i felt duty bound to watch the 1983 timothy dalton or zelah clarke adaptation of jane eyre and because i would just write an article about the 2006 bbc jane eyre for thescreamonline . so and i approach watch this the way i would approach do homework . i be irritate at first . the lighting in this version be bad . everyone or everything be wash out in a bright white klieg light that and in some scene and cast shadow on the wall behind the character . and the sound be poorly record . i felt like i be listen to a high school play . and the pancake make up be way too heavy . and the set do not fully convey the gothic mood of the novel . they be too fussy and too martha stewart . i just can not see bronte rochester abide such martha stewart domestic arrangement . orson welles rochester live in cave like gloom and very appropriate to the novel gothic mood . and yet . with all those objection . not only be this the best jane eyre i have see and it may be the best adaptation of any novel i have ever see . this jane eyre and in spite of it technical flaw and bring the feeling back to me of read jane eyre for the first time . the critic of this production say it be too close to the book . for me and someone who value the book and do not need it to be any less wordy or any less christian or any more sexed up and this version faithfulness to the novel bronte actually write be it fine asset . bronte write a darn good book . there a reason it have last 150 year plus and while other and slicker and sexier and easy text and have disappear . a a long time jane eyre fan and i be prejudice against timothy dalton a rochester . rochester be and famously and not handsome while jane and rochester be literature famous ugly couple . and timothy dalton be nothing if not stunningly handsome . but dalton give a mesmerizing performance a rochester . he just blow me away . i have never see anything like his utter devotion to the role and the text and the dialogue and and rochester love for jane . dalton bring the page rochester to quiver life on screen . rochester be mean to be a bit scary . dalton be scary . welles get the scary streak down and too and for example and when he shout enough . after fontaine play a short piano piece . but dalton be scary more than once and here . you really can not tell if he go to hurt jane and or himself and in his desperation . rochester imperiousness and his humor and his rage and his vulnerability represent dalton conveys all and sometimes second apart . it stun . and here the key thing the actor perform rochester have to convey that he have spend over a decade of his life in utter despair and lonely and live with an ugly and life destroying secret . no other actor i have see attempt this part convey that black hole of despair a timothy dalton do . current fan favorite toby stephen doesn not even try . dalton hit it out of the park . if i saw timothy dalton perform rochester in a singles bar and i would say and that guy be trouble . don not even look at him . he that radioactive with tamped down agony . zelah clarke be not only and overall and the best jane i have see and she one of the very few janes whom producer be willing to cast a the book cast jane . no and folk who know jane eyre only from the 2006 version and bronte do not describe a statuesque and robust jane with finely arch eyebrow and pouty lip . rather and charlotte bronte jane be and indeed and poor and plain and obscure and and little and and not pretty . zelah have a small mouth and close set eye and and a bit of a nose . she truly little . she be no fashion model . and she be the best jane and the truest to the book . some describe her a cold or boring . no and she true to the book . bronte jane be not a red hot mama and she a sheltered and deprived teen whose inner passion come out only at key moment and a zelah do here . the book jane be someone you have to watch slowly and carefully and patiently and observantly and if you want to truly plumb her depth . you have to watch zelah and here and to get to know who she really be . i would have like to have see more fire in zelah in one key scene and but that one scene out of five hour in which she be and otherwise and very good . in spite of it closeness to the text and this version and like every other version i have see and shy away from fully explicate the overtly christian theme in jane eyre . christianity be not incidental subtext in jane eyre and it be central . helen burn instruct jane in christianity and thus give her a subversive and counter cultural way to read and and live and her apparently doom and pinch life . it be christianity and and a christian god and who convince poor and plain and obscure jane of her equal worth and her need to live up to her ideal and and her rejection of a key marriage proposal . that isn not make fully clear here . in any case and charlotte bronte write an excellent and complex and rich novel and and this adaptation of it and of all the one i have see and mine and honor the novel best of any adaptation i have see and and that say a lot . other version and that do not fully honor the book and end up be a chore to watch in many place . if you do not care about what charlotte bronte have to say about child abuse and or the hypocrisy of a culture build on look and money and your adaptation of much of the book will be something people fast forward through to get to the kiss scene between jane and rochester . this version and like bronte novel and realize that everything bronte write about jane experience at lowood and and her relationship to st. john be part of what make jane relationship to rochester a explosive and unforgettable a it be .