Lady Gaga's Attic Ladies

More 2011 lists which feature Jane Eyre 2011:

The prospect of a yet another adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's famed and beloved novel isn't exactly the most exciting idea, but toss in "Sin Nombre" director Cary Fukunaga and give him Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska to play the leads and suddenly, you've got our attention. And the movie more than rewarded the curious and Brontë fans alike. Imbued with gothic atmosphere, deeply sensual and borderline erotic, and powered by two fierce lead performers who gave it their all both on camera and off, "Jane Eyre" not only distinguished itself from its predecessors, it may have set a new benchmark. The biggest hurdle these kinds of movies generally face is the archaic language structure and delivery combined with outdated social mores that make it difficult for contemporary audiences to connect with it. But somehow, not only does the director and his actors embrace the formality of that time, they overcome it, finding the wrenching and roiling emotions simmering beneath the veneer and wildly different stations that society forces them to engage from. Words sting, looks burn and the distance within a single room can be measured for miles, and in Fukunaga's hands, Brontë has never been more beautiful or more tragic. (Kevin Jagernauth in IndieWire's The Playlist)

This passionate yet intelligent new reading of Charlotte Bronte’s timeless mid-19th-century tale of cruelty, ambition, love and betrayal seems fresher and more relevant today than any number of recent romantic films set in the 21st century. Mia Wasikowska (“Alice in Wonderland”) is superb in a revelatory performance as Jane, who thinks of herself as “plain” and dresses and wears her hair accordingly, but has a fierce intelligence and wit to go with her iron will. Michael Fassbender smolders appropriately as Rochester.  (Harper Barnes in St. Louis Beacon)

There was also his turn as Mr. Rochester in the top notch "Jane Eyre." (Alexis Hauk in South Coast Today)

If the pairing of charismatic Michael Fassbender and resolute Mia Wasikowska can’t get you to watch the most understated, spookily desolate (and also tense, fiery and erotic) adaptations in the long line of gothic Eyre adaptations, I don’t know what can. (Nathalie Atkinson in National Post)

I enjoyed this adaptation from "Sin Nombre" director Cary Fukunaga. Mia Wasikowska is always a delight, and Michael Fassbender brings on the sexual energy. (Manny the Movie Guy in KMIR6 Palm Springs)

And Gapers Block, NRC (Netherlands), Film-Dienst (Germany), Montages (Norway) and Vulture Hound Magazine.

The Irish Independent considers Wuthering Heights 2011 one of the worst films of the year:

Andrea Arnold's profanity-strewn Wuthering Heights was pretty offensive[.] (P. Whitington)

The Times interviews Kaya Scodelario:

Costume drama is a long way from Skins — which tends more to uncostumed drama — but Kaya Scodelario made a brave leap from teenage television into the dark when she took the part last year of Cathy in Wuthering Heights. This was no ordinary Brontë remake: it was directed by Andrea Arnold,  who has a reputation for concrete high-rise social realism after Red Road and Fish Tank, and Scodelario was thrown in at the muddy deep end in Yorkshire. “There were no rain machines,” she shudders. “It was all real.” The script was stripped of most dialogue; Scodelario was stripped of any make-up and told to say lines “in my head”. Plus she had to work with three untrained actors, including James Howson as the first black Heathcliff. Scodelario says: “I’ve never met anyone like Andrea before. There was no real audition – she just draws you in. There’s no clapperboard, no marks, but you just fall into her rhythm. In the end the silent takes were my favourite thing. You relax. It’s like meditation.” There were rave, rather surprised, reviews of her performance in Wuthering Heights. The film won best cinematography at the Venice Film Festival, where Scodelario walked the red carpet for the first time. (Kate Muir)

This article in the Daily Post about hyperemesis gravidarum is partly quite right (although the four months detail is not really known):

In 1855 English novelist and poet, Charlotte Brontë died four months into her first pregnancy aged just 38.
According to her earliest biographer, she was attacked by “sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness.” Although her death certificate gives a cause as phthisis (tuberculosis), many writers suggest she may have died from dehydration and malnourishment, caused by excessive vomiting from severe morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum (HG). (Kelly Williams)

And partly... not. No diary we are afraid, just mentions in letters:

The eldest Brontë sister penned her sufferings in a diary, in which she described her days and nights spent being sick with no reprieve at all. (Kelly Williams)

Hollywood.com reviews Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) :

There’s an element of honesty, of taking these embarassing girl truths at face value and just laughing at them, accepting the simultaneous mundane reality, urgent importance and complete absurdity of what it means to be the type of girl who doesn’t always say the right thing, or nab the mega babes, or do anything that can be deemed remotely cool (oh except getting a role and a writing job on a little sitcom called The Office, but who’s counting that, Kaling doesn’t understand one night stands and worries that she’ll be a Jane Eyre attic lady forever like the rest of us secret dorks).

The column by Jennifer Wells in The Toronto Star contains a Brontë reference:

My unearthed diary is of no help. Charlotte Brontë I wasn’t.

A grastonomical reference in The Seattle Times:

For the soup course I would pair Marché's Quenelles en Nage, delicate chicken dumplings in an intense chicken and celeriac potage, with Artusi's tripe, a brooding, long-simmered, marrow-rich stew. Catherine, meet Heathcliff. (Providence Cicero)

The Bette Midler-Lady Gaga mermaid-in-a-wheelchair controversy (we are serious, please) deserves a Brontë comment in The Sydney Morning Herald:

We eagerly await Gaga straddling a naval cannon - a la Cher - or balletically flinging herself around the misty British countryside in homage to Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights video.

Biobiochile (Chile) highlights the poster of Jane Eyre 2011:

La tipografía le entrega un encanto al cartel, que no entrega una visión clara sobre lo que veremos ¿será romance? ¿será drama o intriga? Sea como sea, es llamativo y te hace querer comprar la entrada al cine. (Nicole Villagra) (Translation)

Página 12 (Argentina) devotes an article to the photographer Francesca Woodman:

También se la ha puesto bajo la lupa en nombre del arte conceptual, de la relación entre literatura y performance, del posmodernismo, del simbolismo. Incluso están los que sugieren que FW pertenece a la tradición del “gótico americano”, sosteniendo la opinión en su amor incondicional por Jane Eyre, observando cierto aire espeluznante y espectral en sus piezas. (Guadalupe Treibel) (Translation) 

Delfio (Ukraine) interviews the dancer Tatyana Denisov:

Татьяна, Вы были судьей двух танцевальных проектов канала СТБ - "Танцуют все!" и "Танцы со звездами". Атмосфера какого из них Вам ближе?
Конечно, "Танцуют все!"! В проекте "Танцы со звездами" я бы гораздо органичнее чувствовала себя в роли ведущей! Ох уж эти звезды - не знаешь, что им сказать - то расплачутся, то разозлятся. Детский сад. (Translation)

Oh No They Didn't! lists several actors in costume dramas including Tom Hardy's Heathcliff and Michael Fassbender's Rochester; Emily Sparkles and Deutschland Radio Kultur (in German) review Wuthering Heights; Poesie des Alltags  (in German) and Huelva Información (in Spanish) review Jane Eyre 2011; Diario Córdoba (Spain) traces a profile of a judge and, apparently, a Brontëite.

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2011. A Brontë year in Images

Our traditional summary of the year in images (and with a little help from the wonders of Picasa 3.9):

The Brontë year in... books:

In Cinema/DVD Releases/TV:

In Arts:

In Theatre (including radio productions) and Dance:

In Music and an Opera:

2011. In Memoriam:

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Lists and Lists

Brenda Niall reviews Georgette Heyer by Jennifer Kloester in the Sidney Morning Herald:

I managed to borrow another dozen of Heyer's novels. Perhaps they made a bridge to Jane Austen, and to Charlotte Brontë, whose Jane Eyre is an obvious model for Heyer's sensible young women and moody men.

Reuters talks about metal thefts and the Haworth Parish Church is mentioned as a repeated victim:

The church in the Yorkshire village of Haworth where the authors and sisters Charlotte and Emily Brontë are buried has launched an appeal for cash to fix its roof, whose repeated targeting by lead thieves has hastened its disrepair.

"It's a problem in rural England. These people have free rein to go pretty much undetected. We have a very small police presence. Our neighbourhood policing team are great but there's only so much they can do .... We're easy pickings," said John Huxley, chairman of Haworth Parish Council. (Mohammed Abbas)

More best-of-2011 lists which feature Jane Eyre 2011:

This is another of the most overlooked movies of 2011 and another for which the public seemed to question its existence. "Really?" they seemed to ask. "Do we need another movie based on Charlotte Brontë's governess in Victorian England?"
We do when it makes the pulse quicken, the heart palpitate and the eyes moisten at watching this adaptation of Bronte's tale of ill-fated romance in England from 150 years ago. Her story feels more alive now than ever and works on three levels: love story, social commentary and Gothic thriller.
As Jane, Mia Wasikowska should be considered a best actress candidate. Meanwhile, as Mr. Rochester, Michael Fassbender is officially the Next Big Thing on the men's side of Hollywood. This is his great performance of 2011, which also includes another film on my list, as well as "Shame" and "A Dangerous Method," both of which are expected to open in Tulsa in January. (Michael Smith in Tulsa World)

In Cary Fukunaga's stark, visceral Jane Eyre the elements rightfully took a leading role alongside a fine central performance from Mia Wasikowska. (Graeme Thomson in The Arts Desk)

Best Chemistry: Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender ("Jane Eyre"); Best breakthrough performance: Michael Fassbender, who had four breakthrough performances this year ("Jane Eyre," "X-Men: First Class," "Shame" and "A Dangerous Method")[.] (Moira MacDonald in The Seattle Times)

Remakes of classics were also plentiful, (...) their artistic success ranged from the sublime, “Jane Eyre”[.] (Al Alexander in The Patriot Ledger)

[T]here were a number of excellent films released this previous year: Jane Eyre[.] (Dorothy Woodend in The Tyee)

Memorable Scene: As "Jane Eyre," Mia Wasikowska tells her nasty guardian (Sally Hawkins), "I would have loved you if you'd let me."  (Chris Hewitt in Pioneer Press)

We all know that 2011 was Michael Fassbender's year: "Shame," "A Dangerous Method," "X-Men: First Class," lots of high-profile stuff. But my favorite of his films this year hit theaters back in March, and I wonder if anyone else remembers it. Fassbender played Rochester in a really good adaptation of "Jane Eyre." His co-stars included Jamie Bell, Judi Dench, Sally Hawkins and Mia Wasikowska as Jane – a solid cast in one of the best literary adaptations I've seen in recent years. The movie is dark, intense and romantic. I think Charlotte Brontë would have approved. -(Tami Katzoff  in MTV Movies)

Mia Wasikowska is a poised, yet fiercely self-directed Jane to Michael Fassbender's wry, stormy Rochester in Cary Joji Fukunaga's fresh take on the evergreen, Victorian-era Gothic romance, a deeply felt, beautifully wrought little gem of mood and sensibility.  (Lisa Jense in Good Times Santa Cruz)

Good Performances you may've missed: Mia Wasikowska as "Jane Eyre". (Commander Coconut in Orlando Sentinel)

And North County Times, 

Michael Fassbender's Rochester is mentioned in several places:

The versatile Irishman went way beyond the usual, sensitive brooding Rochester in the latest "Jane Eyre" adaptation (Bob Strauss in Los Angeles Daily News)

Recalled from the dead, too: a lean, bearded and sightless Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre. This is Michael Fassbender's best performance of 2011, despite how much he gives up in Shame. (Richard von Busack in Metroactive)

With impressive performances both in costume ("Jane Eyre") and out ("Shame")[.] (Shawn Levy in The Oregonian)

 IndieWire publishes a top ten of Limited Debuts of 2011 By Per-Theater-Average:

5. Jane Eyre
Per-Theater Average: $45,721
Theater Count: 4

and asks several members of the indie film industry about their personal top tens, Marie Theres Guirguis, producer, chooses Jane Eyre as number 6.

Taipei Times reviews Wuthering Heights 2011:

In casting black actors for the role, first Solomon Glave as the young Heathcliff, and subsequently James Howson, Arnold clearly has a point to make about racial discrimination (the discrimination in the novel is class based), but this in itself doesn’t really take the material anywhere new.
What is effective and interesting is the portrayal of Heathcliff as a victim. Rather than some kind of elemental wild thing, Arnold makes Heathcliff more a passive figure whose acts of cruelty are ultimately as small-minded and vicious as the ill treatment he receives from those around him. This departure seems to open up the story to new interpretations. Glave’s demeanor of aggrieved insolence works well as a counterpoint to Catherine’s teasing sense of her own sexual power, and the two build up an interesting dynamic. This is accentuated by Arnold’s cinematic technique, with regular use of choppy handheld camera, super close-ups to create almost abstract images, and seemingly random cuts to images of plants and insects of the Yorkshire moors. There are some memorable moments, such as a shot of Heathcliff sitting behind Catherine on a horse, the camera zooming in on her neck and hair: the sense of ecstatic intimacy and sensuality is strongly conveyed.
As Arnold tries to wrap up the truncated ends of her story, much of the visual inventiveness seems to disappear from the film as well. She leaves the threads of romance hanging and shifts her focus back to the theme of oppression, seeming to suggest with her final scenes the idea that brutality breeds new oppressors. That’s all well and good, but what happened to the tale of transcendent love? (...)
There is much to be admired in Arnold’s film, and for those familiar with the book it provides some interesting new perspectives. Unfortunately, it tries to achieve too many often incompatible goals, and the last third of the film is something of a trial to watch, as Arnold’s inventiveness has largely run out of steam and the performances are not strong enough to carry the story.  (Ian Bartholomew)

Tothemoviesandbeyond and Always Picked Last Productions, LLC review Jane Eyre 2011 and Nina's Reading Blog and The Life of Shinke post about the original novel; Movies and Books World compares Jane Eyre 2006 and 1997; a new post on the Rebecca Chesney's blog of the Brontë Weather Project; Amysliterarylive posts a video-review of Wuthering Heights.

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Jane Live from Alexandria

Today, December 30, at the Lakes Theatre (Alexandria, MN), the Mercury Theatre 1946  radio adaptation of Jane Eyre will be performed live:

Jane Eyre
adapted by Norman Corwin
Friday, Dec. 30 at 7:00 p.m-7:30 p.m.
Directed by Ann Hermes

The Brontë sisters belonged to a nineteenth-century literary family. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne were well known poets and novelists. Charlotte penned Jane Eyre, Emily’s famous novel is Wuthering Heights, and Anne wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Other’s of their works became known as literary masterpieces along with these well-known books. Lakes Area Theatre is proud to present a radio adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.

Starring in the show:
Caroline Roers, Tim Long, Deb Long, and Benjamin Roers.
Call the box office to reserve seats for this classic, 320-808-3841.

EDIT: The show will be broadcast on KXRA next January 8, 12:30 PM.

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Wuthering Heights Revisited

A new sequel to Wuthering Heights mixing biographical data from the Brontës with Emily Brontë's imaginery is published today:

Wuthering Heights Revisited
G. M. Best
Robert Hale Ltd.
Hardback, 224 pages
Publication date: 30 Dec 2011
ISBN-13: 9780709093640

The tragic love affair between Cathy and Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's famous novel took the world by storm. Imagine, therefore, the shock of Charlotte Brontë's long-time friend, Ellen Nussey, when she discovers that, far from just existing in the pages of a novel, Cathy and Heathcliff lived. Her resulting investigations uncover the Brontes' horrific secret of their relationship with the demonic Heathcliff. Forced to question Charlotte's behaviour she has also to suspect the sudden deaths of not only Emily but also Branwell and Anne. The key to this gripping mystery is Wuthering Heights Revisited the missing sequel to Emily's novel, but can Ellen survive long enough to find it? 

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The Budget Cuts Charade

A Brontë mention in the Downton Abbey Christmas special, the book title they have to guess in the Christmas charade is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. You can see a complete photoset on Sunny Dreams.

The new black in economy and politics is, of course, budget cuts. They know no limits and we wonder if when they are planned someone looks beyond the sheer figures and thinks of the consequences (social and economical) of many of these (improvised) decisions. The latest in this series comes from Kirkless Council:

Museums could close for a quarter of the year to cut costs.
Kirklees Council officials have drawn up plans to shut cultural centres across the district in December, January and February.
The move would affect sites including: (...)

Red House Museum in Gomersal, an 1830s home which featured in the Charlotte Brontë novel Shirley.
Oakwell Hall in Birstall, a 17th Century stately home with extensive grounds which also featured in Shirley. (...)
The proposal is set to be formally unveiled next month, with the museums due to close in December 2012.
Unison’s chief steward for wellbeing and communities Kath McHendry told the Examiner yesterday: “We haven’t got firm details but the thing they are looking at is closing them in December, January and February.
“The museums would be closed for three months, unless there was a special event. That seems to be the proposal they want to run with.” (...)
Huddersfield Civic Society chairman Chris Marsden also attacked the plan yesterday.
“I think it’s a miserable idea to close the council’s cultural offering for a quarter of the year,” he said.
“The education of schoolchildren should be higher up the council’s agenda. This plan would spread ignorance.”

Mr Marsden believes the closures would harm Huddersfield’s tourism industry.
“It’s discouraging people from visiting the town,” he said.
“If you bring someone to Huddersfield, you would expect to be able to offer people some insight into the town through art and museums.”
Mr Marsden added that Kirklees should consider less radical ways to save money.

“I would like to know the rationale behind this,” he said.
“Closing museums for one day a week, or shutting earlier in the evening would be kinder.
“Closing for three months would be hard. The winter is a good time to visit museums, in the summer people want to do outdoor things, like go to Yorkshire Sculpture Park.”  (Barry Gibson in The Huddersfield Daily Examiner)

Uptown Magazine selects the best films of the year:

Jane Eyre 2011: This spellbinder plays so vividly in its atmospheric period-costumed context — yet its modern concerns with the demons of the subconscious, not to mention performances that made the characters’ needs seem vivid and urgent, pushes the lurid story to transcend its time. And as played by Mia Wasikowska, Charlotte Brontë’s titular heroine retains all her magnificence, refusing to indulge self-pity: "I have no tale of woe." No wonder the character is one of fiction’s most celebrated. (Kenton Smith)

As well as the Bay Area Reporter:

The 18th film of Charlotte Brontë's chilly castle tale is a transcendently romantic, tragic, gothic ghost story from Cary Joji Fukunaga, with a captivating quartet of Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell and Dame Judi Dench: forever my Jane Eyre. (David Lamble)

And Hollywood Chicago:

Ever since she materialized on the first season of HBO’s masterful series, “In Treatment,” Mia Wasikowska has quickly emerged as one of the most magnetic actresses of her generation. She’s blessed with the sort of face that’s impossible to look away from. And in Cary Fukunaga's sublime adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s gothic melodrama, Wasikowska proves to be a hypnotic beauty. Fans of Fukunaga’s galvanizing debut film, “Sin Nombre” may initially regard “Eyre” as a giant departure, yet both films are not without their similarities: ravishing photography, impeccable production design and a story anchored in the arduous coming-of-age journey of a strong female protagonist. Amelia Clarkson is also a standout as the young Jane who grows up to be a governess for the formidable Mr. Rochester, played by the tirelessly versatile Michael Fassbender Rochester’s hopeless infatuation with Jane leads to a series of complications, and the 12-year age difference between Fassbender and Wasikowska make their romantic entanglements more than a little unsettling. Yet it’s a testament to both actors’ skills that their romance registers as touching rather than creepy. Brontë’s novel has received an endless array of screen adaptations, but few have felt as authentic and heartfelt as Fukunaga’s overlooked gem. (mattmovieman)

Or East Bay Express:

Jane Eyre, on the other hand, marched into art houses last March with full fanfare, as the latest adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's classic gothic novel and also as director Cary Fukunaga's follow-up to his sensational first feature, Sin Nombre. The project had a couple of secret weapons — busy actors Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender, two of 2011's most-utilized players — as well as a thoughtful screenplay adaptation by Moira Buffini. Australian product Wasikowska continues to enthrall. You could put her, Fassbender, Jamie Bell, Sally Hawkins, Simon McBurney, Judi Dench, and Craig Roberts in Bermuda shorts on a golf course and they could makes us believe in the inexorable workings of the English governess' fate — if Fukunaga were at the helm. One of the year's most conspicuous inconspicuous releases. (Kelly Vance)

MovieLine:

Cary Joji Fukunaga understands both the novel's quintessential Englishness and the raw animal nature that drives it. Michael Fassbender, as Mr. Rochester, finds the character’s inherent, awkward warmth without mistaking it for anything so bland as mere niceness. And Mia Wasikowska's Jane, physically just a slip of a thing, has carnal boldness to burn. Sex is threatening, as Charlotte Brontë knew, and Wasikowska and Fassbender make this particular dance look exceedingly dangerous. (Stephanie Zacharek)

Anne Thompson on IndieWire:

Cary Fukunaga's subtly elegant period drama is the best of a long line of adaptations of Charlotte Brontë's romantic classic (adapted here by Moira Buffini). Mia Wasikowska is pitch-perfect as the clear-eyed, lonely, self-reliant orphan governess who falls in love with mercurial employer Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender in yet another masterful 2011 performance). She saves him, is the point.

And indieWire's The Playlist:

"Wuthering Heights"
I was convinced, on walking out of the Venice press screening of Andrea Arnold's adaptation of the classic, much-filmed "Wuthering Heights," that I was looking at film that while it had little chance of catching on with the general public, it was sure to be a critical favorite. In fact, it didn't even manage that; sharply dividing reviewers on the Lido, in Toronto, and on its U.K. release in November, it came and went with only a few, like myself, shouting from the rooftops about it. But in a way, that just makes me cherish it more. Making this year's other Brontë adaptation, "Jane Eyre," look like a conservative Masterpiece Theater adaptation, Arnold rips her source material apart and starts again, creating a savage, brutal landscape (shot in glorious Academy ratio), that neatly mirrors the characters' cruelties against one another. Unlike the bulk of period dramas, there's little room for repression and subtext. Heathcliff, Cathy & co are as blunt towards each other as characters of their fledgling age probably would be (this is a world where virtually no one makes it past the age of 25, seemingly), and Arnold's approach of casting relative newcomers pays, for the most part, great dividends, even if it makes the film a little rough around the edges in places. Those who prefer the picturesque when it comes to their costume dramas are likely to be horrified, but "Wuthering Heights" was never a pristine period piece, and even if Emily Brontë never wrote a scene in which Cathy licks blood from the back of a badly beaten Heathcliff (it's sexier than it sounds, trust me), I have no doubt that she'd approve of Arnold's invention, and all those like it.
M.V.P.: Mr. Robbie Ryan. The DoP has continually impressed across his previous work with Arnold, as well as in the likes of "The Scouting Book For Boys" and "Brick Lane," but he outdoes himself here, with glorious compositions both sweeping and intimate. One can only assume he spent six months wandering the Yorkshire Moors on his own in order to get the kind of footage he achieves here.  (Oliver Lyttelton)

Kevin Martin reports the best books read this year in Gulf News:

[A]nd finally Jude Morgan's The Taste of Sorrow, a literary masterpiece written in elegant prose about the lives and tragic times of the famous Brontë family.

Movie City News reviews Albert Nobbs:

The Victorian period, to me, is about the contrast between what we see on the surface and what lies beneath, and as such there was much to explore symbolically through a realistically unsanitary Victorian environment that would have better represented the inner turmoil of Albert Nobbs, who himself is hiding beneath the surface something very different from what he reveals to the world. Garcia’s Victorian Ireland is scrubbed just a little too clean. (...)
Actually, having seen Andrea Arnold’s take on Wuthering Heights at Toronto this year, I’d have liked to have seen what she would have done with this world and this material. (Kim Voynar)

Frocktalk posts a very interesting interview with Michael O'Connor, costume designer of Jane Eyre 2011 in which he says thinks like this:

Tell me about how you arrived at the color palette.  It was exquisite.  Was it a result of conversations with the Production Designer and DP, or was it something the director had in mind?
The colour palette really is about the balance between Jane and other characters. The book often describes Jane as wearing plain black. I thought this would be too severe so chose shades of grey, dark blue and slate colours with subtle patterns to reflect the mood of the scene. Once these colours were established, other characters fit in around her. So, for example Rochester has a brown frock coat and not the more usual black; likewise Mrs. Fairfax is mostly in brown. Blanche Ingram, where the temptation is to be brash and colourful, could be designed more subtly.

Check it out and look at some of the original sketches like the one on the right.

The Belfast Telegraph also talks about the need of repairs of the Haworth Parish Church; rawr-caps posts a lot of caps of Wuthering Heights 2009;  The Rainbow Notebook and Critical MeMe review Jane Eyre 2011; A Room of my Own posts in Swedish about the Brontës.

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Better a disputed Brontë than none?

It is well known what our opinion and the Brontë Society's opinion is about this alleged portrait of Emily Brontë (attributed to John Hunter Thompson of Bradford around 1840) recently auctioned at J.P. Humbert Auctioneers. This is the press release of its auction sale:

Emily Brontë 'Bonnet' Portrait sells in excess of £23000
A portrait of Emily Brontë has sold at a Northamptonshire auction house for £23,836 (premium inclusive) against a pre-sale estimate of £10,000-15,000. It will stay in England after a fierce bidding battle with a prospective buyer in America.
After much speculation over the past month as to whether the 7 'A' x 5 '/4" oil on board was of the reclusive English writer or not, the evidence as produced by the auctioneers seemed to stack up meeting much international interest and buyers in the room and online.
Auctioneer Jonathan Humbert of J.P. Humbert Auctioneers Ltd of Towcester said: "we are delighted with the result which seems to prove our contention that this was in fact a hitherto unknown portrait of Emily Brontë."
"During viewing, at least four independent authorities on the Brontë family concurred with our view, one of whom has written a definitive publication on Wuthering Heights." 

We wonder who these anonymous independent authorities are.

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Young Men's Magazine in Brussels

The news of the Haworth Parish Church urgent appeal to secure funds for the much needed repairs have reached BBC News. And The Irish Independent covers the controversial Bradford council housing plans in Haworth.

Via Brontë Parsonage Blog, we have reached a post on France Salut where more details about the recently-auctioned juvenilia manuscript are disclosed. It seems that the manuscript will be on display at the Brussels branch of the Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits:

Le Musée des lettres et manuscrits had a lot more up their sleeves in any case. The president told me he had the means to go to €1 million if necessary
But also unknown to Haworth, when I spoke to the collections manager Ann Dinsdale, was the French museums complete willingness to share its new treasure. It will go in display in a Brussels offshoot - significantly, the Belgium capital was the setting for two of Charlotte's four novels. (Colin Randall)

IndieWire's The Lost Boys publishes the top 10 films of 2011:

6. Wuthering Heights: Only a few of the succeeding movies impressed me more on a bare visual level. The entire film has a very blue sheen and it gives a perfect catalyst for the plotline. All the emotion and feeling in the movie is basked heavily in this basin, if you will, of color; it was enough to leave certain images imprinted on my mind. Wuthering Heights is a scanty, derisive movie filled gloom, and I dug it. Something to note; I’d never before heard of the classic novel by Emily Brontë, and understand this adaptation deviates heavily from it, and how commendable. (Derek Marchewka)

Gay News Network lists eleven films:

Angst is writ large in Charlotte Brontë's corset drama to end all corset dramas. Poor orphan Jane manages to advance beyond her station, and even catch the roving eye of caring Mr Rochester. Of course, it all ends badly for he hides a secret that Jane is unable to accept. Our Mia Wasikowska, with help from Michael Fassbender, Judi Dench and Jamie Bell, redefines a classic and create the new standard - bold, bleak and beautiful – by which Jane Eyre will forthwith be measured. (Colin Fraser)

East Bay Express also includes the film on their top ten:

Jane Eyre, on the other hand, marched into art houses last March with full fanfare, as the latest adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's classic gothic novel and also as director Cary Fukunaga's follow-up to his sensational first feature, Sin Nombre. The project had a couple of secret weapons — busy actors Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender, two of 2011's most-utilized players — as well as a thoughtful screenplay adaptation by Moira Buffini. Australian product Wasikowska continues to enthrall. You could put her, Fassbender, Jamie Bell, Sally Hawkins, Simon McBurney, Judi Dench, and Craig Roberts in Bermuda shorts on a golf course and they could makes us believe in the inexorable workings of the English governess' fate — if Fukunaga were at the helm. One of the year's most conspicuous inconspicuous releases. (Kelly Vance)

The film is also on the lists of Very Aware and Canadian Cinephile.

Guy Lodge looks for the Best Supporting Actors of the year on HitFix:

Judi Dench, "Jane Eyre"
Dench's 2011 Oscar buzz evaporated with non-event turns in late-year prestige items "J. Edgar" and "My With With Marilyn." Would that the buzz had been on her warm, ever-so-slightly vinegary turn as the staunch housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax in this fine-cut Brontë adaptation: no wheels are being reinvented here, but it's the actress's most lived-in character work since her last Oscar nod.

Clothes on Film compares the costumes of Jane Eyre 2011 and Lars Von Trier's Melancholia:

Justine’s constrictive wedding dress is figuratively similar to that designed by Michael O’Connor for Jane Eyre (released 9th September). This merciless mid-19th century silhouette is a far cry from the romantic empire line of the Jane Austin era. Jane Eyre takes place in a harsh environment during cold, harsh times. O’Connor and director Cary Fukunaga avoided the more ‘pretty, pretty’ approach to costume drama, instead concentrating on colour, fabric and tone (muted, stiff and bleak). While Justine chooses to continually defile her wedding dress, Jane Eyre (Mia Wasikowska) practically tears it from her body. Both characters are consumed with an inability to allow themselves contentment; in reality they do not even understand what it is. (Chris Laverty)

Several websites comment on Michael Fassbender performance as Rochester:

Jane Eyre and A Dangerous Method (in which he plays Dr. Carl Jung) did not receive the attention they deserved (Hollywood Outbreak)

[A] spot-on performance as the tortured Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre. (Genevieve Loh in Singapore Today)

[A] bodice-ripping Byronic (Jane Eyre)[.] (Elisabet Rappe on Film.com)

[H]e stunned us in A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre and even X-Men: First Class this year[.] (Carina Belles on We Got This Covered)

[H]e also astounded critics and audiences with his work in "Jane Eyre" as Mr. Rochester. (Naomi Creason in The Sentinel)

[S]oft-opened the year in an archetypal romantic part, Mr. Rochester, in Jane Eyre. (Kimberly Chu in San Francisco Bay Guardian)

The Stroud News & Journal defends Mia Wasikowska's performance:

Actress of the year is a little tricky – probably everyone assuming Meryl is a shoo in with Maggie so held back- but Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre stood out. (Andrew Shepherd)

We Got This Covered also highlights it. The Philadelphia Daily News mentions the couple:

Mia Wasikowska was an awesome "Jane Eyre," and her scenes with Michael Fassbender brought gravity to that overripe story. (Gary Thompson)

New Statesman gives its own awards, the Cultural Capital film awards of the year:

Best Aspect Ratio
4:3 aka Academy ratio aka the square frame aka "Hey! Where's the rest of the screen gone? Somebody fetch the projectionist!" As seen in Wuthering Heights, Meek's Cutoff and The Artist. It's what all the coolest cinema screens are wearing this year. (Ryan Gilbey)

As a successful reader and devout admirer of Herman Melville's Moby Dick it is hard to understand Umapagan Ampikaipakan in the New Straits Times (Malaysia):

It is something picked up and put down again. And far too quickly. A novel that is read five to six pages at a time. A book that forces us instead, to read The Waverly Novels, or Wuthering Heights, or The Brothers Karamazov. As if they were some kind of solace.

Sugar Scope says

There are some books that will change your life, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and One Direction's Dare to Dream.  (cari3232)

If you say so...

StudioCity Patch posts "A Gardener’s New Year’s Resolution"

I shall relinquish my dream of creating an English cottage garden with foxgloves and roses. This ain’t England and I’m no Jane Eyre. (Marla Hart)

 Electripig suggests downloading Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre for your ebook reader:

Wuthering Heights. One of the Victorian period’s most beguiling and stunning pieces of literature. When it was published in 1847, its ambiguity and controversial approach to marital relationships caused a critical storm. Dismissed at the time as “vulgar”, it’s a stunning, evocative piece of literature, decades ahead of its time. 
Jane Eyre. Like Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre offers a dark, melancholy look at romance in Victorian England. That said, Emily’s sister Charlotte’s tome is a very different tale, albeit with many of the same kind of damaged, yet alluring characters. This is one of the 19th century’s finest pieces of fiction and should take pride of place on your eReader, Kindle, Kobo or other. (Joe Minihane)

Captain JP's log publishes a Wuthering Heights interactive fiction post; a mock Wuthering Heights anime-like poster on algenpfleger on DevianArt;  The Eater of Books, O que eu ando fazendo de bom? (in Portuguese), Charity's Blog and Nandan Dubey's Blog post about Jane Eyre; The Familiar Studies of Girls and Books does the same with Wuthering Heights; Tomato Nation and Rambling Film reviews Jane Eyre 2011.

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UK DVD Releases: March 2012

The DVD (and Blu-Ray) release of Jane Eyre 2011 in the UK will be next March 12 (thanks to Traxy for telling us). It seems that the edition will contain the same extras as the Region 1 edition:

Jane Eyre (DVD)
Jane Eyre (Triple play Blu-ray+DVD+Digital Copy)
Universal Pictures UK
March 12, 2011

Additional Material:

• Audiocomentary by Cary Fukunaga
• A Look Inside Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre Featurette 03:39)
• Deleted Scenes

00:02:47	(JANE LOST ON THE MOORS) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:48	(MRS. REED PUTS JANE BACK INTO THE RED ROOM) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:59	(MRS. REED TALKS TO JANE IN BED) (DELETED SCENE)
00:02:47	(BADMINTON IN THE GARDEN) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:47	(JANE MEETS ROCHESTER ON THE STAIRCASE) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:29	(ADELE SCREAMS IN JANE'S ROOM) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:29	(JANE OVERHEARS THE INGRAMS TALKING) (DELETED SCENE)
00:03:12	(BERTHA RIPS WEDDING VEIL IN JANE'S ROOM) (DELETED SCENE)
00:03:44	(ROCHESTER PLEADS WITH JANE TO STAY) (DELETED SCENE)

• Easter Egg: Audiocomentary by Rob Meyer and Ameer Youssef, close associates of director Cary Fukunaga. 
• To Score Jane Eyre (02:11)
• The Mysterious Light of Jane Eyre (01:50) — Interviews with cast and crew on the cinematography and the novel's gothic aspect.

A few days later, the UK edition of Wuthering Heights 2011 will be released too. We don't know yet what the additional material will be (if any):

Wuthering Heights (DVD)
Directed by Andrea Arnold
Artificial Eye
26 Mar 2012

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More Punk than Gothic

The Daily Mail echoes the appeal of the Haworth Parich Church to raise money for the much-needed repairs of the building. The Yorkshire Post also talks about the threat of the massive housing plans in Haworth which we discussed yesterday.

The Grand Rapids Press lists the best movies of the year and Jane Eyre 2011 gets an honorable mention:

A fresh and creepy re-telling of the literary classic, with shining performances by Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska. (John Serba)

The Times compiles a list of 50 films:

33. Jane Eyre
Mia Wasikowska made for a Jane with an Eyre of greatness – an unashamedly modern and cinematic take on Brontë that was gorgeous to watch. Not least, the mesmerising Michael Fassbender.
47. Wuthering Heights 
Another successful take on a Brontë classic, Andrea Arnold’s daring adaptation set in Swaledale, North Yorkshire, was more punk than Gothic. (Kate Muir, Kevin Maher and Wendy Ide)

Guy Lodge on HitFix also posts his personal top 20:

10. Wuthering Heights

"Love is a force of nature" ran the tagline for Andrea Arnold's uncompromising new take on the Emily Brontë chestnut -- the year's second Brontë adaptation to use simple, literal fresh air to resuscitate a text, though to markedly more aggressive effect. It may have been stolen from "Brokeback Mountain," but it wears well on a film that exposes the primal nature of Heathcliff and Cathy's truthfully unromantic romance by equating them with the elements: breathtakingly shot in the Academy ratio by Robbie Ryan, this is the rare literary film that finds a new visual and aural turn of phrase, buffeted by a howling Yorkshire wind, for the source's every word.16. Jane Eyre
Contemporary cinema wasn't exactly crying out for another adaptation of Charlotte Brontë proto-feminist Gothic romance, even if the last major go-round, the 1996 Franco Zeffirelli-Charlotte Gainsbourg edition, left room for improvement. Wisely, then, Fukunaga's airily traditional take aimed to be definitive rather than subversive, and squarely hit its target with bang-on casting (Mia Wasikowska's just-askew beauty is ideal, while Michael Fassbender's rough dourness balances his sexed-up taked on Rochester), astute rejigging of the familiar narrative and Adriano Goldman's exquisite pastel-and-gold lensing, its embrace of natural light keeping it fresher than any postmodern tinkering might have. 

Michael O'Connor has been nominated to Best Costume Design in the 17th Critics Choice Awards. Scott Feinberg continues his Oscar forecast in The Hollywood Reporter. Concerning Jane Eyre 2011, Will Hughes-Jones (Best Art Direction) is just a possibility, Dario Marianelli (Best Soundtrack) is a major threat to the frontrunners and Michael O'Connor is, obviously, a frontrunner.

Los Angeles Times talks about anonymity in literature:

Men wrote some books "by a lady," and the Victorian-era cases of George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) and the Bell brothers — that is, the Brontë sisters — remind us that the situation is reversible. Perhaps the question of anonymity should be turned on its head, and we should ask rather why any authors ever signed their names to books in those days. (Robert Folkenflik)

What is a Brontë-esque case of assumption?:

Consultants like to call it “agility” or “adaptability” or “Steve Jobs”. I think it’s the cure for the Brontë-esque cases of Assumption that plague marketers everywhere. (Elizabeth Williams in Business 2 Community)

 Cristina Odone in The Telegraph goes a bit too far when she says:

A bad state school condemns children to think seven sevens are 68, that T.S Eliot wrote Wuthering Heights and knives are part of the school uniform.

Stacked posts a twitterview with Eve Marie Mont, author of the upcoming novel (March 2012) A Breath of Eyre:

Pitch your book in 140 characters:
A girl gets transported into Jane Eyre, falls in love, and must decide whether her destiny lies in the pages of Jane’s story or in the unwritten chapters of her own.
Who will this book appeal to?
Fans of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, literary retellings, Victorian manners, dramatic weather, brooding men, thwarted love, lush romance. (...)
What are your top three favorite books?
Jane Eyre (of course), The Secret Garden, and A.S. Byatt’s Possession.

Fotos e Livros (in Portuguese), Asgard (in Spanish) and Books, my ego and entropy review Jane Eyre (in Portuguese); Kristi Loves Books reviews Villette.

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Love and Friendship

The jazz and swing singer Solitaire Miles has written a musical version of Emily Brontë's poem Love and Friendship:

Please enjoy a short clip from our show last night. This new song is my first performed-in-public original, and is based on a poem by Charlotte (SIC!) Brontë. I wrote the melody and Brian Sandstrom wrote the changes. It's about roses, holly and winter and so I thought it would be a good song for the Winter Solstice. It was our first time performing it. I had written it for my Madrigal group, but I thought it was kind of mellow and could be stretched into jazz with the right changes, which Brian wrote beautifully. I was inspired by Esperanza Spalding.

Love and Friendship from Holidays in Chicago - Live by Solitaire Miles, Paulinho Garcia, Dave Gordon, Stuart Rosenberg and Frank Sinclair

Digital Track 

Immediate download of Love and Friendship in your choice of MP3 320, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

Free Download

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Help Haworth Parish Church

In the purest Christmas tradition, we should make an appeal to help the repair plans of the Haworth Parish Church that are in serious trouble. The Telegraph & Argus informs:

A major project to repair one of the most visited churches in England could be scrapped unless its supporters can raise £37,000 before the middle of January.
Haworth Parish Church, the burial place of the Brontë sisters, needs to raise £1.25 million to repair its badly leaking roof, restore water-damaged wall paintings and make the building fit for the 21st century.
English Heritage has agreed to fund part of the work, but requires the church to pay £65,000 in match funding before it will release almost £100,000 for the first stage of the project to repair the south roof.
But so far the church has only raised £28,000 after an application for a large grant fell through, meaning they have to raise £37,000 in a matter of weeks.
Haworth Parish Council chairman John Huxley, who is also chairman of the church’s Future Group and secretary of the Parochial Church Council, said: “If we don’t raise the money we must then go into negotiation with English Heritage. There is a danger that if we don’t come to some agreement we will lose the grant altogether, but at this stage we are not thinking in those terms and we are trying to remain optimistic.”
The project was dealt a blow last week when fundraisers were told an application for a grant, which would have helped reach the £65,000 target and provided money towards the second stage of the work, had been unsuccessful.
The church, which has been repeatedly targeted by lead thieves, launched its appeal a year ago. Fundraising in the community has raised £18,000 and a further £10,000 in grants has already been secured.
Coun Huxley said: “It is a difficult time. A lot of trusts don’t have the money they had three years ago. However, we have been extremely touched by the support we have received from the local community. We are just hoping the Christmas spirit will strike and our prayers will be answered. Whatever the outcome the church will still go on. It just means the church roof will still be in a bad state.”

Visit haworthchurch.co.uk to donate to the restoration fund.

The Telegraph & Argus also alerts of a different threat to the very essence of what Haworth is today:

The “jewel in Bradford’s tourism crown” will turn from “gold to tin” if draft plans for hundreds of homes in the Worth Valley are approved, a councillor has warned.
The chairman of Haworth Parish Council, John Huxley, is urging residents and ward councillors to fight proposals for up to 986 homes in the Pennine village, best known as the home of the Brontë sisters and which attracts thousands of tourists every year.
Bradford Council has earmarked 14 sites in Haworth as suitable for development in the first stage of producing its Local Development Framework (LDF).
Coun Huxley said: “People in Haworth have been shocked at the number of houses they want to build here. We have understood for some time that developers want to put houses here because it is a nice place to live but a some point we will reach a level where we change the nature of Haworth from a Pennine settlement to a small town that is a suburb of Keighley.
“One of the main ways people earn a living in Haworth is in the tourist industry. In the LDF it says the Council wants to protect the landscape and tourism but that isn’t consistent with building hundreds of houses. The Council has said Haworth is the jewel in its tourism crown but are they prepared to turn it from gold to tin? That is basically what the choice is.
“This is a very sensitive area. English Heritage has identified it as a special area which is already under threat from inappropriate tourist signs. There is a lot of work to do if we are going to create jobs. Putting more than 900 houses in Haworth is the quickest way of killing that.” (Kathryn Bradley)

The Telegraph interviews Gillian Anderson, now in a new adaptation of Great Expectations:

She enjoyed playing Miss Havisham more than Lady Dedlock “because she’s slightly mischievous and naughty and her dialogue is more poetic. And also, Miss Havisham seems a lot more eccentric.” We talk a bit about Dickens – she says she isn’t more of a fan of him than, say, Emily Brontë or Edith Wharton – and her love of London. (Bryony Gordon)

Best Book Adaptations of the year in FemaleFirst. Jane Eyre 2011 is one of them:

It’s a very measured and controlled performance from Wasikowska, once again showed that she is a real talent, while there is just something incredibly alluring about Fassbender’s Rochester.
The sweeping cinematography and speedy pacing give this movie a very modern feel - bringing this classic to a whole new generation.

The DC Movie Reviews Examiner makes a list of list putting together top tens of many critics and aggregate score websites. Jane Eyre 2011 is number 64.

Shirley Sinclair (The Northern Star) is making a luxury cruise from Brisbane around New Zealand's northern and southern islands and was able to catch Jane Eyre 2006, aired by the Australian channel STVDIO:

So by midnight, we were more than ready to retire to our balcony state room to catch the last bit of Jane Eyre on an in-house movie channel.

sarahtales posts a dialogued story: Jane Eyre, Or: The Bride of Edward 'Crazypants' Rochester; Vip Cinema (in Spanish) reviews Jane Eyre 2011; Shoujo Café (in Portuguese) reviews Jane Eyre 1944; how she flowers posts about Wuthering Heights.

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Tribute to Franco Zeffirelli in Rome

Today in Rome, the Casa del Cinema at Villa Borghese will screen Jane Eyre 1996 as a part of the ongoing tribute to Franco Zeffirelli:

Jane Eyre (1996)
D: Franco Zeffirelli
26/12/2011 @ 16:30
Omaggio a Franco Zeffirelli, Sala Deluxe.

"Jane Eyre” è stato diretto da Franco Zeffirelli nel 1996 che lo ha tratto dall’omonimo romanzo di Charlotte Brontë. Il film racconta la storia di Jane Eyre (Charlotte Gainsbourg), giovane orfana educata in un rigido collegio la quale, grazie alla piccola Adele, conosce Edward Rochester (William Hurt). I due sono quasi prossimi alle nozze quando si scopre che l’uomo ha già una moglie mentalmente instabile che si aggira per il castello. Jane Eyre lascia così la casa per andare a vivere in Irlanda presso degli amici ma presto si accorgerà di amare Edward davvero e torna al castello per sposarlo. Sceneggiato da Hugh Whitemore assieme al Maestro e fotografato dal grande David Watkin, premio Oscar per “La mia Africa” di Sydney Pollack, “Jane Eyre” è un grande adattamento di uno dei classici della letteratura inglese. Accarezzato dalle delicate ma epiche musiche composte dal Mo. Alessio Vlad e Claudio Capponi, si avvale delle riuscitissime interpretazioni di William Hurt, anch’esso premio Oscar per “Il bacio della donna ragno”, Anna Paquin, vincitrice dell’Oscar per “Lezioni di piano”, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Joan Plowright, John Wood e Geraldine Chaplin.

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A feast for the mind and spirit

Capital New York highlights Jane Eyre 2011 as one of the top films of 2011:

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre has been brought to the screen, large and small, more times than can be counted, and Cary Fukunaga's version comes the closest to capturing the eerie Gothic quality of Brontë's very strange book.
Every image is a carefully constructed work of art.  The picture oozes with mood and color, the interiors of Thornfield Hall chilly and vast, with the face of Jane Eyre emerging clearly in a circle of candlelight.  Fukunaga doesn't do too much, and he also doesn't do too little.  He is in service to the story.
The romance of Mr. Rochester and his employee Jane Eyre is singular in literature, and oftentimes film adaptations don't get it right.  It is a difficult dynamic to capture.  These two would never fit into Jane Austen's more polite world.  Their conversations are prickly, honest, and loaded with unspoken psychological backstory.  Both are misfits,  although Jane's position makes her status more unstable.  Both are lonely, wounded, and misunderstood.
Watching Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre and Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester banter in a quiet, dark room with a crackling fire is a great and powerful joy. Fukunaga actually lets the conversation play out.  He allows for silence, for tension to build, for there to be long moments where the two just look at one another, as though thinking: Can it be that I have found my match? Is this person before me ... the one?
(...) Jane Eyre was a feast for the mind and spirit. (Sheila O'Malley)

Other newspapers publish their own list:

Jane Eyre. The Kids Are All Right's Mia Wasikowska is haunting in the title role of Cary Fukunaga's new read of Charlotte Brontë's old book. Crushing stuff about a smart, independent-minded woman trapped by societal convention. Michael Fassbender is Rochester. Better to see him in this than as the soulless sex addict he plays in Shame. (Steven Rea in The Philadelphia Enquirer)

Entertainment Weekly talks about Michael Fassbender's year:

In March, he gave Jane Eyre's Mr. Rochester a moody, broody makeover.

The film will be present at the Film Festival Las Condes 2011 in Chile.

RTÉ discusses the best albums of the year. We wonder what this metaphor means:

Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi
Anna Calvi sounds as wild as a Brontë night as directed by David Lynch, corset ripped and stumbling across the moors, on these dark, dangerous and romantic songs.

A Christmas quiz in The Arts Desk:

Jane Eyre star Mia Wasikowska originally hails from which country? Clue     

National Post discuss marriage and weddings:

But will we say “will you?” I am 26; I have something that resembles a career; I’m independent and adamantly feminist. I have spent the last few years of my live-in relationship proving that I would make, at best, a disappointing wife. Were I to marry, I’d be way more Mrs. Rochester than Jane Eyre; I would burn that house down. (Sarah Nicole Prickett)

Movie Line publishes an alternative lady Christmas songlist:

Kate Bush. There is no other Kate Bush. In this ’79 Christmas special, she woos you with that ethereal voice that trilled about the plight of Cathy and Heathcliff in “Wuthering Heights.” Now that every hipster in sight waits eagerly for her new releases, acquaint yourself with the kooky wraith we first met on The Kick Inside. (Louis Virtel)

Berliner Morgenpost includes Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights in a list of love songs:

Ich war fünf Jahre alt, unser Au-pair-Mädchen Louise hatte Liebeskummer und hörte in ihrem Dachkämmerchen "Wuthering Heights" in Endlosschleife, dieses Lied über die unerfüllte Liebe zwischen Heathcliff und Cathy und ihre verlorenen Seelen. Mein Bruder nannte Kate Bush "die Quietschstimme". Ich liebte das Lied. Ein dreifaches Debüt sozusagen, für Kate Bush als Popsängerin (1978), für mich als Pophörerin (1984), für Emily Brontë als Romanautorin (1847). "Sturmhöhe", die Vorlage für das Lied, habe ich erst 25 Jahre später gelesen. Cathy und Heathcliff sind rätselhafte, grausame Charaktere. Nur in ihrer Liebe zueinander sind sie gut und sanft und bedürftig. Wie in dieser Liedzeile. "Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home. I'm so cold." Und vielleicht habe ich mir das Lied bis heute nicht leid gehört, weil Kate Bushs Stimme so hoch ist, dass man einfach nicht mitsingen kann. (Eva Sudholt) (Translation)

The Philadelphia Star reviews Jeffrey Eugenides's The Marriage Plot:

But The Marriage Plot by Pulitzer winner Jeffrey Eugenides tries to deconstruct the essential chick flick plot, which is roughly modeled on the Victorian novels of Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Henry James, George Eliot and others of the late 19th century. (Scott R. Garceau)

The Times of Malta discusses common sense in Christmas:

Real life requires application in order to fulfil certain obligations. There is little hope in hell of satisfying family and work commitments if you see yourself forever in the role of some romantic hero or heroine. Put it in another way – Cathy and Heathcliffe (sic) were great in Wuthering Heights but real life is more of a daily grind than grand declarations of love across the windy moors.  (Claire Bonello)

Kate Harrad suggests in The Guardian a new way to reinvent the classics, genderswitching:

In honour of the season, I've paused work on my newest project, James Eyre, and turned to A Christmas Carol instead.

El Nuevo Herald talks about Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea:

Una y otra vez nos quedamos con el enamoramiento victoriano de la virginal Jane Eyre y su atormentado galán, pero Rhys tuvo la genial ocurrencia de inventar sobre lo inventado al meterse en la piel de una mujer arrancada de cuajo de su hábitat para desfallecer en las húmedas penumbras de la campiña inglesa. Su alter ego estaba condenado a trastornarse en una mansión de piedra y unos jardines podados, que en nada le evocaban las coloristas casas y la indomesticable vegetación de su tierra.Jean Rhys, como su heroína, perdió la cabeza y descendió a los infiernos de una existencia ahogada en alcohol y tristezas. Murió sin saber que su breve y hermosa novela acabaría por reivindicar a esa otra mujer. La Berthe Mason de Charlotte Brontë, que en verdad era su Antoinette Cosway.

Read more here: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/12/19/1085457/gina-montaner-la-mujer-detras.html#storylink=cpy

Una y otra vez nos quedamos con el enamoramiento victoriano de la virginal Jane Eyre y su atormentado galán, pero Rhys tuvo la genial ocurrencia de inventar sobre lo inventado al meterse en la piel de una mujer arrancada de cuajo de su hábitat para desfallecer en las húmedas penumbras de la campiña inglesa. Su alter ego estaba condenado a trastornarse en una mansión de piedra y unos jardines podados, que en nada le evocaban las coloristas casas y la indomesticable vegetación de su tierra.
Jean Rhys, como su heroína, perdió la cabeza y descendió a los infiernos de una existencia ahogada en alcohol y tristezas. Murió sin saber que su breve y hermosa novela acabaría por reivindicar a esa otra mujer. La Berthe (sic) Mason de Charlotte Brontë, que en verdad era su Antoinette Cosway.  (Gina Montaner) (Translation)

todoMusicales (Spain) interviews the composer Albert Guinovart:

Si tuvieras que iniciar un proyecto musical, ¿cuál sería?
Tengo una idea que me gustaría hacer algún día. Me gustaría hacer algo clásico, porque creo que en este estilo me expreso mejor con la música. Me encantaría hacer ‘Cumbres Borrascosas’, pero ya está hecho… (Translation)

Una y otra vez nos quedamos con el enamoramiento victoriano de la virginal Jane Eyre y su atormentado galán, pero Rhys tuvo la genial ocurrencia de inventar sobre lo inventado al meterse en la piel de una mujer arrancada de cuajo de su hábitat para desfallecer en las húmedas penumbras de la campiña inglesa. Su alter ego estaba condenado a trastornarse en una mansión de piedra y unos jardines podados, que en nada le evocaban las coloristas casas y la indomesticable vegetación de su tierra.Jean Rhys, como su heroína, perdió la cabeza y descendió a los infiernos de una existencia ahogada en alcohol y tristezas. Murió sin saber que su breve y hermosa novela acabaría por reivindicar a esa otra mujer. La Berthe Mason de Charlotte Brontë, que en verdad era su Antoinette Cosway.

Read more here: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/12/19/1085457/gina-montaner-la-mujer-detras.html#storylink=cpy

the Brontë Sisters posts fragments of letters of the Brontës with Christmas mentions;  The Storyteller's Reality a character line up of a few characters from Jane Eyre; Splash! (in Spanish) and Kleine Zeitung (in German) review Jane Eyre 2011 (in Spanish) and Jeuxactu talks about the film (which premieres in France next June 6, more than a year later than in the US); Fionnula Doran publishes a funny webcomic: Brontë to the Future; poetictouch2012 uploads to YouTube a reading by Emma Fielding of Emily Brontë's No Coward Soul is Mine; this journalist from Expansión (Spain) is reading Wuthering Heights; El Norte de Castilla (Spain) mentions Renée Fleming's Wuthering Heights aria as performed in Valladolid.

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Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas to all Brontëblog readers!

The amount and variety of Brontë stuff released this year ensures that many a Brontëite will find a Brontë-related something in their stocking. but if that present is not forthcoming don't forget that you can always get yourself a present by reading their words.

Happy Christmas everyone. May you all be surround by who and what you love.

Effects by Dumpr.net

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A very different kind of Christmas

The Scotsman talks about Christmas in literature and... well, Wuthering Heights is probably not the best example:

A mere five years after Dickens’ salutary tale, Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights. It contains a very different kind of Christmas scene altogether, full of violence from the moment that the drunken Hindley Earnshaw orders Heathcliff from the kitchen, just as the Lintons arrive from Thrushcross Grange. Hindley insults Heathcliff’s unruly long hair, and Edgar Linton backs him up:
“He ventured this remark without any intention to insult; but Heathcliff’s violent nature was not prepared to endure the appearance of impertinence from one whom he seemed to hate, even then, as a rival. He seized a tureen of hot apple sauce, the first thing that came under his gripe, and dashed it full against the speaker’s face and neck.”
Hindley takes Heathcliff off for a thrashing and locks him up in his room. A proper Christmas scene eventually ensues (“our pleasure was increased by the arrival of the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong; a trumpet, a trombone, clarionets, bassoons, French horns and a bass viol, besides singers”) but when Cathy fetches Heathcliff from his room he chills Nelly with his words: “I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don’t care how long I wait, if I can only do it, at last. I hope he will not die before I do!”
It is a stunning rebuttal to the message of Christmas about forgiveness and love to fellow men, and represents the flipside to the comfort and wealth the Empire brought to Victorian Britain. Wuthering Heights sees little benefit to our occupation of the world – all it does is divide people, as Brontë’s novel, fill of structural and thematic divisions (Thrushcross Grange vs Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff vs Edgar Linton, Cathy vs Catherine) shows so brilliantly. Heathcliff is an orphan of the Empire after all, the dark-skinned and savage child brought from the Liverpool wharfs, the very site and emblem of the trade and commerce of Empire, by the Victorian father, Mr Earnshaw. (Lesley McDowell)

Jane Eyre 2011 has been released on DVD in India (by Reliance Home Video and PVR Pictures Home Entertainment) and The Indian Express reviews it:

Director Cary Fukunaga’s adaptation of the Bronte classic Jane Eyre manages to be both authentic and a fine, engaging watch. The dimly-lit interiors of the imposing residence of Mr Rochester, Thornfield Hall, the natural shaded light of the moors, the superb re-creation of the fears that can assail very young children, and their vicious, hard-hearted mentors, is done to perfection. But the real star of this show is Jane, as rendered by the very skilled Mia Wasikowska: she makes of the mousey yet spirited governess a complete delight. (...)
The film released just a while back in India, but it came in so fleetingly that most of us missed it when it was in theatres. So it’s nice that it is out so soon on DVD. Bonus features include a brief segment with the director and the lead actors. (Subhra Gupta)

And Time Out Mumbai:

The script retains the Christian overtones of the book and Brontë’s criticism of Victorian social attitudes and keeps the focus on the impassioned relationship between Eyre’s headstrong governess and her impetuous employer, Edward Fairfax Rochester (Michael Fassbender). The Gothic thrills of the massive but gloomy Thornfield estate in the novel are excised of their savage edge and stop short of horror in the film. Cinematographer Adriano Goldman’s subdued palette and the dreamlike narrative flow are complemented by Wasikowska’s acceptance of uncertainty. In fact, the deleted scenes on the DVD reveal scraps of a more thrilling, erotically tinged version of the movie, including Eyre’s dream of a woman tearing her bridal veil. The star turns, including Judi Dench as the warm housekeeper, and the deeply felt narrative core ensures repeat viewings from Brontë fans. (Saumya Ancheri)

The film is also on the top ten of the year for The Buffalo News:

Cary Fukunaga's version of the oft-filmed Brontë classic is the greatest of all those ever filmed. It starred the remarkable Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender. You'll see a very different Fassbender after the first of the year in Steve McQueen's almost-clinical case history of a sex addict, "Shame." (Jeff Simon)

City Press (South Africa) thinks that Jane Eyre 2011 is the best literary adaptation of the year:

The latest version of Charlotte Brontë’s classic Jane Eyre captures this gothic love story in all its timeless splendour. It features Michael Fassbender as the brooding Mr Rochester and 22-year-old Australian, Mia Wasikowska, as Jane. (Gayle Edmunds)

The Otago Daily Times (New Zealand) thinks so too:

Jane Eyre lacked the jokes but gave us full-blown emotional trauma, which for all Jane Eyre nuts is perfectly blissful.  (Christine Powley)

The Boston Phoenix highlights Michael Fassbender's performance:

[T]he classic told with the perfect balance of ardor and restrain. The most understated of Michael Fassbender's many fine performances this year.  (Peter Keough)

The Chicago Daily Observer (reposting from ...With both hands) talks about W.M. Thackeray but goes a bit too far assessing his influence on Charlotte Brontë:

Thackeray worked, lectured, sponsored and influenced young writers like Anthony Trollope and Charlotte Brontë, who not only dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre to Thackeray, but also portrayed the older writer in that novel as Mr. Rochester. (Pathickey)

Tom Sutcliffe discusses the year in films in The Independent:

It was also a vintage season for those who take their cinema black with the Australian films Animal Kingdom and Snowtown bookending the year with stories of family life turned toxic. Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur and Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights offered stiff competition in the field of human misery.

Andrea Arnold herself is interviewed on BBC Radio 4's The Front Row:

Film-maker Andrea Arnold is best known for contemporary dramas such as Red Road and Fish Tank, but her 2011 version of Wuthering Heights won wide acclaim. She reveals why her next film won't be an adaptation.

The Globe and Mail discusses the persistence and extended influence of the Jane Austen legacy. Guess who is quoted talking about Ms Austen:

Charlotte Brontë herself complained in a letter to a friend that she found in Austen, “anything like warmth or enthusiasm, anything energetic, poignant, heartfelt is utterly out of place.” (Leah McLaren)

Lorrie Moore asks the following question in The Guardian's Review Christmas Quiz:

Which great American novel is sometimes said to have the same plot as which Brontë novel?

If you don't know, the answer is this one.

Not the only Guardian quiz with a Brontë reference:

What links:
9 Lord Marchmain; Mr Earnshaw; John Jarndyce; Mr Tulliver? (Thomas Eaton)

The Christmas Challenge of The Financial Times also has a Brontë question:

10 Which novel links pop stars Kate Bush and Cliff Richard with filmmakers Andrea Arnold and Luis Buñuel?

The New York Times traces a profile of one of its reviewers, Michael Wood:

“I have favorite authors and directors — Proust, Calvino, Kafka, Emily Brontë, Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Buñuel,” he said, “but among different literatures and media I tend to go by mood.

Tanya Gold describes her experience in The Holy Land Experience in Florida in The Guardian:

Thank God He is resurrected. Because the little girl has stopped crying. We enter the Temple for the Resurrection, because a crucifixion without a resurrection is like finishing Jane Eyre after the bigamous marriage – no happy narrative bump to send you on your way to TGI Friday's.

Cicinnati.com explains a touching Christmas story with a Brontë mention:

“What we have is greater than Heathcliff and Cathy in ‘Wuthering Heights’ and Romeo and Juliet combined,” [Herman] Turner says. “Each day made our love a little stronger.” (Barry M. Horstman)

And the Salt Lake City Tribune looks at the 1911 news finding curious things like:

A disturbing news story, seemingly straight from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, reports that Mr. George Porter married his former housekeeper, Mrs. Sarah L. Clinkenbeard, two days after the funeral of Mr. Porter’s wife, who had committed suicide. Mrs. Porter spent time in the Utah State Mental Hospital not long after Mrs. Clinkenbeard’s employment in the Porter household, but was released and visiting her parents in Idaho, who were celebrating their golden wedding anniversary, at the time that she (Mrs. Porter) poisoned herself. (Pat Bagley)

My Love-Haunted Heart reviews Wuthering Heights (and mentions Wuthering Heights 2011 too);  Objetivo: Cine (in Spanish), I Believe We Have Already Met (in Polish) and Some Thinking Matter reviews Jane Eyre 2011; Literatura y Recuerdo (in Spanish) posts about Jane Eyre and Book Cafe does the same with Wuthering Heights.

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