literary adaptations post 1 of 2
Jan. 20th, 2014 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe Autobiography of Jane Eyre
I rewatched episode 43 Kidnapped (or Jane, Where’s My Car?) and took in how Significant Rochester’s inability to play by the rules in chess was, instead of being distracted by the cute and how he was thinking of kissing her all the while. I also rewatched episode 45 because I could...
Thus prepped, I watched new stuff - Episodes 46 to 49
Ep 46 Having Tea With You
This left me mewling ‘Oh, kitten’ in Jane's general direction, when I wasn’t looking suspiciously at the teacup, which I suspect was empty. But on the other hand, we had a good, credible use of a cut as Jane freaked out, because she’s happy, which she isn’t used to, in a loving relationship, ditto, and because yes, what she is being offered in said relationship is intense, weird and overwhelming. (The correct response would be to insist on brakes, given what she knows and feels.)
I liked that the reference to being in the nineteenth century was glancing and she riffed over Disney movies instead. All the talk of not imagining her wedding, really, given that the book has the most famous wedding in literature, was amusing.
I would imagine that one of the first questions in the next QandA vid will be who wrote that poem.
Didn’t see the point of the art that Adele shared at this point – why not introduce her posting her work somewhere earlier or tie it into more of a plot point?
Ep 47 Changes
The Suzanna-Jane interaction started off weirdly and the ‘pearl’ business would have been better after we’d seen the tiara. Hmm, again with the picking up of the Disney princess stuff. I liked Suzanna being aggressive about Jane not heeding her warning, I don’t know if we had quite enough of Jane convincing her that she was marrying for love, so it was fine, except for how she was freaked out about marrying so young – Suzanna’s point about it being so soon was the valid one. I liked how they made clear Rochester’s (driven) insistence on making Jane the perfect “Mrs Rochester”, even if I am not sure that I bought Jane bringing all the gifts onto her new, posher bed to make the point. Couldn’t they have cut to them piled onto another piece of furniture?
Of course, it was getting flowers that got to Jane. Aww.
Suzanna/Tiara did make me laugh, though.
I liked that they had the characters reference The Sound of Music, given everything.
Ep 48 Invitations
Ribbons! Moar flowers! Freaking out at Rochester (unseen) and the show he’s making of the wedding. (And, again, there’s the fact that she had no-one to invite – you’d have thought she’d have made a reference to inviting her viewers except she’d have to disclaim it.)
I hope Jane writes a little covering letter or adds an explanation to the random wedding invitation to her uncle.
Ep 49 Fairytales
I liked the opening - that we got to see the snow and got the voiceover as Jane worked through things, and I very much liked the Madeira reference for the book and the way that they made it work as contrast to snowy Canada. The weird shot of blankets was weird (Bertha?) and then we had the switch to Jane-Adele-Rochester, which didn’t quite work. Basically, Jane and Rochester seemed to be missing out the fact that they needed to reassure the kid – I liked Adele seeing through Jane’s story immediately – and not trying to explain honeymoons, although it was amusing that Rochester blundered so much that he annoyed both of them.
The bit about it not being a real/legal wedding but being just for them was a ‘WHUH?’ moment – if not, what is the point, if Jane has doubts and given what’s coming? Plus the fact that she has a new bedroom of her own and what she’s said about her faith suggests that they are waiting to marry to have sex, so you’d think it would be a legal marriage. I felt that the show hadn’t really thought through the consequences of its choices on that and the changes to Adele. In the book, it’s tough cheese for her, but she is going to be sent away because she’s maybe Rochester’s bastard, and Jane doesn’t really care and it’s okay. Here she’s his acknowledged daughter with clear abandonment issues and she and Jane are meant to have forged a loving relationship, and you’d think the show would acknowledge the family dynamic has changed from what was in the book. Even if Jane is convinced that this advanced programme is the best thing for her, there should still be more of them making sure that Adele is okay about things. In fact, having Jane freak out about becoming Adele’s stepmother too on top of everything would add to her turmoil, so that would be an interesting thing to examine.
I had to stop there, but that’s fine, because I’m busy speculating to myself about how they’ll handle The Wedding. Clearly, the camera must be there – maybe Adele could be filming to make her feel a part of it – and I can see Rochester insisting that it stays on when he introduces Bertha. But...posting that in the modern world? Will they even begin to address the ramifications of THAT? Presumably bigamy is illegal in Canada too, although he might not get prosecuted for it, but it would be a total PR disaster.
And how does what happens after she leaves work? First in terms of Jane telling her viewers, who could include Rochester as far as she knows, where she is. She could be vague, I suppose. Second, in terms of her not knowing what happened to the house – there’d be news of some kind on the internet and Adele at least knows her Twitter handle. I hope they’ve thought through all this stuff, but past experience suggests they’ll go for showing the drama and do some handwaving, but not nearly enough. Which is fine, I want her to hear him calling her name - I don't want it to be him contacting her by Twitter. The drama had better be full blooded.
I rewatched episode 43 Kidnapped (or Jane, Where’s My Car?) and took in how Significant Rochester’s inability to play by the rules in chess was, instead of being distracted by the cute and how he was thinking of kissing her all the while. I also rewatched episode 45 because I could...
Thus prepped, I watched new stuff - Episodes 46 to 49
Ep 46 Having Tea With You
This left me mewling ‘Oh, kitten’ in Jane's general direction, when I wasn’t looking suspiciously at the teacup, which I suspect was empty. But on the other hand, we had a good, credible use of a cut as Jane freaked out, because she’s happy, which she isn’t used to, in a loving relationship, ditto, and because yes, what she is being offered in said relationship is intense, weird and overwhelming. (The correct response would be to insist on brakes, given what she knows and feels.)
I liked that the reference to being in the nineteenth century was glancing and she riffed over Disney movies instead. All the talk of not imagining her wedding, really, given that the book has the most famous wedding in literature, was amusing.
I would imagine that one of the first questions in the next QandA vid will be who wrote that poem.
Didn’t see the point of the art that Adele shared at this point – why not introduce her posting her work somewhere earlier or tie it into more of a plot point?
Ep 47 Changes
The Suzanna-Jane interaction started off weirdly and the ‘pearl’ business would have been better after we’d seen the tiara. Hmm, again with the picking up of the Disney princess stuff. I liked Suzanna being aggressive about Jane not heeding her warning, I don’t know if we had quite enough of Jane convincing her that she was marrying for love, so it was fine, except for how she was freaked out about marrying so young – Suzanna’s point about it being so soon was the valid one. I liked how they made clear Rochester’s (driven) insistence on making Jane the perfect “Mrs Rochester”, even if I am not sure that I bought Jane bringing all the gifts onto her new, posher bed to make the point. Couldn’t they have cut to them piled onto another piece of furniture?
Of course, it was getting flowers that got to Jane. Aww.
Suzanna/Tiara did make me laugh, though.
I liked that they had the characters reference The Sound of Music, given everything.
Ep 48 Invitations
Ribbons! Moar flowers! Freaking out at Rochester (unseen) and the show he’s making of the wedding. (And, again, there’s the fact that she had no-one to invite – you’d have thought she’d have made a reference to inviting her viewers except she’d have to disclaim it.)
I hope Jane writes a little covering letter or adds an explanation to the random wedding invitation to her uncle.
Ep 49 Fairytales
I liked the opening - that we got to see the snow and got the voiceover as Jane worked through things, and I very much liked the Madeira reference for the book and the way that they made it work as contrast to snowy Canada. The weird shot of blankets was weird (Bertha?) and then we had the switch to Jane-Adele-Rochester, which didn’t quite work. Basically, Jane and Rochester seemed to be missing out the fact that they needed to reassure the kid – I liked Adele seeing through Jane’s story immediately – and not trying to explain honeymoons, although it was amusing that Rochester blundered so much that he annoyed both of them.
The bit about it not being a real/legal wedding but being just for them was a ‘WHUH?’ moment – if not, what is the point, if Jane has doubts and given what’s coming? Plus the fact that she has a new bedroom of her own and what she’s said about her faith suggests that they are waiting to marry to have sex, so you’d think it would be a legal marriage. I felt that the show hadn’t really thought through the consequences of its choices on that and the changes to Adele. In the book, it’s tough cheese for her, but she is going to be sent away because she’s maybe Rochester’s bastard, and Jane doesn’t really care and it’s okay. Here she’s his acknowledged daughter with clear abandonment issues and she and Jane are meant to have forged a loving relationship, and you’d think the show would acknowledge the family dynamic has changed from what was in the book. Even if Jane is convinced that this advanced programme is the best thing for her, there should still be more of them making sure that Adele is okay about things. In fact, having Jane freak out about becoming Adele’s stepmother too on top of everything would add to her turmoil, so that would be an interesting thing to examine.
I had to stop there, but that’s fine, because I’m busy speculating to myself about how they’ll handle The Wedding. Clearly, the camera must be there – maybe Adele could be filming to make her feel a part of it – and I can see Rochester insisting that it stays on when he introduces Bertha. But...posting that in the modern world? Will they even begin to address the ramifications of THAT? Presumably bigamy is illegal in Canada too, although he might not get prosecuted for it, but it would be a total PR disaster.
And how does what happens after she leaves work? First in terms of Jane telling her viewers, who could include Rochester as far as she knows, where she is. She could be vague, I suppose. Second, in terms of her not knowing what happened to the house – there’d be news of some kind on the internet and Adele at least knows her Twitter handle. I hope they’ve thought through all this stuff, but past experience suggests they’ll go for showing the drama and do some handwaving, but not nearly enough. Which is fine, I want her to hear him calling her name - I don't want it to be him contacting her by Twitter. The drama had better be full blooded.
