Friday, September 2, 2011

Thornfield Hall in Masterpiece Theatre’s “Jane Eyre”



by HOOKEDONHOUSES on JANUARY 12, 2009

Jane Eyre is one of my favorite novels of all time, so I have made a point of watching every movie version I could find over the years. I’ve seen the ones with Orson Welles, William Hurt, Timothy Dalton, and Ciaran Hinds. I know it’s widely debated among Jane Eyre fans, but my favorite is the Toby Stephens-Ruth Wilson miniseries produced for Masterpiece Theatre in 2006. I’ve watched it at least four times–a fifth to take photos of Thornfield Hall for this post–and I never get tired of it.

Haddon Hall, a fortified medieval manor house in Derbyshire, England, dating from the 12th Century, was used as the setting for Thornfield in the film. (Photo found here.)

This is a photo from the Haddon Hall website of the Long Gallery. If it looks familiar, it’s because it’s been used in lots of other productions, including the 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen (another favorite of mine that I’ll do a post about someday!).

The scenes inside Thornfield were all so dimly lit that some of these photos are kind of dark. Sorry about that. It was very authentically shot, so you felt how cold and formidable it must’ve been inside the hall, especially at night by candlelight.

In his behind-the-scenes production notes, producer Diederick Santer wrote about filming at Haddon Hall:

Haddon is a magical place. We’re made extremely welcome by Lord Edward and his staff. The hall does not open to the public until well into April, so we have the run of the place. The rooms are rugged and beautiful, and are made all the more so by the brilliant decoration and propping of designer Grenville Horner and his team. Our base is close by, and it’s an extremely comfortable location in which to work.

Except that it is FREEZING.

I wear more layers than ever before — three on my LEGS! And a coat that’s more like a duvet. And I’m still FROZEN! Heaters are no use. We line up about a dozen in the long gallery (which serves as the drawing room of Thornfield Hall) and our breath is still condensing. It’s as though the stone of Haddon contains all the cold of seven centuries, and there’s nothing we can do about it. At times through the day, I feel myself losing focus, getting light-headed, unable to perform simple tasks. I feel like I’m lost in the ice…

Brrr. Gives me new appreciation for how well Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens managed to heat up the screen!

Visit TV/Movie Houses for links to all the others I’ve featured, fromStepmom to The Holiday.

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