Cary Fukunaga recently spoke to Movieline about his upcoming adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” which stars Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender.
The helmer revealed a long-burning admiration for Brontë’s classic tale which he, upon hearing about a script, jumped at the opportunity to chase down and attach himself to.
“I’d known there was a ‘Jane Eyre’ script out there for a couple of years, and it was one of my favorite movies as a kid. When [‘Sin Nombre’] came out in the U.K., I took advantage of that to meet with the BBC, and it turned out that there was no director that was attached anymore and the script happened to be amazing.”
Fukunaga’s take was previously revealed to focus on the tale’s darker, more gothic sensibilities but the director now explains that was more out of respect to both the original film and Brontë’s vision than any attempt to go “Twilight,” not that we’d expected such a thing.
“The Orson Welles-Joan Fontaine version was of an era. You wouldn’t make a film like that anymore. I’m a stickler for raw authenticity, so I’ve spent a lot of time rereading the book and trying to feel out what Charlotte Brontë was feeling when she was writing it. That sort of spookiness that plagues the entire story…there’s been something like 24 adaptations, and it’s very rare that you see those sorts of darker sides. They treat it like it’s just a period romance, and I think it’s much more than that.”
The film’s more expansive, better budgeted production will also allow Fukunaga to spread his filmmaking wings, not to mention a supporting cast that boasts names like Judi Dench, Jamie Bell, Sally Hawkins and Imogen Poots.
“On ‘Sin Nombre,’ [cinematographer] Adriano Goldman and I improvised a lot of things on-site. We were working with untrained actors, and you can’t really block a scene in a traditional way. On this film, we’re working with such pros that can work and hit their mark, so we’re coming up with some interesting ways to shoot the film. It’s all about tension and creating that sense of horror underneath.”
Shooting on “Jane Eyre” is set to begin later this month and, with a bit of luck, hopefully can make it in time for a late, late 2010 release. It does sound like a potential award season contender even if the new populist ten Best Picture nominations are here to stay for at least three years.
