I've been to see Jane Eyre, actually, and I knew upon going that it was going to be a weird experience, and that I probably wouldn't enjoy it. But hey, it's Jane Eyre, it's my favorite book in its own way, it's important, and I wouldn't have missed it. I did not like it (big surprise there), but how could you possibly get angry at someone for failing at an impossible task? I don't actually think it could have been any better. I think probably Charlotte Brontë would have approved, and the girls next to me at the cinema had obviously never read the book and got out intending to do it. So, well, mission accomplished, I guess.
Please forgive the crappy photo-video thing I just had no idea for a picture, and I really like the song, and find it appropriate.
I personally think that filming Jane Eyre is impossible. All the details matter too much. All that she says, all that he says, all the "little" characters on the side (her nurse at Gateshead, her teacher friend at Lowood, everyone matters in their own way). I think that's what makes it such a good book, actually, there's hardly anything that's not useful (only St John, if you ask me. Not useful at all, and a terrible bully, as well as a bore. Someone should rid us of St John once and for all. He's insufferable. Yes. I said it. Insufferable.)
I would have made it differently, of course. I would have added more of this, and cut a few of these long shots of her walking under blossoming cherry trees, but honestly, there were really, really good ideas. I think what I would do is make an 8 hour long version, with EVERYTHING in it, except maybe make Lowood slightly shorter, and St John slightly less annoying The trouble is, in order to produce all this, I'd probably have to make some concessions. Like put a huge battle in it. With orcs, and elves, and someone screaming "Haldir! To the gate!", and probably she'd need a sidekick. I don't think Jane Eyre would be quite the same with Jar Jar Bings telling her to "cheer up, missi".
Two things I can't forgive, though, even though it's perfectly well cast, made me cry, and did turn me inside out, after all (that must mean something): Rochester never says "He would not rue his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine", and that's like filming Hamlet but cutting the part when he says "To be, or not to be", and also he doesn't accuse her of trying to drown him in his sleep, which is one of my favorite parts of the book, and which was exactly the excerpt that they chose to print in the leaflet that they distributed at the cinema. Why would you make me read that scene again, make me want to see it very badly, and then not put it in? Why? I do not understand it.
Anyway. Do go see it, though, it was actually good. I did not like it.
