Brontë Bad Boys

Impact gives Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre a 9/10.

‘It’s a girl’ – the words that both open and end director Sally Cookson’s stage vision of Jane Eyre. In my opinion, there couldn’t be a more apt way of rounding up Charlotte Brontë’s well known tale. Jane’s journey from powerless child to strong, spirited, independent woman in this production highlights what Brontë’s story is truly about: a struggle for one woman’s individual equality and liberty, or, in short – just the story of an ordinary girl. While Jane herself may be ensnared by no net, this production certainly ensnared and enthralled the audience, including myself, from start to finish.
The choice to adapt such a popular and established novel to the stage was always going to be an ambitious one, yet director Cookson has risen to the occasion by creating a very open, modernist version of the classic novel. Michael Vale’s ingenious set certainly reflects this ethic – you will find no wooden panelling or intricate period detail here. Rather, a stripped back wooden platform and various ladders that dominate the stage space, allowing for near constant fluid movement from the characters and the interesting utilisation of different levels of space. The actors’ engagement with this set also allowed for poignant moments and emotions in the story to be conveyed. The world weary way Jane (played by Madeline Worrall) climbs the ladder after her discovery of Rochester’s terrible secret, conveys superbly the character of a woman who has suffered immensely, yet, must keep on going. (Scarlett White) (Read more)

Hereford Times reports that the filming of the independent adaptation of Wuthering Heights has now began.

Filming began in the county for a new independent film of Wuthering Heights.
Film crews were at the Lion Ballroom in Leominster at the weekend for the new adaptation of Emily Brontë's novel.
Crews will be filming in Herefordshire, including Kilpeck Church, until the summer.
Sha'ori Morris, who plays Catherine Earnshaw, and Paul Eryk Atlas, who has been cast as Heathcliff, will be interviewed on TV once the trailer is edited in early March.
There will be an independent cinema release in summer 2017. (Rebecca Cain)

Deseret News recommends the classic 1939 film adaptation as one of several 'romantic movies from the past'.

'Wuthering Heights'
A young orphaned gypsy, Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier), is found and brought home by the wealthy Mr. Earnshaw. Touchy about his heritage, Heathcliff is temperamental but becomes fast friends with Mr. Earnshaw's daughter, Cathy (Merle Oberon). As the two grow up, Cathy and Heathcliff fall in love, but Cathy is sensitive about Heathcliff’s penniless heritage and doesn’t take his feelings seriously. After overhearing Cathy talk about her engagement to another man, Heathcliff runs away, seemingly forever. But a few years later he returns, now a wealthy and sophisticated man obsessed with seeing his former, and now married, love.
Starring the great dramatic actors Olivier and Oberon, "Wuthering Heights" is a superb romantic tragedy based on the first half of Emily Brontë’s only novel of the same name. The year 1939 has long been heralded as Hollywood’s greatest, and this film was one of the 10 films nominated for the outstanding production Oscar that year.
"Wuthering Heights" can be seen Feb. 15 at 12:15 a.m. Mountain Time on TCM. It can also be seen on Amazon Video and iTunes. (Elizabeth Reid)

The Wall Street Journal sends 'A Valentine to the Bad Boys of Literature'.

The “mad” part of the equation became popular in the mid-19th century, when no self-respecting romantic hero could get through a story without displaying some headbanging and frothing at the mouth. In “Jane Eyre,” Charlotte Brontë has the arrogant Mr. Rochester tell the heroine: “I must have you…My soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.” Charlotte’s sister Emily has the even more savage Heathcliff of “Wuthering Heights” fall into paroxysms of despair over Catherine: “Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable!” (Amanda Foreman)

While The Guardian has selected the 'Top 10 books for the broken-hearted', which includes

9. Villette by Charlotte Brontë
This story of a lonely woman’s love for an unattainable man caused George Eliot to cry: “Villette! Villette! It is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power.” I first read it aged 18 and was swept away by its restless energy – the way Brontë, as Virginia Woolf put it, expresses “untamed ferocity perpetually at war with the accepted order of things”.
Villette tells the story of Lucy Snowe – a cauldron of repressed emotion and desire. “Deeper than melancholy,” Snowe says, “lies heart-break.” This was Brontë’s last novel and for many her finest. (Susie Steiner)

The Irish Times reviews the novel Mrs Engels by Gavin McCrea.

A first-person narrator done really well is a terrifyingly powerful thing. It grabs you by the throat, like in Jane Eyre, and refuses to let you go until you’ve heard her or him out. (Kathleen Flynn)

And The Nation reviews Garth Greenwell’s first novel What Belongs to You.

 This goes, like the story, to the heart of desire. There is something ephemeral and ungraspable about wanting another human being, because the hunger can never be fulfilled. Love, if that’s the term that applies here, is like a question without an answer. That’s as true of Heathcliff or Lolita as it is of Mitko, and Garth Greenwell knows this very well. Although he uses words with precision and care, taking pains to describe small details, they can never pin down the longing that burns at the center of the story; instead, they outline its shape by filling in everything around it. (Damon Galgut)

Gulf News has interviewed writer Jacqueline Wilson.

A book you wish you had written: “Jane Eyre”. (Suparna Dutt-D’Cunha)

Cinema Blend spoke to film director Burr Steers about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Beware of spoilers!

Those of you who stayed through the end credits of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies know that the end of the narrative is hardly the end of the full story for Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. As we see in the mid-credits sequence, the zombie George Wickham (Jack Huston) actually managed to survive his duel with Darcy, and has assembled an army of the dead as well as the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse for revenge. Right now it’s a question mark as to whether or not we will ever see the end to this impressive charge, but director writer/director Burr Steers did recently reveal to me what he would love to do should he be given the opportunity to make Pride and Prejudice and Zombies 2.
I spoke with the filmmaker before the film’s opening during a Los Angeles press day for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and as our time was winding down I brought up the post-credits sequence and asked what his vision for a follow-up would be. Steers is certainly excited by the prospect – particularly because the movie would be able to drift away from the story established by Jane Austen – but if you think the vision is just about zombie uprisings, you’ve only thought up a fraction of the picture. Said Steers,
I have a whole idea for it, but I don’t know if it’s, we’ll see how this does. The thing about it is, you have these characters, and now you can take these characters and go off and do anything you want with them, and it’s kind of great… I was thinking more in sort of vague story lines, but escape from post-apocalyptic London, Wickham sort of ascending to a dark throne. And also, the other thing that’s really funny is you can bring in, and you have to limit yourself on this, but you can bring in any character that’s part of public domain, any character from the Brontë’s or you could have Heathcliff… It’s like Marvel, it’s all… You can have Jules Verne! You have some people coming over in balloons! (Eric Eisenberg)

The Hindu takes some lessons in fashion from literature.

And, since no literary article can be complete without the Brontës, we will look at Jane Eyre. The poor, plain governess who comes to Thornfield Hall with her plain grey and black working clothes and one relatively nice dress (for her that is ) and a brooch given to her by her favourite teacher as a parting present.
There is her beautiful and vicious rival Blanche Ingram vying for Edward Rochester’s attention. And, although dressed in the latest fashions, he does choose Jane quite quickly. She also refuses his offers of dress, asserting her independence. Charlotte Brontë teaches this most valuable lesson – sometimes it is more than just outward appearances that make us attractive. (Vijetha S.N.)

Eric Ruijssenaars discusses on the Brussels Brontë Blog whether Charlotte Brontë tried to stop Villette from being translated into French or not. Celia Bland reviews Jane Eyre on Critical Mass. The Fellowship of the King posts about 'the many faces of Jane Eyre'. Dirt Road Princess posts about Jane Eyre 1983.