In the latest film version of "Jane Eyre" there's just one real character: Jane herself. No one else is on the screen long enough to give us a sense of who they are, not even Mr. Rochester. In the movie Jane is often alone – on the moor, pacing the corridors of Thornfield Hall, staring by the fire in that drafty barn of a house; when other people appear, they behave cruelly towards her (in this film even the Rivers sisters are inadvertently cruel), and then disappear. She is always being left. Jane is sent away; Jane runs away; Jane's only friend dies in her arms. The one time that Jane returns, she finds Thornfield Hall burnt, its occupants scattered. When she finally says "I am come back," she's speaking to a broken, silent, weeping Mr. Rochester sitting alone in a field; they embrace, and poof: the film ends.
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In the movie Jane stands by a big picture window in Thornfield Hall on a quiet winter day, looking out at its grounds and the hills beyond the grounds, and she says she wishes she were a man so that she might go out into the world. Mrs. Fairfax (who does understand) tells her she just needs exercise and asks her to mail a letter. It's on the walk to the post office that Jane first meets Mr. Rochester.
This is like the book but also not like. In the book Jane does rant about the lot of women, saying, "Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a constraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings." But she also explains that it's not so much action that she wants as passion and intellectual challenge. She doesn't want to be wrapped in cotton, safe and dull. "Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it; restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to ... open my inward ear to a tale ... my imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence."
In the book Jane says over and over how madly she loves Mr. Rochester but the movie is more ambiguous. He loves her; that's obvious; but she's so wary and stoic and young, and he's the first man she's ever met! Who can say how she feels? Maybe he's just her first crush. Maybe she loves that he loves her. Maybe she just doesn't want to leave Thornfield Hall because it's the only place she's ever been safe from abuse. In the book one would never think that but the movie dwells more on the horror in her life. – And then Rochester, like everyone else, breaks her heart. The cad.
When in the movie St. John Rivers offered to take Jane to India as a missionary, my heart leapt for her. India! Finally, Jane, your chance! Your chance to act, to move in the world as you've been longing to do! It's perplexing that she tells him no. It's perplexing that she runs back to Mr. Rochester. Without all the scenes of the two lovers together, without the funny scenes in which she insists Mr. Rochester save his ardor for after the wedding, what St. John offers seems superior. St. John saved her life. He respects her. He's nice to her. Why not take the safe route, free from abuse? Travel, Jane! Adventure! Why run back into the arms of a man already married? For goodness sake.
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Don't get me wrong: I did enjoy the movie. I especially loved the scenes of Jane on the moor. The cinematography was spectacular. (Some day I'm visiting northern England and Scotland. You can have London; I want to see the moor!) It's been bothering me, though, the way the tone of the movie is so different from the tone of the book; I had to write it down to understand how I felt.
3 comments:
This is why I can never resist literary adaptations: there's something so fascinating to me about the same story, retold, but with everything somehow meaning something different. It's not necessarily the sign of a GOOD adaptation, but it's always interesting.
I even found that when I watched Eclipse the other night, knowing full well that it was going to be unbearable. It was awful - but it was also interesting to see that once you get out of Bella's head (and away from her first-person narration), the whole story is about kind, wise, caring people telling her over and over again that her relationship with Edward is unhealthy.
I hadn't thought of that, but you're right: the book is first person, while movies are necessarily third person, and that's why the movies always feel so different. In the book we're privy to Jane's thoughts (which are often something like, "I writhed with passion but kept my expression stoic") which are difficult to convey on screen.
In the 2006 film, Jane looks at herself in the mirror and issues reprimands to her reflection. It's a good way to tell us what she's thinking -- and also echoes Bronte's obsession with Jane's anti-beauty.
I rarely like movie adaptations, as I am sort of an obnoxious purist. But I liked the cinematography of this version of Jane. (although the book is so much better!) I enjoyed your thoughts on it. I agree with your reaction.
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