Jane Eyre
(Italy-UK-France-US)
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Rochester - William Hurt
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Gainsbourg
Mrs. Fairfax - Joan Plowright
Young Jane - Anna Paquin
Miss Scatcherd - Geraldine Chaplin
Grace Poole - Billie Whitelaw
Bertha - Maria Schneider
Mrs. Reed - Fiona Shaw
Blanche Ingram - Elle Macpherson
Mr. Brocklehurst - John Wood
Miss Temple - Amanda Root
Adele - Josephine Serre
Although the film has surface similarities to the recent string of period romances taken from the novels of Jane Austen and E.M. Forster, pic's source also has significant differences. Bronte's story entails no social comedy, authorial irony or strongly defined viewpoints other than the heroine's. It also is very episodic, a quality that made even the best prior filming, the 1944 Robert Stevenson version starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine, feel somewhat fragmented.
The glue the tale most needs is a strong, unifying stylistic sensibility like the one Jane Campion applied to "The Piano," a movie inspired by Bronte-style fictions. Arguably, it doesn't have to come from a female helmer, but maybe the next time "Jane Eyre" gets filmed, the producers will try a new tack.
The novel's action transpires in four distinct periods and settings, and the script here, by Hugh Whitemore and Zeffirelli, sensibly condenses the first two, which concern the childhood and early adolescence of young Jane (Anna Paquin). An orphan, she is miserable being raised in the household of a cold, selfish aunt (Fiona Shaw) who prefers her own bratty tykes.
She escapes, but it brings no relief. Consigned to a charity school called Lowood, Jane endures a self-righteous tyranny in the harsh rule of the institution's headmaster (John Wood) and his assistant (Geraldine Chaplin). Despite the attentions of one kindly teacher (Amanda Root), the girl sees her best friend die, and can only brace for years of privation.
Although the tale is famous for the romance that emerges in its third section , when the grown Jane (Gainsbourg) takes employment as a governess at the estate of the mysterious Rochester (William Hurt), its subjective core is the growth in inner awareness and resolve that allows her not only to envision herself as his potential partner, but also to retain her sanity when their liaison is disastrously sundered.
All of this is conveyed with considerable delicacy and focus by the script and by Gainsbourg's exemplary performance. Physically and vocally just right, the actress easily suggests the gawky, awkward duckling teetering on the edge of charm and self-confidence. It is her finely shaded delineation of Jane's doubts and vacillations that gives the film its most involving passages.
As Rochester, Hurt contributes another of his quirky, idiosyncratic performances, but one that, in addition to involving a capable Brit accent, productively accents the character's inner damage and heritage of trauma.
Alessio Vlad and Claudio Capponi's score is suitably romantic, even if it doesn't touch the sheer brilliance of Bernard Herrmann's for the 1944 version. And while David Watkin's muted lensing proves little more than adequate, it's surely also Zeffirelli's doing that pic's visual approach is somewhat staid and conventional, oriented toward the actors rather than aimed at conjuring the inner fires of Bronte's tale. Result proffers old-fashioned pictorial competence where expressionistic energy is most needed.
Camera (color), David Watkin; editor, Richard Marden; music, Alessio Vlad, Claudio Capponi; production design, Roger Hall; art direction, Dennis Bosher, Raimonda Gaetani; costume design, Jenny Beavan; sound, David Stephenson; associate producer, Joyce Herlihy; assistant directors, Justin Muller, Jonathan Benson, Maria Teresa Girosi; casting, Noel Davis. Reviewed at Broadway Screening Room, N.Y., March 21, 1996. MPAA Rating: PG. Running time: 112 min.
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