Another Hike on the Moors for Jane Eyre

So far there have been at least 18 film versions,going back to a 1910 silent movie,and 9 made-for-television Janes. Several,including the current one,were even filmed on the same location: Haddon Hall,an ancient,manor house in wind-swept Derbyshire.

So movie-goers may be forgiven if in recollection all the Jane Eyres seem to blend together in one continuous loop,with Joan Fontaine,the 1943 Jane,suddenly morphing into Susannah York,while Rochester turns from Orson Welles into George C. Scott and then Timothy Dalton. If there has never been a definitive movie Jane Eyre,there has never been a truly rotten one. So why another Jane Eyre,then,with so many perfectly serviceable ones already available? The simplest answer is that movies get remade all the time,and the great 19th-century novelists Austen and the Brontë sisters especiallyhave proved to be an inexhaustible and almost foolproof resource.

Douglas McGrath,who has directed movie versions of both Austens Emma and Nicholas Nickleby,by Charles Dickens,wrote: What makes a classic a classic is that the story always has relevance to whatever generation is reading it. And I think that what gives them relevance is the human dilemma at the centre of it. The period detailthe great or dingy houses,the carriage and candlelight and long-lost customsare all icing,but they are not the cake.

Part of the appeal is that the language still has a rich,sometimes poetic phrasing that a modern film has a tough time matching, he added.

In the case of Jane Eyre,as Alison Owen,the producer and driving force behind the new one,pointed out there is also a simple,pragmatic reason: as period costume dramas go,Jane is relatively cheap to make. Its set in a house in the middle of a moor, she explained. You dont need swaths of costumes. And scenery costs nothing.

But a deeper reason for wanting to make the movie was simply her affection for the novel,and its stars like Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender felt much the same way. Its also a world that modern readers may more readily identify with. The story of an orphan who becomes a governess,sticks up for herself and finds true love in a spooky,haunted-seeming mansion,all the while pouring her heart out on the page in prose that is lush,romantic,almost hypnotic,Jane Eyre,is both a Gothic horror story and arguably the first and most satisfying chick-lit novel.

Moira Buffini,who wrote the screenplay,recalled that when she heard Owen was remaking Jane Eyre,she immediately said to herself,Oh,my God. She went on: It was instinctive. I just chased the job. Fukunaga,a 33-year-old American,also sought after this Jane Eyre,even though he had made only one other feature,Sin Nombre before this. Fukunaga grew up watching Robert Stevensons 1943 black-and-white version with his mother. That one which was partly written by Aldous Huxley is the most literary of all the Janes. Fukunaga said that what he learned from it was the importance of balancing the various elements of the story.

Do you make this a standard period romance drama? he said. Do you make it a horror film? Theres a balancing act you have between the two, he said. Everyone involved with the production agrees that Wasikowkas performance was crucial. It was also fortuitous. They did suggest another actress, Buffini said. Wasikowska,as it happened,had just finished filming Tim Burtons Alice in Wonderland,and had returned to her native Australia with a reading list of books she hoped to catch up on. Jane Eyre was at the top,and after just five chapters she called her agent and asked if there were any scripts in development.

What I loved about Jane is that she has this innate sense of self-respect,and theres really nowhere it should have come from, she said. Its not like she had a loving upbringing. Everything she has achieved,its because she made it for herself.