Jane Eyre has been around for a very long time and has worked its way into the hearts of many. With this notoriety has also come a desire for many to see this coming-of-age novel brought to life on the big screen. There have been many attempts to capture the heart of Jane's story going back almost a hundred years; however, the "big screen" hasn't always existed.

Prior to the 1890s, when the first single-lens cameras were first coming onto the invention scene, a primary method of entertainment for the masses was plays. Jane Eyre was first adapted as a five-act play by John Brougham in 1849. Once the technology improved to record feature-length films, 1910 saw a black-and-white silent film version. A new adaptation was made in 1934 with dialogue, making it the first "talkie" adaptation of the novel. This would really kick start the history of adaptations of Jane Eyre since, from then on, every adaptation was in a recorded format featuring dialogue; these range from feature films to television mini-series to a webseries told like a video diary (Topping).

I have mixed feelings about the Jane Eyre adaptation viewed for class. On one hand, I think the actors are excellent and capture the spirits of the characters really well. The cinematography, however, irks me occasionally. I can see how Susanna White meant to use fast-paced shots to increase adrenaline and tension within scenes, but I felt disoriented and couldn't quite follow the action despite knowing what was happening from reading the novel. I do have more qualms in this vein with the first half from the previous week than the second episode viewed for this week; notably, as discussed in class, the shortening of her childhood stunted Jane's moral foundation and made it hard to truly gauge how much she grew in the second half of her life. On a positive note, I did like how viewers glimpsed Rochester's life without Jane while she was away visiting her Aunt. In the book, readers only saw Jane's hopes and dreams at the moment and had to find out through dialogue that Rochester did actually miss her during the interlude. By showing rather than telling, it offers viewers a chance to get to know Rochester without Jane's influence. It also utilizes time well, since it would have been boring to just watch Jane idly chat with her cousins for twenty minutes when the point would have been made fairly early in the scene.

Works Cited

• “Jane Eyre: Episode 2.” Films On Demand, Films Media Group, 2006, https://video-alexanderstreet-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/watch/jane-ey.... Accessed 20 Mar. 2022.

• Topping, Amber. “15 Of the Best Jane Eyre Movies and Adaptations, Ranked.” The Silver Petticoat Review, 21 July 2021, www.silverpetticoatreview.com/jane-eyre-movies-adaptations-ranked/.