Jane Eyre (1943)

[catbuglah]

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre sure looks like star Orson Welles muscled his way behind the camera much of the time. (In fact, costar Joan Fontaine--who plays the title character--has maintained that Welles methodically did just that every day on the set.)

I take it we discount the quotes from various people (inc. Fontaine)

I must say that up until now, it appeared that Miss Fontaine had been the prosecution's star witness. I for one one am curious as to what motivated Miss Fontaine's stunning about face...

Uber-Welles scene - The one where Rochester is riding in to Thornfield and is thrown off his horse whilst avoiding Jane...

[chrissie]

Freshest in my mind on this is the passage in Brady (as I'm reading it right now): "One reason why he did not succeed in taking over this time, Fontaine posits, was that he was undisciplined, melodramatic, always late."

Looking up OW's comments (TiOW): "I invented some of the shots--that's part of being that kind of producer. And I collaborated on it, but I didn't come around behind the camera and direct it..."

I guess this makes a good case for snatches of his influence being visible, but perhaps not something we can include in The Canon as such.

[Gus Moreno]

Why not? I don't believe that Welles actually directed Jane Eyre, but he says he produced it, and unless you're a hardcore advocate of the "auteur theory", you'd have to admit that a producer can sometimes be as much or more of a decisive influence on a film's artistic quality (or lack of, in some cases) then the director. I consider "Jane Eyre" to be quite Wellesian, and would say that the proof is in the pudding, so to speak.

[catbuglah]

that Welles look the film has that many are commenting on may be attributed to cinematographer George Barnes (who did some gorgeous work on "Spellbound," and is known for dream-like photography and interesting angles).

Thanks for the Brady quote, Chrissie You're a fountain of Fontaine info

I found this bio on this George Barnes fellow, there's some real interesting connections : :0

From All Movie Guide: Cinematographer George Barnes got his start with producer Thomas Ince in 1919, where he lensed one of the first anti-Communist propaganda films, Dangerous Hours. Barnes was best known for his soft-edged, ethereal photography of such silent-film romances as Son of the Shiek (1926), The Night of Love (1927), and The Magic Flame (1927). His mastery of the Black and White spectrum was as adaptable to noirish melodramas like Sherlock Holmes (1932) as it was to splashy musicals like Footlight Parade (1933). (One of Barnes' seven wives was Footlight Parade costar Joan Blondell.) During the early 1930s, George Barnes spent most of his time at the Sam Goldwyn Studio, where he helped nurture the skills of his brilliant assistant, future Citizen Kane cinematographer Gregg Toland. In 1940, Barnes won an Academy Award for his work on Hitchcock's Rebecca. George Barnes' final film was the Technicolor sci-fi fest War of the Worlds (1953), one of the most visually vivid movie efforts of the early 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Uber-Welles - The baroque shots of the Boarding school board of directors when Jane gets the job offer.

[Glenn Anders]

The IMDb lists Welles as one of three (uncredited) producers for JANE EYRE.

Chrissie: I remember that quote by Joan Fontaine. True as it may be, remember that Miss Fontaine had been in Movies since 1935 until 1941. when she became a real star overnight, in REBECCA, a smash hit. She followed that with another, SUSPICION. Made insecure by her continuously successful sister, Olivia de Havilland, an Oscar winner coming off a string of mediocre pictures, linked to the real producer's family, she may have joined the crowd from the conventional Hollywood establishment. She may have resented the demands of an upstart from New York, like Orson Welles, who had made only a couple of flops.

We might well compromise in agreeing that the film just shows striking influences of the Orson Welles' touch, as did many pictures in those first few years.

Glenn

[Terry]

Maybe Welles annoyed Fontaine with some prank like the inflatable groin he treated Claudette Colbert to a couple years later. Bad Orson!

[catbuglah]

presence of Orson Welles in Robert Stevenson's Jane Eyre (1944), The
Literature Film Quarterly, 2003 by Campbell, Gardner

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3768/is_200301/ai_n9228494

A pretty nice article - I'm down with it - He's got quite a good OWD-dar (Orson Welles Director detector). ;)

Kane-Jane parallel - Moorhead handing Charlie to Erskine - Moorhead handing Jane to Erskine
???

[The Night Man]

That's a fascinating article; thanks for the link, Catbuglah. I read it online then printed it out to read again later.

I haven't seen JANE EYRE in many years, but this article, along with the discussion, has whetted my appetite for this picture again. I hope it does in fact receive a Region 1 release soon. I may also pick up REBECCA (one of my least favorite Hitchcocks) for purposes of comparison.

[catbuglah]

My pleasure Night Man - Maybe they should rename it Citizen Jane. I'd be curious to see Rebecca again myself. ;)

[/quote]"Welles did a great deal more producing on the picture than we had previously known. We have been informed by people from [Fox] that Mr. Welles worked on the sets, changes in the script, in casting, among other things, and that he had charge of the editing . . ." (Welles and Bogdanovich 175; Schatz 331).[quote]

The Maestro had charge of the editing? :0 The mind boggles - I rembember reading somewhere that Welles considered the editing room key - Like an alchemist in his laboratory,the editing room is the crucible of transformation where the raw celluloid matter is magically transformed into a ribbon of dreams.... I think it's conceivable that depending on the extent of his involvement in the editing process, he could have fashioned his own directorial vision in a pervasive manner, giving it a cohesive rhythm and structure.

[Roger Ryan]

I have a hard time accepting the idea that Welles was allowed to hang around in the edit room during post-production of "Jane Eyre". As one of the uncredited producers, I can easily see his influence on casting various Mercury Theatre regulars and getting Houseman and Herrmann involved. Since he was on the set, I could see him suggesting some blocking and camera positions (although it could be pointed out that Director of Photography George Barnes' other films from this period have that Wellesian look in terms of composition and lighting effects). But Welles being allowed to make editing decisions? I'm not sure he would have even been interested given his appraisal of the subject matter. And then there's the fact that Welles was kept out of the editing room for every Hollywood film he directed after "Kane"; it's too sad to think he was welcome to come in and make changes on a film he didn't direct!

[catbuglah]

[quote]Welles chose most frequently to explore character through mise en scene. Expressionism, the artistic style that portrays internal states by means of external visual distortions, avoids sentimentality by means of hyperstylized mise en scene in which perspectival distortion, including chiaroscuro lighting and often grotesquely canted elements within the frame, transports the viewer into a symbolic psychological setting in which the central figure both signifies subjectivity and is signified within a setting of externalized subjectivity. (Gardner)[quote]

Nice passage - IMHO, Welles is the poet laureate in this regard. ;)

[catbuglah]

Here Jane has just been punished by Mr. Brocklehurst for lies she is alleged to have told. Note in this shot (figure 1) that the mise en scene, while dramatic, is not expressionistic, and conveys its narrative weight in fairly conventional ways. ??? Whether Welles created it or not (I think not), the shot reveals little of Jane as subject.3 (Campbell)

This occurs at 8m20s - Nicely choreographed scene, though - A product of Welles' theater background?

Now, by contrast, note a shot from the very next sequence, in which evening has descended and expressionism has appeared to give us Jane's "point of view" by symbolizing within the mise en scene her own agonized psychic state (figure 2). The radial lines suggest not only imprisonment but a kind of ferocious concentration, visually and psychically. Moreover, Helen Burns's radiant figure at the top middle of the frame casts a grotesque shadow at the right of the frame, a shadow that suggests both her own impending death and, in a trick of optical perspective, a shadow cast by, and symbolizing, Jane's own brooding inferiority. It is in such shots as this, I believe, that we most clearly see Welles's presence in this film, as well as his abiding interest in how the cinema, an art of surfaces, can portray the self's experience of its own subjectivity.(Campbell)

This occurs at 10m10s - Nice interpretation - It's a striking lighting effect, filmed fairly simply - again, rather theatrical in style, I find.

[catbuglah]

Here is another example, one which gains in power when we compare it to a shot from The Magnificent Ambersons. In the shot from Jane Eyre (figure 3), Jane has just shut the door in bewilderment and torment after the party with Blanche Ingram, and the expressionist shadow across her body communicates the emotional and psychological barriers she feels within. The Wellesian presence here is even more obvious when we compare this shot to a similar shot near the end of The Magnificent Ambersons in which Aunt Fanny has collapsed from fear, exhaustion, and despair (figure 4).9(Cambell)

Fig. 3 occurs at 57m30s. There's another shot at 55m35s where a very brightly lit, white dressed Blanche appears and it cuts to a darky dressed Jane who, as she bows, shadows appear across her face, even darker than the later shot.

Fig. 4 occurs at 1h17m28s in Ambersons - It would be interesting to compare the party :p scenes from Ambersons and Jane.

[catbuglah]

Citizen Kane is justly celebrated for its deep-focus cinematography, of course, and throughout that film Welles loves to frame his shots with one figure on one side of the frame in the extreme foreground, one figure on the other side of the frame in the middle ground, and one figure in the center in the background, all in focus.

There's some little bits of this with Jane, Orson, and that little french girl at 39m15s and 43m15s.

In Jane Eyre, however, several shots go even farther with this technique to suggest Jane's double authority as character and narrative creator, and I believe these shots are Welles's invention. Consider first the shot from the scene in which Jane is commanded to be present while Rochester's apparent belle, Blanche Ingram, is playing the piano and singing :0 (figure 5).

This occurs at 55m45s - Baroque angle - Very Wellesian.

Indeed, the shot that closes this sequence (figure 6) re-emphasizes Jane's silent authority in this scene. One might go even further to argue that Jane's sewing during this scene not only contrasts her humble position with Blanche's exalted position, but also reminds us that this is Jane's story, a narrative of her weaving.

Nice interpretation - Having Jane sew is a nice touch. This occurs at 56m42s. Baroque large foreground shot of Jane.

[NoFake]

[quote]
I must say that up until now, it appeared that Miss Fontaine had been the prosecution's star witness. I for one am curious as to what motivated Miss Fontaine's stunning about face...

Leaming (p. 260 of the paperback) has a full page on Fontaine's difficulties with Welles. I'm not sure we can call it an "about face" -- it occurred during the filming -- but here it is:

As to Orson's working relationship with the lovely Joan Fontaine, the cast and crew seemed to think that Orson was deliberately holding his on-camera embraces with her a bit longer than necessary. Miss Fontaine was then married to British actor Brian Aherne, whom Orson had never forgiven for having displaced him as Mercutio in Katherine Cornell's Romeo and Juliet. Orson decided to play a little joke on his co-star by regaling her with tales of his wild sex life. "I wasn't having a very brilliant love life because I was working hard on the picture," Orson recalls. ""And I used to make these terrible jokes -- as we'd stand there in the dry ice waiting for the smoke to gather, I'd say, 'There you are going home to have roast beef with Aubrey Smith, who I suppose is your guest tonight, and I on the other hand am going with two Siamese girls.' I made up this tremendous sex life for myself hoping to torment her, this steady tale of wild nights with mixed races."

Could that be it?