In India, back in the day DD2 - bless them - would erratically screen UK TV
programs and at the time they were the highlight of our TV viewing (yes cousins
we have still not forgiven you for ruining the taping of a Jeeves and Wooster
episode!). Now that I have moved away,
with UK shows being terribly commonplace here they no longer hold the same
appeal. As an e.g. if Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry appeared together in an
episode of QI I would forgo it for an hour of…anything really. Then one might even watch The Far Pavilions on the basis that the “British do period drama so well” but of
course like Downton Abbey (a show I haven't bothered with) it was just an overblown soap with pretty looking people in
historical costumes. Recent sporadic viewings
of respectively the very hokey The Paradise which never felt like anything Zola wrote and the more ambitious Parade’s End which took itself far too seriously
and was deadly dull decided me that my rule of strictly rationed British TV period fare was warranted. And then I saw Jane Eyre
2006.
Bronte’s novel of course heads must read lists. Mr Rochester
is apparently everyone’s idea of a romantic hero and every now and then a film/TV version comes out which is duly whetted and slobbered over by the fan
girls and further distances male viewers (with exceptions). So though I did read positive reviews
of the 2006 version I stayed away, more so since I didn't like the 2011 version
– I went with my cousin for a girls night out and half way through we began
regretting the unfinished wine bottle that we couldn't smuggle into the theatre. The only version I did like was Welles' version but that was not due to the movie itself or the performances in themselves. Rather I am a sucker for beautiful speaking voices and Welles' is top-shelf. And then when I
did get around to seeing the 2006 version, I was more than pleasantly
surprised. The production has its faults
– the two segments that bookend the novel and do not feature Mr Rochester - Jane’s childhood and her time with St John and his sisters is fairly weak. But it makes up for that
with its central story which is so very charged that you finally see why Jane Eyre
is an enduring romance. All of this has
to do with the leads. For the purists they do not exactly resemble their novel
counterparts, nevertheless they do create the passion and feeling at the heart
of what is an uncommon romance. Ms Wilson’s performance is effectively restrained and filmic but Mr Stephens performance
has dual qualities - old fashioned theatricality mixed with the toned
down approach of film. Normally I prefer
the latter but some parts call for an actor who can manipulate language and
knows how to deliver dialogue (and I have to admit that I miss this in modern
film, both in India and elsewhere few actors know how to clearly enunciate and speak their lines) and
Mr Stephens is adept at this. On the
other hand the performance is not all thespy either i.e. the kind of "look I am acting and I have cut glass vowels" performance which undermines so much British period drama or even the Orson Welles version. The proposal scene in Jane Eyre lies at the heart of the novel for it is not a simple proposal but also hints at Mr Rochester’s past and what is to come. It requires not just a mellifluous reading of
the lines but the line reading also has to convey Mr Rochester’s inner conflict. In this version it is particularly well done by Mr Stephens. Unusually for a novel perceived as a romance for ladies,
it has a very complex male character at the centre (he is also umm rather verbose!) and Mr Stephens digs into
the role with relish and delivers and more (Indian audiences may know the actor from
Mangal Pandey-and the actor really should have played Flashman, Update - well he has read the part!).
All in all I felt myself ready to watch a bit more British drama:) And for once the
interviews on the DVD extras were thoughtful and interesting.
Bronte’s novel isn't popular with everyone. There have been postcolonial interpretations – and I am surprised the French haven’t complained yet (there is a good degree of this kind of insularity and protestant christianity in Bronte's novels, they are very much of their time). For the new feminists Mr Rochester is the
worst kind of male ideal, a forerunner of the bad boy and just the kind of man any sensible woman should avoid.
Comparisons with Austen come up though Bronte wasn't a fan (and the funniest comparisons of Rochester and Darcy apparently have no comments). All this of course misses the
point because Austen and Bronte are very different writers loosely united by that hateful phrase of our time, chick-lit. Jane Eyre remains on reading lists
because it is a beautifully constructed, powerfully written novel. Second Jane Eyre is not
just a romantic novel. It is not solely about finding the right husband in a society where cads and bores
abound a la Austen. Rather it’s about
passion and feeling, injustice and goodness, hypocrisy and cruelty and about being female and in the world. Bronte feels all this very keenly - in Jane Eyre and in much of her other work. Unlike Austen, Bronte’s novels are not exactly romantic templates and unlike Austen her men are flawed and real. Jane and Rochester are singular people and
their romance equally singular, despite the lists it is not an "archetype" romance like Pride and Prejudice. And most
important of all though Jane Eyre gets a “happy ending”, you can imagine her life
without it too. Unlike Austen's novels where marriage is the logical end point, Bronte’s girl is her own person –
you feel that with or without Mr Rochester she would have made her way through
life on her own terms.
__*__
My favourite period drama pieces however still remain non-British
and rather French. I loved The Mysteries of Lisbon (and Time Regained), the former I could watch endlessly. I loved Breillat’s An Old Mistress. And Untold Scandal was probably the best
version of Dangerous Liaisons.
