Jane Eyre in Film Version
One nice thing about the 2011 film of Jane Eyre is that it does not try to squeeze the entire novel into a two hour window. It starts off with Jane fleeing Thornfield and then through a series of flashbacks the viewer is brought up to speed. So the narrative is different in terms of how the story is unfolded but it feels like I am watching Jane Eyre, and in terms of spirit and essence I feel that the film captures the novel well. It is a very Gothic film, and the characters are well-portrayed. However, it would probably have been more enjoyable to watch had I not just read the novel. Whenever one reads a novel and then watches a film adaptation it is disappointingfor one sees it one way in ones head, and then it is projected differently on the screen and, I at least, always have the thought, Well, I liked it better the way I saw it in my head. But the 2011 film is good and surprising in that it does not try to be the book on screen, literally, but does an eloquent jobvisually speakingof adapting the book. So...
…ways.
Jane Eyre in Film 2011 Version
One nice thing about the 2011 film of Jane Eyre is that it does not try to squeeze the entire novel into a two hour window. It starts off with Jane fleeing Thornfield and then through a series of flashbacks the viewer is brought up to speed. So the narrative is different in terms of how the story is unfolded but it feels like I am watching Jane Eyre, and in terms of spirit and essence I feel that the film captures the novel well. It is a very Gothic film, and the characters are well-portrayed. However, it would probably have been more enjoyable to watch had I not just read the novel. Whenever one reads a novel and then watches a film adaptation it is disappointing—for one sees it one way in one’s head, and then it is projected differently on the screen and, I at least, always have the thought, “Well, I liked it better the way I saw it in my head.” But the 2011 film is good and surprising in that it does not try to be the book on screen, literally, but does an eloquent job—visually speaking—of adapting the book. So I was never too distracted by the thought, “Well, that’s not how I would have done it.” Instead, I was constantly being surprised because the adaptation was taking a familiar story and making it new.
For that reason, I appreciated the restructuring of the narrative as a kind of frame story and felt that it worked well. Ebert was correct in his review that the film hits all the right notes and embodies the Bronte narrative in a faithful manner while also getting key points somewhat more right than other adaptations have—such as the age gap between Jane and Rochester, or the fact that Jane is supposed to be plain—not pretty. The romantic tension between the two is also captured well. Other adaptations—like the Fontaine and Welles version—hardly feels at all like the novel. In my opinion Fassbender is a better Rochester, and Mia is a better Jane than Joan is. Overall, I much prefer the 2011 version; although, I do think the 1983 Jane Eyre with Timothy Dalton is also a good one—but that one is basically trying to be more like the book on the screen, so it is very different in terms of scope and vision than the 2011 version. Both are good in my opinion because both are going for essence, but focusing in different ways.
Jane Eyre Movie A new version of Jane Eyre has just been directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga who directed Sin Nombre and the screenwriter Moira Buffini who is best known for Tamara Drewe (Jane Eyre, N.d.). The story is set in the nineteenth century and is based on a novel by English writer Charlotte Bronte. It was originally published on October 16th, 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. Of London, England,
..(Lamonaca, 2002, pg. 245) Within the work is a clear liberalization of Jane's ideas of spiritual fate and a challenge to the standards of the day, of a wife as a spiritual and physical subordinate to a husband. Jane's insistence on a direct, unmediated relationship with her Creator uncovers a glaring inconsistency in Evangelical teaching that posed for women of faith a virtual theological impasse: Evangelicals championed the liberty of discernment and
The girls at Lowood are made to persist on a diet of precious little, sometimes spoiled food. The dormitories were too cold and the halls damp. Many essentials were denied the girls under the premise sited by Brocklehurst in an especially despicable scene where he lambastes Temple for apprising the girls with a lunch of bread and cheese after breakfast arrived spoiled and inedible. Brocklehurst informs her that in
Jane Eyre: 1996 Movie Assessments The novel Jane Eyre ends, not with a reference to the love of Jane and Rochester, but to Jane's cousin St. John River. Jane's distant cousin is a missionary who has exorcized his passion for a worthless woman from his heart and stripped himself clean of all worldly desires in the pursuit of his faith. He dies, a faithful man in a far-off godless land, filled
Jane Eyre's Lessons In Inner Beauty The notion of beauty, what it is and whether it is an inner or outward quality, has been long debated. For centuries people, and particularly women, have struggled with the concept of their own inner beauty as something as important, if not more important than their outward, physical beauty. This is no less true in literature. The idea of female inner beauty has not always
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