Jane Eyre (1971)

Love in an old people's home

This TV production of 1970 starring Susannah York and George C. Scott is another proof of how difficult it is to adopt "Jane Eyre" to the screen, and how much can go wrong in doing so. It is true that the movie suffered in the transfer to DVD - some scenes which were complete in the original were shortened and so badly edited that there are striking continuity gaps and that even one crucial scene between Jane and Rochester starts in the middle of a sentence! But even if the editing were better, the film would not be. The script is bad, the portrayal of the characters is untrue to the novel and nearly all actors are miscast. As a consequence one does not have the feeling of watching an adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's novel at all. The problem is not only that a number of scenes are shortened or left out - this is the case with all the short adaptations - but that the remaining scenes do no at all capture the tone, the spirit, the atmosphere and the concept of the novel.

This Jane Eyre for example completely leaves out Gateshead and begins with Jane's arrival at Lowood. While this is perfectly all right, since some scenes must by necessity be left out, it is not understandable that, instead of using the time gained (so to speak) and thoroughly portraying Jane's friendship with Helen, the influence Helen has for Jane's development, the lecture in Christian stoicism that she teaches her, the film nearly exclusively concentrates on the physical ill-treatment of Helen, which is driven to absurd extremes in this adaptation. What Helen has to suffer is bad enough as described in the novel, but here Miss Scatchard is portrayed as a kind of sadistic prison ward, who deliberately wants to drive Helen to a premature death. And this is about all which happens at Lowood. If you compare that to the deep impact the years spent in Lowood have on Jane in the novel, one can only state with regret that the movie does not even touch the surface of that particular episode in Jane's life. And this is the problem throughout this adaptation: It rushes from scene to scene, very often without transition, and nowhere comes even near the essence of the novel. The dialogues are an odd mixture of made-up lines and lines from the novel, very clumsily patched together, and the scenes between Jane and Rochester are so shortened that both share only 5 minutes together on screen before they fall in love, and the little conversation they have contains nothing of the brilliance, the intensity and also the humour of the conversations between Rochester and Jane in the novel. But the scriptwriter not only did Brontë's language injustice but in addition managed to ruin her moral set-up with just one sentence. When Rochester and Jane go to see Rochester's wife after the would-be wedding, Rochester says: "Yet I once loved her [his wife] as I love you now." The whole moral concept of the novel depends on the fact that Rochester is indeed an innocent victim of an amoral scheme and was trapped into marrying a mad woman whom he never loved, and that his effort to seek a true life partner is, if not sanctified by God's and man's law, yet understandable and forgivable! But this one sentence completely undermines Brontë's whole carefully constructed moral concept and turns Rochester into a dirty old man who wants a new young wife because his old one is of no use to him any longer.

From the errors regarding the script to the errors regarding the casting: Now I am by no means one of those who insist on physical resemblance between an actor and the literary figure he portrays, but by no stretch of imagination is it possible to picture lovely, blonde, blue-eyed and full-mouthed Susannah York as the novel's plain heroine. In addition, Ms York was in her thirties when the film was shot and looks it. Played by her, the novel's shy, reserved and inexperienced young Jane becomes a perfectly poised, graceful and mature woman, completely sure of herself and her deserts. I do not say that Susannah York does not play well and convincingly but the woman she portrays is not Brontë's Jane Eyre. To cast George C. Scott as Rochester must have been motivated by the desire to have a Rochester who looked old enough to make the 18 years difference in age between Jane and Rochester plausible. Scott looks as if he were around 50 but acts in various scenes as if he were 70.

To compliment the "maturity" of the leading actors all passion, desire and despair seems to have been deliberately wrung out of the script. The scene between Jane and Rochester after the wedding, the emotional climax of the novel, has become a calm, rational conversation between two middle-aged persons, at the end of which Rochester falls asleep. When Jane returns to him in the last scene, he is just as mildly pleased as a grandfather who has just been paid a visit in his old people's home by his favourite granddaughter. The only character who displays an appropriate amount of emotion is St. John, of all people. Ian Bannen plays him so passionately and his eager plea for Jane's love is so touching that one gets the impression that Bannen was modelling his St. John on the Rochester of the novel. But good though Bannen is, his St. John is just as far from the novel as York's Jane and Scott's Rochester. The only redeeming features of this very disappointing "Jane Eyre" are the locations and the score, and I would only recommend this production to those who want to watch and compare every single adaptation of "Jane Eyre".
September 14, 2008

DVD quality

All in all, a good version of the story (George C. Scott is a great Rochester). Unfortunately, the DVD quality is extremely poor. September 6, 2008

absolutely great movie but poor dvd quality

I saw this movie when i was a very young girl and still believe it is the best pairing of the characters of Mr. Rochester and Jane through the actors of George C. Scott and Susannah York!!! I have John Williams score on CD!! It is a very haunting film score!!! The DVD quality is very poor, colors are muddles and there are lines in certain parts of it!! However, I love the film and still have my VHS copy, so the 5.00 dollar price of the DVD is cheap and I do not feel like I have been cheated!! It would be wonderful if this fine film would have been better transferred to DVD for the people who have never seen this film!!! June 19, 2008

Jane errored....

As much as I am pleased I finally found George C. Scott's version of this novel/movie, I am so unhappy with the quality of editing and the horrendous film quality of this DVD! I find it hard to believe someone released it as it is! I saw the original version on TV years ago. I have never been able to forget it! The acting is first class, the music is to die for, (I have the LP for the sound track). But, after years of searching for a DVD of this TV movie, I was horror struck at how dark the scenes were, and how poor the audio was. It looks like someone has made multiple copies of it over and over so now you have little viewing quality left and then decided to sell it in this DVD form. Luckily, Scott and York still give brilliant performances in spite of how the DVD was produced. The movie's music theme still haunts me decades after first hearing it! February 9, 2008

Sorry, but Timothy Dalton will always be Edward Fairfax Rochester to me!

I can't help but see this film as "Scrooge" playing Mr. Rochester, and quite frankly, that will never do. Not a favorite, but I'm glad to have added yet another twist on Jane Eyre into my collection. October 19, 2007

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