Spooked Horses, Hester Prynne, and Richard Burton

A girl's fantasy

Today the "random" trumps the "animal." I saw two movies this April fools weekend--one the new version of Jane Eyre.  The actress who plays Jane, Mia Wasikowska, was Alice in Tim Burton's homage to Lewis Carroll-Johnny Depp, and perhaps inspired the Eyre remake with the ethereal potential of her features. The role of Rochester goes to Michael Fassbender. This is perhaps the first costume drama that Colin Firth has escaped, because you see Colin Firth and you see, you know the scene in the BBC Pride and Prejudice when. . .

Anyway, the not-so-plain Jane first encounters Rochester when she "bewitches" his horse in mysterious woods. To cut to the chase, intense, inscrutable, seemingly fickle Rochester soon confesses that he wants Jane's "soul." O.K. a woman probably wrote that line. We know which one. True, when Rochester possessed women's bodies by acts of innuendo, he ended up with a child that may or may not have been his and a madwoman in the attic. Maybe time to try for the soul.
I did realize in watching this movie (spoiler alert only if you never had an English course and never used Cliff's Notes) that Jane is the Anti-Bertha. Rochester had already tried dark, voluptuous, nonverbal, violent, hirsute. So why not go for repressed, overwrought, anemic?
Richard Burton once played Rochester, and he seemed crazed enough to think he believes a line like "I want your soul" when you know he can't stop there or anywhere. Poor lost Liz Taylor--as a child she had a bit part in a different Jane movie. If only the Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf Taylor could play mad Bertha and a just-past National Velvet Liz play Jane (standing behind a lot of tall chairs to hide her figure). It would be interesting to see Burton/Rochester negotiate upstairs/downstairs Liz-Martha/Liz-Jane. Upstairs Liz would win that one.

Jaundiced Jane AKA C. B.

This new Jane version acquitted itself quite well, after some unnecessary messing with the chronology, though it took a leap of faith to get from about 10 words of dialogue to passion. Then, if you look around those moors, THERE'S NOTHING ELSE GOING ON. IT'S DARK IT'S DREARY. THE WELL WATER RUNS THROUGH THE GRAVEYARD. Maybe because it's been a long winter in Minnesota, the bleak scenery made me want to shout, "TURN ON A LIGHT! VITAMIN D! MEET PEOPLE! GO TO SAN DIEGO!"
California Girls were on my mind because I also saw via DVD this weekend Easy A. Those California girls are reading, or watching the Demi Moore non-version of, The Scarlet Letter. An orange blossom replaces the rose bush by the prison door, and students want a fallen reputation. It's has a skewed wit and treats oversexed teenagers with  irony, while still keeping them oversexed. But any movie in which Stanley Tucci gets to say totally nonfiltered lines is worth some time. Stanley Tucci as Rochester would spook the horse. He might make an interesting Jane.
Happy Belated April Fool's Day