If you see it without reading the book, I’d love to hear whether or not it made any sense to you. Overall, I guess I have to give it a B for effort. Why soften it so much? Why hold back on these parts? We don’t get crazy Bertha ripping up Jane’s bridal veil. We never hear a single crazy laugh at Thornfield, just the occasional thump on the floor upstairs.
#JANE EYRE MOVIE VS BOOK MOVIE#
The movie weakened everything that should have been spooky - the red room at Gateshead was not actually red or dark or gloomy or haunted in any way whatsoever. The novel of Jane Eyre has plenty of creepy bits, and to leave those out is to deprive the story of half its identity. The filmmakers also seemed to be scared of scaring us. In fact, we only see Blanche for maybe 5 minutes? No jealous tension whatsoever. Leave out the whole childhood, for example, and make the relationship between Jane and Rochester stronger.” With such a great Rochester, I feel cheated that we didn’t get the gypsy fortune teller scene, or the duet between Rochester and Blanche. I wish someone had suggested to the filmmakers, “You don’t have to cover everything in the book. John, the film just flitted from one snapshot to another without finishing a thought.
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Where the book had time and space to follow these story lines carefully and develop some delicious tension between Jane and Rochester, Jane and Blanche Ingram, and Jane and St. I think it assumed that the audience would have read the book, and tried to fit in pieces from every storyline without actually developing any of them. Unfortunately, on the whole, the film was weak.
![jane eyre movie vs book jane eyre movie vs book](https://fictionpredilection.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/9/7/26972644/download-7_5.jpg)
This is all to say that the film did get some things right. I heard murmurs and giggles during certain key dialogues that came straight out of the book, and one of my favorite moments was when Jane returns to Thornfield and the camera pulls back to reveal the damage. It was pretty clear that many folks in the theater either hadn’t read the book or hadn’t read it recently. I found special pleasure in seeing this movie with a crowd. But maybe that’s because I think Dame Judi Dench is the bomb and I loved seeing her show up again. Fairfax finds Jane at the ruins and tells her what happened. Fairfax is explained away by a line from Rochester. In the book, she hears from the innkeeper at the pub what happened, and Mrs. Beautiful addition.Īnother change that helped the movie was near the very end when Jane returns to Thornfield to find a burnt out ruin.
![jane eyre movie vs book jane eyre movie vs book](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/adaptations/images/9/9b/Jane_eyre.jpg)
The difference and disappointment for her is made unmistakable in that scene. Alas, it turns out this was just a fantasy for Jane and it’s actually St. On this point the movie actually added a scene that didn’t appear in the book but was superb for the film : when Jane is alone in her schoolmarm cottage on a bleak snowy winter night, she hears a pounding on the door and opens it to find Rochester in all his dark, brooding, sexy glory storming in to kiss her passionately. The too handsome / not handsome enough complaint might seem petty but it struck me as an important distinction in establishing Jane’s feelings for the two men. This is a character that could have been simplified into really annoying or really tyrannical, but was handled very well and given a good balance. John Rivers (Jamie Bell) – not handsome enough, but adapted well. Rochester (Michael Fassbender) – too handsome, but the voice was right on, better than I expected. Though the kid playing young Jane was perfect, I thought. Jane (Mia Wasikowska) – too timid, not enough “direct glare” as she’s famous for in the book. You caught that part about the spoilers, right? Just checking. So if you’re planning to either read the book or see the movie soon, just go ahead and add this little blog post to your Read It Later or Instapaper and we’ll meet again sometime.
![jane eyre movie vs book jane eyre movie vs book](http://www.annebronte.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Mia-Jane-Eyre.jpg)
I don’t think movies *should* try to follow the book closely because a movie is a different animal altogether. I finished the book the day before we went to see the movie and loved the story all over again.īefore I go on, let’s just get some things clear: First, I do not expect a movie to strictly adhere to any book it might be based on, especially if said book would require an epically long film or miniseries to squeeze in every last character and story thread. I had read Jane Eyre many years ago, but didn’t have a good memory of it at all, which became more and more apparent while Mark was reading it for one of his classes this semester. Last week I started reading Jane Eyre since we made plans to see the new movie adaptation, directed by Cary Fukunaga.