Like Glencoe


(http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/janeeyre/)

I think I owe my wife an apology over my disagreement about the last film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. We were both disappointed in the BBC version of Jane Eyre last night. As I am in the middle of reading it, I suppose my quibbling must be seen in view of that. However, the break-neck rush over Jane’s early life was quite jarring. Her time with her Aunt and as a pupil and teacher at Lowood school was supposed to define her character and so the speed with which she was shoved off to the (overly gothic) school and whistled through all the trauma and death in that place gave no insight into how Jane became the strange mix of ingénue and savant that is clear in the book. As the young Jane talks to Helen Burns in the two minutes between their first smile and the elder girl’s death (from whatever Neutron Bomb of a disease leaves you looking untouched) they speculate that they think they are expected to become teachers. I wonder why they didn’t go the whole way and show a few spinning newspapers to indicate passing time. Georgie Henley is quite able to handle a half-hour of proper emotional development I am sure. This early stage left me feeling that they days of having to write out children’s parts from TV adaptations of popular drama because of the lack of good child actors had returned. I suppose they wanted to get to the juicy bits with Jane and Mr Rochester and indeed the pace did slow at this point.

I am trying to step back from having a go at the concatenation of various scenes because my complaints are probably just the result of just having read the book. I can probably get over how the house has been made too big and stony for my images and after my rant last week about how we probably expect things like this because no real insight into the décor and furniture is actually to be found in the books, I should be more measured. Having said all this, it is shot beautifully and the adult actors are excellent. Jane herself may be played as a bit too confident – I am not sure I can see this Jane Eyre abandoning her comfortable life to live rough on the moors; she would be much more likely to ask for an excellent reference and a year’s salary in advance. Oooooh. What would I do with thirty pounds?