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A Few Words About A few words about...™ Jane Eyre (1944) -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Mike Frezon

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Well, I finally got around to watching my copy of this tonight.

My first-ever viewing of this film (of any age). I also had never read the book so this was my first time with the story.

As others have said, well-acted, superb dramatic lighting and score. Quite a period piece done in a specific period of American films. Very much enjoyed.

Makes me curious to see a more recent version (maybe the 2011?).
 

bruceames

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I love Joan Fontaine and I watched this movie for the first time a couple of days ago. So many actors overplay their roles and she is just a joy to watch and listen to.

I hadn't read the book either so it made it all the more fun. Definitely a great film that'll be revisiting often enough.
 

kpjwest

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Jane Eyre, directed by Robert Stevenson, is one of those films...

rather like The Third Man...

that one could watch without viewing the main titles, and just know. Just absolutely know, that it was directed by Orson Welles.

The lighting, the camerawork, the angles. It's all there. It was photographed by George Barnes (look him up.) Bernard Herrmann had something to do with the score.

Of course, Mr. Welles does have an actual role in the film. He plays Mr. Rochester. No, please don't confuse this with Mr. Benny's helper.

Everything is in place in this gothic production. The acting is absolutely perfect, led by a few interesting children in the early scenes -- Margaret O'Brien, a magnificent Peggy Ann Garner, and a newcomer, strangely uncredited whose name was Taylor.

Henry Daniell is up to his nefarious best. Agnes Moorehead, appearing as if she'd just come off the set of Ambersons, leaning against that hot boiler. Sara Allgood, who'd been in films since 1918.

Here's the kicker.

You'll see warnings that original materials don't survive, and the Blu-ray is as good as it can be.

Don't heed them.

The gang at Fox has taken what they have and made something very special out of it.

Buy this Blu-ray and be ready for a Wellesian ride.

What an interesting month for Twilight Time!

Image - 3.5

Audio - 4

Highly Recommended.

RAH
The Twilight disk is long out of print. Is the Spanish import Region ABC import blu ray the same transfer or of comparable quality?
 

Brent Reid

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The Spanish BD from Feel Films is a bootleg. As usual, it's single-layer with lossy audio and shouldn't be discussed here. But are you certain it's actually a HD rip of the Twilight Time BD and not of a DVD, as is often the case? The legit DVDs do look very good.
 

kpjwest

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Sorry to hear that. If it were a legal clone, I was tempted to buy it, but a lossy dupe bootleg, no thank you. I guess I will just have to keep looking for a modestly priced Twilight disc or hope someone reissues it legally somewhere in full rez sound and picture. I once saw a gorgeous nitrate original 35 mm print at AFI, and it was fabulous, and blu ray can get satisfactorily close to that. Hangover Square was another one. Gorgeous old Fox nitrates in that period.
 

AnthonyClarke

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Save your money and seek out a newer adaptation. Much as I love that old movie, I find the newer version with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens more satisfying in every way.
 

JohnRice

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Makes me curious to see a more recent version (maybe the 2011?).
Mike, sorry to respond after all these years, and I don't know if you've seen any other adaptations. I'm kind of a Jane Eyre enthusiast, actually, so I'll toss in my own comments. I'm a big literature fan, and that's where the basis of my movie feedback comes from. I'm not concerned that an adaptation be absolutely complete. Just that it capture the spirit of the source. A movie, even a miniseries, can never be complete.

Regarding the 2006 version, since that's been mentioned. I started that one a few weeks ago. This is my insurmountable complaint. That adaptation is almost four hours long, and it only spent, as I recall, about 15 minutes getting to Thornfield. That was a deal breaker for me. I watched the first segment, but regardless of what came later, it clearly had no interest in the soul of the story. You have to know where Jane has been. The negative influences in her past, but even more importantly, the few profound positive ones. No adaptation has ever respected the positive ones, but this adaptation, even at four hours, completely ignored them.

No adaptation has ever given proper importance to two of the most influential people in Jane's life, which is unfortunate. They are Miss Temple, and most importantly, Helen Burns. They are brief characters, but especially Helen positively shapes Jane in a more profound way than anyone else.

All in all, my favorite adaptation is the 2011 with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender. It still shorts Helen and Miss Temple, but it has elements that no other has seemed to have. It seems to be the only adaptation (except maybe the 1944, which I've never seen) that understands this is a Gothic novel. This adaptation comes across almost as a horror movie at times. There are many other things I like best about this adaptation. First are Wasikowska and Fassbender. They both simply rock their parts. Fassbender is dark and brooding, but with a sense of humor that has a wicked edge to it. The verbal sparring between him and Wasikowska is ...absolutely ...perfect. And Mia has a low key, mousy sexiness to her that nobody has ever brought to the character before. Most of all, she is a badass, in her low key way. She is completely up to the task of throwing Rochester's jabs right back at him, with interest. Even though the movie, like the rest of them, doesn't give proper importance to Helen's influence on Jane, we still see it coming through, especially in the "I have no tale of woe" speech. That is 100% Helen.

So, that's my favorite.
 
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richardburton84

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Mike, sorry to respond after all these years, and I don't know if you've seen any other adaptations. I'm kind of a Jane Eyre enthusiast, actually, so I'll toss in my own comments. I'm a big literature fan, and that's where the basis of my movie feedback comes from. I'm not concerned that an adaptation be absolutely complete. Just that it capture the spirit of the source. A movie, even a miniseries, can never be complete.

Regarding the 2006 version, since that's been mentioned. I started that one a few weeks ago. This is my insurmountable complaint. That adaptation is almost four hours long, and it only spent, as I recall, about 15 minutes getting to Thornfield. That was a deal breaker for me. I watched the first segment, but regardless of what came later, it clearly had no interest in the soul of the story. You have to know where Jane has been. The negative influences in her past, but even more importantly, the few profound positive ones. No adaptation has ever respected the positive ones, but this adaptation, even at four hours, completely ignored them.

No adaptation has ever given proper importance to two of the most influential people in Jane's life, which is unfortunate. They are Miss Temple, and most importantly, Helen Burns. They are brief characters, but especially Helen positively shapes Jane in a more profound way than anyone else.

All in all, my favorite adaptation is the 2011 with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender. It still shorts Helen and Miss Temple, but it has elements that no other has seemed to have. It seems to be the only adaptation (except maybe the 1944, which I've never seen) that understands this is a Gothic novel. This adaptation comes across almost as a horror movie at times. There are many other things I like best about this adaptation. First are Wasikowska and Fassbender. They both simply rock their parts. Fassbender is dark and brooding, but with a sense of humor that has a wicked edge to it. The verbal sparring between him and Wasikowska is ...absolutely ...perfect. And Mia has a low key, mousy sexiness to her that nobody has ever brought to the character before. Most of all, she is a badass, in her low key way. She is completely up to the task of throwing Rochester's jabs right back at him, with interest. Even though the movie, like the rest of them, doesn't give proper importance to Helen's influence on Jane, we still see it coming through, especially in the "I have no tale of woe" speech. That is 100% Helen.

So, that's my favorite.

I only finally got around to reading the book last year, so I can tell you that the 1944 version doesn’t have Miss Temple (it pretty much replaces her with a heavily modified version of St. John Rivers, who is a doctor in this version rather than a priest), but it does have Helen (played by a very young Elizabeth Taylor), though the circumstances of her death are changed in that version.
 

JohnRice

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An unambitious enthusiast?

---------------
I find that a lot of older film adaptations of literary classics rarely had any interest in the source material. There are obvious exceptions, of course. There happen to be a particularly large number of film versions of Jane Eyre, and I find most of them turn it into a Jane Austen novel. I think that's the only one I've never seen. I actually might have seen it, but it's been so long ago that I forget. If I have seen it, then it was long before I ever read the novel, which is when I became enthusiastic about it.

I'm beginning to think I have seen it, a long time ago.
 

JohnRice

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In the end, what does it for me with the 2011 version is how it manages to be both literary and cinematic. Scenes like these two, which some people find boring, are what make it successful for me...

Apparently this clip has to be opened directly in YouTube...


 

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