Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Scealta_saol

Now I'm not sure if this should be in the films forum but if it should please let me know...

So I have seen trailers for the adaptation of Jane Eyre coming to cinemas and as one of my favourite novels, I was thrilled.

My one problem is Michael Fassbender. I love him as an actor. He is terrific. But Charlotte Bronte describes Mr Rochester as:

"with his broad and jetty eyebrows; his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of his black hair. I recognised his decisive nose, more remarkable for character than beauty; his full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler; his grim mouth, chin, and jaw—yes, all three were very grim, and no mistake. His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonised in squareness with his physiognomy” (chapter 13).

Read more at Suite101: Mr Rochester: Byronic Hero: A closer look at Jane Eyre’s true love | Suite101.com http://www.suite101.com/content/mr-rochester-byronic-hero-a35598#ixzz1WEYfYZoX

Even Jane isn't supposed to be the prettiest lass there... I don't understand why Hollywood feel the need to make everyone pretty. Can't they stay true to form. Mr Rochester is supposed to be physically unattractive because it's his character that Jane falls in love with etc.

Anyone else annoyed with this or am I alone? I will still watch the film and will most likely love Fassbender's performance... It's Hollywood I'm annoyed with... Anyone??

emeraldstar

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056137123

Asphyxia

Ooh! I'm nervous now, Jane Eyre is one of my favorite classics I'm not really impressed with the way films change things from books. I have a picture in my head of what the characters would look like, not sure if I'd see it in the cinema but I wouldn't mind watching it online.

libra02

Asphyxia wrote: »

Ooh! I'm nervous now, Jane Eyre is one of my favorite classics I'm not really impressed with the way films change things from books. I have a picture in my head of what the characters would look like, not sure if I'd see it in the cinema but I wouldn't mind watching it online.

I am always nervous when my favourite books are adapted into films but I telling you this adaption of Jane Eyre I loved.

I was in NYC when it had a limited opening so was lucky enough to go see it and I loved it.

As per usual you cannot put everything that is in a book into the film and certain little bits are changed so the film flows. Despite all this, this film version is up there with the best.

Even though he may not look like everyone or even Bronte idea of Rochester, Michael Fassbender really embodies the character. He captures Rochester's moody, secretive, mysterious side without coming across as crazy or creepy. To me in the film he has this gaze /look in his eyes which is exactly how I imagined it to be in the book.
Mia Wasiwoska also just emboides and captures Jane. They managed to tone down her looks and again she brings Jane's strenght and fight to screen.

I personally disliked the 2006 version as I though Toby Stephens just made Rochester seem to be a horny and crazy and at times it just felt like he was reciting the lines.

Personally I advise you to give it a chance and go see it in cinema. The best thing is that it being a book you can always go back and relive the story with your own verison of the characters.

Mickjg

I read Jayne Eyre for the Leaving.

Saw some BBC adaptation and a stage play.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the book, but I'll put that down to it not really being my thing and being forced to read it at a stressful enough time.

I saw it in March in Chicago, just to check it out and see how it was. The trailer looked impressive. The film was the best adaptation of the source material I have seen. It brought forth some things I had never taken into account before. There is a creepiness to the whole story that I never really got from the book but which is very much present in the film.

I enjoyed it. It's different from other adaptations but it's probably the most straight forward, best adaptation of the novel.

Well worth a look for true fans.

Mia Carter

I agree, Michael Fassbender is extremely talented but maybe too attractive to fit Rochester’s character. However, I’m not all that sure Jane Eyre was as unattractive as we are led to believe. I pictured her as a downright butter-face until I read an analysis on Shmoop that changed my mind. Because Jane herself is the narrator, she tends to underplay herself due to modesty or a lack of self esteem. When you hear about her through other people though, she doesn’t seem all that plain. For example, Daisy says to her "Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too good..”. And Diana isn’t one for pointless flattery.

Scealta_saol

That's very true. As a narrator, Jane would describe herself in a slightly more modest way - and I agree with you, it would most likely stem from her low self esteem. I think it also helps the readers relate to her more, don't you think? We're not exactly going to love someone who describes themselves as gorgeous. I don't think many of the other authors who wrote in 1st person narrative did...??

I actually have to change my mind from my OP... I thought Fassbender did a fantastic job as Rochester! He was glum in the right measure and really fit the character...

I am pretty annoyed one of my favourite scenes was taken out (if ever in it) - the scene where Rochester poses as a gypsy fortune teller

Hayte

I don't mind reinterpretation, even at times, very liberal ones. My reading of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys for example has changed the way I interpret Jane Eyre forever, so I can never really gloss over Bertha, nor can I think of her as an obstacle to romance. I think this is part of the creepiness that people talk about. When the novel was written it played into gothic types like the mad woman in the attic but after more than a century of social and political change through Feminism, we come to a point in the 1960s where there are very disturbing questions to be asked about Bertha and how it can be that a human being, a woman can be driven to madness and come to be imprisoned in the attic of her former husband.

The origin of the term hysteria comes from the greek word for uterus and was for centuries believed to be a medical condition that afflicted women. You can think of Bertha in Jane Eyre and the unnamed protagonist in The Yellow Wallpaper as two important characters that emerged towards the end of the belief in female hysteria as a medical condition.

I think of Wide Sargasso Sea as Jane Eyre's companion piece because it gave Bertha Mason her name back and it gave her a face, a life, a past and a future so that she becomes more than an obstacle. The horror becomes something different - about exercising power over others, power over women, power over race. It is possible to read one without the other but you end up missing a whole subtext that up until that point had gone ignored, and which arguably should be recognized. The key I think is that Wide Sargasso Sea reworked and reinterpreted Jane Eyre without taking anything away from it - it stands as its own work and adds another dimension to Jane Eyre which you can never ignore.

So I don't mind people taking creative liberties with Rochester's portrayal. I'm interested in the novel's place in history and now I am interested in the film adaption's place in history. Alot has changed in terms of gender roles, race relations, human relationships, power relationships etc. since the mid 19th century. I want the filmmakers to take the daring approach, to add to the novel like Jean Rhys did, so that the film stands on its own and enriches the book at the same time, by imbuing it with another level of meaning.

I am ever the optimist though.

Madison Lee

I love Jane Eyre, any movie, any actor and I like the book best of all. So I’m probably not anyone to comment or complain about anything. There’s something about Jane Eyre that’s nothing like other books. It’s got love, drama, mystery and a very dark, grim side as well. I loved the book in high school because I was a huge book worm, like the kind that has spent more time in the library than anywhere else in school. I go into movies with low expectations so that maybe why they don’t really disappoint me. However, as far as handsomeness goes, its subjective, maybe the casting crew really thought embodied the part.

getz

Scealta_saol wrote: »

That's very true. As a narrator, Jane would describe herself in a slightly more modest way - and I agree with you, it would most likely stem from her low self esteem. I think it also helps the readers relate to her more, don't you think? We're not exactly going to love someone who describes themselves as gorgeous. I don't think many of the other authors who wrote in 1st person narrative did...??

I actually have to change my mind from my OP... I thought Fassbender did a fantastic job as Rochester! He was glum in the right measure and really fit the character...

I am pretty annoyed one of my favourite scenes was taken out (if ever in it) - the scene where Rochester poses as a gypsy fortune teller

charlotte wrote jane eyre as very much in the model of herself,small not pretty, mousy even,the book is set in the local area of the moors around haworth,charlotte like her jane eyre was child teacher[nanny ?] the story itself was picked up from the local tales that would go about from mouth to mouth,

getz

funny enough i have just been looking at my old bronte books,one i have is by e c gaskell called the life of charlotte bronte its a old one printed in 1866,on the back of the book by the printer smith& elder there is a list of charlottes novels, on jane eyre it says an autobiography, as she died in 1855, charlotte must have known it was sold as one