When a novel becomes a much loved ‘classic’, it is often adapted into film and stage many times. Such is defiantly the case with Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, with many stage adaptations and around 25 screen, television, and broadcasted theatrical performances. At least one version has been made every decade since the advent of film. It would seem that every generation craved their own Jane Eyre. Indeed there are at least eight different silent versions, although not much footage remains from these. The first film on record was in 1909 and made in Italy. Then in the US there was one in 1910, two in 1914, and two in 1915, one of which was called The Castle of Thornfield. The next was in 1918 and called Woman and Wife. In 1921 there was yet another US version of which I found a small review dubbing it as ‘slow and unmoving’, and the last silent version was in 1926, made in Germany, and titled The Orphan of Lowood.
The first ‘talkie’ version of Jane Eyre was made in 1934 and starred Virginia Bruce and Colon Clive as Jane and Mr. Rochester. It suffers from being under an hour long and from social constraints of the time. Adéle is Rochester’s niece, not the daughter of a former mistress, and Jane is blond and very beautiful. Rochester is also in the process of getting an annulment of marriage with Bertha, which was not the case in the novel, but it would have been a scandal to portray Rochester as being an intentional bigamist. Despite all this, and Adele’s character portrayed as being quite foolish, this film catches the gist of the novel and even shows the mansion on fire, a quite impressive scene considering the lack of technology. Ms. Bruce visually portrays well the inner predicament that she is experiencing when she believes that Mr. Rochester is going to marry Blanche Ingram. Mr. Bruce only puts in an average performance, being extraordinarily nice throughout the entire film totally ignoring the other side of Mr. Rochester’s character. There is a scene that sets this movie apart however. Of all the versions I have seen, it is the only one that shows Jane putting out the fire in Rochester’s chamber BY HERSELF!
The next film to be made was the famous 1944 Hollywood adaptation with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles, which was released this year on DVD as a new collector’s edition loaded with great special features such as galleries, storyboards, interviews, and commentary. This screenplay was adapted from a radio version that Welles performed on The Mercury Theatre radio program, the same station on which he performed The War of the Worlds. This movie was highly influenced by Welles and it relied heavily on the gothic aspect of the novel. It was dark, and misty, and a lot of things were filmed in the shadows. The famous Margaret O’Brien stars as the wonderful Adéle Varens, with a truly great French accent, especially for a six year old actress. She won the award for most outstanding child actor of the year for the film. Another great star, who was not credited in the film, was Elizabeth Taylor, who put in a good performance as Helen Burns. Orson Welles somewhat overacts, but he made a convincing Rochester. Fontaine, as Jane, was too submissive and expressed none of the defiance and spirit that Jane depicts in the novel. One reviewer wrote that ‘her portrayal probably expressed Hollywood’s own ambivalent feelings about the position of women during the Second World War, when new opportunities, challenged their traditional domestic role.’ This is, overall, a good adaptation, which introduced many people to the novel.
The next version was a Westinghouse Studio One Summer Theatre Production that aired in 1949. It starred Charleton Heston as Rochester and Mary Sinclair as Jane. I have only seen the proposal scene in which Heston is very dry and emotionless and Jane is the one to mention going to Ireland. The script was terribly written with only tiny scraps taken directly from the novel.
In 1952 there was yet another Westinghouse version, of which I have seen the fire scene. It consists of a beautiful Jane, a scary, wide-eyed Bertha, and relatively faithful dialog. One of my favorite lines from the novel is included, after the fire, in which Rochester says, ‘In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre? What have you done with me, witch, sorceress?’
The next adaptation was in 1956 and was televised in the UK. Daphne Slater played Jane and Stanley Baker played Rochester. I could find no scenes from this film. Also in 1956 there was a version in Hong Kong called ‘The Orphan Girl’.
In 1957 the US broadcasted a filmed stage version of which 3 scenes are available on the internet. Joan Elan plays Jane and Patrick Machen plays Mr. Rochester, who is very vulgar, and drunken, and almost corners Jane on the stairs and seemingly tries to force himself on her. He says, ‘I’ve had too much brandy’ to which Jane replies ‘Why is there the need for so much brandy?’ And Jane over and over repeats ‘I do not understand you’, and who can wonder? The attack on Mason is quite hilarious, for after he was stabbed, he falls down the stairs into the company of the party, which causes such an uproar, to which Rochester replies, ‘It’s ok everyone, it was just an accident’.
In 1961 and 1963 there were two television versions that aired in the US and the UK respectively. There is not a lot of information available on these, but it does seem that the UK version was the first adaptation to be filmed in color. There was also a Mexican version done in 1963 called El Secreto (The Secret).
The next adaptation was in 1970 with George C. Scott as Rochester and Sussanah York as Jane. This movie has a haunting music score and a great opening scene of gorgeous moorlands. There is no life at Gateshead, and the movie opens as Jane is on her way to Lowood. This version does have a scene which no other has, that of the small children making their way over the moors in the freezing cold to church and back. All the scenes at Thornfield Hall are filmed well and mostly faithful to the book, although there are a few distinctive flaws. For example the two main actors were ten years too old for their parts. Scott was near 50 and York was near 30. Also George C. Scott did not hardly show any emotion at all, except for anger. The lovely chapters at the end of the novel where Rochester is so overcome with emotion at having Jane come back, are ruined in this adaptation, for when she returns all he says is ‘Ah you have come to see me’, and he makes an offer to bring Adele to her wedding to St. John. Not even happiness is expressed when he realizes that Jane still loves him and has come back to be with him. York’s performance of Jane was relatively well, as she captures Jane propriety and yet also her willfulness and free spirit.
In 1973 the best version, in my opinion, was made. Rochester is played by Michael Jayston and Jane is played by Sorcha Cusack, mother to the now famous John and Joan Cusack. Every single part of the novel is portrayed in this adaptation, with the majority of the dialogue from the book present and intact. There is such chemistry between Jayston and Cusack, which makes the interaction between their characters even greater. Jayston even says himself, ‘Sorcha was only 23 and I was 37. People said that there was an electrifying chemistry between is, which was true, I did find her attractive, but we kept things quite jokey on the set to alleviate the intensity’. Cusack explains why she was chosen for the part of Jane Eyre; ‘because I’m plain looking and [also] because I was born in Ireland, I was ten years behind other girls in terms of sophistication. Both were key ingredients to the character’. Jayston had great facial expressions, so full of emotion and expression. He could look surly without being outrageous, and he very well expressed the attribute of ‘you can never be always sure of whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary’. And the emotion in his eyes when Jane returns to him is almost heartbreaking. The filming was done well and the outdoor scenes were beautiful. After getting used to the soap-opera like filming, which was typical for television movies at the time, one can see what a real jewel this adaptation is by being so faithful and so full of true emotion.
The next adaptation stars Timothy Dalton as Rochester and Zelah Clark as Jane. Timothy Dalton was too handsome to be faithful to his character’s description, but Clark was defiantly a ‘plain Jane’. The dialog was directly from the book, but chunks of it were missing here and there. They obviously had to cut some dialog out, but reading the novel along with the movie, it always seemed as if the writers picked the wrong lines to include, or left out ones that would have been much better instead. Both characters played their parts well, but it was as if something was lacking, chemistry maybe, or maybe the fact that Rochester was too handsome, and Jane was too plain. It was almost impossible to believe that these two characters would be drawn to one another. That is the big difference between the 1973 version and the 1983 version. In 1973 it seemed as if the actors were made for each other, and for the parts. The acting was done well though and Dalton’s performance at the end was especially good. Perhaps this was because he was not so handsome anymore, and the chemistry had also improved.
In 1996 Franco Zefferelli decided to make his version of the classic. This adaptation starred William Hurt as Rochester and Charlotte Gainsburg, who is French, as Jane. Gainsburg’s accent was excellent considering her nationality. The looks of both characters were also exceptional and quite faithful to the novel. The scenery and filming of this version was beautiful, and the location of Haddon Hall made a very convincing Thornfield. The acting was well enough, though there was no ‘break’ in the seriousness and melancholy between the two main characters, and no teasing, verging on flirtation, went on between them. This film was made for the big screen, so it was lacking in time, with being short of two hours long. Because of this time constraint many scenes and situations had to be left out. The farewell scene was defiantly disappointing. It consisted of Jane coming down the stairs, there meeting Mr. Rochester, and him asking her if she still loved him and her answering ‘yes, but it is the last time that I can say it. I must leave you’ and she walks out the door. Rochester’s character would certainly not let her walk out the door like that, and although he does ride after the coach, he has to turn back because the house had caught on fire. Maria Schnieder’s performance of Bertha Mason was excellent. Her appearance was one that was convincing of having been beautiful at one point in time, but she still was deranged and mad looking, and she captured the blank stare into space perfectly.
The nest year A&E put out a version on TV starring Ciaran Hinds as Rochester and Samantha Morton as Jane. This version was under 2 hours, making it hard to really portray any significant portion of the novel. This adaptation had a horrible script which butchered the novel. To add injury to insult, Ciaran Hinds turned in the worst performance of Rochester on record, and he said that Rochester is, he believes, selfish, arrogant, chauvinistic, bullying, and sexist. "You could say he's a man of his time, a rich landowner, with power which he abuses. I wouldn't fancy him, and I wonder why women find him attractive. It's the power, I think. My job is to try and make viewers have sympathy. I hope we show how his heart was hit badly by his first wife. She'd been a bit of a sex siren when younger.’ He also said, which explains a lot, ‘I haven't seen any film versions, or read the book.’ If he had read the book then maybe he would understand the attraction that women have to Mr. Rochester.Samantha Morton tries to put in a good performance, but it was a mute point with a co-star whose only inspiration is a bad script.
Finally in 2006 BBC aired a two-parter TV adaptation of Jane Eyre. The Guardian said that it has ‘…style, substance, and just the right amount of heaving bodices…’ This version starred Toby Stephens as Rochester, and newcomer Ruth Wilson, straight out of LAMBDA, as Jane. The cinematography was excellent and it was filmed on location at Haddon Hall. They made great use of their location as most of the outdoor scenes were filmed on the beautiful grounds. Tara Fitzgerald, who also starred opposite Stephens in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, plays a convincing Mrs. Reed. The young Jane is played by Narnia’s own Georgie Henley. The years at Lowood go by fast but one can catch a glimpse of the harshness portrayed in the novel. The film makes a good transition into adulthood by showing young Jane drawing, with the camera zoomed in on the sketchpad, and after she turns the page you see a paintbrush instead of a pencil and when the camera zooms out you see it is Ruth Wilson, adult Jane. Wilson has the right look about her for a film portrayal, not plain enough to alienate the audience, but also not gorgeous. Toby Stephens as Rochester has received mixed responses from the critics. He is defiantly too handsome for the part, but nonetheless he shows great emotion in the film, especially at the farewell scene and the return scene, in which he weeps. His ‘dark and brooding’ moods are done pretty well also, without being outrageous. While the biggest scruple to some and the favorite scene to others, the farewell scene was considered quite racy. It was passionate indeed, but it had Jane and Rochester lying down on her bed, clothed, as they kiss passionately several times. Obviously this would never have been allowed in the novel, whose dialog from that scene was passionate in itself; but in today’s cultural view of ‘nothing is off limits’, the writer, Sandy Welch, must have decided to up the sexy factor on that particular scene. The other major drawback of this version is its simplification of the language in the novel. It was put into a more modern context, but consequently lost a little of its charm. Also Bertha’s character, although of the correct ethnicity, was extremely beautiful and clothed in fine ‘sleeping’ garments, another attempt at upping the sexy factor. She did however show finely her madness when she flew at her husband. Despite these flaws this adaptation was filmed so beautifully and at times with such emotion, that it is a version not to be missed.