The first one I watched was the one I have loved for years which is the 1996 version. I saw part of this movie the summer before my 10th grade year, and decided to read the book. When the school year started I found out that we would be reading Jane Eyre during the year. However, it was one of those books that only a handful of us liked and most my class considered it the worse book of that year. This version of Jane Eyre I always thought was well done as far as costumes, make-up, and casting a woman to play Jane that was much younger than the actor playing Mr. Rochester. It was my favorite until I started watching all the other versions. Now it is number 2.
After watching the 1996 version, I started to reread Jane Eyre and watched the newest version from 2011. This version while not the worse version I saw, it was also not a favorite. It was very dull and I zoned out several times while watching the movie.
One of the next versions I watched was one from 1934. This one was the version that took the most liberties with the story. This was one you can describe as loosely based on the original story. It was also only one hour long.
This version I had high hopes for since my mom recommended it. It is the 1944 version staring Orson Welles. When the opening credits ran and I saw all these big names I was familiar with, I thought it had to be a great movie. I found it pretty boring and Orson Welles played Mr. Rochester kind of scary.
The 1997 A&E version I was originally going to skip but I changed my mind when I saw the great reviews it had. It was pretty short from a Jane Eyre movie and I was yet again not impressed with the actor playing Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester is one of my favorite male characters from literature and I want someone great to play him. After watching this version I was about ready to stop watching Jane Eyre movies all together. See I had found one I loved right after watching the newest version, but I will talk about it below, all the movies after it were having to live up to it.
Since I had watched several versions I was not fond of, I moved on to another movie/book that is a prequel to Jane Eyre and centers around Mr. Rochester and his marriage to his first wife. It is called Wide Sargasso Sea and is written by Jean Rhys. I was not sure if I would like it since I prefer Jane to Bertha and also, because my mom told me the movie was depressing. I looked for them on Netflix and there were two versions, one was a lot longer than the other and with a R/NC-17 rating. I watched that one first since it had more stars and it actually is the better version. Since I read the book as well, the longer movie follows the book perfectly and is well cast. The other version is pretty much the same but cuts out the beginning and some of the middle.
After watching/reading Wide Sargasso Sea I decided to watch one more version of Jane Eyre. The 1983 version of Jane Eyre, a BBC miniseries. I had seen lots of great reviews for it and I like Timothy Dalton, so I thought it could be pretty good. First watching it was a bit of a drama in and of itself. There are two BBC versions of Jane Eyre and when I should have gotten disc 2 for this miniseries they were actually sending disc 2 for the new version. It took 3 tries before Netflix finally sent the correct version. It was worth it though, of all the versions this one follows the book the best. Every important scene was in the movie and it was very well done. However it is not my favorite.
My favorite is the 2006 BBC version of Jane Eyre. It is beautifully done and I adore how Toby Stephens played Mr. Rochester. He gives him a more playful flirtatious nature than the previous Mr. Rochesters. I purchased this version from eBay but got a copy, where the second disc was badly cracked and ended up returning it for another. It was the longest 3 weeks of my life. Prior to getting the DVD I was watching videos from it nightly on YouTube.com. I rank it higher than any other version, but it you are die hard that it has to be exactly like the book you may not like it as much.
This was the first scene I watched when my sister recommended this version to me and it got me hooked. If you love romance and Jane Eyre once you watch this you will be looking for all the other videos.
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