrmann scores will be heard in the film music Prom tomorrow. It’s the tiniest fraction of Herrmann’s vast output, which also includes dozens of “classical” works, including an opera based on Wuthering Heights. (Herrmann was a fanatical enthusiast for all things English.) (Ivan Hewett)

A teacher in the Connecticut Post talks about some of her students:

Or Sudie Simmons, Yale University, who wanted to supplement our curriculum and asked which novel would supply a more suitable heroine-as-role-model: Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights? Seriously? Oh, gentle reader, Jane Eyre, hands down. Sudie loved it. (Julie Roneson)

City Island Trailer posts about Jane Eyre 1944; Charabistouilles... (in French) reviews Wuthering Heights; Novelreader16 reviews Jane Eyre on YouTube.

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