Tag Archives: jane eyre movie 2011

some thoughts about Jane Eyre

eeep! I don’t think this is the best-made trailer, but I can’t wait to watch the film. I was talking with Cat the other day about Jane Eyre, and she was saying that she never particularly got the romance of it.

I have always loved it, since my English teacher gave it to me for my 15th birthday.

*if it’s possible you haven’t read the book, there are spoilers ahead. But, seriously, why haven’t you read it?*

As a teenager I could never quite forgive Bronte for blinding and crippling Rochester, but I feel like the older I get, the more sense the ending makes. He has so much power over Jane – emotional, physical, financial. So in order for them ever to have a good life together, she needs to go and find family who will protect and fight for her and money to support herself. And lastly, his injuries level the physical playing ground.

I also love the decision she’s faced with in the end: To go and “save the world” and give her life to the endeavour, or to be with the one flawed human who needs her – who needs the passionate, personal part of her.

Whenever people question historical romance characters as being too outside their time, or propriety, or the way women would have been, I think of those Bronte girls living on the heath with such passionate romance burning away inside them.

going away and writing – does it work?

Mostly yes. The way I think about it is: If I had been here at home struggling with my manuscript, I would have gotten much, much less done.

Four days without internet was seriously pushing the boundaries…urg. Still, it takes away one enormous tool of the devil/procrastination. Unfortunately for my fellow writers, there’s a part of my brain that requires distraction whilst I write, and having no internet I took it out on them.

2-hour break for Jane Eyre, anyone?

Such a brilliant adaptation. And speaking of adaptations, am ridiculously excited about the 2011 film. Michael Fassbender as Rochester? Jamie Bell as St John?

Excuse me while I go scream into a pillow.

Ahem.

Where was I?

(This may give you more of an insight into how distracting I was to my fellow-writers than I intended…)

Halfway through my novel crisis, I remembered that I have a world-class mentor. After a seven minute phone conversation with Valerie/fairy godmother, in which she was as gracious and generous as ever, I had a solution.

My problem was trying to place my re-invented heroine into an existing scene, and get across where she’s at. “Why don’t you have her do something that shows us how she’s feeling?” Valerie asked.

“Oh,” I replied, things lighting up in my sluggish brain. “I just have them all sitting around, thinking.”

It’s Show Don’t Tell 101, but sometimes you just don’t have the distance to see it for yourself.

Another favourite thing from the retreat/junket/holiday (closely followed by dinner on a glad-wrapped table to save washing up):