2005.07.07
Jane Eyre
I dreamt of tall grass and flames; standing on the ridge with a hole in my arm and my heart, all I could do was watch and cry. But we can wait, and hope.
Am slowly reliving old television miniseries of my childhood — already wrote about 1982’s The Scarlet Pimpernel with Jane Seymour and Anthony Andrews, and last night started re-watching the 1983 BBC Jane Eyre with Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke, just released on disc, which I remember with untold amounts of affection (though perhaps I should cut out the “re-,” since at 311 minutes and uncut, it’s quite a bit longer than the one I saw on videocassette back in middle school).
Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorite books, so I was happy to see that not only is this as good as I remember from my wide-eyed & romantic childhood, it’s actually better! Though Jane is not so plain, Blanche not so beautiful, and Rochester far too dashing*, it still all works; and really, the casting couldn’t be better, because after one gets over the physical incongruities, everything else — acting, dialogue, sets, chemistry — I swear, it was like I was a teenager again!
Hope to finish up tonight, or later this weekend, and maybe some sort of Austen marathon for dessert? Bonnets and bustles and waistcoats: oh! I’ll be intolerable and happy, to be sure.