Jane Eyre (1944)

One thing to remember is that film adaptations are not only in conversation with the books they interpret, but also in conversation with each other. The 1944 version of Jane Eyre was produced in the wake of Rebecca, the Oscar-winning Hitchcock film, and in many ways responds to it. This film focuses on Jane’s desire for belonging, which reflects the second Mrs. DeWinter’s struggle to be accepted within the rich estate of Manderley. Even then, it takes some things from Rebecca and turns them upside down: the first wife is the total opposite of glamorous, and the closest thing to Mrs. Danvers is a guy.

Joan Fontaine, the second Mrs. DeWinter, is cast as Jane Eyre. This was a deliberately interpretive choice to highlight Charlotte Brontë’s connection to Daphne DuMaurier’s bestselling novel. Fontaine’s acting, however, shows that while the stories are similar, they are not the same. While she brought a playful earnestness to the Rebecca protagonist, who wore her heart on her sleeve, her Jane Eyre is more inhibited, hiding her yearning behind a poker face. While the second Mrs. DeWinter was a beauty disguised in frumpy clothes, her Jane – true to the book – is somewhat plain no matter what she wears, thanks to the unflattering haircut which has apparently become the unspoken tradition for book covers and subsequent film adaptations. 

Orson Welles (Citizen Kane) is perfectly cast as Mr. Rochester, bringing his long and famous history of playing gruff and ambitious yet complex characters. Like Maxim DeWinter, this film’s Rochester is described as having a “bad temper.” Upon his first meeting with Jane, he proves himself to be extremely rude. He tries to intimidate her, but she knows he is just “under his mask… a tortured soul and kindly.” In the subtext, Jane’s poker face is exactly what draws him in.

Behind the camera, Robert Stevenson directs Jane Eyre as a gothic romance with emphasis on “gothic.” The lighting is consistently low, the cinematography milks as many scares from the text as it can, and the Bertha subplot is played up for horror. This is interesting, considering that Stevenson went on to later direct family Disney movies like Old Yeller, Mary Poppins, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Aldous Huxley, as one of the four screenwriting credits, is also an unusual contributor. He is not only the author of Brave New World, but also one of the writers from the light and happy Pride and Prejudice of 1940.

Following Rebecca’s example, Jane Eyre begins with the narrator’s voiceover: “My name is Jane Eyre… Money and position seemed all that mattered. Charity was a cold and disagreeable word. Religion too often wore a mask of bigotry and cruelty. There was no proper place for the poor or the unfortunate.” These words, it must be noted, are not from the original text. Neither are the words from subsequent voiceovers. While Alfred Hitchcock wisely let the camera take over after the intro, Jane Eyre continues to rely on voiceovers, patched over as handwritten intertitles.

At Lowood School, Mr. Brocklehurst is stiff and pompous with ridiculous hair eerily prophetic of television preachers. Helen Burns (played by an uncredited, young Elizabeth Taylor) is her loyal friend, but less obviously religious – this mentor role is taken, curiously enough, by a radically changed St. John Rivers. Or Doctor Rivers – the movie does not give his first name. Dr. Rivers is, for all practical purposes, a new character representing an enlightened Christianity to contrast the hypocritical Brocklehurst. He assures Jane that Helen is with God and inspires her to work hard and grow up to be an educated woman. His name is simply a wink at a character who is effectively eliminated from the 97-minute movie. However, some of the original St. John’s spirit is retained in the movie’s more prominent Mr. Brocklehurst. After losing a verbal faceoff with Jane before she leaves for Thornfield, the creepy headmaster comes back to psychologically haunt her later in the film, asking her to come back to work at the strict school at her lowest point and give up the idea of having a happy life. This film has the strongest interpretation of Mr. Brocklehurst by far, making him a prominent villain – a male Mrs. Danvers, the oppressive antithesis of humanity and acceptance.

Another interesting omission is Jane’s artistic prowess, a departure from not only from the source novel but from Rebecca and subsequent film adaptations. Mr. Rochester notices Jane simply looking at him (“You examine me”), in the scene where he is supposed to catch her sketching him. This omission of her artistic interpretation downplays Jane’s seeing role to focus more heavily on her being seen.

The film’s cinematography and sound design suit its relentlessly dark and gothic atmosphere well. Jane takes a walk in the dark, and Rochester almost runs her over in a startling shot interpretation of their first meeting. Foreboding music marks Rochester’s “Enough!” interjection to Jane’s mediocre piano playing. Grace Poole’s face is shown with the lighting below her eye level, giving her the “spooky campfire tales” look. Adele wakes up Jane with a creepy little musical toy foreshadowing Rochester’s past. Even at the end, Jane and Rochester can’t just kiss. They have to dramatically smash their faces against each other with a loud percussion flourish.

Bertha is, of course, the smoking gun behind the black-and-white horror atmosphere. Her room is eerily lit when everything is dark. She can’t just laugh, she has to laugh like the Wicked Witch of the West. When Jane tries to investigate, Grace won’t let her inside the Bertha’s room – all we get is a slobbery noise. Even when Jane finally gets to see Bertha, we don’t. We only hear the bizarre, inhuman noise she makes while attacking Rochester – and it is probably more effective that way. Showing her would have made the film less scary, dated it, made it unintentionally funny, and most of all, would have given a human face to a character clearly intended to be a monster in the context of this film.

The 1944 Jane Eyre, once again, is a 97-minute movie adapting hundreds of pages of text. For this reason, it should be taken neither as a definitive adaptation nor a bad one. It is only a starting point in examining visual interpretations of the original novel, since it tends to be atmosphere-driven rather than character-driven. It takes a limited angle of the novel, but uses that angle well – the angle of the grotesque. Bertha is the most obvious monster of the movie, an unseen novelty of lighting and sound effects, but not really evil – she is, after all, insane. The real villain, even though he lacks the same amount of screen time and bells and whistles, is self-righteous Mr. Brocklehurst with a horror of a hairdo.