More information can be found regarding the highly-anticipated
Jane Eyre, starring
Mia Wasikowska and
Michael Fassbender on the
official site of Focus Features!
Here's an excerpt from article: A Classic Novel, A Passionate Adaptation: The Production of Jane Eyre
Producer Alison Owen, an Academy Award nominee and Emmy Award winner, offers, "If you say to someone, ‘What’s the definitive film version of
Jane Eyre?’ no one really has an answer. Having made a number of movies from or about women’s fiction, I wondered, ‘Why not?’"
"We’re a company that is rapidly building a healthy reputation for being able to successfully convert well-known written works into big- and small-screen entertainment. Taking on Brontë seemed like the natural next step up the literary ladder," adds producer Paul Trijbits. "It’s a book we already knew had an enormous fan base, so the responsibility was also a major consideration. We wanted to move this interpretation forward into the 21st Century whilst maintaining the story’s haunting beauty."
Owen and Trijbits’ Ruby Film & Television began work on the
project, which they took to one of the U.K.’s most prolific film funding organizations, BBC Films, to begin the development process.
Owen adds, "It’s timely in that Charlotte Brontë, seen as ‘the darker sister’ when compared to Emily and Anne Brontë, is being rediscovered much like Jane Austen was nearly 20 years ago.
"As a producer, I make sure to have general meetings with my favorite writers all the time; right after I’d thought about Jane Eyre, I was meeting with Moira Buffini. I happened to mention it and it turned out to be one of Moira’s favorite books, if not her favorite."
Buffini seized on the chance to adapt the book, and she and Owen quickly outlined their vision for a full-on big-screen approach to the story. They knew it had to differ from adaptations that had gone before. Buffini’s approach was to draw out the gothic elements of the story, and make them engines of the piece.
"Moira wanted to make it dark and spooky on an intensely romantic journey. That was her take, which I wholly supported," recalls Owen.
Further, as the novel would be adapted into a two-hour movie, Owen found that "what was brilliant about the script Moira delivered was the structure she’d chosen. The book is quite difficult in some ways to translate to film. Everyone remembers the sections of Jane’s childhood, of Jane being a governess at Thornfield and falling in love with Mr. Rochester, and then bolting.
Sally Hawkins as Mrs. Reed
"But from then on, there’s another set of characters introduced – the Rivers family. You can do that in a novel, but it’s harder to do two-thirds of the way through a movie. Moira’s stroke of genius was that instead of abbreviating or losing this part entirely, which previous adaptations have done, she put it right at the beginning – and turned the novel’s early sections of the young Jane at Lowood and her initial days at Thornfield into flashbacks. Therefore, midway through the third act, we catch up with Jane and you get the emotional punch of being in real 
time at the end as she comes to terms with everyone and everything."
Jamie Bell as St. John Rivers
Buffini comments, "I hope this will please the many who love the book; while we may not be faithful to the original structure, our version does include every key stage of Jane’s story. Giving the complete picture was also meant to help the uninitiated – those coming to this story for the first time – to understand and identify with Jane all the more."
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Judi Dench as Mrs. Fairfax
Imogene Poots as Blanche Ingram
Photos: Laurie Sparham
