Posts tagged janeeyre

Judi Dench and Mia Wasikowska looking spiffy in bonnets.

(Picture source: Focus Features)

There are as many interpretations of Jane Eyre’s story as there are adaptations. Folks in the same theatre were clearly enjoying the film about a plucky teenager who lived centuries ago. Did they see it as a story about repressed Victorians? A plain Jane love story or a story about convictions and morality?

Welcome to Cary Fukunaga’s version 2011. In the opening, Fukunaga and screenwriter Moira Buffini plunk audiences right in the middle of the novel and begin to tell the story through flashbacks. How original, I thought. We get a clear view of who Jane is: a young unloved girl moving through life searching for acceptance and a larger existence. In what seems initially as a dull governess position, she meets her counterpart of sorts, Mr Rochester, who is looking for some way out of his own predicament. Love no longer has a place in Rochester’s jaded weary state of mind but Jane manages to fan a fire in his cold cruel heart. And then her world starts to open up in ways she cannot imagine or control, her self-respect and inner strength serving as her only guides.

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There’s this part of me who wants to exult all the Gothic imagery in this book and turn this review into a copy of an essay I had written years ago for a high school literature class. So I’ll have to restrain myself.

It’s amazing how age can colour how you feel about a book. A simple tragic love story between a woman and a man that I enjoyed as a teenager turns into an uncomfortable morally complex story now through my adult lens. I think Jane Eyre was never quite as simple as I had thought. A young 18-year-old plain Jane takes up a position as a governess, a teacher to a child who is the product of an exotic European dalliance. Mr Rochester, her well-traveled boss, would fit right into any Jane Austen novel, a misunderstood rogue who is not thought of as handsome by all but still a diamond in the rough in Jane’s eyes. It doesn’t matter that the man is old enough to be her father and that he might be taking advantage of her youth and his position, the two fall in love almost immediately. On the day of their marriage, things fall apart as the truth comes out about Rochester’s sordid past and the morally uptight Jane has to make some difficult choices.

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I’ve been enjoying Movie Moxie’s movie reviews and tweets for a while. And so I was a little excited when she announced her Book to Film Club where we review books and their movie adaptations released in 2011. So far the lists look like this:

Reading:

• January 2011 - I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore
• February 2011 - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• March 2011 - Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
• April 2011 - Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant

Other books include On the Road by Jack Kerouac, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, and The Woman in Black by Susan Hill. You can view the entire list on Movie Moxie’s site. Of the 12 books on this list, I’ve only read one: the dark gothic tale of Jane Eyre. I thought Timothy Dalton was the perfect Mr. Rochester in the 1983 BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre. Michael Fassbender who is starring in the 2011 movie adaption will have very large shoes to fill, at least in my eyes.

I recently bought a Nook Color and I’m going to try to read all of the books on this e-reader. I may lapse back into paper form once in a while but I’m hoping to use this book club to test drive my new e-reader. So far, I haven’t been impressed with it even with all the glowing reviews out there. I’m hoping the January firmware update will improve things somewhat.

My favourite movie adaptation: Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. Was very disappointed the director Alfonso Cuarón did not direct another Harry Potter movie.