Film Reviews – June 2012
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Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies Issue 23 June 2012 Film Reviews – June 2012 Table of Contents Jane Eyre A review by Catherine Paula Han ........................................................... 2 J Edgar A Review by Serena Daalmans ............................................................ 13 Andy Hardy Collection, Volume I A Review by Judy Beth Morris ............................................................. 18 The Avengers A Review by Brady Hammond ............................................................. 25 A Dangerous Method A Review by Charles Andrews ............................................................. 33 The Shore A Review by Andrea Grunert ............................................................... 39 1 Film Reviews Jane Eyre Dir. Cary Fukunaga, UK/USA, 2011. A Review by Catherine Paula Han, University of Hull “[W]e’ve had at least as many adaptations as the Brontës had hot dinners” was The Telegraph’s Tim Robey’s response to Cary Fukunaga’s 2011 adaptation of Jane Eyre (Robey: 2011). Robey’s jibe emblematises the challenge of breathing fresh insight into Charlotte Brontë’s novel. Despite being “poor, obscure, plain and little”, Brontë’s heroine has captured the attentions of filmmakers from the silent era onwards (Brontë, 2001: 216). As the 2011 production’s publicity website acknowledged, since “1910, there have been over 30 film and television adaptations, as well as a score of theatrical ones” (Focus Features 2011a). This review examines Fukunaga’s attempts to reinvent Brontë’s narrative for contemporary audiences and considers how the production dealt with its screen predecessors. In the 2011 adaptation’s publicity, the filmmakers emphasised the studio era Jane Eyre (dir. Robert Stevenson, 1944), starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles, as a significant inspiration. Throughout, I will compare the two versions to interrogate the filmmakers’ advertised debt to Robert Stevenson. Furthermore, I use Stevenson’s work as a reference point to identify the most inventive elements in Fukunaga’s interpretation of Jane Eyre. As I shall argue, two specific aspects inject interest into an uncontroversial rendering of Brontë’s novel. Firstly, the treatment employs a chronology that eschews the novel’s structure. Secondly, the film evinces an emotional pitch that differentiates it from earlier remakes. An emotional and stylistic reserve permeates Jane Eyre (2011), characterising the production’s use of genre, actors’ performances, and aesthetic. Moreover, the review also briefly discusses the near-contemporary BBC miniseries Jane Eyre (2006). Due to the 2006 television adaptation, Fukunaga’s subsequent effort suffers from an unfortunate belatedness. Yet the cultural déjà vu also suggests why Jane Eyre’s (2011) personnel chose to emphasise the 1944 production’s influence. Anticipating responses such as Robey’s, the 2011 film’s marketing acknowledged the existing adaptations in a calculated manner. The 2 Issue 23, June 2012 Film Reviews publicity associated the contemporary production with prestige of the aforementioned 1944 classic, thereby obscuring over six decades of filmmaking. In an interview, Moira Buffini, the scriptwriter discussed the antecedent screen interpretations: I feared I would’ve sunk under the weight of other people’s ideas. So instead, to get a sense of what came before, I watched the odd chunk on YouTube. I watched a ten-minute section of the 80s version with Timothy Dalton. And then there was the one from the 90s with Charlotte Gainsborough, and I watched a 10-minute chunk of that. But Cary Fukunaga and I both loved the Orson Welles version of Jane Eyre from 1944. That one was so beautiful and the language was so rich, I found it very inspirational (Focus Features, 2011a). Likewise, Fukunaga professed a specific acquaintance with Stevenson’s treatment: “My Mom was a big fan of that movie, so in turn I became one too, wearing out our VHS copy of it by the end of primary school; I really loved it” (Focus Features, 2011b). The filmmakers’ references indicate an effort to disavow more recent adaptations and construct an illustrious cinematic pedigree. The publicity emphasised the 2011 filmmakers’ cinematic hypertextuality, but also the “responsibility” to “honor” Brontë’s hypotext (Focus Features, 2011b). As an adaptor, Buffini practices a pragmatic fidelity and refrains from introducing major divergences from Brontë’s text. Nevertheless, she abridges episodes to hone dramatic impact and expunges unwieldy literary material. For example, the production effaces the coincidence that St John and his sisters are Jane’s cousins (Brontë 2001: 327-8). Plotwise, the 2011 version contrives to incorporate the major events in the novel, including episodes eliminated in Stevenson’s version. Extended screentime portrays the child protagonist’s (Amelia Clarkson) suffering, which include her ordeals in her abusive step-aunt’s (Sally Hawkins) household, and subsequently at Lowood School. After reaching adulthood, Jane (Mia Wasikowska) becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall and falls in love with her employer, Edward Rochester (Michael Fassbender). Despite various obstacles, the two eventually become engaged but a surprise visitor interrupts the wedding day to reveal that Rochester has imprisoned his previous wife, Bertha (Valentina Cervi), in Thornfield’s attic. Learning of Rochester’s attempted bigamy, Jane flees Thornfield and loses herself in a moor landscape. Homeless and abject, she almost dies Issue 23, June 2012 3 Film Reviews of exposure until a curate, St John Rivers (Jamie Bell), rescues her. The inclusion of this episode constitutes the most obvious plot difference from the 1944 version, which invents an alternative trajectory for the heroine (Sconce, 1995: 156-60). However, the 2011 film portrays Jane’s stay with St John and his sisters, during which she hides from her past under a false name. However, St John ascertains the heroine’s true identity as an heiress to a substantial fortune. Jane uses her inheritance to provide comfortable lives for herself and the Rivers family, who she regards as pseudo-siblings. Despite their platonic bond, St John proposes to Jane that they marry and work as missionaries in India. Still besotted with Rochester, Jane rejects St John’s offer and psychically hears her former lover’s voice calling her back to him. She responds to his summons and returns to Thornfield, to find that Bertha has burnt the building to the ground. In the fire, Rochester has lost his sight but also his wife. The film ends with the couple’s final reunion in the ruins of his former home. Though the screenplay rarely departs from the novel’s fabula, Buffini’s syuzhet is the most innovative aspect of the film’s appropriation of Jane Eyre. Renouncing Brontë’s retrospective but linear chronology, the adaptation opens with Jane’s flight from Thornfield; her friendless wanderings; and her adoption by the Rivers. Henceforth, the film unfolds in parallel temporalities. The production interweaves Jane’s previous life as a child and then a governess with vignettes of her sojourn with St John’s family. The narrative maintains this double structure until the appearance of Bertha necessitates that Jane leave Rochester. After revisiting the opening scenes, the production employs a singular time frame to represent Jane’s discovery of her inheritence and her return to Thornfield. The film reworks the novel’s sequence of events as an effective strategy that enlivens the crucial, but arguably tedious, St John subplot. Structurally significant, the Rivers period delays Jane Eyre’s romantic resolution. Nonetheless, this section of the novel has plagued adaptors. During script preparation for 1944 version, the director Robert Stevenson declared the Rivers interlude “a dull, shoddy and boring piece of writing” (Sconce, 1995: 147). The studio era production invents an alternative reason to prolong Jane’s absence from Rochester without recourse to her religious conundrum or lengthy recovery from illness. In contrast, Buffini’s screenplay relieves the dramatically uneventful Rivers episode by interpolating it with flashbacks from the heroine’s previous existence. Moreover, the structure builds suspense through the unclear connection between the two timeframes. The film alleviates the subplot’s potential 4 Issue 23, June 2012 Film Reviews dullness, and later compresses it into one chronology for the ensuing, tightly paced, revelations: Jane’s inheritance; St John’s marriage proposal; the immolated Thornfield; and the lover’s reunion. Furthermore, the chronological device contributes emotional poignancy to a film that avoids high-pitched outpourings of feeling. Buffini identified repression as the novel’s key tone: “Much of what goes on in Jane goes on inside of her. She’s so self-controlled – it’s the challenge of any adaptor of that book to get under her skin and to hint at all this passion inside” (Cathy IdeasTap: 2011). Hence, the editing functions to belie the adult heroine’s subdued exterior. As well as implying unspoken sentiments, the structure creates a continuity of characterisation that the 1944 version lacks. In the earlier treatment’s linear temporality, the rebellious child (Peggy Ann Garner) has limited consistency with Joan Fontaine’s cipher (who reflects wartime gender constructions in her portrayal [Brosh, 2008: 45-64]). Contrastingly, the 2011 adaptation uses thoughtful juxtapositions to construct effective analogies between the lonely orphan and the isolated woman.