Charlotte Brontë, you are nominated again

It's all over the (British) news, but the readers of BrontëBlog will not be surprised.

If you live in the UK you probably will know that the controversial director Ken Russell is one of the new contestants in the current edition of Celebrity Big Brother. But there's more:

Fans of the erratic and mischievous 79-year-old director Ken Russell long ago stopped expressing surprise at anything he did. He's shooting a film about Charlotte Bronte that will be broadcast on YouTube? Of course he is. (Ryan Gilbey)

Well, the YouTube part is new, but this project has been on Ken Russell's mind at least since last September, when he participated in the Bradford Radical Brontës Festival and conceived the same idea, Charlotte Brontë meets Big Brother, but as a dance piece:

Mr Russell said: "Charlotte first presented Jane Eyre as an autobiography, they were both governesses and had strong personalities. Because of her personality, there's a sense of Charlotte still being among us so I decided to put her in the Big Brother house.

"When she's called to the dreaded diary room she's in limbo and there's a dream-like evocation of her as half Charlotte and half Jane. She imagines her dead sisters are with her and she falls for Rochester - but their wedding is interrupted by his mad wife." (Read more)

He also filmed the Brontë Burlesque party that closed the Radical Brontës Festival.

EDIT
More info in the Bradford Telegraph & Argus.

Categories: Charlotte Brontë, Movies-DVD-TV