Jane Eyre

Fascinating. While I've despised four versions of the Jane Eyre adaptations, the fifth seems fateful to me. I wasn't expecting it, but the exclusively-studio design, embellished by the performances of Welles and Fontaine, in a mise-en-scène that spares no artificial fog and varied classical three-point lighting, is the real deal. The buildings, with a touch of the early Victorian era wrapped in the primary attributes of the Gothic novel, are very pleasing. At the same time, the inventive dramaturgy makes quite substantial cuts in the novel, while quoting the necessary chapters almost verbatim. There’s no more nonsense about double asset charges, lost uncles, and newly arrived sisters. There’s the always-perfect little Elizabeth Taylor, the perfectly stoic Hillary Brooke, and the adorable yet unobtrusive Margaret O'Brien. The plot with Spanish Town is not overexposed and there was no room for kitsch in the form of the scene with the gypsy. (10/01/2012)