#1983 Jane Eyre

[marblesarelost]

I remember this. I watched it in half-hour pieces on A&E at 6:30 in the morning back in the summer of...had to be '89 or '90, maybe '91.

And oh my God, Timothy Dalton WAS Rochester. in every single way. I love Jane Eyre because of this.

JANE EYRE (1983)

[kseniayahz]

i rewatched jane eyre recently so i drew this bro (i loved him so much when i was twelve)

[susiehunsecker-remade]

jane eyre (1983) + jane and rochester holding each other :)

[mellpenscorner]

Jane Austen: and here we have the love interest. He might have some issues, but once you get to know him, he's a great guy. Good looking, heart of gold, the works.

Charlotte Brontë: get ready for the weirdest man you have ever met.

[eva-eyre]

he’s a 10 but there’s creepy laughter coming from his attic and his bed just happens to catch on fire randomly

[adobongsiopao]

Some newly discovered promo photos of "Jane Eyre" 1983 version starring Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton from BBC Photo Archive website.

[cinemaastimegoesby]

Jane Eyre (1983). dir. Julian Amyes

[underestimated-shadow]

“I wanted to bring people back to believing in this character. To bring my reality to it. I guess I've always liked a challenge.”

– Timothy Dalton

[mametupa]

[lawrenceofbessarabia]

i'm only four episodes in but timothy dalton in the 1983 jane eyre adaptation is so slept on. i don't want a comically physical rochester or a perpetually angry one, i want a moody rochester with a weird sense of humour and a soft side he makes only a token attempt at concealing, and ol' timmy sure delivers.

plus have you seen the man?? "oh he's too pretty for rochester" POPPYCOCK. too many readers assume rochester must be butt-ass ugly but to me, the way rochester is described in the book, hold on let me dig out the quote, makes him sound like he belongs on the cover of GQ:

"I knew my traveller with his broad and jetty eyebrows; his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of his black hair. I recognized his decisive nose, more remarkable for character than beauty; his full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler; his grim mouth, chin, and jaw—yes, all three were very grim, and no mistake. His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonized in squareness with his physiognomy: I suppose ​it was a good figure in the athletic sense of the term—broad chested and thin flanked; though neither tall nor graceful."

keep in mind that at the time of the book's writing, the English ideals of beauty, even for men, emphasized even, harmonious features and in general a much softer, more feminine, look than what we consider hot in the twenty-first century (you can see this reflected in the long, elegant silhouettes that were popular for menswear at the time, notable for their sloped - not padded! - shoulders).

so no shit a craggy-jawed manly-man hunk like rochester would not have been considered conventionally attractive in early 19th century (i say this bc the jury is out on whether Jane Eyre is set in the 1810s or the 1830s) England.

but that doesn't mean rochester can't, or that he shouldn't be ruggedly handsome! in every interaction between jane and rochester she is practically salivating over him while pretending like she isn't. some of that attraction is definitely due to his singular personality but we cannot pretend that little miss repressed isn't also physically attracted to him. i think zelah clark in the 1983 adaptation does an excellent job of portraying the tension between wanting to jump your hot clever employer's bones and keeping to your moral principles about emphatically NOT doing that, while also allowing for some subtle mutual flirting.

[must4rds33d]

one of the reasons i revisit jane eyre clips on youtube is to read amusing comments such as this:

[ravenkings]

whenever i watch the 1983 jane eyre adaptation, it always feels like:

[kseniayahz]

still under the influence of this little hyperfixation

[leche-flandom]

I was watching the 1983 Jane Eyre and I thought that Aunt Reed looked like Mrs. Musgrove from the 1995 Persuasion. So I looked it up and noticed this piece of rudeness:

Excuse you IMDB, that is the just another angle of the very pretty Timothy Dalton and the back of Zelah Clarke's head.

[junk-culture]

forget being at the club OR at the computer. she should have been running across the moors bronte style.

[eva-eyre]

Jane Eyre isn’t about “what i would do if i were her” it’s what Jane Eyre chose to do in her situation, as her own individual person. sure she might’ve made choices that not all readers are happy with, but it’s a part of who Jane is as a character!