Jane Eyre (1996)

Italian director Franco Zeffirelli is famous for specializing in adaptations of classic literature, especially Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Hamlet, and The Taming of the Shrew. Also a devout Christian, he directed the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth and Brother Sun, Sister Moon, a biopic of St. Francis. As a director of adaptations, he is definitely familiar with other interpretations of the same source material – like the famous 1944 Orson Welles version of Jane Eyre. Watching this film, it is obvious that Zeffirelli, as the director and co-writer with Hugh Whitemore, is not only adapting and interpreting Charlotte Brontë’s novel, but creating points and counterpoints to the older film. While the 1944 version focused on the gothic and grotesque elements, his 1996 version focuses on the beauty and elegance of the story.

            In a nod to the 1944 version, Helen and the girl in trouble for curly hair are one and the same character. Confronted with the absurdity of punishing a child for a natural trait, Mr. Brocklehurst retorts with a similar line: “I am here to correct nature.”

Zeffirelli takes the scene further. “Why should you punish her for the way God made her hair?” challenges Jane. Ordered to fetch the scissors, she reluctantly obeys, but lets her own hair down next to Helen. The next scene shows them both with short hair. While this content is not in the book, it visually shows their bond in a way that reflects the spirit of the novel.

            Unlike the 1944 version, where the school is defined by the sinister Brocklehurst, Zeffirelli’s Lowood has more true Christian influence. Grown up, Jane (Charlotte Gainsbourg, I’m Not There) fondly says goodbye to Miss Templeton before going off to see new horizons. When she arrives at Thornfield, it is a beautiful and lush place, and Mrs. Fairfax is a cheerful hostess. A hollow wind accompanies the line, “If there was a ghost at Thornfield Hall, that would be its haunt.” Otherwise, the atmosphere is pretty and colorful – not gothic at all. Even Mr. Rochester (William Hurt, Kiss of the Spider Woman) is actually pretty friendly in the scene where he falls off his horse and meets Jane for the first time. In other scenes, he tries to talk tough, but it is obvious from the start that he is a teddy bear. This sensitive 1996 Rochester is a very different interpretation from the more hardcore Orson Welles version. Charlotte Gainsbourg herself delivers an OK performance as a compassionate and softspoken if somewhat bland Jane – neither bad nor outstandingly good. However, the two leads have great chemistry when they are together. “You have me entirely,” says Rochester when he catches her sketching him.

            It is not as though Zeffirelli is incapable of doing an unpleasant scene. The opening shots of young Jane in the red room are actually quite scary, helped by some jarring editing. Later on, however, the prominent color red is used in much more benign situations, like the color of Rochester’s coat, the color of Rochester’s chess pieces, and the color of the flowers at Thornfield. Red is an unsettling color, but also the color associated with love and passion – so Jane must take all of life. She cannot have passionate love without risk of danger.

            The most notable difference between this adaptation and the early one is the treatment of Bertha’s character. While the 1944 film plays it up for horror, Zeffirelli humanizes Rochester’s first wife. Instead of laughing like the Wicked Witch of the West, Bertha’s voice is more realistic. Zeffirelli’s film is also is the only version I have seen so far to have a black Mr. Mason – highlighting the novel’s possibly racist subtext which has been a source of controversy for modern critics. When Rochester finally must tell the truth to Jane about his wife, he reveals a Bertha who is more sympathetic than the 1944 monster and – to be fair – the source novel itself. She is shy with dark curly hair and white dress – she clearly used to be pretty, and now is just tired and unkempt. No one mentions her having a wild, sinful past.

Mrs. Reed is another threatening character who is downplayed in this film. In the opening is well-dressed and smug but underwhelming. When she summons Jane to come to her deathbed, she admits she was wrong – a blatant contradiction of the novel where she was self-righteous to the bitter end in a very purposeful subversion of the sentimental deathbed scenes in fiction of the time.

Saint John Rivers, on the other hand, does not disappoint in spite of having only a couple of glossed-over short scenes. Actor Samuel West makes the best of his little time on film. His screen presence alone captures the basic essence of the character: blonde and handsome and ambitious and good, but also somewhat cold and uptight – a bad match for Jane in what he himself admits would be a loveless marriage.

Browsing comments on YouTube and IMDB message boards, it seems like this is one of the less popular versions of Jane Eyre. I suppose I am in the minority for actually liking it a lot. This movie is neither played for horror nor self-consciously educational. The cinematography was gorgeous, the score was hauntingly beautiful, and love story was sweet and believable with a lot of compassion for the supporting characters. The director’s devout Christian faith shows through in the imagery and dialogue. While the 1944 version took a dark angle on it, the 1996 film has a more uplifting and humanistic angle – the equally important other side of the coin, emphasizing the “romance” part of “gothic romance.” 

However, I can see where criticism of this film comes from. Early in the film, showing Adele how to draw, Jane tells her, “The shadows are as important as the light.” Franco Zeffirelli’s version seems to overlook the shadows that are very necessary for a balanced interpretation of Jane Eyre. Religious hypocrites hardly do significant damage in this film. Mr. Brocklehurst fades out of sight, and Mrs. Reed repents like the easy sentimental stories that Charlotte Brontë was specifically trying to avoid. In short, no one is really allowed to be bad. While Franco Zeffirelli brings much sensitivity, beauty, humanism, and some much-needed production value to the conversation of Jane Eyre adaptations, the film needs a stronger sense of evil to be more compelling – and to stay true to the basic spirit of the book. 

Pride and Prejudice (1995)

When this BBC miniseries was first released in the mid-90s with strongly positive word of mouth, I was in elementary school and didn’t understand why my mom and her five sisters loved this long, long movie about people walking around wearing bonnets and speaking politely. Years later, when we got the DVD set to give to my mom for her birthday and we all watched it together, I understood. I was a high school junior who didn’t care what the cliques or the fashion magazines thought of me, so I connected with Elizabeth’s subtly defiant underdog moxie and fell in love with the sexy, brooding Mr. Darcy. I hadn’t read the book yet, so, to me, this was Pride and Prejudice. Judging from a variety of online message boards, even people who did read the book first consider this to be the definitive Pride and Prejudice adaptation to the detriment of all others. In fact, these fights – not to mention the viral videos of Mr. Darcy clips – can be so downright silly that Jane Austen must be laughing in her grave.

             Adapted by Andrew Davies (who won the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for the series), directed by Simon Langton, and produced by Sue Birtwistle, this adaptation is widely praised for both its faithfulness to the book and for bringing a fresh interpretation. On one hand, its accuracy is easy to explain – a six-hour miniseries is able to stuff more content than a two-hour film. Pride and Prejudice does more than cover the plot points, however – it captures the novel’s satirical tone, conveys the subtlety of the characters, and nods to the feminist themes.

            All of this is accomplished without high production value. The cinematography, while featuring some gorgeous scenery, is the made-for-TV, point-and-shoot variety. In some ways, this works in the story’s favor to highlight the pettiness and superficiality of characters who make a huge deal out of normal circumstances. The climactic confrontation between Lizzie and Lady Catherine happens not with dramatic lighting or overwhelming music, but with sunny skies and chirping birds. Some of the special effects are on the cheesy side – like Lizzie seeing Darcy in her head, blue-screened onto mirrors or carriage windows. But Dinah Collins’ costume design and Caroline Noble’s makeup and hair received BAFTA nominations and praise for historical accuracy. While period pieces have the tendency to reflect contemporary styles – like Lizzie’s 1940s-style hair in the earlier Pride and Prejudice adaptation and Edward Linton’s David Frost look in the 1970 Wuthering Heights – this particular adaptation is less obviously a product of the 1990s.

            Besides historical accuracy, the production design aids in interpretation itself. While Caroline Bingley and the stuck up society girls wear bright colors and fashions, the Bennetts all wear the white and pastels highlighting their easily maligned bourgeois status. Even the house is a painted a bland shade of cream. Part of the humor of the series is that no one seems really poor (except a couple of London street kids who give Mr. Darcy a “pet the puppy” moment in one scene). The Bennetts are in trouble, of course, but this is not visually emphasized. They talk about their financial woes, but we see a two-story house and servants – they are upper middle class people persecuted by only slightly richer people.

            The series is carried mainly by the strength of its actors. Jennifer Ehle, who won the BAFTA TV Award for her performance, plays Elizabeth Bennett as a happy, free spirit and a fiercely independent rebel in an age where it really doesn’t take a whole lot to be one. The “queen bee” Caroline, who looks down on Lizzie while also being intimidated by her, criticizes the protagonist’s “conceited independence” – when all she did was take a walk alone through in the countryside. She does not fit the mold of the “accomplished woman.” When Lady Catherine confronts her, Lizzie retorts that she is not entitled to her concerns, and she will make her decisions “without reference to you or any other person so wholly unconnected with me.” Declaring herself to be an autonomous individual, she goes against the grain of her time period when women had limited options and were expected to define themselves by their connections.

Lizzie’s flaw, which she overcomes through her interaction with the woefully misunderstood Mr. Darcy, is that she needs to allow others the same kind of autonomy and complexity that she cherishes within herself. This is in her expressions rather than stated directly. She keenly observes people at the dance, but grows visibly uncomfortable when she herself is observed. After nearly losing Mr. Darcy and learning her lesson, she earns the right once again to assert herself without hypocrisy – which she does in the aforementioned verbal battle with Lady Catherine.

            A strong cast of supporting characters maintains the satire. Mr. Collins (David Bamber) is also well-acted as “the stupidest man in all of England” whose hilarious lack of self-awareness clashes with Elizabeth’s strong identity. Davies seems to give him the double entendres (“Such a variety of social intercourse!”) to highlight his role as the awkward “id” character who merrily shocks everybody with his quirks and obnoxious social climbing. Mrs. Bennett (Alison Steadman) wails and rails desperately through the dilemma of living through her daughters.

            Colin Firth’s lead performance as Mr. Darcy made him a sex symbol and basically launched his career. He snubs Elizabeth once, and it haunts him for the rest of the movie. Water is a recurring visual symbol of his surprising new feelings for Elizabeth and the atmosphere of boiling sexual tension. The puppy-eyed aristocrat rises from the bathtub to look at Jane out the window, and later takes off his jacket in frustration and dives into the pond for one of the most erotic scenes in television history.

            These scenes, which purists may point out are not written in the original book, add to it without contradicting it. Jane Austen, not to be mistaken for her more sentimental contemporaries, does not dictate the visual atmosphere of her novel with descriptive, fluffy prose. Her writing style is sharp, satirical, and understated – the literary equivalent of a Don Hertzfelt stick figures cartoon. Thus, in many ways, she leaves the visualization of her story up to imagination.

Any adaptation can get the text – the witty banter and sarcasm – but a visual work like film must try to interpret the subtext. The BBC crew have delightfully constructed a hilarious but also emotionally compelling drama that not only appeals to females of all ages all over the world, but ranks as one of the most successful literary adaptations in television history.