Jane Eyre, that ubiquitous novel lauded by critics and high school English teachers for decades, is no stranger to either the small or silver screen.
Charlotte Brontë’s Victorian gothic novel has been reinterpreted into a slew of feature films and television adaptations including a 1944 Aldous Huxley co-penned version with Orson Welles as Rochester, and a 1996 film starring William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Six years ago, the BBC presented a fantastic, possibly paradigmatic Masterpiece Theatre Jane Eyre miniseries with Ruth Wilson in the title role and Toby Stephens as a perfect, manic Rochester.
The four-part series clocked in at just under three-and-a-half hours overall, allowing for a fully fleshed out, all-encompassing adaptation of the hefty novel.
More importantly, both Wilson and Stephens sunk into their respective roles with perfect pitch, keeping to the depictions of their characters laid out by Brontë and purporting some serious romantic chemistry.
The newest Jane Eyre film, released just a few weeks ago and directed by Sin Nombre director Cary Joji Fukunaga, is a far more artistic and cinematographic interpretation of the novel, using sharp camera work and striking visuals to bring the story to life.
But while lingering shots of barren moors and lonely landscape add real elements of beauty to the film, time constraints water the story down and the relationships between the characters themselves.
Inevitably, the film can’t pack quite the same punch as Masterpiece Theatre series did.
The heart and soul of the story is for the most part the same. Jane Eyre (Mia Wasikowska, of Alice and Wonderland and The Kids Are Alright fame), a friendless, unloved orphan, survives an emotionally abusive childhood at her Aunt Reed’s (Sally Hawkins) house and navigates a harsh education at the cold-boned Lowood Institution, eventually finding employment as a governess at the ostentatiously gothic Thornfield Hall. Her employer, Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender, Inglourious Basterds), is a manic man, prone to stern outbursts and harboring a mysterious history.
Despite his outwardly harsh demeanor, however, he and Jane develop a friendly rapport that brings them closer and closer over time, eventually blossoming into love.
But Rochester’s tumultuous past catches up to them, throwing Jane into a hurricane of heartbreak and forcing her into a journey of self-discovery.
Wasikowska’s casting caused a bit of a stir in the academic community as many felt she was far too much of a Hollywood beauty to play the notably unattractive Eyre.
But while it’s clear that the makeup artists and costume designers decided that forgoing mascara was the only key to transforming Wasikowska into Jane, her performance is one of the film’s greatest highlights. Jane wanders through scene after scene with an air of wonderment, a composed, hidden curiosity and a wary eye.
She conveys outrage, loneliness, happiness and heartbreak with a subtlety rarely utilized by young actors.
Wasikowska’s youth is another solid contribution to her performance, as many previous films have presented a Jane aged far beyond the eighteen years Brontë’s character is supposed to be.
Unlike the strong, mature Wilson that strutted through Thornfield in the Masterpiece Theatre series, Wasikowska’s Jane is fragile, half-formed and frightened.
Her time at Thornfield is her first step into the adult world; when she tells the Thornfield housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax (Judi Dench, who should be in every single movie ever made), that she has never been in the company of men, it is not at all difficult to believe, thus making her impending romance with Rochester all the more doomed.
But while Wasikowska puts in a beautiful performance as Jane, Fassbender’s Rochester is far less compelling.
While Stephens stormed about the BBC-constructed Thornfield with a fierce, fervent force, Fassbender seems to float through the film, playing the tortured Byronic hero with almost no real bite.
Where Stephens roared, Fassbender whispers. Where Stephens pulled Wilson’s Jane toward him with painful passion, Fassbender merely motions towards Wasikowska.
Sure, Fassbender looks good in muttonchops, but even this mars his portrayal, as Rochester’s alleged ugliness is one of the qualities that eventually draws Jane reluctantly towards him.
Fassbender’s performance, however, is not the only factor of Fukunaga’s film that differs from Brontë’s novel.
Many small but important scenes and plotlines have either been changed or cut out completely.
At Lowood Institution, for instance, Brontë created a stark, bleak, barren and impoverished environment, but one that provided Jane with a solid education and a bit of adult love in the form of a beloved teacher, Miss Temple.
In the film though, few positive aspects of Lowood are shown, and the Miss Temple character is nowhere to be seen.
Other important scenes omitted include one in which Mr. Rochester disguises himself as a gypsy and reads Jane her fortune, and the entire final chapter of the novel.
Less significant parts of the novel are also changed. For instance, when Jane begins to keep company with St. John Rivers (Jamie Bell) and his sisters after leaving Thornfield, the film neglects the revelation that the Rivers siblings are actually Jane’s cousins, making some subsequent lines about family ties come out fairly strangely.
The novel is long and it is understandable that some concessions were necessary to fit everything into a film’s timeframe, but the movie plods along so slowly that it seems like the cut storylines were taken out in favor of protracted shots of crackling firewood and panoramic stills of Jane’s long walks through forests and gardens.
The cinematography is beautiful, but the film suffers without some of the novel’s magic, making it surprisingly tedious to watch at times.
Film adaptations of books often leave out or change certain
parts in order to make the transition to the screen, but this Jane Eyre is far more altered than previous, superior versions. A great novel deserves a better movie.
Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The News-Letter.