Brontëmania is buzzing this week

Reviews of Jane Eyre 2011:

Muveez:

Using both the vistas of Derbyshire and a strikingly dark tone, director Cary Fukunaga (directing his follow up to the excellent Sin Nombre) brings a darker and angrier interpretation of the story than perhaps anyone before him. It is not quite the revolutionary, modern style the trailers implied, but the slow-burning tension is handled brilliantly. It is at it’s heart a costume drama, and has moments where the pace begins to sag, but it is nonetheless well executed. (James Luxford)

Hertfordshire Mercury:

Elegantly adapted for the screen by Moira Buffini, Jane Eyre condenses the source novel into two hours of yearning and regret.
Wasikowska and Fassbender lead an exemplary ensemble cast including Dench as a bustling maternal figure and Hawkins as a tight-lipped lady of the manor, who can turn a room icy cold with a single withering glance.
Fukunaga's camera sweeps over the foreboding locations, lashing his lead actress with enough wind and rain to match the emotional battering meted out by Mrs Reed and Mr Brocklehurst.

Whataculture!:

It isn’t really my job, though, to say why the movie does not achieve the greatness of the novel; this is practically a given. That Fassbender’s Rochester is nothing like the Rochester I have always imagined isn’t a fair criticism either. But on its own terms the movie needed to have a stronger central relationship and Rochester needed to be more than just a poor sap. After two scenes with Jane, we know how he feels about her. At no point does it  ever feel like he could be dangerous, and the difference in social positions never feels as important as it ought to. The film is certainly worth seeing, particularly for Wasikoska’s Jane, and for the many little details it gets just right. It’s surprising then that it falters when it comes to the dark gothic romance and melodrama for which the story is best remembered. (Adam Whyte)

News Shopper:

Derbyshire has never looked so bleak. Director Carey (sic) Fukunaga has shot it in washed out grey, a beautiful yet ultimately barren landscape where the wind howls and briars threaten every step.
Interiors are just as bleak: you can practically hear the creaking of the old timbers; this is a house in which the chill goes to the bone.(...)
The pace is impressively brisk (even if the running time still clocks in at two hours) but the abridgement does rob it of the emotional punch that its climactic scenes should have.
Nevertheless, this adaptation is a classy and well acted piece and well worth every rain-lashed thunderstorm. (Jez Sands)

Other reviews: Allentown DVD Examiner,  Life On the Breadline, Sew White,

My Daily interviews Jane Eyre 2011's costume design, Michael O'Connor and shows some of the original designs:

What inspired you when you were creating the costumes for Jane Eyre?
"Inspiration came firstly from Charlotte Brontë's novel and Jane's personal struggle. Inspiration also came from artists of the time including Ingres, Winterhalter and Mary Ellen Best also early victorian photographers such as Robert Adamson. i also found looking at original costumes to be very inspiring."  (...)
And when you're working on something like Jane Eyre, how important is historical accuracy?
"Historical accuracy was important to the project because it helped to keep a rule in terms of patterns of costume, making and the technique of making. The fun of projects like Jane Eyre is trying to understand the past. This doesn't mean that it restricts one totally but knowing how something was achieved and why can help with understanding the society of the time."
Lastly, what's your own favourite costume from the film?
"One of my favourite costumes is when, at the end of the film, Jane returns to Thornfield and wears a brown with ribbon print dress which was made from an imported american cotton print fabric based on prints of the time. She wears a bonnet made from a combination of antique and modern straw, fabricated in an openwork design to give it a lightness." (Philippa Warr)

Cinema Blend makes some Oscar nominations predictions. About Jane Eyre 2011:

This is more wishful thinking on the part of those of us who love this movie-- it's a really wonderful adaptation of a spooky and very affecting novel, but doesn't seem to have stuck much in the public consciousness. Both stars Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska have other projects coming this fall, and the best hope for Jane Eyre seems to be Costumes or Cinematography-- a hope I'll cling to as long as I can.  (Katey Rich)

Beauty And The Dirt gives away a Jane Eyre writing set + book.

The Birmingham Mail visits Scarborough:

I started one from Anne Brontë's burial place in St Mary's Churchyard, headed across Scarborough Castle and spent a few hours, walking across the sands. (Jasbir Uthi)

The Telegraph & Argus describes this very Brontë week:

Brontëmania is buzzing this week, with new film adaptations of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and the opening of a new play about the literary sisters by Skipton-born writer Blake Morrison. (Emma Clayton)

And The Independent analyses the British creative industry looking at the Brontës:

When a Yorkshire parson gave his children a set of wooden soldiers, he can't have known what he would unleash. First, there were games, then there were stories, and then hundreds of handwritten books. There was a kingdom called Gondal, and then a gypsy called Heathcliff, and then a governess called Jane. And then, 154 years after two books were published by two sisters under the names of two men, there was yet another film of Wuthering Heights, and yet another film of Jane Eyre, and yet another play about the daughters of the parson, all in the course of a week. (Christina Patterson)

The Huffington Post reviews the latest Paul Morrissey film, News from Nowhere.

In one of the films more memorable scenes, he asks her what she's reading, and she tells him "Jane Eyre - it's about a girl who's very unhappy, so she marries and older man." Looking away, she follows by asking what he thinks of younger women who wed men much older than them, and the camera panning between them makes for a few terrific frames of discomfort, longing, delivered in silence. (Michael Vazquez)

E Grade needs a classic in The Independent (Ireland):

To keep myself awake I lean backwards towards the 'literature' section and grab a novel. A nice classic to keep my mind occupied is what I need. Wuthering Heights or a biog.

The Jewish Journal is too optimistic when it says:

England in the 19th century had the Brontë sisters, but we’ve got the Ephrons. (Jonathan Kirsch)

The Yorkshire Post talks about the increasing problem of the theft of lead and other materials from churches over England. And Haworth is no exception:

In Haworth, historic home of the Brontës, the parish church and other heritage buildings have been targeted so often that the priest in charge fears that tourism and jobs could be put in jeopardy.

Just One More Page... reviews The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; badinage posts about Jane Eyre; Le Labo des expérimentations littéraires de Marc Ancel reviews Wuthering Heights (in French); The Squeee continues her Jane Eyre week with a post about North Lees Hall, a review of The Forbidden Innocent and an eyes Eyre quiz;  Maddalena De Leo has uploaded to YouTube a dozen or more short videos of different moments of the recent Brontë Society Conference held in Cambridge.

Categories: Brontë Society, Jane Eyre, Haworth, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights