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Saturday, May 06, 2006

"Faithfulness to the novel and a perfect cast make this BBC adaptation the ONE"

-From the DVD for Jane Eyre 1973.

About a dozen readers have now recieved their copies of the BBC's 1973 Jane Eyre out on DVD. This is the American edition, of course, although the UK edition should be along shortly. I think we have answers to all of our questions now. The slight time difference might be the result of there being no photo gallery in the US edition. The 'lost' first episode, however, is all there. This is all coming in now from reader reports, since my copy is probably on a nice week-long trip to Toronto at the moment. The smaller edits also have been restored, so those who saw the tape which was run in Canada and New York will still have a treat seeing these deleted bits, like the slightly extended Hay Lane scene.

Thisbeciel has made screencaps from the DVD's filmographies. It looks beautiful! If you click on the images you can see them full-sized.*

*I have removed the images because the demand was so great that Thisbeciel's website crashed a few times today.

22 comments:

The HoneyNerds said...

screencaps to episode one are up! :)

Anonymous said...

kirei... deshou... *awed*

mysticgypsy said...

Hi
I tried clicking on the images on this post but they don't seem to work :\
Also what is the link to the site with the screencaps?

Thanks

Brontëana said...

Try these links for the pictures above:

Sorcha
Michael
Stephanie
Geoffrey

And the screencaps are up at Thisbeciel's website: here

mysticgypsy said...

THANK YOU!!! What morsal of joy!!

I can't wait to see it...but I'm afraid I've got to be patient for a while yet..

Brontëana said...

There's one image from the first episode, if you look carefully there's a red-haired girl in front on Mrs. Temple. It's Julia Severn!

mysticgypsy said...

Ah yes! That's Julia indeed! How acute this film is with details! Is it so for the rest of it?

The HoneyNerds said...

episodes 2 and 3 are up now- also put up zip files to download the pictures instead of doing it individually (and to save my bandwidth)

mysticgypsy said...

oh! It is interesting that Jane has her hair down in the fire scene:) The 1983 Jane had a hideous night-cap on that was too big for her ;)


Thisbiciel, I was wondering if you have a clip of the fire scene where he holds her hand at the end? It looks highly intense in this version!

Brontëana said...

to mysticgypsy:

It is! They took a lot of care with details. The great cabinet of the apostles which is in Mr Mason's room? They recreated it precisely! Some things are changed- there's slightly more delination of Bertha and Rochester's relationship, and his relationship with Adele is more strained than in the book. But, for instance, the screenwriter took some comments Charlotte includes about what topics the guests were talking about and created some excellent dialogue for them which nicely adds to their characterization! (ex. Blanche teases Mrs. Dent about liking wildflowers, Lady Ingram turns to Jane and comments on lilies and dandilions before seeing to whom she is speaking. Mr. Eshton, the magistrate, is talking politics with Rochester who declares he hates politics and likens it to: "rutting stags battling for the doubtful favours of a docile public.")

The fire scene is amazing, in truth. But surely you don't want to see this all before you watch it, do you?

Brontëana said...

Oh, Thisbeciel! They look gorgeous! You're right- what a difference it makes!

I'll go take the images down from Bronteana to save the bandwidth.

The HoneyNerds said...

to mysticgypsy:
I had the 'after the fire' scene to download in the multimedia section of my website (which is currently down- blast it!) So if you really can't wait you can get it from there. :)

to bronteana:
Thanks! I hope you were able to download the zip files!

Brontëana said...

I haven't downloaded anything- I'll give it awhile until things cool down :)

I'm fixing my own problem at the Bronteana site. The illustrations I 'posted' didn't post. Too many characters per page.

The HoneyNerds said...

Awww- too many characters per page? That's odd. But I think when I used the web builder on geocities it would limit my page size as well. Doing it by html shouldn't though, if you want to look into that.

Anonymous said...

Oh- this sounds so wonderful! Unfortunately, I have no idea how I'm going to get hold of a copy in Australia. I can't seem to find a online merchant who will send on internationally - does anyone know of one?

Anonymous said...

There are now several sites which sell Region1 DVD (unfortunately, it won't be sold before 5th of June): www.play.com, bb.co.uk and, more recently www.sendit.com (they have the cheapest offer now). They all sell outside England, I guess also to Australia, and probably any Region-type DVD can be played on a computer (if not on the DVD player)

rinabeana said...

RAH! Mine has not come yet. Why it takes longer than week to arrive after the ship date is beyond me. Unfortunately I'm leaving for Las Vegas at 6am tomorrow so I'm going to ask my neighbor to pick up the package if they deliver it next week. I am DYING to watch, though!

Anonymous said...

Thank you Anonymous! I've had no joy with either the BBC Shop or www.play.com in trying to order this, but sendit.com worked a treat. I've ordered my copy and will look forward to receiving it in a month or so.

Anonymous said...

My copy arrived today. I watched the first disk (Episodes 1-3) with my 21-year-old son. That includes everything up to and including Jane's visit to her dying Aunt.

My son positively hates chick-flicks, but he is enthralled with this production. He's asking all the right questions. "Why can't Rochester send away the crazy servant?" "What hold does Mason have on him?"

I just smile and say, "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies."

Brontëana said...

My mother loves this production and she otherwise cannot sit through movies... she is very strict about versimilitude probably because we used to see a lot of live theatre rather than films. She is... not 21. ;) But also asks just the right questions. I have to keep telling her: "You'll see!"

Anonymous said...

Has anyone found out if it's possible to get a region 4 DVD version of the 1973 Jane Eyre miniseries?

Brontëana said...

to anonymous:

I haven't heard of the DVD coming out in region 4 yet but I will see if I can find out if or when it will be coming out for you.