Based on the 1847 novel by Charlotte Bronte and Kim Ok-Seon
Plot(Spoiler Alert)
Jane Eyre had a rough childhood after being bullied by her cousin, cast out by her aunt and sent to a charity school. She is now 18 and has left the school. She takes a job as a governess at the estate of Edward Rochester. Jane and Edward get close, but after Jane finds out Edward’s terrible secret, she runs away.
Blaine: BBC studios was planning on making a “Jane Eyre” reboot and Cary Fukunaga was promoting a film of his when he heard the news. Cary loved the Robert Stevenson version since he was a kid and he wanted to make his own version that would be more dark, harsh and real. A script had already been developed by Moira Buffini and Cary loved it as he was looking through it, but he felt that more needed to be added to it. He added a few scenes to the movie that weren’t in the script like Jane Eyre spending some time with this little French girl named Adele. Cary also wanted scenes where you get to know Jane more and see what she is feeling at times. Cary said in the novel you know what is happening inside Jane’s head, but in the film there is not a whole lot of dialog. Jane allows herself to feel hope for the relationship she is starting to develop with Edward Rochester.
The look inside the house Cary wanted to be a mixture between a romance and a horror film. Cary doesn’t do shot lists. He knew the basic style he wanted for “Jane Eyre” without having to do storyboards. The night before shooting, Cary would go over a scene through the script and think of the style of that scene. Cary would discuss the look of the scene a lot with his cinematographer. Cary wanted to play with the lights in a surreal way, so he had xenon lights be put outside the windows.
Cary wanted actors who were naturalistic, had truthful styles of performing, feel grounded and feel immediate. Mia Wasikowska read the book in 2009 and she asked her agent if anyone was planning on making another film of it and if anyone had written a script. Two months later Mia’s agent discovered that someone had done a screenplay, so she sent it to Mia and after that Mia met with Cary Fukunaga. After having a nice long conversation with each other, Cary wanted no one else to play Jane Eyre, but Mia. To prepare herself for the role, Mia read the book again and underlined anything that was important which she later realized was the whole book. Cary and Mia went through old photos that would remind them of Jane’s essence, something she would be experiencing. The biggest challenge for Mia was the language. The language doesn’t exist anymore, it was a combination of something native and very poetic. Mia tried to make it sound natural. She practiced it a lot during rehearsals. There was one costume Mia wore that was a real 19th century dress. The costume designer spiffed it up. It was a pain for Mia to wear those kind of dresses because they were tight and heavy. It got heavier in the rain. Cary said that Jane Eyre has a strong sense of who she is. She doesn’t compromise herself of anyone and she is 18. Mia was 21 at the time and she made Jane act like an adult.
The actors had short amount of time to rehearse before shooting a scene. Michael Fassbender’s sister is a fan of the book and the reason why he wanted to be in the film was for her. Michael also found the character, Edward Rochester, very interesting and felt there were many layers to him. Michael watched all the versions of “Jane Eyre” and watched each actors’ performance of the character, Rochester, and tried to figure out how he could make his performance different. He also repeatedly read the script several times. The more he read it, the more he had an idea of who this guy is and the type of person he is.
Imogen Poots plays Blanche Ingram, a lady trying to get more intimate with Rochester. The first two things Cary asked Imogen when he met with her were if she was interested in playing Blanche and if she could sing because there’s a scene where Blanche is playing the piano while singing. Imogen’s answer was that she sings like Johnny Cash. Rome Settbon Moore, who plays Adele, was attending a school in London learning English when Cary Fukunaga found her. Cary felt that she was Adele. Cary likes working with child actors and he allows them to have fun like when Adele is playing with Jane’s wedding dress. Amelia Clarkson played Jane Eyre when she is a kid and she wanted to put a lot into her performance. Cary was excited that Judi Dench said yes to the project, but also nervous to be working with an actress who has a lot of experience in acting. Judi Dench is a very kind person and helps put people at ease and wants to help filmmakers with the movie they are making.
There’s one scene where Jane is looking outside a window and Cary said that scene is all about Jane being frustrated with the fact that she is a woman and is not able to see past the Horizon. Originally the scene was supposed to be set in a garden, but the weather was bad that day so Cary went with windows instead. They shot the window scene from the other side of it which is outside and it was 30 ft high. They had to be very careful with those windows and make sure they didn’t fall on them because it would cost $2793.50 dollars to fix each window frame. Those windows were hundreds of years old. Some stuff had to be digitally added like clouds for a dawn shot because Cary wanted that. Leaves had to be digitally added to the trees because they shot “Jane Eyre” during the Spring of 2010 and all the leaves were off the trees. Filming locations included London and various locations in Derbyshire and the Derbyshire Dales, including Chatsworth House, Haddon Hall, the village of Froggatt and the Fox House pub in Sheffield, as well as Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire.
My rating on “Jane Eyre” is four and a half out of five stars.
