Jane Eyre

I went to see the new Jane Eyre movie tonight, with Michael Fassbender, Mia Wasikowska and Judi Dench. It was brilliant. I was in raptures. The creepiness, the smouldering, the pathos, the drama, the sheer angst. They did SUCH a good job, and I speak as someone who didn't see the point of a remake when they had just remade it a few years ago with Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson, a version I thought was pretty damn cool.

I read Jane Eyre obsessively in first year, but I have to say I never really understood Jane. I think she's a character you can only appreciate properly with age. She's so resolutely herself, and unwilling to compromise her ideals, and what she knows she deserves, as a free human being, despite her material situation. It's now that I'm not blinded by Mr Rochester's hotness and I can see that she's the stronger of the two, that what attracts Mr Rochester to her is that fact that she won't bend, for anyone, including him.

Something I thought the movie did incredibly well was the juxtaposition of St John and Rochester. St John is supposed to be fairly unassuming, I think, but fired with missionary zeal and blind faith. He demands something of Jane, in a very pragmatic and harsh way. He wants her, but he wants her on his terms. Mr Rochester wants Jane too, and in spite of his impetuousness, his moodiness, his intensity, he wants her on her terms. I liked that very much.

I wonder if Charlotte Bronte wrote herself into the story at all. Do you think she, Emily, Anne and Branwell are supposed to St John and his sisters?

I'm rereading Jane Eyre for The Thing, and I actually can't wait to get my mitts on it again, and see how different it is reading it at 30 from reading it at 19.