"This is what Brontë was getting at"

Jane Eyre 2011 is coming to British and Irish screens and we have lots of news outlets just talking one way or the other about it:
First, reviews:
Financial Times (5 out of 5 stars):

Of course if there’s one thing every English nun (and schoolgirl) knows, it’s that a good Mr Rochester is worth a thousand middle-rank Heathcliffes. But a good Jane there has never been – until now.
Mia Wasikowska, a 21-year-old Australian, is the only actress to date whose soul seems to assent when Rochester calls her his spirit, his elf, a creature left by gypsies to tempt him from his banal misanthropy into something braver. Jane (...) is literature’s favourite plain girl, and in some moments Wasikowska does look correctly plain. (...)
So much of this Jane Eyre is flawless. Dialogue wisely lifted wholesale (...) and the score, which sounds like Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending and is never used when people are speaking to boorishly nudge us towards how to feel. But the young Californian director’s greatest achievement is the incredible trick he plays with time: in 120 minutes Cary Fukunaga makes us comprehend the tragic depth and length of Jane’s young life. (...)

Several times you consciously think: “This is it – this is what Brontë was getting at.” (Antonia Quirke)

CineVue (5 out of 5 stars):

Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre stands out on a number of levels. As well as boasting a star-studded cast - with the likes of Hawkins and Judi Dench playing cameo roles - Wasikowska perfectly captures Jane’s sexual and emotional awakening, a major theme in the book and one that is notoriously difficult to convey on film. Fukunaga also retains the darkness of Brontë's original story through a careful combination of muted colour, harsh landscapes and eerily dark interiors. Veering towards Jane’s feminist, rather than romantic, side brings to the fore her desire for respect, equality and freedom and gives a contemporary resonance to the film. (Lucy Popescu)

Daily Express (3 out of 5 stars):

However, if the characters had my sympathy in this well-made but dour adaptation, they never captured my heart, in part because there’s little fun or pleasure to be had in the romance - it’s all rather too brisk and businesslike with lots of terse, quick-fire exchanges that play more like a relationship version of The Apprentice.
What will the moody Mr Rochester’s verdict be? You’re hired or you’re fired? There’s a chilliness and remoteness to both characters that meant I didn’t really care about the outcome, compounded by a lack of chemistry between the stars, although things eventually click in the moving final scene.
Directed with rather stark naturalism by Cary Joji Fukunuga (Sin Nombre), I doubt anyone’s going to fall in love with this version but it’s a commendable addition to the canon that does a good job of condensing the story.

The Guardian (3 out of 5 stars):

But I found the handling of two other famously dramatic episodes – the wedding scene and the Bertha Mason outcome – rather brisk, especially compared with the unhurried way the rest of the film dwells on the countryside, and Jane's extremely lonely and frustrated place in it. There are some wonderful images. Often, Jane's yearning and passion is dramatically displaced into the keening of a single violin in Dario Marianelli's orchestral score. But, to my eye, the wedding and the Bertha sequence, are taken at a jog, especially compared to the melodramatic emphasis that adaptations traditionally give to these moments.
Fukunaga and screenwriter Moira Buffini have undoubtedly done a really classy job with this Jane Eyre; I can't fault it, and yet I can't quite get excited about it either. Others might find its note of cerebral restraint the key factor that distinguishes it from all the other buttons-and-bows teatime drama versions of Jane Eyre, and this is certainly something to be welcomed. But I kept waiting for a blaze of emotion of between Jane and Rochester, and it somehow never quite came. The thunderstorms and downpours of the book, and the emotional tempest of the proposal scene itself: these are all faintly masked and muted. (Peter Bradshaw)

RTÉ (4 out of 5 stars):

It's never easy to squeeze such a multi-layered story into a two-hour feature (Dalton's BBC production had the luxury of a five-hour running time) but a combination of Moira Buffini's deft screenplay, Fukunaga's eye for the landscape, and a raft of strong performances compensate for the inevitable shortfalls. (Michael Doherty)

Sky News (4 out of 5):

Critics will say the film misses out too much of the book but it’s a necessary sacrifice that allows the romance room to breathe. Some will no doubt also argue that Fassbender is too good-looking. Somehow we doubt Charlotte Brontë would object.
A bleak but charmingly intimate film, this is about as far from Pride and Prejudice as period drama gets.   Wasikowska probably won’t win an Oscar because the strength of her performance lies in just how unassuming it is – but she should. (Francesca Steele)

indieLondon (4 out of 5 stars):

[The] film is extremely atmospheric and unsettling, even, in some of its Gothic leanings, while simultaneously relying on a deliberately understated approach to the emotional content. (...)

So, while this Jane Eyre might be too romantically reserved for those who like their costume dramas to be overly verbose and prone to grand gesture, Fukunaga’s film is notable for not relying on formula and pandering to genre expectation.
It is a striking film in its own way that enhances Fukunaga’s reputation as a very exciting filmmaking talent to watch.

Oxford Mail (the same article appears in The Telegraph & Argus but signed by Damon Smith).

With a single mournful look into the camera, [Mia Wasikowska] conveys all of the unspoken desires and shattered dreams of a young woman, who has survived as much by her wits as by good fortune.
Michael Fassbender proves a sexy and brooding Rochester, who falls under Jane’s spell but conceals a terrible, dark secret. (...)
Elegantly adapted for the screen by Moira Buffini, Jane Eyre condenses the source novel into two hours of yearning and regret. (Jeremy Smith)

The Telegraph:

Another Jane Eyre? It’s fine to ask why, since we’ve had at least as many adaptations as the Brontës had hot dinners. Cary Fukunaga’s new Jane, far from plain, supplies all its own answers. They are: because of the light. Because of Mia Wasikowska. Because of Michael Fassbender. Because the relationship feels so singular between them, and somehow fresh, and tangible. And because it respects the book lavishly without following it blindly. (...)
Fukunaga is impressively disinclined to show off as a director – he has a quiet faith in everything at his disposal, from Michael O’Connor’s persuasive costumes to the bluish light and overcast elegance of Adriano Goldman’s cinematography. (...)
Even so, the film lives or dies by its Jane and Rochester, and I’m inclined to say that the Wasikowska/Fassbender duet puts all others to shame – they are leaps and bounds better than Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine in the 1944 film.  (Tim Robey)

Movies.ie (3 out of 5)

Given that this is the 1,746th screen adaptation of Brontë's 1847 novel, it's admirable to see director Fukunaga (who came to notice with his Mexican immigrant tale Sin Nombre in 2009) take such a stark and near-silent approach to such a wordy and worthy classic. He's aided and abetted enormously in his task, of course, by a taut script from Moira Buffini (Tamara Drewe, Neil Jordan's upcoming Byzantium), but, most importantly, by two exciting and enticing leads. Fassbender, in particular, is darkly seductive as Rochester[.] (Paul Byrne)

Islington Tribune (3 out of 5):

There is clearly nothing wrong, nor bad about this very faithful, carefully handled film, though it’s not much of an improvement on the 1996 version starring William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsbourg. (...)
It’s just that it is so gloomy, candle-lit and historically spot on that you feel a horribly Victorian burden weighing you down throughout. (...)
This hefty manuscript is well handled by director Fukunaga and Mia Wasikowska is a super Jane Eyre.

Daily Mail (2 out of 5 stars): (this review is particularly puzzling as the critic seems to have seen a rather different film than the rest of us):

Here, alas, Jane is rather plain.
The film is decently acted, well photographed and sumptuously costumed — but dry, drab and a little dull. (...)
Rather than follow the novel’s linear storyline, screenwriter Moira Buffini (who also adapted Tamara Drewe) makes an ill-judged decision to start late on in the narrative, with Jane Eyre (Mia Wasikowska) running away, weeping and traumatised, from Mr Rochester’s great house.
This means that much of the film takes place in emotionally distancing flashback. (...)
Michael Fassbender plays him naturalistically, rather than as a broodingly Byronic, scarily Gothic anti-hero. (...)
Wasikowska, almost as stiff as she was in Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, plays her as starchy and unappealing. (Chris Tookey)

More reviews: Close-Up,  Little White Lies, SonicFilm, Dans Movie Insights.

And now some miscelanea articles about the film: The Guardian publishes a video interview with Cary Fukunaga and Mia Wasikowska. BBC News has a brief video visiting Haworth and talking with Andrew MacCarthy, director of the Brontë Parsonage Museum and Margaret Sisley, from the The Apothecary Tea Rooms (Abigail's Ateliers posts about her appearance on the recording); omg! posts a video interview of Jamie Bell. Sussex Living Magazine informs of a charity preview screening of Jane Eyre in Uckfield.

UK Press Association talks with Mia Wasikowska:

Mia Wasikowska has revealed how fate may have played a hand in her getting the coveted role of Jane Eyre. (...)
Explaining how she got the role, Mia said: "I started reading the book in 2009. I was halfway through the novel when I emailed my agent and asked if there was a project planned, because I thought it would be an incredible role to play."(...)
"What I love about her character is, despite all the hardship she faces throughout her life, she has this innate sense of self-respect and an incredible ability to do what's right by herself as an individual," Mia said.

Vogue also interviews Mia Wasikowska (video):

Mia Wasikowska may have been able to relate to her new film role - Jane Eyre - in most ways, but she wasn't so keen on her clothes.
"They were so uncomfortable," she explained. "Honestly, they were awful. They were fantastic for the role because they really helped me to understand the repression and restriction the women of that time went through. I really admired Jane though, she's such an individual thinker. She never compromises, which I think is pretty cool."

Get Hampshire asks the producer, Alison Owen:

Owen added: “It’s timely in that Charlotte Brontë, seen as ‘the darker sister’ when compared to Emily and Anne Brontë, is being rediscovered much like Jane Austen was nearly 20 years ago.
“As a producer, I make sure to have general meetings with my favourite writers all the time. Right after I’d thought about Jane Eyre, I was meeting with Moira Buffini. I happened to mention it and it turned out to be one of Moira’s favorite books, if not her favourite.” (...)
“Moira’s stroke of genius was that instead of abbreviating or losing this part entirely, which previous adaptations have done, she put it right at the beginning and turned the novel’s early sections of the young Jane at Lowood and her initial days at Thornfield into flashbacks. Therefore, midway through the third act, we catch up with Jane and you get the emotional punch of being in real time at the end as she comes to terms with everyone and everything.”
Buffini said: “I hope this will please the many who love the book. While we may not be faithful to the original structure, our version does include every key stage of Jane’s story. Giving the complete picture was also meant to help the uninitiated, those coming to this story for the first time, to understand and identify with Jane all the more.” (Louise Osborne)

ScreenDaily interviews the writer, Moira Buffini:

I absolutely loved it. It was spending every day in my favourite book. I found it such a satisfying creative exercise. There is one scene in the novel between Jane and Rochester which goes on for 16 pages and so I had to convert that into a filmically digestable scene, which was an enormously satisfying challenge. (...)
If you know the book you will know that the structure is different. I got two thirds of the way through writing the first draft and thought, this is never going to work to follow the narrative structure of the book. Introducing the Rivers family as entirely new characters two thirds of the way through the film would drag it down. So I knew I had to put the Rivers’ story at the beginning so that it’s almost told by the time you come back to them. Then the pace of the film doesn’t collapse and sag.
Most of the dialogue is a distilled version of what’s in the book. The language in the book is beautiful and I really wanted to honour it. (Sarah Cooper)

IndieLondon publishes a long, interesting interview with Cary Fukunaga:

Q. I read there’s a two and a half hour cut. Is that likely to be shown?
Cary Fukunaga: No. As protocol, you do a director’s cut, which is your first pass, and then you work with the studio to bring the cut down to a watchable length. It remained at two hours pretty much throughout post. We cut out a half an hour pretty quickly once we started doing test screenings. It tested well, so we’d go through and make sure that each scene was the best take or the best balance. I’ve watched the deleted scenes and they’re good scenes but in the overall context of the film they upset the balance I was talking about between the horror and the romance. So, even though a scene in isolation maybe good, it doesn’t work for that moment in the story and there’s nowhere else to put it. (Rob Carnevale)

The Evening London Standard interviews Michael Fassbender:

Jane Eyre remained faithful to its time, with a restrained approach to passion "where even touching a hand was much more of a breach of someone's space". (Louise Jury)

And so does Associated Press:

"I started reading, I was like 'God for me he comes across as very bipolar,'" Fassbender told The Associated Press. "He can be so distant, and sort of closed off and isolated really, even in a room full of people, and then he could be so connected and so sort of emotionally excitable, I thought that was something that could be played with." (...)
"I really wanted to show how this sort of abrupt and harsh exterior is really hiding somebody who needs some help," he said. "I really wanted to show how important Jane was to him and how much he actually needs her more than she needs him." (Dana Palamara)

The Matlock Mercury talks about the special screening at Haddon Hall; The First Post quotes from the US critical response to the film. Entertainment Focus also gives away a Jane Eyre writing set; iVillage publishes a new featurette.

The previous Jane Eyre adaptations are briefly summarised by The Telegraph. Not all of them but they talk about the 1934, 1944, 1973, 1983, 1996 and 2006 ones.

Maybe it's a bit too much too describe Wuthering Heights as a ghost story but The Telegraph says:

Most writers worth their salt have succumbed, if only briefly, to the supernatural. Consider Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. Tolstoy, Thackeray and Dickens all wrote the occasional ghost story. (Fay Weldon)

Rosemary McLeod in Bay of Plenty Times (New Zealand) is one of the reasons why a website like this exists:

Fashion in everything changes: yesterday's hot novelist is already yesterday's news. I doubt that anyone much reads Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Thackeray or George Eliot, once compulsory reading, anymore, and Jane Austen probably only gets read because they keep making cheesy costume dramas out of her wry novels.

We exist to show the Rosemary McLeods of the world that fortunately, they are wrong and their ode to illiteracy is taken not as an irreverent boutade but as what it really is - plain dumbness.


The Huffington Post publishes a 9/11 story by Rachel Waugh with a Brontë reference:

In my youth, I identified with Jane Eyre, but I longed to dance with the kids from Fame. An alien in my own country, I felt most at home in a movie theater, preferably watching a Woody Allen film. When I finally left London, it was for the New York City of Holly Golightly, and for many years, that's where I thought I lived. Then came 9/11.

We recommend a copy of Charlotte Brontë, you ruined my life to the actress Sue Johnston. In the Yorkshire Post:

“At 11 I was reading Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, featuring these glowering passionate men that I’ve been in search of ever since. The Brontës and Jane Austen have a lot to answer for – for years I thought you were defined by having a ring on your finger.” (Sheena Hastings)

Either she has forgotten what she read by the Brontës, misread the books or never read them at all, we think.

Jon Paul Morosi in Fox Sports doesn't seem to be a Brontëite:

According to Lee Jenkins’ excellent Sports Illustrated cover story on the Brewers, Milwaukee reliever LaTroy Hawkins has told Morgan to read his tweets three times before hitting the send button. But if Morgan read that one three times, then I read "Wuthering Heights" three times.

The Riverdale Press informs of the present status of Charlotte Brontë Villa in Riverdale, after the Irene evacuation; The Squeee reviews Jane Eyre 2006; the recent Brontë Society Conference: The Brontës and the Bible is present both on a Brussels Brontë Blog post and with more videos uploaded by Brontëana1.

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