简爱1943

Chiefly remembered as a solid hired hand for Disney, and their collaboration’s unequivocal apex arrives with MARRY POPPINS (1964), but two decades before that, UK director Robert Stevenson has made a splash with the adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s timeless JANE EYRE, starring Joan Fontaine as our titular heroine and Orson Welles as Edward Rochester, both in their prime of youth.

However it takes a good half an hour before our top-billing stars show up, first, we are treated with a compendious overview of young Jane Eyre (an impressively emotive Garner)’s ordeal at the hands of her guardian, the unloving aunt Ms. Reed (Moorehead), and then a sadistic martinet, Reverend Henry Brocklehurst (Daniell, pompous to a fault), the head of a charity boarding school for young girls, and the only ray of sunshine coruscates in the form of an ephemeral friendship with another girl Helen (an uncredited Liz Taylor appearing as a truly angelic apparition).

When an adult Jane finally arrives at Thornfield as the new governess for the French girl Adèle (O’Brien, another sterling child performer lading out cuteness/cutesiness to excess), audience are piqued to see what kind of a personhood she possesses after such misfortune, and this time, she has to face a saturnine master Edward, Adèle’s guardian and a hidden secret manifested by nocturnal spookiness.

Magnificently and sometimes startlingly shrouded in its expressionistic atmospherics, that Gothic edifice and its sinister, lowering settings, attendant by Bernard Herrmann’s sonorous score, JANE EYRE shoulders on as an old castle mystery, until Edward slowly dismantles his callous, cynical carapace, and reveals a scintilla of tendresse, Jane finds solace and affection gushing outward, but still puts a strong footing in upholding her self-regard when Edward past (Jane can also viscerally share the experience of detrimental religious clout) stymies their union, Brontë’s Victorian spirit of a self-loving woman takes its full shape in Fontaine’s flinty farewell, her tremulous figure athwart a towering Welles, begging her to stay.

While, one might quibble that Fontaine’s comeliness doesn’t wholly befit Jane’s self-claimed plainness, her performance speaks for itself, case-hardened by the school of hard knocks, her Jane purveys a profuse air of integrity, composure and self-knowledge on top of all the primping celluloid glamor of Hollywood’s usual M.O. and her trademark image of daintiness and timidity; for Welles, still in upstanding physique which can justly pass as a matinee idol at the age of 28 (is he wearing a prosthetic nose or is that make-up artists’ flight of craftsmanship?), his rendering of Edward holds well enough against Fontaine’s strenuous restraint, sometimes his delivery might edge towards operatics, but at large, it doesn’t tarnish this highly watchable work of one of the most famous female creation from British literature.

referential entries: William Wyler’s WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939, 7.9/10); Cary Joji Fukunaga’s JANE EYRE (2011, 7.8/10); Robert Stevenson’s MARRY POPPINS (1964. 7.4/10).

这是一个女性心中理想化故事结局。女主始于贫困，自强不息，最终也因获得遗产也成为贵族，完成地位转换；男主尽管地位优厚，但前期放浪，留下不堪的情史，古堡内一疯妻一孤女，最终付出代价，得以自由。

两人都在挣脱自己的过去，一个是贫困和被歧视的工作（当时），一个是挣脱自己的年少轻狂留下的烂摊子，心理上可以依靠的只有新萌芽的彼此的爱情。

最终两人有情人终成眷属。

贝茜：简·爱舅舅家老女佣，对简·爱非常好。

里德太太：简·爱的舅母，对简·爱恶毒冷酷，遗弃她去了孤儿院。

约翰：舅舅家的表弟，长大后赌博成性，败家后自杀。

布洛克赫斯特：慈善学校董事会主席，残忍变态的伪善者。

洛伍德：慈善学校，简·爱在这里艰苦地生活了10年。

比尔：送简·爱去孤儿院的车夫，后用2英镑拍下了里德太太的遗物。

进入孤儿院的一天，变态的布洛克赫斯特就惩罚简·爱站在凳子上，不允许任何人与她说话。

海伦：简·爱在孤儿院的好朋友，美丽善良，有一头乌黑漂亮的卷发，简·爱罚站时给她送吃的，后得病早亡。

里弗斯大夫：孤儿院的医生，正义善良，是简·爱的鼓励者、启蒙者，教诲她“责任”。

江森：孤儿院学生。

爱德华兹：孤儿院学生。

斯盖查德：孤儿院女教师。

乔治客栈：比尔驾车将简·爱送至这里，等待与家庭教师雇主接头的地方。

桑菲尔德：庄园，简·爱就职的地方。

费尔菲克斯太太：桑菲尔德庄园的女管家。

莉亚：桑菲尔德庄园的女仆。

阿黛勒小姐：桑菲尔德庄园男主的养女，法国人。

爱德华·罗切斯特：桑菲尔德庄园拥有者。

巴拉特：爱德华·罗切斯特先生的爱犬。

“你倒是挺有主意！” 爱德华·罗切斯特先生与简·爱第一次见面对她的评价。

格瑞斯普尔：费尔菲克斯太太介绍说是为庄园做针线活的女仆，其实是负责管护塔楼里的神秘女人。

米尔科特：爱德华·罗切斯特经常参加舞会等活动的地方，后来他委托这里一位律师寻找离去的简·爱。

布兰奇·英格拉姆：爱德华·罗切斯特放纵生活中的一位情人。

乔治爵士：参加桑菲尔德庄园聚会的一位宾客。

内德：参加桑菲尔德庄园聚会的一位宾客。

伯辛：布兰奇·英格拉姆的叔叔，参加桑菲尔德庄园聚会的一位宾客。

梅森先生：来自牙买加西班牙城的男人，塔楼神秘女人的哥哥。

白莎·梅森：爱德华·罗切斯特19岁时由长辈做主迎娶的妻子，身患癫痫，囚禁于塔楼，后纵火烧了桑菲尔德庄园，导致爱德华·罗切斯特失明，自己坠楼而亡。

爱德华·罗切斯特对简·爱求婚后一道闪电劈断了栗树的枝桠。

布里格斯：爱德华·罗切斯特与简·爱游玩到热那亚，在教堂里，牧师为他（她）们主持婚礼时出现的律师。

格特海特：简·爱舅舅家的地名，她离开桑菲尔德庄园后又回到了这里。

勇敢的忠诚于自己的内心，无论遇到任何困难都勇敢克服并以诚相待身边每一位友善的人，对于爱情也一样不卑不亢，终于内心。

在简的身上看到一个女性独立的光辉点，尽然自己出身贫穷也不自卑自怜，勇敢表达自己所爱也勇敢承担自己应尽的责任。

男主角爱德华粗犷、善良，不为世俗条框爱上善良勇敢的简，故事一步三折最后两人还是走在一起，收货纯真的爱情。