Jane Eyre, 1944
My wife likes costume dramas; I’m a fan of Orson Welles. Our interests meet this week with the DVD release of Jane Eyre. If you ask the both of us, Welles is ideal as Mr. Rochester. The big boy’s histrionics perfectly suit that literary madman (and over the years Rochester’s never been cast right–William Hurt was probably the most egregious example). According to the wife, who’s seen the movie on an old library video tape, this Eyre rules the lot.
Supposedly Welles kept barking at director Robert Stevenson about the latter’s inability to do anything more than pedantic work. As is often the case in a film that Orson starred in, Jane Eyre shows his influence. Stevenson went on to become one of the more prolific Disney directors, making Mary Poppins, Flubber,, That Darn Cat!, and The Love Bug, among many others.
Grindhouse films are on their way, despite the fact that that superior film was a big, fat flop (though it didn’t cost much, so maybe it’ll recoup overseas). This week sees the release of Naked You Die, which looks like one of the spoof trailers, especially Don’t!. Available at Netflix.
Also: I wrote in the magazine that Tears of the Black Tiger is “a film that moves with the force of a hurricane blasting apart a great marzipan city”. I stand by that bizarre sentence, but I will say that you’re going to lose a lot on the small screen… The Queen won Helen Mirren the Oscar, and it was long overdue. But she didn’t give us the best performance of the year, being met halfway by a public figure. Mimicry isn’t as powerful as an original performance (I would have handed the gold to Penelope Cruz in Volver). Add to that the fact that The Queen, though often deftly directed, panders to the cult of Tony Blair, and doesn’t have much of a sense of humor. Maybe my loathing of royalty is getting in the way… Al Franken: God Spoke is a lousy, unfunny, grating documentary/advertisement that only makes a strong, strong case that Al should not, under any circumstances, be the Dems nominee for Senate next year.
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