casual review: jane eyre
Just watched the newest film adaptation of Jane Eyre. (Mostly because Michael Fassbender is in it.) It was pretty good! I liked the cast. I think I liked the media res way of structuring the story, although I think it was intended to raise the level of suspense, which it obviously couldn't do for someone like me who knows the whole story pretty well. And, yeah, everything looked pretty much as I pictured it when I was thirteen (more than any other adaptations I've seen).
The problem is just that, since I was thirteen, my ideas of what makes a good romance have completely changed. I don't really buy Jane and Rochester any more. Their whole romance is fueled by tension and mystery, rather than actual chemistry and development of their relationship. Jane wonders the whole time, "What does he think of me? Is he about to marry this random chick? Is he a psycho or just a jerk?" Ok, not exactly with that last one, but the reader/viewer is thinking it. Because even if Jane immediately develops a strong faith in him and sense of kinship, the reader does not necessarily. Nor should they -- because he acts like a crazy fucking douchebag in at least half his scenes. (Not that my thirteen-year-old self didn't fall completely in love with him.)
The cynic in me was thinking really loudly through the whole movie, which completely distracted from Fassbender's pretty blue eyes and crazy hollow cheeks. I couldn't stop rolling my eyes and thinking, "This is so overblown, this is so unrealistic, this is so the product of a lonely teenage girl's imagination!" (which it was). All that nonsensical talk about souls and this mysterious, deep connection between them. Bah.
I wonder, was it that different a world, back then, that people really did think that getting a crush meant falling in love and that falling in love meant promises of eternal love and marriage? It just seems so alien to me.
Probably it's more that the author was so young and isolated and hadn't been in any kind of relationship. Maybe it's a combination of that and the kind of society she was a part of.
So yeah, I don't buy Jane/Rochester any longer. I don't even really buy Rochester as a character. He just seems like somebody someone like Jane would fantasize about (as a lover and as an alternative, like, embodiment of her or something -- her thoughts and feelings turned up much louder and validated with power, respect, etc.). He doesn't seem like a real person. (Jane, on the other hand, really does. That is definitely a strength of the book. I believe and like Jane.) And not that that archetype isn't alive and strong and serving those same functions still... and not that I don't still like them a lot of the time. But I've become accustomed to more subtlety. A touch more realism. I don't know. Rochester is just...
Well, it's just like Jane said: "You sir, are the most phantom-like of all: you are a mere dream."
So, yeah, well done movie, I guess. I just can't take the story seriously at face value anymore. (Of course, there's lots of interesting meta-analysis stuff with it that's still fun, like the line I just quoted -- but the movie is sort of missing that stuff.)
The problem is just that, since I was thirteen, my ideas of what makes a good romance have completely changed. I don't really buy Jane and Rochester any more. Their whole romance is fueled by tension and mystery, rather than actual chemistry and development of their relationship. Jane wonders the whole time, "What does he think of me? Is he about to marry this random chick? Is he a psycho or just a jerk?" Ok, not exactly with that last one, but the reader/viewer is thinking it. Because even if Jane immediately develops a strong faith in him and sense of kinship, the reader does not necessarily. Nor should they -- because he acts like a crazy fucking douchebag in at least half his scenes. (Not that my thirteen-year-old self didn't fall completely in love with him.)
The cynic in me was thinking really loudly through the whole movie, which completely distracted from Fassbender's pretty blue eyes and crazy hollow cheeks. I couldn't stop rolling my eyes and thinking, "This is so overblown, this is so unrealistic, this is so the product of a lonely teenage girl's imagination!" (which it was). All that nonsensical talk about souls and this mysterious, deep connection between them. Bah.
I wonder, was it that different a world, back then, that people really did think that getting a crush meant falling in love and that falling in love meant promises of eternal love and marriage? It just seems so alien to me.
Probably it's more that the author was so young and isolated and hadn't been in any kind of relationship. Maybe it's a combination of that and the kind of society she was a part of.
So yeah, I don't buy Jane/Rochester any longer. I don't even really buy Rochester as a character. He just seems like somebody someone like Jane would fantasize about (as a lover and as an alternative, like, embodiment of her or something -- her thoughts and feelings turned up much louder and validated with power, respect, etc.). He doesn't seem like a real person. (Jane, on the other hand, really does. That is definitely a strength of the book. I believe and like Jane.) And not that that archetype isn't alive and strong and serving those same functions still... and not that I don't still like them a lot of the time. But I've become accustomed to more subtlety. A touch more realism. I don't know. Rochester is just...
Well, it's just like Jane said: "You sir, are the most phantom-like of all: you are a mere dream."
So, yeah, well done movie, I guess. I just can't take the story seriously at face value anymore. (Of course, there's lots of interesting meta-analysis stuff with it that's still fun, like the line I just quoted -- but the movie is sort of missing that stuff.)