Overtime
Saturday, March 11 at 11:42 p.m.
Someting during the Ninties, maybe in '95 or '96, I was up late while at my grandparents house, watching television after everyone else had gone to sleep.1

I can't remember much as far as specifics go, but the film that was on at the time ended with a rather haunting scene: a woman presumed mad, setting her house on fire and dancing as the flames rose around her.

For some reason or the other, I've never forgotten that image even though I could never remember the exact title of the film or the circumstances of the story it told.2

Now, move forward to this Friday past. I was sitting in one of my tutorials, and the topic of discussion was Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. As our TA spoke on the book and asked a few questions, it suddenly hit me.

The film that I had seen - and, as my TA told me later, the book that it was based on - was a retelling of the story of Jane Eyre from the point of view of Bertha, the mad first wife of Mr. Rochester.

And so yet another question that's been steeping in the back of my mind for years has been answered. Huzzah!

Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well
Mike Doughty
From Grey's Anatomy, the soundtrack
Originally from the album Haughty Melodic

That Cuban girl
That brought me low
She had that skin so fine and red lips rose-like now
Her mouth was wide
And sweet as well
And now relentless hours of dreaming up her smell

And I feel
   as if I am looking at the world from the bottom of a well

Lonely
And the only way to beat it is to bat it down

Oh all the days
That I have run
I sought to lose that cloud that’s blacking out the sun
My train will come
Some one day soon
And when it comes I’ll ride it bound from night to noon

Aimless days, uncool ways of decathecting
Painless phase, blacked out thoughts you be rejecting

I've purposely left out the title of the film and the book. Anyone want to hazard a guess?

As for Jane Eyre itself... I'm only about a third of the way in, but it's brilliant so far. Especially the characterisation of Jane as a child.

  • 1The season was summer; the channel CityTV. That, I think, should give you enough of an idea as to what kind of programming I was watching.

  • 2A few months ago, after some thinking and research, I did manage to figure it out. But even then, I didn't take much time looking into it.

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