Brontë revival? The Brontës have never gone away (except for some evil nuns) ~ BrontëBlog

Blake Morrison, author of the theatre play We Are Three Sisters, writes a memorable, extraordinary article in The Guardian about "the rise of Brontëmania". He traces the origins, quotes from well-known biographical data and is able to summarise in an astonishing way more than 150 years of Brontë cult. Of course, not everyone/eveything is mentioned but there is space for Branwell and Anne, the Brontë Society, Juliet Barker or Lucasta Miller, The Brontës of Haworth and Yoshishige Yoshida's 1988 Onimaru, Aldous Huxley and Cliff Richard's Heathcliff ... Read it and keep it. Here are just a couple of excerpts:

More important is that the Brontë story remains unfinished; they may have been dead for more than a century and a half, but important new discoveries are still being made. Juliet Barker's magisterial 1994 biography ran to 1,000 pages. The revised edition, recently published in paperback, adds 150 more, in order to include finds such as a letter from Charlotte describing her wedding dress ("white I had to buy and did buy to my own amazement – but I took care to get it in cheap material … If I must make a fool of myself – it shall be on an economical plan"). An authoritative edition of Charlotte's letters has also appeared in recent years, and the extent to which she edited her sisters' poems – censoring and rewriting them – has begun to be understood. The holy grail for Brontëites would be the discovery of the manuscript that Emily might or might not have been working on when she died.
In its absence, some have suggested that Charlotte wilfully destroyed it, either from embarrassment at its sensational content or envy of its power. This looks no more plausible than the theory (first aired in the 1860s) that Branwell was the real author of Wuthering Heights. Prolonged exposure to Brontëana can cause Brontëmania, it seems. (...)
What is pleasing about the new films is that they highlight overlooked aspects of the novels. No one goes to the Brontës for humour, for example, but it's there in the banter between Jane and Rochester, and Moira Buffini 's screenplay brings it out. Still, excitable talk of a Brontë revival is beside the point, because the Brontës have never gone away. Elizabeth Gaskell has a memorable image of the three of them circling the Parsonage dining table at night, reading and discussing their work. They stopped their circling a century and a half ago, but the readings and discussion will never stop.

And of course, we have our daily dose of Jane Eyre 2011 reviews:
Yorskshire Post:

Purists may shriek at the film’s stylised approach, Fukunaga’s fondness for jolts and jumps, and the quasi Hammer Horror atmosphere that shrouds the action like an icy cloak. Yet that atmosphere is always authentic, always plausible, always acceptable. The acting and dialogue – Wasikowska, in particular, handles some particularly tricky lines without mangling the script – are a pleasure and underline the care and attention paid to the project. (...)
There is chemistry between the two principals but it remains tantalisingly out of reach. And when Rochester/Fassbender is off screen, the energy palpably dips. (...)
One setpiece moment is glaringly absent from this version of Jane Eyre. The build-up is there but the final revelation by Judi Dench (stealing the film and all the best lines as all-seeing housekeeper Mrs Fairfax) is a let-down of colossal proportions. (Tony Earnshaw)

The Sunday Times:

Given that there have been 16 big-screen versions of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre since 1910, and nine adaptations for television, I think we’re entitled to ask of this new version, directed by Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre), from a screenplay by Moira Buffini — do we really need another one?
The answer is yes, but only if we get a newish Jane who has something novel to show us. She's a 19th-century heroine who chimes perfectly with our contemporary preoccupations with class, social mobility and the end of deference.
Yet Jane is one of the heroines of Eng Lit that nobody — at least, film directors — dares mess with. Because of the love of her international fan base, she’s stuck in the past and badly needs the facelift an iconic character can get with a fresh reinterpretation. (...)
The film begins two thirds of the way through the story, as Jane (Mia Wasikowska) takes flight across a desolate and storm-lashed moor. It’s the standard plot, just not in the standard order. Jane finds sanctuary in the home of St John Rivers (Jamie Bell) and his family, and from there the backstory of her life unfolds. Her childhood is where Dickens and the modern misery memoir meet. The independent-minded 10-year-old Jane (Amelia Clarkson) is bullied by the son of her guardian, Mrs Reed (Sally Hawkins). She stands up to them and is exiled to boarding school, to suffer at the hands of sadistic nuns. (...)
And the young Australian actress Wasikowska certainly does her justice. There’s been a lot of talk lately about actresses who are too beautiful to play plain characters (Anne Hathaway in One Day is the most recent example.) Wasikowska is a beauty who can come across as totally plain. (And nobody can complain about her accent, unlike poor Hathaway’s.) She has the paleness of someone deprived of the essential nutrients of love, friendship and kindness.
The appeal of Rochester is a little harder to understand. In literature, such Byronic figures are dark and desirable; in life, they are dismissed by women as self-pitying drunks who need to pull themselves together. Unfortunately, Fassbender brings nothing new to Rochester: he growls, he broods and he has outbursts of bad temper, as you’d expect. (...) Fassbender, who was so seductively sexy in Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, gives us a Rochester who looks like a man in bad need of some Viagra.(...)
This is a wonderfully atmospheric Jane Eyre, one that wallows in isolation and is awash with late-night whispers in darkened rooms. Visually, it’s full of gothic goodies, but dramatically it’s a bit thin, considering the twists and turns in the plot. (...)
This new Jane Eyre is essentially your safe, soft, well-made, BBC-funded film of a literary classic. Don’t get me wrong, it’s extremely enjoyable. If only it were as brave as its heroine, it could have been exceptional.(Cosmo Landesman)

Charlotte Brontë must be turning in her grave knowing that Lowood School has been taken by evil nuns!

The Scotsman:

With gothic tales of forbidden love given a boost at the box-office recently on account of Twilight, it's hardly surprising that Jane Eyre has been wheeled out for its umpteenth adaptation. What is surprising is how vigorous and alive it feels. That's largely down to two things: 1) Sin Nombre director Cary Fukunaga injecting it with an energy that belies its status as a BBC production, and 2) the performances of Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender as, respectively, Jane Eyre and Rochester. Wasikowska is especially good as Jane, nailing the torment that comes from Jane's need to be free and her desire to submit to Rochester's advances. Looking plausibly plain amidst the fog-covered moors and gloomy interiors, Waskiowska projects an air of intelligence and resilience that ensures her own beauty doesn't rip us out of proceedings (her accent is pretty flawless too). The same can't quite be said for Fassbender, who may be too ruggedly handsome for purists to fully embrace, but he's very right for this film version, bringing as he does, a undercurrent of simmering sexual tension that makes Jane's turmoil more plausible and affecting. (Alastair Harkness)

Steve Rose in The Guardian is particularly perceptive:

It's customary with literary chestnuts like this to ask whether or not we really need another version. But would you rather have a remake of, say, Eat Pray Love? The power of the source material pulses anew here, thanks to some bold tweaks to the structure, elegantly restrained visuals, and, above all, two handsome, capable leads. And the mix between gothic gloom and slow-burning passion is just about right. So yes, we did need it.

The audience of the Film by the Sea Festival in the Netherlands (Vlissingen and Terneuzen) will be able to watch Jane Eyre (11-18 September).

More reviews: Unpopcult, Phoenix Square, The Squeee posts again about the movie adding a few rants, The Movie Blog, idFilm. A Russian review: The Epoch Times.

The Irish Times interviews Michael Fassbender:

By some reckonings, there have been 18 versions of Charlotte Brontë’s novel. But Mr Rochester – the sombre figure who employs, then overpowers the heroine – has rarely seemed quite so fleshy and angrily human. How on earth do you set about making sense of a near-mythological character? “Well, the first thing that struck me – and I don’t know if I’m on the right track – was the notion that he was quite bipolar. One moment he’s very disconnected and in a dark place and then you find somebody very engaged and excitable. He puts up these defences, so nobody can get at the bad places in his life. I really wanted to show that.” (Donald Clarke)

The Aberdeen Press and Journal presents the film with the usual quotes from Mia Wasikowska, Cary Fukunaga, Michael Fassbender...

The Yorskshire Post talks about a fundraising event which features a painting by Ashley Jackson: Top Withens:

Renowned Yorkshire artist Ashley Jackson is to take centre stage at a fundraising event in Bradford.
The Lord Mayor of Bradford, Councillor Naveeda Ikram, has invited people to attend a fundraising evening with the landscape painter to raise money for a hospice in the city.
People will be given a unique opportunity to meet, observe and listen to the Holmfirth-based watercolourist, whose brooding moorlands are synonymous with his native Yorkshire.
The event will be held in the Banqueting Hall, City Hall, on Thursday, December 8 from 7pm.
Tickets cost £12.50 per person, which will include a light supper and donation to the Lord Mayor’s Charity Appeal, which is this year supporting Marie Curie Cancer Care’s Bradford Hospice.
People can also buy raffle tickets to win a limited edition print by Jackson.
The print, valued at £300, depicts the derelict Top Withens farmhouse in Haworth, which is reputed to have inspired the location of Wuthering Heights in Emily Brontë’s classic novel.
Although there are no known records that state any reference to a Brontë connection to the farmhouse, stories have been passed down which suggest the ruins are connected to the novel. A plaque at the ruins explains the connection. (Andrew Robinson)

Noticine rescues Judi Dench (EE).

John Mullan's Ten of the best in The Guardian is about housekeepers in literature:

Mrs Fairfax In Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, the housekeeper at Thornfield is in fact one of her master's poor relations. "The present Mr Rochester's mother was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on the connection – in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper …".

The Independent interviews the food writer and blogger Niamh Shields:

A book that changed me... My mother used to buy me a book every week, starting off with Ladybirds and moving on to the great writers – I remember loving Jane Eyre, it really stood out. (Holly Williams)

Financial Times reviews the biography of Edward Burne-Jones, The Last Pre-Raphaelite by Fiona MacCarthy:

“We were as sure of him as we were of our own souls,” wrote Georgie’s brother. Initially, Burne-Jones adored the MacDonalds: poor, devout, close-knit, with a crowd of lively, loyal, very marriageable daughters – Georgiana’s nephews would include Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin. By the late 1860s, though, they were no match for the Greek clan of Maria Zambaco, a flamboyant divorcee who came to sit for a portrait and swept the shy Burne-Jones out of the earnest world of Middlemarch into something approaching Wuthering Heights. (Jackie Bullschlager)

TheaterJones interviews Cathy Tempelsman, playwright on A Most Dangerous Woman, about George Eliot

Was there ever a movement, after her death, to change the name on her novels to her real one?
The thing that I still find fascinating is that we know Jane Austen by her female name, and the Brontës and Louisa May Alcott, and they all used male pen names. But we still think of George Eliot as George Eliot. Most people don't know about Marian Evans. (Mark Lowry)

The Weekend Telegram is quite right when it says:

Some pointed out young people could read whatever they wanted online, from “Wuthering Heights” to the Playboy philosophy. (Ed Smith)

Correio da Manhã (Portugal) thinks that the story of Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira (1811-1896) is similar to Jane Eyre:

Dona Antónia é, além de uma figura mítica de dezenas de histórias orais do Douro, uma das figuras tutelares de uma indústria e de uma arte – ou seja, do Vinho do Porto e da agricultura do Douro. Sobre ela poderia escrever-se uma espécie de ‘Jane Eyre’ portuguesa, um romance feminista em contracorrente, modelado pela paisagem, pela agressividade dos homens (que o diga o duque de Saldanha, que perseguia sua filha Maria da Assunção), pela natureza do negócio e pela necessidade de uma agudíssima visão empresarial moderna que encontrasse solução para os problemas da vitivinicultura. (Francisco José Viegas) (Translation)

La Verdad (Spain) has a story more common than we can imagine:

Lo peor es que, con 18 o 20 horas, la enseñanza es y será un desastre. El otro día fui a comprar 'Jane Eyre' a una librería. Primera pregunta de la vendedora fruto de la ESO: «¿Es una novela?». Segunda, cuando no la encontraba: «Perdona ¿qué libro me has dicho de Pilar Eyre?» (Rosa Belmonte) (Translation)

Muziek (Netherlands) interviews Laura Marling:

“Zo werk ik altijd eigenlijk. De meeste ideeen ontstaan bij mij na het lezen van een goed boek dat me raakt. Ik lees graag oude Engelse literatuur. Vooral Jane Austen en de Brontë Sisters. Op het eerste gezicht lijken dat misschien doorsnee verhalen, maar ze hebben wel een soort van zwarte ondertoon. Ik laat het gelezene bezinken en ga er in gedachten met mezelf over in discussie. De inspiratie die daar weer uitkomt, nestelt zich in mijn onderbewustzijn. Later ontstaat daar dan weer een nieuw nummer uit”. (Anneke Ruis) (Translation)