'Unkind to the memory of Charlotte Brontë and to the intelligence of the modern audience'

The Times shares a hundred-year review of a 1921 silent film adaptation of Jane Eyre:

From the Times, March 26, 1922

There was shown to the film trade last week a film version of Jane Eyre. This essentially English novel was made into a film by an American firm. On the surface the result was not nearly so incongruous as might have been expected. The story was followed with a tolerable amount of accuracy and superficially the film gave some idea of the novel. Really, however, the production was a complete travesty of the book. The atmosphere of the Yorkshire moors, in which the scenes are laid, had completely vanished. Plain Jane Eyre had become pretty and Mrs Rochester (Jane’s predecessor) was nothing less than a parody of insanity. It was pleasant, however, to know (from the ingenuous confession of the producers) that the film was provided with “subtitles by Charlotte Bronte”. We fear that the latter would have relished neither the word “subtitle” nor the suggestion. As a film Jane Eyre may be satisfactory. As a film-version of the book it is very unsatisfactory. Jane Eyre is a novel of character, not of plot, and this film devotes itself entirely to the plot. The plot of the book is melodramatic in the extreme (that is why it may make a successful film), but the characterization is the work of a genius. These American producers have disdained the genius and erected a full-length film on the very ordinary foundation that they found in the plot. The result is unkind to the memory of Charlotte Brontë and to the intelligence of the modern audience. In one or two incidents the text of the book is extensively tampered with to its disadvantage. As if the plot was not melodramatic enough fresh melodrama of the kind that can only be found in films has been added to it. The acting, to a certain extent, compensates for its deficiencies. Miss Mabel Ballin is far too pretty for Jane Eyre, but that is not her fault. Mr Norman Trevor’s Rochester is satisfactory. It is a preposterous part, but then even in the book Rochester was rather a preposterous person. Some of the scenes were cleverly taken, and if scenery could have made atmosphere this film might have been a success. Perhaps American producers will eventually realise that it is impossible to transplant a British story to America and then to bring it back again for the edification of English audiences.

You don't find reviews like that anymore.

Also in The Times, the novelist Howard Jacobsen talks about his most important inspiration, his mother:

The date is April 30, 1940. In the course of the next few dozen entries she will visit the Manchester reference library twice (“I adore the place and wish I was a student”), read a book about Dickens, finish Gone with the Wind, see The Mikado, attend a debate about whether the “modern girl has degenerated” (a motion she vigorously opposes), go to hear the great Austrian tenor Richard Tauber in concert and get his autograph, catch Robert Donat in Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple at the Opera House, watch the film of Wuthering Heights with a boyfriend (“Marvellous but I don’t think such love exists”) and refuse the man who will be my father a kiss. Though she finds him too urgently “amorous”, a box of Black Magic appears to be well received. She is just 17.

Screen Rant has selected 10 '2022 Films Directed By Women' to watch out for and one of them is:

Emily - Frances O'Connor

Emily chronicles the tragically short life of British writer Emily Bronte, author of "Wuthering Heights." Emily is written and directed by Frances O'Connor. The film stars Emma Mackey as the titular character and Oliver Jackson-Cohen. The biopic is a celebration of a non-conformist female creator who defied social conventions to forge her own path.

Director Frances O'Connor, known for her roles in Mansfield Park, Artificial Intelligence, and The Conjuring 2, has moved from in front of the camera to behind it for her directorial and screenwriting debut.  Emily is set for release in 2022, but no date has been announced. (Samantha Ryan)

Film director Isabel Coixet interviews writer Virginia Feito, who is a Brontëite, for Vanity Fair (Spain).

V. F.: Pero todo se compensa al final... o puede que no. ¿Te gustan las Brontë?

I. C.: Sí, me encantan.

V. F.: Yo me imagino a las señoras románticas con camisones cogiendo neumonía mortal en el páramo. Jane Eyre es mi libro favorito a la par que El secreto, de Donna Tartt.

I. C.: ¿Donna Tartt te gusta mucho?

V. F.: Me gusta mucho porque creo que es lo más parecido a Dickens que tenemos hoy. En cierto modo me parecen obras de arte y no entiendo por qué novelas que deberían aburrirme muchísimo no lo hacen. Pero las Brontë son una maravilla. Fui a su casa en Haworth. Se lo conté a mi pareja con tal detalle que le dio un ataque de ansiedad. Es un pueblo que vive por y para las Brontë. (Translation)

Writer Kit Mayquist recommends '7 Gothic Novels with Creepy Estates' on Electric Lit.

High Place: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I can’t help but owe a lot to this book. Rarely is there a novel that captures audiences in such a way that it revives an entire genre. Well, Mexican Gothic did just that, and High Place was the best (worst?) home for such a tale. In it, a socialite in 1950s Mexico is summoned to the English estate of her newly-wed cousin, who pleads to her, desperate for help. Thrust into a mystery filled with poison and grotesque horror, the story becomes more horrifying with every page. As a reader, High Place captured one of my favorite topics that Gothic literature explores, which is the underlying social horror and tension that a wealthy estate like High Place represents. In Mexican Gothic, there is no escaping the colonialism woven throughout, and High Place portrays that horror with skill. From the small details within the house, to the way the protagonist Noemi describes it at each terrifying turn, there is no forgetting the oppressive force that High Place came from, and what it holds. [...]

The Rochester Mansion: Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood

If you’re looking for a claustrophobic Gothic mansion, this retelling of Jane Eyre inspired by Ethiopia is certainly one to add to the TBR pile. As a setting, the Rochester Mansion is eerie and perfect for the story that unfolds, capturing that feeling of being trapped without escape so very well.

In Within These Wicked Walls, the main character is a debtera—an exorcist hired to cleanse households of the Evil Eye. However, when she is hired by a new client, Andromeda finds herself in a house filled with horrifying manifestations at every turn, and secrets that may be beyond her help. This Gothic leans heavily into the supernatural side, and feels more like a cousin to The Exorcist (not that I’m complaining!), but that only makes the house all the more ideal of a setting for everything the story holds.

Los Angeles Review of Books reviews Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s Dub: Finding Ceremony.

Gumbs herself states she needed “to unlearn” herself, situating one of her selves in a “continuum”: “and if you can believe a black woman artist would most likely end up screaming in the asylum,” (another Bertha from Jane Eyre?), supplemented with self-inquiry: “think what could have made / me the way I am. think. how I made you the way you are. And what was it made both of us,” with the warning, “are / you ready?” tagged with Wynter’s “the center of the universe as its dregs.” Together, theorist and poet, bow to so-called discards, here “boda,” combined whale, human, and goddess: “boda made herself by breathing.” (Susan McCabe)