Friday, April 13, 2012
The Times Make the (Wo)Man
Now that I am coming to a close on my Jane Eyre essay, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the questions I set out with have very different answers than what I had anticipated. My main frustrations with watching the Jane Eyre films was that I felt no one was doing Jane "justice", but I've come to realize that it will never happen. And it will never happen because people don't seem to want it to happen. Every Jane Eyre character introduced in film is different from the last, and it has everything to do with when the film was made. The culture, ideals, and set of norms all dictate how Jane will be portrayed in every film, and the hope/want to see the "original" Jane will never be fruitful. Filmmakers will only ever make a Jane (or any character at all, for that matter) that they believe the people want to see, as opposed to who the character actually is.
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Although I have not seen any of the Jane Eyre films, I can imagine that watching them would be frustrating. Sometimes, the media likes to portray Jane Eyre as a love story. To me, it's just not like that. For example, the 1996 version cuts out Jane running away and becoming financially independent. I suppose because Rochester is not in that section of the novel, the filmmakers think that their audience won't be interested in it. Well, they are wrong. I love the Jane Eyre that I read in Bronte's novel and I would never want her to change. Movies usually tend to ruin novels, anyway.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Brandi. Filmmakers are always trying to turn this book into one of the greatest love stories. It seems as though if a female is the main character of a movie, that the whole theme has to revolve around love lost and then love found again.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons that I do not think that film can do Jane justice is that we have a different perception of beauty than Charlotte Bronte had in the nineteenth century. If you think about the movie industry, women are portrayed as beautiful if they are physically attractive and have unique personalities. Jane consistently notes that she is somewhat plain and reserved, which is part of the essence that makes her beautiful. I think that adapting the book to film loses the simple, sweet quality of Jane that Bronte so adamantly cherishes and we, as a modern-day society, completely pass-over as ordinary.
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