44. Jane Eyre, Part 2

In this, the conclusion of our first two-part episode of Adapt or Perish, we discuss Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre!

In part one, we covered the original novel, Robert Stevenson’s 1943 movie, Delbert Mann’s 1970 TV movie, Joan Craft’s 1973 BBC miniseries, and Julian Amyes’ 1983 BBC miniseries. In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• The 1996 movie, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, written by Zeffirelli and Hugh Whitemore, and starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Hurt. Watch it on iTunes or Amazon.
• The 1997 TV movie, directed by Robert Young, written by Richard Hawley, Kay Mellor, and Peter Wright, and starring Samantha Morton and Ciarán Hinds. Watch it on iTunes or Amazon.
• The 2006 BBC miniseries, directed by Susanna White, written by Sandy Welch, and starring Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens. Watch it on iTunes or Amazon.
• The 2011 movie, directed by Cary Fukunaga, written by Moira Buffini, and starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender. Watch it on iTunes or Amazon.

Footnotes:

• Franco Zeffirelli and our episode on Romeo and Juliet
• Cinematographer David Watkin
• Dame Joan Plowright and Laurence Olivier
• Billie Whitelaw and Samuel Beckett
• Literal supermodel Elle Macpherson
• Jean Rhys’ 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea, which was adapted as a movie twice in 1993 and 2006
• Pam Ferris and Call the Midwife
• The Brit List and The Black List
• Cary Fukunaga and True Detective

43. Jane Eyre, Part 1

In this, part one of our first two-part episode of Adapt or Perish, we discuss Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre!

For these two episodes, we read Jane Eyre and watched eight screen adaptations. In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• Charlotte Brontë’s original novel, first published in 1847. Read it on Amazon or iBooks.
• The 1943 movie, directed by Robert Stevenson, written by Stevenson, John Houseman, and Aldous Huxley, and starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles. Watch it on iTunes or Amazon.
• The 1970 TV movie, directed by Delbert Mann, and starring Susannah York and George C. Scott. Watch it on YouTube.
• The 1973 BBC miniseries, directed by Joan Craft, written by Robin Chapman, and starring Sorcha Cusack and Michael Jayston.
• The 1983 BBC miniseries, directed by Julian Amyes, written by Alexander Baron, and starring Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton. Watch it on Amazon.
• In part two, we’ll be covering Franco Zeffirelli’s 1996 movie, Robert Young’s 1997 TV movie, Susanna White’s 2006 miniseries, and Cary Fukunaga’s 2011 movie.

Footnotes:

• The Brontë family
• William Makepeace Thackeray
• Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, discussed here on Adapt or Perish
• George C. Scott and They Might Be Giants
• Susannah York’s reaction shot

42. Freaky Friday

In this very special Mother’s Day episode of Adapt or Perish, we discuss Mary Rodgers’ mother-daughter body-swap classic, Freaky Friday!

For this episode, we read and watched:

• Mary Rodgers’ original 1972 novel.
• The 1976 movie, directed by Gary Nelson, written by Rodgers, and starring Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris.
• The 1995 TV movie, directed by Melanie Mayron, and starring Gaby Hoffman and Shelley Long.
• The 2003 movie, directed by Mark Waters, written by Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon, and starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Footnotes:

• Body swap appearances in media
• Vice Versa: A Lesson to Fathers by Thomas Anstey Guthrie
• The Freaky Friday musical, 2016, adapted into a TV movie for the Disney Channel in 2018
• Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers & Hammerstein) and Adam Guettel
• Once Upon a Mattress
• Taylor Negron
• Heather Hach and the Legally Blonde musical
• Rosalind Chao