So which is the BEST Jane Eyre adaptation??
Discuss.
shareThis has been under intense and thorough discussion and debate for three years, we'd all just be repeating ourselves.
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MovieChat Forums > Jane Eyre (2011) Discussion > So which is the BEST Jane Eyre adaptatio...
2006
shareDalton/Clarke then Jayston/Cusack.
As far as cinematic versions, I have problems with all of them for different reasons, mainly in that they all end up hacked to bits. I like this version the most because I cannot stand Hurt, Welles, or Scott as Rochester.
Edited because now that I've seen it more than once I think there's actually much to recommend this as the definitive cinematic version: the story beats are of course, abbreviated, but the ones that need to be hit are hit, and hit hard. I believe that Fassbender portrays Rochester's inner strife realistically, though he is perhaps too obviously in love with Jane from the get, and while Mia is (why is this always a failing of Janes?) a bit too composed for my tastes, when she lets loose with her emotions, you see a passionate spirit indeed. It also looks gorgeous, has a beautiful score and uses the locations perfectly. My only quibble with it is that the ending is so very abbreviated, and yet for all that I really love Jane's "Awaken, then" as a close to the film.
My real issue with the Welles/Fontaine version is more the two of them together then it is just Orson. I see no chemistry between them.
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"It's better not to know so much about what things mean." David Lynch
The one with Mia and Michael is my favorite, but I think the best one was with Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson.
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We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
If elements of the 2006 and 2011 versions were combined then that, for me, would be the perfect version. The 2006 mini-series had the benefit of being four hours long which I think that a novel like 'Jane Eyre' NEEDS if it is to be anything other than a highlights reel, as someone on another thread so aptly put it. It has all the gothic elements intact, Thornfield actually feels like genuinely creepy place and Grace Poole is suitably sinister and mysterious. It also has lovely cinematography, beautiful music which really helps create the atmosphere of the story, plus the Rivers part of the novel is handled really well. Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens also have absolutely electrifying chemistry. Having said all that though... Mia and Michael are the Jane and Edward that I see when I read the book. I feel like they got the closest to who the characters really are. It's just a shame that the time constraints were always going to work against this film.
shareMia and Michael are the Jane and Edward that I see when I read the book. I feel like they got the closest to who the characters really are. It's just a shame that the time constraints were always going to work against this film.
We'll there is a difference between what a mini-series is set up to do and what a two hour film does. As I've said, one can always watch or rewatch the one you prefer, or both (like you probably do). I see them as doing two different things (both of which are abstractions of the original book). There isn't the time to act-out as many of the events from the book in a feature length film, but, in the case of this 2011 film, I really think they approached it more from an internal, poetic angle, which is expressed not just in the central performances, but in the cinematography and the music, which I feel the film uses in an extremely accomplished and expressive way. But it's great that both the mini-series and all the feature length versions exist. share
in the case of this 2011 film, I really think they approached it more from an internal, poetic angle, which is expressed not just in the central performances, but in the cinematography and the music, which I feel the film uses in an extremely accomplished and expressive way.
Yes, absolutely!
This is my favorite adaptation of Jane Éire. My least favorite is the George C. Scott one.
"The end of the shoelace is called the...IT DOESN'T MATTER!"
Best? Others will have their opinions, but this is my favorite.
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