Movie - Jane Eyre (Zeffirelli)

Movie – Jane Eyre 

Score : 7/10  
Year : 1996
Director:  Franco Zeffireli 
Country : UK. USA.  
Language : English. French  
Duration:1h52 
Writers : Charlotte Brontë (novel) ; Hugh Whitemore & Franco Zeffireli   (screenplay)

Last night I finally watched Zeffirelli's version of Jane Eyre. It's my third cinematic adaptation, and I find it to be the best among them, but, as it's quite difficult to cram 520 pages into a couple hours, the movie isn't 100% canon faithful. 

However, for over half of its duration, the chapters flowed naturally and the dialogues were either very well adapted, or basically verbatim with Bronte's original novel, before straying quite a bit in the latter part of the movie into a more loose adaptation, skipping several parts and accelerating the pace at which the story comes to a conclusion. 
I understand that the time constraint of an independent movie adds to the difficulties in such an adaptation, but the last 20 or so minutes felt hastened, telling me that the pace of the rest of the story wasn't fast enough to leave an adequate time to properly end the tale, which is a shame. Another way they could've done it, if their budget allowed it, would to make a longer movie. A 2h15 or so would've helped greatly, I think - but it does require extra cash which indies might not have. 

Also, there was a missing character with no apparent reason (I haven't read about that yet on imdb or elsewhere, there should normally be one, but my raw approach to this is : hey where is s/he ?), and an entire segment and many dialogues were completely omitted. Now, these dialogues might be difficult to show in a cinematic form, and keep it as interesting as the novel, but dropping all of it, again, feels like a miss to me. 

The best part of this movie in contrast to the other two adaptations I saw is the casting : everyone here seems exactly at their place, with very good acting. At last, not a gorgeous, model-type Jane Eyre, for instance. 

The emotional and feminist aspects were much more present here than, say, the 2011 Cary Joji Fukunaga's version, without being heart wrenching as book. It's a good balance, I find, even though the novel stirred me a lot more than either of those 3 versions I watched (or tried to, regarding to the one with Orson Welles). 

I loved the lighting and shadows in the movie.
Thornfield Hall was impressive, a lot more than the other 2 adaptations, so kudos on that part. 

Overall, I loved this movie, with those few reservations I pointed above. 

Starring : Anna Paquin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, William Hurt, ...