Three Film Versions of Jane Eyre

I started with the 1983 BBC mini-series. I remember watching it when I was fairly young: either in middle-school or highschool. I believe it was watching this version that I fell in love with the story.

Re-watching it now, I can see how artificial the sets look: they don't look like the interior of an English mansion, they look like sets. I also noticed the flat colors and the poor production quality. The mini-series is lengthy, broken up into eleven episodes, but it's the most faithful the storyline.

I also think it's most faithful to my imagining of what Jane Eyre looks like. Jane is not supposed to be pretty, nor is she meant to be ugly. She is described as 'plain', and Zelah Clarke has an innocent face that is young, but not overly girlish:

Timothy Dalton's Mr. Rochester looks a little too polished and handsome, but he does evoke the classic Byronic hero with his dark features, penetrating gaze and powerful presence:

After I finished watching the 1983 BBC mini-series (which took an entire day!) I switched over to the 2006 BBC mini-series. This adaptation was much more abbreviated than its predecessor, with the entire novel being compressed into four episodes.

Toby Stephens incarnation of Rochester seems truer to Bronte's characterization. Just as Jane is not beautiful, Rochester is not handsome. He is older than she is, with a craggy face and a moody temperament; Stephens kind of resembles Orson Welles, who portrayed Rochester in the 1943 version.  Ruth Wilson's sparkling blue eyes and dark hair give a Snow White-esque appearance, and although her performance was fine, her striking features did not ring true to Jane Eyre:

Lastly, I watched the 2011 feature film version. I've always had difficulty with this one because the chronology of it is not true to the text. It begins as Jane is leaving Thornfield, and the story is told in flashbacks. I don't like Michael Fassbender as Rochester because his proper demeanor and slight build reminds me of Leslie Howard's Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind.

Mia Wasikowska stars as Jane, and although she looks more demure than Ruth Wilson, her ginger-tinted hair and English rose complexion make her look more like a Marc Jacobs run way model:

I also own the 1934 film, but I think I'm going to hold off, because I'd rather compare/contrast that one with the 1943 one.