Thanks everyone for some great discussion today regarding Jane Eyre and the socio-historical contexts of Bronte's novel. Our consideration of governesses and the place of women in Victorian Britain got me thinking about representations of governesses in cinema. Hollywood has certainly interpreted the governess narrative and, in particular, Jane Eyre's character in a number of ways.
Minnie Driver is a seductive re-envisioning of Jane Eyre in Sandra Goldbacher's 1998 film, The Governess. Set in Scotland in the 1840s, this film is sensually seductive, too, with its rich fabrics, rustling fabrics, and evocative sets. This film also explores the dynamics of gender and looking - Driver's governess is an early photographer and she quite literally wields the gaze by the film's conclusion.
Meanwhile, Deborah Kerr played her share of governess roles on the silver screen. She portrays Anna Leonowens in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I (1956), teaching English to the children of the King of Siam (aka Thailand) in a colonial paradise of palaces and proper British accents. Kerr's hoop dresses in this film are FABULOUS and certainly a far cry from Jane's black silk. Kerr's dresses move, shine, flounce, fold . . . I think I'm in love. The costume designers on this film must have had a ball.
In 1961, Kerr starred as the hysterical (is she crazy or not?) governess in The Innocents, a psychological horror film with some pretty creepy little kids. This film interrogates the Victorian governess as a psychological subject, and uses the machinery of the Gothic (spirits, dark mansion, long hallways) to cast doubt on the sanity of its protagonist.
And I cannot wait to see what the latest Hollywood version makes of Bronte's text: March 11, 2011 marks the theatre debut of Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre.
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